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This paper revisits the philosophical trajectory and practices in fashion education. It examines to what extent participatory action research (PAR) can contribute to the advancement of vocational education by emancipating practice-based skills and knowledge co-created by students, faculty members, and market practitioners. While the fashion market is dynamically reshaping today's fashion pedagogy by imparting new skills and abilities to students, this investigation aims to highlight the limitations of the Bauhaus tradition as a top-down approach aimed at continually producing work-ready graduates for junior positions. Drawing upon the findings yielded by our experimental project "fashionthnography.com," the analyses presented in this paper elucidate to what extent PAR can meet the intended goal of equipping the students with a higher level of working capabilities and creativity, as well as greater cultural appreciation. This study contributes to the expansion of vocational education and training, as its findings indicate that we need to embrace practice-based knowledge co-creation for long-term success in both industry and academia.

The rapid growth of the Chinese economy since the late 1970s has dramatically changed the dynamics of the marketplace. China's consumer society has been trans-formed to a more liberal market system in which a variety of diverse market imageries have been created and circulated to consumers. This article examines how global fashion brands construct different 'modern girl' archetypes for consumers in the emerging Chinese market. Through conducting a semiotic analysis of printed advertisements published in four major fashion magazines during a four-year period from the beginning of 2009 to the end of 2012, we identified six 'modern girl' archetypes constructed by global fashion brands. Our findings reveal a dialogical relationship between brand-created imageries and prevailing cultural attitudes. We argue that fashion brands strategically create alternative modern girl archetypes as a way to depict a new era marked by the liberation of Chinese women under the influence of global consumer culture. KEYWORDS archetype modern girl fashion brands China advertisement, INTRODUCTION Owing to the economic reform in the late 1970s, China has been transformed from a state-owned economic system to a market-oriented consumerist society in which multiple local and global [...]

This paper revisits the philosophical trajectory and practices in fashion education. It examines to what extent participatory action research (PAR) can contribute to the advancement of vocational education by emancipating practice-based skills and knowledge co-created by students, faculty members, and market practitioners. While the fashion market is dynamically reshaping today's fashion pedagogy by imparting new skills and abilities to students, this investigation aims to highlight the limitations of the Bauhaus tradition as a top-down approach aimed at continually producing work-ready graduates for junior positions. Drawing upon the findings yielded by our experimental project fashionthnography.com, the analyses presented in this paper elucidate to what extent PAR can meet the intended goal of equipping the students with a higher level of working capabilities and creativity, as well as greater cultural appreciation. This study contributes to the expansion of vocational education and training, as its findings indicate that we need to embrace practice-based knowledge co-creation for long-term success in both industry and academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to cluster the respondents into three consumer groups – fashion innovator, fashion follower and laggard and (2) to extract association rules from the data set in order to understand consumers’ preferences. A data-mining method was employed to analyse considerable amount of data collected from four cities as well as to understand the complexity of the diffusion process of multiple apparel products. According to the results of the present study, style was not an important factor for the fashion leaders to purchase socks in Toronto, Hangzhou and Johor Bahru. In terms of t-shirts and evening dresses/suits, 53% and 51% of fashion laggards in China had shown their strong preferences for fit and comfort, respectively. Additionally, 60% of the fashion leaders in Canada had shown a strong preference for fit and style of t-shirts. Although this study is exploratory in nature, we believe that data mining has great potential for investigating fashion diffusion of innovativeness, and more replication of this type of research will be worthwhile and meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines the emerging cosplay subculture in Hong Kong. A quasi-ethnographic approach including participation, observation., photography, and in-depth interviews was employed to understand the underlying motives and experiences of those engaged in cosplay activities. Authenticity, affective attachment, the extended self, and the negotiation of boundaries are also discussed in this article. From this study, it is evident that cosplay can give participants pleasurable experiences, meaningful memories, self-gratification, and personal fulfillment. Through this participatory activity, cosplayers can momentarily escape from reality and enter into their imaginative world. It is a form of role/identity-transformation from an "ordinary person" to a "super hero," from a "game player" to a "performer," and from "adulthood" to "childhood." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]