*CFP* CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS, GLOBALISING MEN'S STYLE CONFERENCE

Globalising Men’s Style. Papers, presentations, and in-conversation discussions are welcomed for the Globalising Men’s Style conference to be held on Friday 26 June 2020, with an evening reception on Thursday 25 June 2020, at London College of Fashion. 20 John Prince's St, London W1G 0BJ.

Co-Convenors: Charlie Athill and Jay McCauley Bowstead

Over the past two decades men’s style, fashion and grooming have enjoyed an accelerated expansion. At the same time, the hegemony of Western fashion capitals has been challenged by innovative menswear practices, street style, and high-end design emanating out of new centres of creative practice. Shifting approaches to masculine aesthetics, expanding and emerging markets, and the proliferation of representations via social media, has stimulated – and brought to a wider global attention – a set of diverse manifestations of men’s style. Menswear designers from Georgia, China, and South Korea are celebrated in the International fashion media, while sartorial subcultures from Central Africa and South Asia have gained international attention.

The Globalising Men’s Style conference aims to address the Occidentalism of scholarship addressing men’s style practices by expanding our field of vision. We welcome abstracts focusing on the fashion cultures of locales that are underrepresented in existing literature and those that address globalisation and hybridity. We also welcome designers, stylists, photographers and other practitioners within the field of men’s style who may be interested in participating in an ‘in conversation’ rather than delivering a traditional paper.

Abstracts may address the following three key areas:

• Men’s style as social practice: the use of menswear and style in defining social groupings and subcultural practice is a mechanism for articulating identity. How is men’s style used to express national, local, regional, globalised, or hybrid identities? How is men’s style used to express notions of masculinity, religious and ideological belief, ethnicity, and/or sexuality? 
• The menswear industry: the designing, manufacture, and promotion of menswear. How are the global conventions of the fashion industry such as catwalk shows and fashion weeks adapted, employed or rejected in local contexts? Where and by whom are garments made? How do designers, makers and craftspeople invest meaning in the work they produce? How are geographically specific techniques of making retained, adapted, or rearticulated in the contemporary context? 
• Communicating men’s style: how are ideas surrounding men’s fashion, style and clothing communicated– both within geographically defined communities and across national and regional boundaries? Exploring the role of media producers, audiences and social media in disseminating discourses of style and identity.

Submission guidelines:

E-mail an abstract of 150-200 words that relate to one of the three categories above. Also include a title, key words, your full name, affiliation, contact details and a short biography of 3-5 sentences. This submission should be a Word or PDF attachment. Please submit to lcfresearch@arts.ac.uk

Opportunities for publication:

The organisers intend to publish an edited volume resulting out of the conference proceedings.

Important dates:

The deadline for submission of proposals: 16 February 2020. 

Notification of acceptance: 15 March 2020.

Receipt of your proposal will be acknowledged via e-mail within three days – if it is not, please resend. Early submissions are welcome.