More Than Meets the Eyes: Dutch Fashion, Identity and New Materialism

This PhD dissertation analyzes the fluid, performative, embodied, material and culturally hybrid dimensions of identity. It proposes the philosophical discourse of ‘new materialism’ as a methodological contribution to fashion studies - aiming to move beyond the semiotic, linguistic, discursive and representational focus of fashion studies. It critiques fashion’s focus on idealised bodies and identities, outer appearances and signifying surfaces, and argues that it is essential to revalue the physical, experiential, embodied and material facets of the clothed body.