The global dimensions of beauty and fashion have recently taken highly publicized forms, seen, for instance, in Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s recent tour of China; the growing interest in Nairobi, Mumbai, and Dubai as luxury markets; and the viral distribution of Seoul’s elite Gangnam district as represented by PSY—to name just a few examples.

These events have received much popular attention, in part because they present an ever-expanding world of happy shoppers but also in part because they highlight the immense (and immensely frightening) shift in the political and purchasing power of Asia and Africa.

This symposium brings together a diverse group of interdisciplinary scholars to consider new geographies of fashion and beauty and ask how they have shaped alternative routes of exchange; generated forms of labor and modes of consumption; and have staged race, gender, sexuality, and class in a variety of regions.

Our discussion will stem from three key questions: How are the production, consumption, and transit of beauty and fashion connected to contemporary, post-American networks that, rather than routing through the global North, instead map other forms of exchange in Asia and Africa? How are these circuits shaped by histories of colonialism and empire and their lingering effects? How do fashion and beauty insiders, laborers, and consumers construct familiar and new forms of identity and community on and off the runway or surgery table, in and out of the retail outlet and factory, and through real-time and digital ventures?

Participants include:

 - Hazel Clark, Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies, The New School

 - Denise Cruz, Associate Professor, English, University of Toronto

 - Tanisha C. Ford, Assistant Professor, Wonen, Gender and Sexuality Studies, UMASS, Amherst

 - Jessamyn Hatcher, Master Teacher, Global Liberal Studies Program, NYU

 - Kimberly Hoang, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Boston College

 - Sharon Heijin Lee, Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow, Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU

 - Christina Moon, Assistant Professor, Fashion Studies, Art and Design History and Theory, The New School

 - Minh-Ha Pham, Assistant Professor, Graduate Program in Media Studies, Pratt Institute

 - Priti Ramamurthy, Associate Professor, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle

 - Thuy Linh Tu, Associate Professor, Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU

Organized by Sharon Heijin Lee, Christina Moon, and Thuy Linh Tu. Co-sponsored by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU and Parsons The New School for Design.

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