Where the Boys Who Keep Swinging Are Now

Locational Relationality in Hedi Slimane and Helmut Lang

Authors

  • Susan Ingram York University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17742/IMAGE.FCM.9.2.7

Abstract

This article illustrates the mechanisms by which Berlin and Vienna have come to figure differently in the global fashion imaginary. It establishes the stylistic locational relationality of Hedi Slimane and Helmut Lang, two fashion designers known for distinctive styles that resist the mainstream of bourgeois respectability. The relational nature of their locational identities—Slimane’s attraction to Berlin and Lang’s rejection of Vienna—is tied to the cities’ urban imaginaries, which work by making particular periods and styles of the cities’ histories hegemonic.

Author Biography

Susan Ingram, York University

Susan Ingram is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities at York University, Toronto, where she coordinates the Graduate Diploma for Comparative Literature and is affiliated with the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies and the Research Group on Language and Culture Contact. She is the general editor of Intellect Book’s Urban Chic series and the co-author of the volumes on Berlin, Vienna, and Los Angeles. A past president of the Canadian Comparative Literature Association, her research interests revolve around the institutions of European cultural modernity and their legacies.

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Published

2018-12-28

How to Cite

Ingram, S. (2018). Where the Boys Who Keep Swinging Are Now: Locational Relationality in Hedi Slimane and Helmut Lang. Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, 9(2), 67–83. https://doi.org/10.17742/IMAGE.FCM.9.2.7