Fashion and Translation: Britain, Japan, China, Korea

该项目将形成一个新的网络，以研究服装时尚作为英国，日本，中国和韩国之间强大而普遍的文化媒介的作用。时尚以多种方式跨越和混淆地理界限，但英国性、中国性和日本性的概念仍然是时装作为文化表达的动态的核心。今年，东京时装周举办了第一届日本花呢跑，这是一项自行车活动，通过传统花呢的主题来庆祝英国古怪的怀旧观念。与此同时，在英国，黄金时段的电视剧《神秘博士》（Doctor Who）因其男主角穿着中国制造的丙烯酸混合仿哈里斯粗花呢夹克而受到严厉批评。时装设计通常使用“异国情调”作为新奇和奢侈的可靠来源，但一件时尚服装可以在一个半球设计，在另一个半球制造，并在全球零售，同时保持与国家有关的品牌标识。英国商业街连锁店玛莎百货（Marks and Spencer）和日本品牌优衣库（Uniqlo）在中国有多家门店。这两个品牌最近也加入了伦敦牛津街的中国商店波司登，他们将在英国创造中国高街时尚的第一个有形存在。在中国，韩国时尚的影响力也在增加，并有可能取代日本在某些时尚领域的领导地位。互联网购物和时尚博客进一步质疑了国界的重要性，同时促进了高度独特的欧洲和东亚身份。过去十年，时尚研究也发生了巨大变化。在非西方背景下的西方时尚形式正在被重新考虑，以产生对时尚的新解读，作为一种远不那么具有地域偶然性的个性化、世界主义、种族和全球金钱、商品和思想网络的载体。东亚时尚被认为是对英国消费者的“说话”，就像欧洲时尚对东亚的“说话”一样。我们建议的网络借鉴了英国和国际上的学者，艺术家，博物馆馆长和时尚行业的专业人士，他们将共同努力，对跨国时尚交流作为文化翻译的代理人产生新的理解。在三个主题研讨会中，该网络将在时尚学者、时尚专业人士、艺术家和博物馆收藏经理之间建立新的关系，进行创造性的跨学科对话，将时尚、品牌标识和实际时尚服装的概念联系起来。跨越英国、日本、中国和韩国国界的关键焦点和网络成员将从非英国的角度增加对时尚翻译的理解，并在国际层面上创造长期的知识交流，为工业和商业以及时尚研究带来收益。其好处将包括跨学科和国家边界的知识和技能交流，以提高国际学术界，第三部门和私营部门对时尚概念和实践的理解和振兴。我们将进一步开发和传播时尚研究的新方向，通过撰写一份领先的同行评审期刊的特刊，并将开发一个网站，使我们的活动和研究结果可供学生，时尚行业和更广泛的公众。我们还将为一个更大的项目奠定基础。我们将以英国、日本、中国和韩国为参照点，为未来全球跨国时尚交流的研究议程设定一个起点。

This project will form a new network to examine the role of clothing fashions as a powerful and pervasive cultural intermediary between Britain, Japan, China and Korea. Fashion crosses and confounds geographical boundaries in a myriad of ways, and yet notions of Britishness, Chineseness and Japaneseness remain central to the dynamics of fashionable dress as cultural expression. This year, Tokyo Fashion Week hosted the first Japanese Tweed Run, a bicycling event that celebrates nostalgic notions of British eccentricity through the motif of traditional tweed. Meanwhile, in Britain, the prime-time television drama Doctor Who has drawn harsh criticism for dressing its hero in an acrylic-mix fake Harris tweed jacket manufactured in China. Fashion design often uses the 'exotic' as a reliable source of novelty and luxury, but an item of fashionable clothing can be designed in one hemisphere, manufactured in another, and retailed globally while maintaining a brand identity attached to nation. British high-street chain Marks and Spencer and the Japanese label Uniqlo have multiple stores in China. Both of these brands have also recently been joined on London's Oxford Street by Chinese store Bosideng who are set to create the first tangible presence of Chinese high street fashion in Britain. In China, the influence of Korean fashion is also increasing and threatens to displace the position of Japan as a style leader in some fashion sectors. Internet shopping and fashion blogging further calls into question the significance of national borders, while promoting highly distinct European and East Asian identities.The last decade has also seen a sea change in fashion studies. Western forms of fashion within non-western contexts are being reconsidered to produce new readings of fashion as a far less geographically contingent vehicle for individuality, cosmopolitanism, ethnicity, and global networks of money, goods and ideas. East Asian fashion is recognised as 'speaking' to British consumers as European fashion has 'spoken' to East Asia. The network that we are proposing draws on UK and internationally based academics, artists, museum curators and fashion industry professionals who will work together to produce a new understanding of transnational fashion exchange as an agent of cultural translation. In three themed workshops, the network will forge new relations between fashion academics, fashion professionals, artists and museum collection managers, in creative interdisciplinary dialogues that connect concepts of fashion, brand identity and actual fashion garments. The critical focus and network membership across the national boundaries of Britain, Japan, China and Korea will increase understanding of fashion translations from non-UK perspectives and create long-lasting knowledge exchanges at an international level, with gains for industry and commerce as well as fashion studies. The benefits will include knowledge and skills exchange across disciplinary and national boundaries to improve understanding and rejuvenate the conceptualisation and practice of fashion across the international academic community, third sector and private sector. We will further develop and disseminate new directions in fashion studies by authoring a special issue of a leading peer-reviewed journal and will develop a website that makes our activities and findings accessible to students, the fashion industry and the wider public. We will also lay the foundations for a substantial larger project. Our reference points of Britain, Japan, China and Korea will serve as starting points from which to set a future research agenda on global transnational fashion exchange.