Diagrammatic Manifestos: A Method for Studying the Fluidity of Gender in the Production of Fashion Photography

Abstract

This sociological research studies how fashion editors, art directors, and photographers make the fluidity of gender more visible within an industry established on the binary womenswear/menswear. It addresses gender fluid practices as a questioning of the conditions in which relations between body and dress are made systematic. The research has identified some of the restrictions faced when producing gender fluid fashion imagery, and highlighted the alternative solutions that originate from these limitations. This paper proposes to apply live and inventive methodological approaches to fashion studies. The design of my methodology was concerned with its capacity to study a subject still mostly understood through a binary ontology. Consequently, the “Diagrammatic Manifestos” is a research method attentive to the conditions in which relations can be made different, rather than identical, to dominant gender ideals. Throughout the series of interviews, diagrams were operated as analytical devices to graphically reorganize transcripts into manifestos. The diagrams’ forms were made responsive to the differences in each participants’ narrative and reveal how their individual experiences of gender affect the images they produce.

Keywords

• gender fluidity
• fashion photography
• diagrams
• research methods
• live methods