Southeast Asia has by and large been on the margins of fashion history. This conference places it front and centre, and highlights the diversity and sophistication of fashion practices relating to the region, which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing efforts to decentralise fashion studies.
Here are three questions that inform the conference: How do fashion practitioners who have ties to Southeast Asia engage with the self, their local and regional communities, as well as the global fashion system? What are the ideas and values that underpin the work they do? And what are the common threads and unique characteristics that define fashion from the region, if any?
Over two days, through academic papers and industry presentations, we will weave in and out of archives, businesses, exhibitions, magazines, wardrobes and more. The multi-faceted collage will document beginnings, continuations and interventions from various participants in the Southeast Asian fashion community, and showcase the inherent creativity in this part of the world. It is by no means exhaustive, and will be the first of many gatherings to think and talk about connections and interactions between fashion and Southeast Asia.
“Front and (Off-)Centre: Fashion and Southeast Asia” takes place at The Courtauld Research Forum on Zoom, and is free for all to attend with registration. It is organised in collaboration with Fashion & Market (FAM), a multimedia platform that presents specialist content on Southeast Asian fashion, featuring its community’s interdisciplinary practices.
Organised by Dr Rebecca Arnold (The Courtauld) and Dr Nadya Wang (LASALLE College of the Arts)
Front and (Off-)Centre: Fashion and Southeast Asia
Programme
Day 1
5 May 2023
9am-1.30pm BST/4pm-8.30pm GMT+8
9am | Welcome Presentation
Front and (Off-)Centre: Fashion and Southeast Asia
Dr Nadya Wang
9.20am | Session 1: Fashion Curation
Chaired by Fiona McKay
Fashion on Display: Collaborative Fashion Curating and Experimental Exhibition-Making in Singapore
Weiqi Yap
A Collective Memory of Fashion
Daniela Monasterios-Tan
Q&A
10.10am | Session 2: Fashion Time Travels
Chaired by Weiqi Yap
Same But Different
Peter Lee
Dressing Up, Down, in All Directions
Kiko del Rosario
Q&A
11am | Break
11.20am | Session 3: Fashion Brands
Chaired by Rohaizatul Azhar
Kebaya: The Intersection of Past and Future
Toton Januar
KILOMET109
Thao Vu
Q&A
12.20pm | Session 4: Hybridity in Fashion
Chaired by Daniela Monasterios-Tan
T-Shirts: Signs, Surfaces, and Materialising Hybridity
Sang Thai
An Artisanal Future – Indigo as Livelihood
Dr Chomwan Weeraworawit
Q&A
1.10pm | Closing Remarks for Day 1
1.30pm | End
—————
Day 2
6 May 2022
9am-1.30pm BST/4pm-8.30pm GMT+8
9am | Welcome
Continuing Conversations
Dr Nadya Wang
9.05am | Session 5: Sustainability in Fashion
Chaired by Aqilah Zailan
Accrediting Ethical Fashion: B Corp Certification and Social Enterprise in Indonesia
Dr Harriette Richards
Notes on the Wardrobe
Xingyun Shen
Q&A
9.55am | Session 6: Fashion Spreads
Chaired by Dr Anne Peirson-Smith
‘Hong Kong Fashions’: Producing and Promoting Image, Style & Identity in the 1960s & 1970s
Dr Alice Beard
Modest and Appropriate for Us: Fashion, Modernity, and Morality in Postcolonial Indonesia (1950-1965)
Rima Febriani
An Archive of Poses: Decolonising Singapore’s Fashion History through Performing Models’ Images
Angelene Wong
Q&A
11.10am | Break
11.30am | Session 7: PHx Fashion Group
Chaired by Dr Nadya Wang
Rethinking Philippine Fashion Creative Ecologies: Enabling Creativity and Commerce
Esme Palaganas, Joseph Bagasao III and Trickie Lopa
Q&A
12.00pm | Session 8: Artists and Fashion
Chaired by Lim Sheau Yun
La Bruja (All The Places She’s Been)
Wawi Navarroza
Putting on the Dog: Wardrobe as Contemporary Art
Jakkai Siributr
Q&A
12.35pm | Session 9: Fashion Photography and Film
Chaired by Sharrona Valezka
Straddling the Personal and the Commercial
Jaya Khidir
In Pursuit of Temples in the Sky
Gagandeep Singh
Q&A
1.10pm | Plenary Session
1.30pm | End of Conference
