The Transnational Wardrobe: Analysing the Global Politics of Dress

In this paper, I consider the wardrobe in a Lefebvrian spatial frame, as a spatial construction bridging the intimate and the public, the rationalised and the creative. The wardrobe is a space of organised spatial practices, driven by rationalisation of domestic space, that creates certain kinds of representations of space, and it is also a space of representation which individual and collective imaginations drive and shape. Just as any space is mental, physical and social at the same time, so too is the wardrobe both a physical space consisting of garments, and a mental and social space which an individual’s wardrobe collecting practices construct and represent. A Lefebvrian extension of analysis of wardrobes puts the emphasis firmly on how they are spaces where different kinds of spatial realms meet, connecting the most intimate matters of personal taste and garment choice together with massive and globalized social forces. Thus it allows for the exploration of politics of dress simultaneously at macro, meso, and micro levels. I will consider how the politics of dress production and consumption can both be read and analysed in the transnational space of wardrobe.