Fashion and Consumption: 1500-1900

This lecture introduces you to key concepts and debates around consumption, with surprises about the origins of the idea of the design, attempts at fashion copyright, the early rise of personality, communication and glamour, all central to fashion.

The rise of global mass fashion has been heavily criticised on ethical, material and moral grounds. It effects everything from labour conditions to the environment. In this lecture we see how we got to this point of having to wear something new all of the time. How creative ideas about fashion were disseminated at different social levels and how fashion could communicate new-found identities.

Presented by Dr Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History at the University of Technology Sydney and lately Distinguished Professor Aalto University, as part of the Melbourne Fashion Festival's Independent Program: Ideas 2021.