Dangerous Designs: Asian Women Fashion the Diaspora Economies

ISBN-13: 9780415072212 / Angielski / Miękka / 2003 / 208 str.

Parminder Bhachu; P. Bhachu

Opis

Punjabi suits have become high-fashion garments modelled by public figures such as Princess Diana, Jemima Khan and Cherie Booth. This text tells the story of Asian fashion in the West, from top designers such as Ritu Kumar and Catherine Walker to the tiny back-street shops, homeworking businesses and street fashions where global markets collide with local and regional trends. It describes how Asian dress has become culturally charged and powerfully coded, defining contemporary cultural and economic borders and debunking negative stereotypes of Asian women as passive and malleable subjects.

Spis treści

Introduction PART I Travels of the suit 1 Cultural narratives of the suit 2 Ethnicized consumption PART II Design narratives 3 Pioneering fashion entrepreneur: Geeta Sarin 4 Second-generation design globalizer: Bubby Mahil 5 Selling the nation: revivalist Indian designer Ritu Kumar 6 Selling art clothes in classed markets Conclusion: national elites versus diaspora design entrepreneurs PART III Suit marketers 7 Daminis: a commercial community mama’s shops 8 Networking marketers of ready-made suits PART IV Sewing cultures: sketching and designing 9 Diasporic sina-prona: sewing and patterning cultures 10 Designing diasporas through sketches. Conclusion: disruptive markets from the margins

O autorze

Parminder Bhachu is Professor of Sociology at Clark University, Massachusetts, USA. She was formerly Henry R. Luce Professor of Cultural Identities and Global Processes, and Director of the Women’s Studies program. She is author of Twice Migrants (1985), and is co-editor of Immigration and Entrepreneurship (1993) and Enterprising Women (1988).