Fashion! A Mirror of Our Times Business & European Studies Program Spring 2018 Semester - Barcelona

Fashion today is all around us and reflects an image we project of ourselves and of our troubled times. However much or little we believe fashion affects us, we make revealing statements through fashion about our personality and self-image every day. This cultural and psychological phenomenon generates a vast fashion marketing economy that transcends international frontiers and which links diverse peoples and cultures through the exchange of styles, looks, ideas and signals. Like a universal language, fashion creates a shared global, visual, and human form of communication. Fashion trends emerge simultaneously and spontaneously across the globe, powered by internet media, the fashion press, and mainstream voices of the chic. The message and meaning of fashion is spread to the streets - peer to peer - crossing frontiers and oceans as a distinctive commodity with social and monetary value.

With its profound influence on contemporary society, the culture and business of fashion are being examined and reevaluated. New areas of research are being explored: the industry, history and cultural impact of fashion; the diverse stylistic influences derived from societal and media sources; the influence of design in fashion; and the role played by contemporary fashion photography in magazines and advertising.

Through music, fine art, subcultures, foreign influences, and individual choice, you examine in this course the fashion icons that define our culture and society. You explore the cultural diversity mirrored in the clothes we design, manufacture and wear. You explore what fashion is, how it differs from style, and the prominent designers that shape our modern times. You learn how creative fashion design is rooted in both historical sources and current trends and analyze contemporary fashion ?looks? in streets and haute couture studios. You will look at both the design of clothes and how clothes are manufactured, presented, marketed and consumed.

The course will also analyze international trends, region differences and influences, and homogeneous similarities between markets in the global village. Fashion capitals like New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Spanish fashion will be compared and contrasted though course work and field study. In addition, you will study the influence and co-influence of popular culture and high art in fashion, examining the relationship between emerging trends and their commercialization through a business case study of the Spanish fashion chain Zara. By the end of the course, you will have an accomplished understanding of fashion as business, as artistic expression, and as lifestyle.

This course is cross-listed as MKT334.