Canadian Fashion Economies: A Select History of Fashion Culture, Commerce, and Colonization

(Hardback)

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A vital re-examination of Canadian cultural and commercial history told through key fashion objects from First Nations, colonial settlers, and contemporary Canadian culture. Traditional narratives of fashion tend to ignore sophisticated pre-colonial networks, First Nation innovations and techniques, and their contributions to colonial dress. From exquisite Chilkat weavings to the iconic Hudsons Bay Company blanket coat, by way of ribbon skirts, quilts, and a beaver-fur top hat, this rich study uses Canadian fashion objects as a research tool to illuminate neglected areas in North American fashion history. Using vivid object-based research, OConnell maps out pre-colonial economic networks spanning the entire continent, global colonial textile and fur trades, and the material culture of French and English migrant populations in the New World, and equips readers with a framework for more nuanced and inclusive histories of Canadian culture and commerce. Unexpected, overlooked stories emerge as central to Canadas fashion history, from hybrid fashion cultures to re-used textiles in settler communities, and OConnell highlights contemporary Canadian artists and designers who point to new possibilities to reclaim and preserve this cultural heritage.

Author Bio

Mark Joseph OConnell PhD is Professor of Fashion Studies at Seneca College, Toronto, Canada. He is the author of Lilac Time at the Rodeo (2021). His essays have been published in Fashion Theory; Textile the Journal of Cloth and Culture; Fashion, Style & Popular Culture and Fashion Studies. He has lectured on fashion, material culture and craft-based social justice movements in the U.S., Mexico and Canada (in English and Spanish). Prior to teaching, Mark worked as a designer both in-house at M.A.C Cosmetics and for his own clothing line, Modular Menswear.