New York’s ‘New School’ to Offer Course on ‘Fat Fashion’ Next Semester
“Students will learn how to design clothes that value and desire fat bodies and will develop a personal framework for Fat-Centered Design”
Is there a more perfect example of a ‘first world’ course topic than this?
Campus Reform reports:
‘Fat Fashion’ course coming to New School next semester
A New School course next semester will teach students about “Fat Fashion” and emphasize the work of “fat activists.” The New School is a private research university in New York City.
“This course honors the work of fat activists by intentionally reclaiming the word ‘fat’ as a celebration of larger bodies,” the course description says. “Students are introduced to concepts from the field of Fat Studies as lenses to inform their fashion design practices.”
Students of the course will study how the current state of fashion, such as “‘plus-size’ clothing design, marketing, and retail,” demonstrates fear of fat people.
In opposition to this system, the course will teach students how to design clothing “that center fat bodies as the starting point in the design process and as aesthetic inspiration.” The design must also understand the intersectional identities of the fat person.
“Students will learn how to design clothes that value and desire fat bodies and will develop a personal framework for Fat-Centered Design,” the course description says.
Leila Kelleher, an assistant professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice, is the listed faculty member for the course. Kelleher’s research “intersects fashion and biomechanics, with a specific emphasis on the marginalization of fat and plus sized bodies within the fashion industry.”
“Her diverse expertise reflects a commitment to inclusivity and innovation in both academia and the fashion industry,” her bio says. She is currently writing a book with the working title “Plus Size Apparel Patternmaking.”
Several colleges and universities offer courses on fat studies. Next semester, the University of Maryland will allow students to study “Intro to Fat Studies,” focusing on “Fatness, Blackness and Their Intersections.”
Students will “[e]xamines fatness as an area of human difference subject to privilege and discrimination that intersects with other systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and ability.”
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Comments
You mean like colorful circus tents?
Will they have a special course on plus sized burial shrouds?
I thought the word ‘fat’ was banned as hate speech?
Nope. The whole point of this is to “reclaim” it, as has been done to such words as “queer” and “slut”.
Oink! Oink!
That’s “Louis Cochon” to you.
This reminds me of Michelle Obama, no matter what she hangs on herself, her face has an uncanny resemblance to a cow, as does her backend. I am still Ted off about the way she squanders our tax dollars for personal lavish vacations and abused the office to sell her fashion to other cows.
assistant professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice
Fashion Design and Social Justice? What the heck are they talking about?
The purpose of Fashion Design is design clothing that the public will buy. What does Social Justice have to do with Fashion Design? Maybe using Proletarian blue denim ? 🙂
Fashion Design and Social Justice makes as much sense to me as Carpentry and Social Justice, or Dishwashing and Social Justice.
Given the large amount of obese–evenly morbidly obese–people in the US, there is definitely a market for clothing that fits the obese. It ain’t Social Justice to design clothing that fits the obese. It is merely filling a market need, a market niche.
Since the good professor conflates Social Justice with clothing, I have a question for her. Why is it so difficult to find corduroy pants these days? 🙂
Regulations passed after the Great Totie Fields Fire of 1967.
The intersection of Social Justice and Fashion Design is the Mao Jacket.
$49,086 = “Average Annual Cost”
[collegescorecard.ed.gov]
👍
If you sat down and tried to create a parody of a “woke” college course, you couldn’t beat this one. The intersectionality of “Fat Fashion,” “intentionally reclaiming the word ‘fat’ as a celebration of larger bodies,” “concepts from the field of Fat Studies as lenses to inform their fashion design practices,” “the current state of fashion, such as “‘plus-size’ clothing design, marketing, and retail,” “demonstrates fear of fat people,” “the intersectional identities of the fat person,” “design clothes that value and desire fat bodies [and] will develop a personal framework for Fat-Centered Design,”
All this is led by “an assistant professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice whose research “intersects fashion and biomechanics.” Of course it does. Was her doctoral dissertation the famous “Stress and Strain in a Maidenform Strapless Brassiere” immortalized in the pages of the Purdue Engineer?
Professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice. Do they have a professor of Particle Physics and Insurrection? If not, why not? Grab your banners, we have a new cause to march for!
Then the University of Maryland is going to have an “Intro to Fat Studies,” focusing on “Fatness, Blackness and Their Intersections.” I know a couple of intersections on Atlanta’s West Side that would be perfect for their focus.
Has the world gone utterly mad? Discuss.
This is a first world problem because widespread (excuse the possible embedded joke) obesity problems found in the United States today. It is real even if RFKJ says it is.
If anything, the course is late and not ahead of the curve.
It will be interesting to see if you really can make subjectively unattractive people into subjectively attractive people by hanging different rags on them.
I suspect not, but we will see.
Cloth bags work as well as paper bags and can be much more decorative.