Fashioning Fiji: Investigating Creative Industries in a Developing Context

Fashioning_Fiji

This project focuses upon the development and growth of the Fijian fashion industry across national (Suva), regional (Sydney, Auckland) and global (London) sites. It explores this growth in relation to the integration of technology in the processes of design and production, the use of digital and social media to build and expand markets, and capacity building for fashion entrepreneurs. Using digital ethnography and anthropological approaches, the study will follow Fijian designers to understand the sites of the broader fashion system as well as the consumers of Fijian fashion such as migrant and diasporic communities. Placing Fijian designers, places and identities at the centre of the industry, the project aims to understand how creative industries can be sustained and supported in relation to island nation-states in the Pacific and other developing contexts.

Researcher:

Professor Heather Horst

Funding: Australian Research Council, Discovery Project

Period: 2020-2023

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The Institute for Culture and Society is located in Parramatta, “the place where the eel sets down” in Dharug language,
along the north bank of the Parramatta River. It sits on the traditional lands and waters of the Burramattagal people of the Dharug Nation,
who have been stewards and caretakers of these territories since time immemorial, in what today is referred to as Greater Western Sydney,
one of the most diverse cultural communities in the world and home to the largest number of Indigenous Australians in the country.
The Institute for Culture and Society acknowledges the Dharug, Eora, Dharawal (also referred to as Tharawal)
and Wiradjuri peoples as traditional custodians and Indigenous knowledge-holders, whose storytelling serve
as historical record, a form of teaching and learning, a way to care for Country,
and an expression of Indigenous culture and identity.