Fashioning Research—Embodied Knowledge, Bodily Practices and the Role of Practice-based Research in Fashion Studies

The ‘embodied’ ‘sensory’ and ‘affective’ turns have significantly shifted the scope and focus of fashion studies: moving the field from one who’s focus was often image and representation, to one increasingly concerned with the experiential nature of ‘doing’ fashion (dressing, making garments, professional practices). This shift has coincided with the expansion of practice-based research into fashion - of ‘doing’ as a methodology for understanding what fashion is and does: from research into making processes and design techniques (Lee 2016; Valle-Noronha 2017), technologies and materials (Petreca et al. 2013), historical and archival research (Rossi-Camus, 2019), and research into methodologies themselves (Igoe, 2010). Within the context of current attempts to define and formalize the field of fashion studies, this paper seeks to critically examine this emergent aspect of the field. Building on my work as a practice-based researcher working in and with fashion archives and museums (The Costume Institute, Minpaku- Museum of Ethnology, Northampton Museum and Gallery, London College of Fashion archives) this paper seeks to explore the role of Practice based-research in fashion studies asking how these methodologies intersect and expand upon current concerns with the embodiment, tacit knowledge and the sensory experience of dress. In doing so it seeks highlight the ways these research through and into practice might develop, strengthen and expand the field of fashion studies as it grows.