Understanding Fashion Scandals

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All publicity is good publicity Perhaps not. In recent years global fashion brands, including Burberry, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana and Prada, have struggled to shake off costly scandals. Campaigns have been called out for cultural appropriation, racism, misogyny, and even flirting with fascism. Understanding Fashion Scandals is the first book to explore the changing landscape of contemporary fashion through case studies showing how shock value lost its currency. The book focuses on the changes since the late-1970s/early 80s, when brands like Calvin Klein and Benetton first used controversy as a promotional tool to build their brand identity, to the contemporary industry where avoiding social media backlash is critical to survival. Analyzing the tactics brands adopt to avoid or mitigate scandals, Vnsk and Gurova map the fashion industrys journey towards cultural sustainability.

Reviews

This is a fresh, updated and comprehensive book on the phenomenon of fashion scandals, which has gained media and consumer attention in recent years. The reader will find both rich case studies and an analysis of how fashion scandals deal with broader processes such as mediatization and cultural appropriation. -- Dr Marco Pedroni, University of Ferrara, Italy
A thought-provoking read looking at an important dynamic within the contemporary fashion and advertising worlds. The authors not only interrogate a variety of scandals, but offer an important framework for understanding contemporary fashion communication. -- Dr. Myles Ethan Lascity, Southern Methodist University, USA
This is a smart, rich and engaging analysis of fashion scandals as engines of media attention and as sites of everyday politics. Recommended reading for everyone interested in how fashion matters in the making of identities, cross-cultural connections and sustainable futures. -- Susanna Paasonen, Professor of Media Studies, University of Turku, Finland
A timely and original introduction to the complex politics of the "fashion scandal," investigated as a brand strategy in the age of global communication and social media. -- Hazel Clark, Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies, Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, USA

Author Bio

Annamari Vnsk is Professor of Fashion Research at the Aalto University in Finland. She is the author of Fashionable Childhood (Bloomsbury, 2017) and the co-editor of Fashion Curating (Bloomsbury 2018). Vnsk is also the Deputy-PI of the consortium Intimacy in Data-Driven Culture and PI of the research project Intimacy, Creative Work and Design, funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland (2019-2025). Olga Gurova is Assistant Professor in Consumption Studies at Aalborg University in Denmark. She has authored books on Fashion and the Consumer Revolution in Contemporary Russia (2015) and Soviet Underwear: Between Ideology and Everyday Life (2008).