LCF Sampled x Research: The ‘Ordinary Girl’, Symposium

The ‘Ordinary Girl’: Poetics, Politics, and Power in Fashion and Dress

Often navigated through the seemingly mundane routines of school, friendships, family interactions, and leisure activities, Girlhood is deeply embedded within the fabric of societal expectations and gendered values. Adjacently, being a ‘girl’ also appears to transcend and intersect across a plethora of identities and demographics. Discourses pertaining to ‘Girlhood’ ‘Girl’, and ‘Girly’ continue to circulate, building momentum across fashion cultures and practices.

This Symposium explores an important, yet, often underlooked facet of Girlhood, that is to be found in the ‘Ordinary’. Focusing on how girls both fashion and are fashioned by various modes of poetics, politics and power in contemporary and historical contexts, this event brings timely attention to the ‘Ordinary Girl’ as a site of both stability and transformation. The event offers insight into girls roles in shifting in economic, technological, and political landscapes, where social structures are reproduced and challenged.

Drawing on her newly published book Feminism, Young Women and Cultural Studies (2024) Professor Angela McRobbie is keynote speaker, reflecting upon the conceptualisation of the ‘girl’ in broader debates and study. Bringing together scholars from London College of Fashion and Manchester Fashion Institute, the event also marks the further beginning of a wider investigation into the subject of the ‘Ordinary’, as it forms and informs numerous ways in which ‘Girls’ are conceived and brought into being throughout a diverse range of times, places and spaces.

Organisers:

Dr Gaby Harris, MMU https://fashioninstitute.mmu.ac.uk/staff/profile/?id=5999

Dr Felice McDowell, LCF, UAL https://researchers.arts.ac.uk/2296-felice-mcdowell

Keynote Speaker:

Professor Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths https://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/mcrobbie/

Visitor Information

Time: The Symposium will take place 4-7pm followed by drinks 7-8pm.

Address: London College of Fashion, 105 Carpenters Road, London, E20 2AR.

How to find us: https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-fashion/about-lcf/find-us

Video on how to get here from Stratford tube on the stories highlights on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lcfculture/

Host or Publisher London College of Fashion, UAL