Letter from the Editors

Welcome to Volume 4 of Fashion Studies – a volume that represents so much growth for us!

We began the journal with our hearts full and with unwavering belief in our fledgling publication from Toronto Metropolitan University, but with modest internal funding. Last Spring, we received news that our application for funding from the Aid to Scholarly Journals from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) was successful. 

This vote of confidence at the federal level is especially meaningful for our young journal because we were evaluated amongst journals from a wide range of disciplines and we were the first fashion- focused journal to receive this prestigious three years of support. The award is a testament to the superb scholarship of our authors, the efforts of our talented team, and the dedication of our peer-reviewers and editorial board members. 

his year has brought other joys, including the launch of our very first Special Issue. Fashioning Resurgence explores Indigenous fashion on Turtle Island, and you can read the full issue here! The issue features two essays and five dialogues. It is the first in a series of co-edited Special Issues that will be coming out in the next few years. If you have an idea or proposal for a Special Issue, please reach out – we invite your collaboration! We will continue to publish our annual volumes and we are accepting and publishing your submissions on a rolling basis.

With the support of stable funding, we will also have the capacity to include the acceptance of articles in French, and continue to work towards the translation of submissions. Nous serons un journal bilingue/we will be a bilingual journal. Vive la mode dans deux langues/long live fashion in two languages! This Fall, we formed a core international Editorial Board and we are thrilled to be meeting regularly across time zones and political boundaries. A warm thank you to our core editorial board members: Nigel Lezama (Brock University), Hilary Davidson (Fashion Institute of Technology), Madison Moore (University of Southern California), Chanel Clarke (Te Rau Aroha Museum on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds), Rita de Andrade (Universidade Federal de Goiás) and Ying Gao (University of Quebec). There are so many exciting new ideas and dialogues to explore in the years to come.

In November, the ACORSO association invited Fashion Studies to present our work at a special Journal Research Day. We were in great company, and we presented with the talented editors of other dress and fashion journals, including Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, Fashion Theory, Apparences and Modes Pratiques. It was encouraging to see that our challenges and triumphs as editors are shared across the globe in different ways, and to start an exciting conversation that we hope to continue and to share with you, our readers.

Fashion Studies would not be possible without our incredible and dedicated team: Jaclyn Marcus, Managing Editor; Mia Yaguchi-Chow, Design Lead; and Deanna Armenti, Editorial Assistant. We are very grateful to the financial support of SSHRC, The Centre for Fashion and Systemic Change, The Creative School,  and Toronto Metropolitan University.

We hope you enjoy Volume 4! Happy Fashion Studies reading!

Dr. Ben Barry