Infrastructures of fashion imagery production: Promises and constraints of gender nonconforming creative labour in London

[working title] 

☞ Through a queer-feminist infrastructural lens, this doctoral research examines the conditions under which gender nonconforming uses of womenswear and menswear are possible, contained, or managed in the production of editorial fashion imagery in London.
☞ In contrast with representation studies that analyse images already in circulation, the thesis brings attention to the production processes prior to an image's publication. Drawing from interviews with 21 practitioners, Fo points at a cis-heteronormative infrastructure of fashion production as a complex assemblage of materiality, affect, policies and habits that regulate gender nonconforming creative labour, affecting the livelihoods of those practicing it and the gender representations emerging from these networks.
☞ This highlights the taken-for-granted infrastructure of an industry that benefits from aesthetics transgressing its womenswear / menswear distinction, yet hinders the conditions in which these are produced.

⟶ The images are scans from the diagrams used during interviews with practionners, visualing the intangible processes and relationships that impact the negotiations of creative labour.
⟶ Ongoing doctoral research in Visual Sociology, Goldsmiths University of London, since 2020