Thesis title:
Abstract:
This study examines fashion rental as a new space of consumption within the field of fashion, with the aim of exploring how and if eco-habitus alongside fashion capital (knowledge specific to the field) is used in the creation of this space. The work of Bourdieu is drawn on to position fashion consumption as a performance of taste and as a display of fashion capital specific to the field. The notion of environmental consciousness, or an eco-habitus as an emerging form of cultural capital posits that not what is consumed but how has become a marker of taste.
The aim of the research is to explore how fashion rental companies draw on both discourses of sustainability and fashion capital to create space within the field of fashion. A multi-sited ethnographic approach is used to explore rental practices. A range of qualitative methods (digital mapping, auto-ethnography, qualitative interviews) are used to build a detailed account of how various actors within the fashion rental network understand rental in terms of sustainability. Discourse analysis of the data explores how discourses of sustainability, and an eco-habitus, along with fashion capital are shaping new spaces within the field of fashion.
First supervisor:
Joanne Entwistle
Pathway:
7 – Linguistics, Media & Culture
Cohort:
2019-20
Publications:
Parker, L. 2020, ‘The Role of Celebrity in the Fur Debate’, In Nandy, S., Obbard, K., Bojko, N. (eds.) Ethical Glamour and Fashion: Styling Persona Brands. Toronto, New York: Waterhill Publishing, pp.64-69.