Forensic Fashion
About this Website
This is the first (and perhaps only) website devoted to fashion as a subject of scientific and legal inquiry. It will be helpful to think of its general concern as Fashionistics (the scientific study of fashion), with a more particular focus on
Forensic Fashionistics (the scientific study of fashion applied to law). The domain name "Forensic Fashion" is a vestige of the earlier stages of my work, before I developed quantitative methods, and doesn't overtly reflect my now exclusive use of scientific methodology. Nevertheless, I've kept it -- partly for convenience, and partly for sentimental reasons.
Originally begun to collect materials to address certain legal questions raised by fashion, this website has expanded to embrace fashion in general because answering those questions required treating fashion in a forensic or scientific way -- quantitatively and empirically. Since this had not been previously attempted by scholars, I took the liberty to develop a scientific theory of fashion on my own, based on theories from my own academic background (especially evolutionary psychology and linguistics).
Fortunately, this work has been well received academically and I've had ongoing opportunities to lecture and publish on fashionistics-related topics internationally over the past several years. At the same time, I now realize that this research is far too large for me to handle alone, so I've developed this site as a way to open my files and hopefully enlist some collaborators. Those I've found so far have deeply enriched this work and I'm hopeful more will come.
As for the site itself, I've kept the organization simple -- I've sequentially arranged individual study topics and throughly annotated all relevant information on them, so that readers can use them as resources and, I trust, follow the evidence to the same conclusions I have. All scholarship is collegial, and my desire is that this site stimulates dialogue. Naturally, because of the ongoing nature of this work, the site will always have a "work in progress" feel to it, which I trust readers will understand and accept.
About Me
Fashionistics is the product and reflection of my academic training -- biology (BS), psychology (BA), linguistics (MA), and law (JD). I've incorporated concepts from all these disciplines in creating fashionistics, and indeed don't believe a proper science of fashion can be articulated without all of them in combination. That said, I don't think what I've done is particularly unique because I've simply followed these independent lines of study toward their inevitable point of convergence. Thus, I'm probably not all that different than any other reader of this website: Just someone with a willingness to pursue an interest with an open mind.
