For this panel, focused again on fashion against capitalism, we have invited practitioners Aïcha Abbadi, Shanzhai Lyric and Chinouk Filique de Miranda. They will elaborate on their individual contributions to the multilogue, which revolves around critical explorations of non-industrial and non-capitalist fashion. Also joining is T’ai Smith, author of the soon to be published book Fashion After Capital, to deepen their perspectives and share her thoughts on the agency of practitioners. The conversation will be led by sociologist, fashion theorist and culture critic Monica Titton.

How can practitioners address and criticize the limits and enclosures of a capitalist fashion industry, and what could be ways and tools to opt out and create an alternative approach to fashion?

The panel takes place on Wednesday 10 February, from 16:00 – 17:30. You can register for this free online event by sending an e-mail to events@stateoffashion.org including your full name and mentioning 'Whataboutery 03' in the subject. After registration you will receive a confirmation e-mail with more information.

Monica Titton is a sociologist, fashion theorist and culture critic. She currently works as a Senior Scientist at Modeklasse, the Fashion Department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her work develops a critical, sociological perspective at the intersections of fashion, politics, art and identity. Titton’s research is guided by an effort to expand and develop theoretical frameworks for critical analyses of fashion, and is informed by the traditions of poststructuralism, Marxism, feminism and postcolonialism.

Design researcher and critical fashion practitioner Chinouk Filique de Miranda explores the crossover between the fashion system and digital culture by focusing on introducing digital literacy in fashion. In her practice she approaches fashion as a subliminal communication vehicle which she aims to de-mystify in order to inform consumers on complex matters regarding individual agency within our current digital culture. In her on-going research project ‘The Algorithmic Gaze’ the digitization of fashion and the new ways the fashion system and its consumers connect and communicate through newly acquired technological rhythms is explored and explained.

Through theory and practice, Berlin-based Aïcha Abbadi explores fashion’s boundaries and reflects on the discipline itself. She is interested in niche fashion practices and alternative ways of making and being in fashion, she considers these contributions to be essential for a shift in perspective that interrupts fashion’s main narratives. She is also invested in neighbourhood initiatives in Berlin that create shared community spaces and foster active participation, for creative, culturally and socially diverse environments.

Shanzhai Lyric is a body of research focusing on radical logistics and linguistics through the prism of technological aberration and nonofficial cultures. The project takes inspiration from the experimental English of shanzhai t-shirts made in China and proliferating across the globe to examine how the language of counterfeit uses mimicry, hybridity, and permutation to both revel in and reveal the artifice of global hierarchies. Through an ever-growing archive of poetry-garments, Shanzhai Lyric explores the potential of mis-translation and nonsense as utopian world-making (breaking) and has previously taken the form of poetry-lecture, essay, and installation.

T’ai Smith is associate professor of modern and contemporary art history and media studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Author of Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design (University of Minnesota Press, 2014), she has lectured and published internationally on textile art, design, and theory. She is currently working to complete two book manuscripts: Fashion After Capital and Textile Media: Tangents from Modern to Contemporary Art.