Abstract: A bright yellow jumpsuit studded with black polka dots, was what our special guest and speaker, Adele Varcoe, was wearing during the first AIRs meetup on September 13, 2017. This is, however, just one example of Varcoe’s quite extensive wardrobe of jumpsuits, which she has been wearing for the past years as part of her ongoing performative practice of researching fashion. Varcoe started wearing the jumpsuits in 2011 to investigate the impact of clothing on our identities. Her performative practice has led to reflecting on how certain garments do not only influence the way we feel, but also the ways in which others perceive us. Varcoe does not stop at the ‘simple performance’ of wearing just onesies for almost seven years, but exploits the perceptions and reactions of others to her jumpsuit-wardrobe, to further enquire the socio-cultural implications of fashion. Moreover, Varcoe’s fashion practices and identity performances can be viewed as a form of embodied research. As argued elsewhere (Bruggeman 2018), an embodied approach to fashion is an important contribution to contemporary academic fashion discourse. As many practitioners who contribute to a new critical fashion discourse point out, it is increasingly urgent to redefine our relationship to fashion.
Citation: D. Bruggeman, H. van der Voet & C. Bugter, ‘Performative Fashion Research: Adele Varcoe’, AIRS (ArtEZ International Research School). Online publication, April 2, 2018: http://airs.artez.nl/publications/.
