Decentering Fashion on the Silk Roads

Decentering Fashion on the Silk Roads focuses on the dynamism of fashion, textile craft, heritage, and sustainability in Central Asia and beyond. The compelling series of accounts provides a comprehensive set of insights and impressions collected from both fashion academics, designers and practitioners from around the globe who journeyed through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and from those who live and work in this region. It showcases ways in which local textile craft practices can inform the modern fashion industry into becoming more sustainable.

The book opens by exploring the importance of the old ‘Silk Roads’ crossing through the heart of the world in Central Asia, serving not only as trade routes but also allowing knowledge, art, and practices to be transmitted between the Orient and the Occident – enabling ideas to flourish and cultural dispositions to develop from Antiquity until Modernity. The unique set of chapters that follow examine and highlight the growing opportunities and lessons this region has to offer to Western fashion through local artistry and craft, and points toward the urgent need to slow down and adopt responsible principles and practices. The book constitutes a warm appreciation of the experiences and grateful thanks to the many communities from all different backgrounds and ages who contributed.

This rich travelogue is a refreshing resource for international scholars and postgraduate students studying and researching fashion theory and management in particular. It will also be of interest to anthropologists, cultural studies, and textiles scholars.

Stefanie Mallon is a cultural anthropologist and textile scientist at the University of Göttingen, Germany, with a research focus on Materiality and Sustainability in Fashion and Textiles. Recent publications include an article on ‘Digital fashion and the future of fashion’ which analyses users’ garment experience, a paper on ‘Performative aging in swim wear’, and an empirical study on fungus as an alternative for leather. Further works are the co-edited anthology ‘Death and the thing’ with studies about the meaning and functionality of textiles in the context of ‘death’, and an article titled ‘Thinking through fashion – Thinking fashion through’, which reflects on students’ perspectives on the future of fashion.

Galina Mihaleva is an artist, fashion and wearable technology designer. Mihaleva’s artistic practice and academic research deals primarily with the dialogue between body and dress, driven by the idea of having both a physical and a psychological relationship with a garment as responsive clothing.