Fashion Spaces: A Theoretical View

Social media has brought a new type of space into the world of fashion retail. When architecture and fashion meet in the creation of ephemeral spaces for the immediate presentation of new collections, for example, these temporary but real spaces are brought into the realm of the everlasting digital space as they are shared and re-shared on platforms like Instagram. Fashion spaces can best be defined, then, as a co-created, ever changing and prevailing metaspaces where the dialogue amongst designers, consumers and industry leaders continues well after the real space has vanished.

Can these fashion spaces have a bigger impact on consumers than real-time experience of space? How may the dialogues developing within and as result of fashion spaces influence physical retail design? Can designers use fashion spaces as sites for new cultural production? These are but some of the questions tackled by Fashion Spaces, A Theoretical View. The book is created via a practice-oriented approach to academic teaching and research, through the collaboration of academics, students and the retail industry.

Following an introductory essay by professor Vésma Kontere McQuillan and assistant professor Kjeld Hansen, which tackles the problematics of research in the field and presents a conceptual model for further research, seven case studies developed by students of the retail design program at the School of Arts, Design, and Media at Kristiania University College explore possible applications of this model.

Vésma Kontere McQuillan is a Latvian-born architect and writer currently living in Norway. Since 2011, she has been a professor at Kristiania University College, Oslo, where she developed the new retail design bachelor’s degree. Her research over the last five years has focused on the collaboration between OMA/AMO and Prada, looking in particular at the fashion shows created by AMO and Prada, and the design process behind these joint productions. This book is a direct outcome of this research.