Save the date for The Laws of Fashion: Between Transgression and Compliance

Mark you calendars for The Laws of Fashion: Between Transgression and Compliance. The conference is organized jointly between Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University and Parsons The New School for Design, and sponsored by the Parsons MA Fashion Studies program. A panel discussion will be held on Saturday April 25th, 2015, at the Theresa Lang Center, 55 W13th Street, from 2.00-5.00pm, followed by a reception.

In this joint session, Emma Tarlo and Reina Lewis explore manifest tensions in the relationship between fashion, religion and the law. Drawing on their recent research on the rise of religiously inspired fashion, they discuss how clothing regulations and norms are currently being re- established and negotiated in complex plural environments where competing regulatory mechanisms and ideas of appropriate body management co-exist. Presenting material on specific micro-environments such as schools, shops and the workplace, Reina Lewis will discuss how secular and religious expectations concerning clothing regulation and bodily comportment are negotiated in public and semi-public spaces in Europe and America. Taking as her starting point some of the new sartorial propositions that have emerged in response to clothing legislation and controversies, Emma Tarlo traces the biographies of the sports hijab, burqini and kosher wig, asking what role fashion and design play in mediating some of the perceived tensions concerning different religious and secular expectations and interpretations of appropriate dress.

What emerges from the presentation of these various case studies in dialogue is a conversation that situates contemporary fashion practices, debates and disputes in relation to different religious traditions as well as intra- and inter-religious tensions and the perceived divide between religious and secular regulatory concerns.

We hope to see you there!