PARIS FASHION AND DESIGN TEMPLATE in Fall 2018 (CM5021)

This two-part course examines how and why Paris became the center of the contemporary fashion world. In part one, through reading, history and cultural theory and visiting certain key sites in Paris, students will develop an in-depth understanding of a city which is often considered to have been the template for modern urbanism – the ‘capital of the nineteenth century’, to use Walter Benjamin’s expression. In part two of the course, the emphasis shifts: the rise of the great couture houses becomes the focus. When did couture emerge, how it transformed in the twentieth century, what is the place of the couture today with the rise of ecological concern with it sustainable fashion? How did the couture house fit in the changing cultural environment in Paris, with wider aesthetic, social and moral concerns? In taking Paris Fashion Template, students will be cognizant with the city’s evolution from the seventeenth century onwards and have strong sense of the business and institutions which did so much in making the city a center what is now a global industry.