dObra[s] – revista da Associação Brasileira de Estudos de Pesquisas em Moda

Fashioning identity: sartorial symbolism and cultural negotiation in Tanzimat literature of the Ottoman Empire

Şakir Özüdoğru — 2025-08-01

This article explores sartorial symbolism in Tanzimat-era literature (1860-1896) within the Ottoman Empire. The research analyzes sartorial choices as narrative devices in three pivotal Tanzimat novels: The Carriage Affair (Araba Sevdası) by Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, Mister Felâtun and Master Râkım (Felâtun Bey ve Râkım Efendi) by Ahmet Mithat Efendi, and Dandy (Şık) by Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar. Drawing on Barthes’ semiotic framework, it positions fashion as a performative act that inscribes cultural myths onto the body, articulating narratives of identity, power and transformation. By analyzing sartorial symbolism as a visual grammar, the study employs a comparative character analysis of the alafranga and the Ottoman gentleman (alaturka) archetypes. The research further offers a novel interpretation of Tanzimat novels by combining sartorial symbolism with Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theories of mimicry and hybridity (third space). It introduces three novel concepts -superficial mimicry, excessive mimicry, and harmonious hybridization- symbolized by the characters in the novels. This interdisciplinary approach aims to bridge literary analysis, historical context, postcolonial theories and fashion studies.

Women’s fashion from the interdisciplinary perspective of semiotics and psychoanalysis

Adriana Lúcia de Escobar Chaves de Barros — 2025-08-01

Fashion is a form of cultural, creative and personal expression, which allows us to communicate, innovate and claim our individuality. Through a specific visual language, constructed from signs present in clothes and accessories it is possible to transmit information about the profile, the social status, aspirations and transformations of individuals and social groups. Therefore, the objective of this study is to discuss women’s fashion from the interdisciplinary perspective of Semiotics and Psychoanalysis, highlighting how the symbolic representations of clothing reflect the construction of women’s identity over time. We hope to contribute to a greater understanding of women’s fashion and the messages and meanings that clothing conveys, promoting reflection on its impact on the construction of women’s subjectivity, as well as on the reproduction or deconstruction of stereotypes and cultural standards.

A 1950’s politeness guide: micro-interacional interpersonal practices in Carmen D’Ávila “Good Manenrs”

Luis Mauro Sá Martino — 2025-08-01

This paper outlines some aspects of micro-level interpersonal communication concerning politeness and good manners, as stated in “Good Manners”, a 1930s manual of etiquette and civility by Carmen D’Ávila. The goal is to outline how some apparently insignificant everyday communicative interactions are, actually, acutely planned by people towards the best possible social performance in every occasion. Drawn on a reading of the book grounded mainly on Goffman’s approach, the paper argues that polite micro-interaction, as stated by the book, depends on three main elements: (1) the conditions that allows a polite interaction as part of a bigger picture of urban convivence in Modernity, (2) the dynamics and boundaries of each interaction and (3) the goal of speech, gestures and body expressions in a given situation.

María Teresa de Vega: from Fellini’s actress to the jet set’s fashion designer

José Antonio Fernández Fernández — 2025-08-01

Swiss actress María Teresa Werlen was one of the most popular faces in Italy during the 1950s. In 1960, she acquired Spanish nationality through her marriage to the industrialist Eduardo Vega Terrones and, thirteen years later, she entered the fashion industry by opening a small boutique in the Malaga neighborhood of Guadalmar. Her success prompted the establishment of the Ascot boutique in the Madrid neighborhood of La Moraleja, where she offered her own ready-to-wear collections under the name María Teresa de Vega, along with a wide range of French brands. Ascot was a reference point for luxury fashion in Spain, attracting numerous aristocrats, singers, actresses, and the wives of politicians and businessmen. In order to bring her to the public eye, this article aims to provide a synthesis of María Teresa de Vega’s career; one of the most prominent personalities of Spanish fashion during the last quarter of the 20th century.

Women Artists and the Integration of Art in Everyday Life: The Impact of Decorative Textile Arts on the Development of Russian Avant-gardes

Tamires Moura Gonçalves Leite — 2025-08-01

This article addresses the role of women in Russian art during the 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on decorative arts and the relationship between applied arts and fine arts. Initially, it discusses the establishment of the first secondary schools for girls in Russia in 1858, which provided women with access to education, albeit with an emphasis on subjects deemed appropriate for their societal role, such as language, religion, and manual skills. The article also examines the restrictions faced by women in relation to higher education and the hierarchy between visual arts and decorative arts at the time. Women were often directed towards decorative arts, considered more suitable for their abilities and gender roles. However, some artists began to explore and blend traditional techniques with more modern styles, paving the way for design and the integration of art into everyday life. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of these professional women artists in the development of the Russian avant-garde and the introduction of avant-garde motifs into fabrics and embroideries, as well as emphasizing the role of these initiatives in the context of Russian nationalism and the revival of folk arts.

O outro lado da Moda: Emoção, Memória, Sentimento

Rafaela Norogrando — 2025-07-21

Galeria

Dobras — 2025-08-01

Trajes típicos germânicos: da origem à concepção, entrevista com Roswitha Ziel

Cristiani Maximiliano — 2025-08-01

A moda nas emoções, as emoções na moda

Felipe Goebel — 2025-08-01

From embodied memory to know-how/making of: the lace weaves of Saubara (Bahia)

Renata Pitombo Cidreira — 2025-08-01

This article aims to reflect on how the body and memory engage and culminate in artisanal know-how, with a particular focus on bobbin lace-making in Saubara, Bahia. It presents a theoretical discussion anchored in a real-world example to emphasize the manual dexterity inherent in the creation process, highlighting the dimension of sensibility in this activity through the activation of memory by the body. We recognize that cultural practices, shaped and maintained by collective memory, play a crucial role in constructing community identity, serving both as an anchor that preserves knowledge and memory related to bobbin lace-making and as a foundation for developing each lacemaker’s individual know-how. The hands, endowed with unique dexterity, emerge as the very essence of this body, fully manifesting themselves in the act of lace-making through embodied experience and interaction with the surrounding world. For this reflection, we employ a conceptual framework ranging from Merleau-Ponty’s (1994) phenomenology of the body, and the sociological perspectives of Mauss (2003) and Le Breton (2007), to studies on memory, culture, and lace-making, including Pollak (1989) and Fechine (2013), as well as socio-historical investigations and surveys on lace such as those by Ramos and Ramos (1948), Girão (1984), and Felippi (2021). This research contributes to academic reflections on artisanal practices by presenting a phenomenological approach that articulates studies of the body and memory.

Paths of memory, what stories do clothes tell? Building a timeline from photographs and shared memories

Laiana Pereira da Silveira — 2025-08-01

The study presents the results of a workshop conducted with participants from the IFSC Gaspar 60+ institutional research project. It is, therefore, a descriptive article whose main objective was to demonstrate how clothing was used as a material tool to assist in evoking the group’s memories. During the three sessions of the workshop entitled Paths of Memory: What Stories Do Clothes Tell?, topics such as social memory, identity, and material culture were discussed, drawing on the perspectives of Ecléa Bosi, Ivan Izquierdo, Joel Candau, Jan Assmann, Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses, José Reginaldo Gonçalves, and Pierre Nora. Using a dialogical methodology, the proposed activities led to reflections on the theme of memory through clothing, employing personal photographs as material support to evoke memories. Through this approach, participants practiced the power of selection when choosing photos and shared memories associated with those images, reflecting on the clothes worn at the time each moment was recorded. The process culminated in the creation of a timeline collaboratively built with photographs and other written materials. Finally, it is important to highlight the receptiveness and engagement of the participants, who demonstrated enthusiasm in sharing their stories and contributing photos to the activities and the construction of the final product.

Influence Marketing and Viral Product Design: JW Anderson’s Clutch Case Study

Thaissa Schneider — 2025-08-01

This study examines the relationship between product design and virality within the context of social media, focusing on TikTok, a platform that has reshaped marketing practices and consumer behavior, particularly among Gen Z users. The research problem centers on how fashion brands are adapting design strategies to maximize virality and its impact on consumer engagement. Through a descriptive and exploratory approach, the study investigates trends in viral product design and influence marketing, utilizing a literature review and the case study of JW Anderson’s pigeon-shaped clutch. Virality, a key element of TikTok, is driven by factors such as creativity, visual appeal, and emotional engagement, shaping both content production and consumption. The study also discusses how these strategies redefine the role of digital platforms as communication channels and how these platforms shape new social and economic practices. The findings highlight the effectiveness of leveraging disruptive aesthetics and narratives to connect brands with contemporary audiences. By fostering interactions and creating shareable experiences, JW Anderson achieved greater prominence and built an engaged consumer community.

Clothing and Memory: The Symbolism of Clothing in Affective Construction

Gutianna Michelle de Oliveira Dias — 2025-08-01

This article analyzes the affective memory of clothing, emphasizing how garments as narrative tools for remembrance and emotional connection, especially in fictional contexts. It is a theoretical-analytical essay grounded in the works of Benarush, Stallybrass, Chauí, and Dohmann, exploring the symbolic dimension of clothing as a repository of memory. The first section provides a theoretical framework for understanding garments beyond their utilitarian purpose, highlighting their capacity to evoke individual and emotional memories. The discussion addresses how clothing transcends its status as a consumer good to assume symbolic and affective significance. The second section conducts an analysis of specific scenes from two fictional narratives: the film Brokeback Mountain and the series Euphoria. In these narratives, items such as shirts and hooded coat occupy central roles, symbolizing emotional bonds, grief, and resilience. These scenes illustrate how garments embody physical and emotional imprints, serving as tangible connections between the past and the present. This essay advances the understanding of clothing as memory-bearing artifacts, demonstrating their dual function of representing and reconfiguring past experiences in the present. Ultimately, it invites readers to critically engage with the cultural and emotional significance of garments as symbolic objects, carriers of personal histories, and mediators of affective memory.

Modern Witches and Ancient Collars: The Historical Alchemy in Wednesday Addams Costume

Stella Mendonça Caetano — 2025-08-01

This essay explores the “Wednesday dress” as a pop icon that synthesizes complex narratives about femininity, childhood, and their subversion, and mobilizes cultural memory and emotions. Through a literature review, the work analyzes the costume composition of the character Wednesday Addams, its historical origins, and cultural significance. The text explores how the costume incorporates elements of Puritan fashion, during the historical period of witch hunts in the United States of America (Blumberg, 2007; Federici, 2017; Murrel, 2021), and the Peter Pan collar (Fields, 2004; Khairunnisa, 2014), creating a duality between innocence and danger, the evolution of the witch image in pop culture, and how Wednesday’s costume reflects these narratives. In this sense, the “Wednesday dress” is a unique object through which it is possible to perceive how fashion in pop culture can condense complex historical and social narratives. Offering a range of insights into the changes in how childhood, femininity, and religiosity are expressed in fashion over time, the piece represents the power that fashion has to evoke the past to converse with the contemporary.

From Tartan to Turmoil: Sensory Engagement and Historical Narratives in Alexander McQueen’s “Highland Rape”

Andjela Bisevac — 2025-08-01

This paper examines Alexander McQueen’s “Highland Rape” (Autumn/Winter 1995) as a collection that transcends aesthetics to explore trauma, resilience, and historical memory. Known for its provocative title and graphic imagery, the collection challenges conventional beauty and redefines fashion’s role in society by confronting audiences with layered narratives of personal and collective suffering. Through torn fabrics, exposed skin, and stark contrasts, McQueen delivers a potent commentary on the violent history of the Scottish Highlands, intertwined with his personal experiences. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault - particularly Barthes’s semiotic theory and Foucault’s notions of power and bodily discipline - this study examines how McQueen transforms the runway into a symbolic stage. His garments function as signs - mutable, provocative, and saturated with meaning - while the performative nature of the show provokes both visceral and intellectual engagement. Contributions from Caroline Evans and Judith Watt further situate McQueen’s work within a tradition of fashion as a critical narrative. Ultimately, the paper argues that “Highland Rape” exemplifies fashion’s potential to provoke dialogue on identity, memory, and socio-political critique. Positioned within the broader discourse of fashion as both an expressive art form and a design practice, the collection continues to resonate as a transformative force in contemporary fashion history.

From album covers to the red dirt streets: punk fashion in a small town in the State of São Paulo in early 1980s

Carlos Eduardo Marquioni — 2025-08-01

This article addresses elements of punk rock observed in the small town of Santa Gertrudes/SP in the early 1980s. Based on the argument that the cultural meanings associated with punk rock (both musical and visual) were inspired by rock’n’roll and the visual aesthetics of the 1950s and 1960s, it is argued that, in pre-internet times (when information circulated with greater difficulty and slowness), the album covers of punk records performed a communicational role. While the LPs propagate the punk music itself, the correspondent album covers presented indications of how young punk rockers over the world with access to these materials should dress and make themselves be seen. In this sense, the punk rock album covers are addressed here as a form of material culture and a key factor to identity among the young people of the small town of Santa Gertrudes. In theoretical terms, the article presents analyses and reflections considering (a) the notion of structure of feeling as defined by Raymond Williams, (b) an adaptation of the concept of imagined community developed by Benedict Anderson and (c) material culture as presented by Daniel Miller. Methodologically, a comparative analysis is carried out between LP covers from the period and a photo snapshot obtained during a performance by the local punk band Lixo Atômico, seeking to highlight how the young musicians of that band incorporated key elements of punk fashion into their way of dressing in a small town of São Paulo State in the early 1980s.

Expediente

Revista dObras — 2025-08-01