Institute of Contemporary Arts

The Death of Taste

The Friday session of the Death of Taste has now sold out, but by popular demand, a ticket for the evening session of the Death of Taste conference, featuring Colin McDowell and Dame Vivienne Westwood is now available to purchase separately from the day conference.

 

The Death of Taste examines the work of making, styling and fashioning taste within the context of increasingly speeded-up fashion trends and the constant plundering of the recent past. Speakers range across the different intersections in the taste-making process: fashion designers, trend predictors, journalists, stylists, fashion theorists, editors and retouchers will discuss the ways in which they help create, develop and kill off tastes both old and new.

The symposium is organised by the London College of Fashion/University of the Arts London and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Friday 24 November 2006

Rewind

Nash Room 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Contemporary British fashion designers are currently looking to mid-eighties London as a point of reference. This session, chaired by Alistair O'Neill, raises a dialogue across two generations about the formulation of London fashion past and present, including Rachel Auburn, Stevie Stewart, Kim Jones, Shelley Fox and Boudicca.

Fashion CGI

Nash Room 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm

Antony Price will explore the relationship between fashion photography and Computer Generated Imagery by looking at exclusive work created by leading post-production retouchers, digital artists & photographers from the fashion and advertising industries such as The Shoemakers Elves, Antony Crossfield and Dan Moloney.

Fashion in Film Festival

Nash Room 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Curator Marketa Uhlirova is programming a very special screening of films relating to the symposium's theme. Expect surprise and delight in equal measure.

Reception

Brandon Room 6:00 pm - 6:45 pm

Keynote: The Death of Taste

Cinema 1 6:45 pm - 7:30 pm

Colin McDowell, senior fashion writer for The Sunday Times Style section and one of the most authoritative fashion commentators will give his view of fashion's contemporary malaise.

Dame Vivienne Westwood interviewed by Brenda Polan

Cinema 1 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

This is not the first time that Westwood has been interviewed by Polan at the ICA- the first interview took place in 1993. This interview will reflect on the changes that have taken place across this span, to fashion as a whole and to Westwood as a fashion designer without parallel.

Saturday 25 November 2006

Aesthetic Labour

Nash Room 1:00 pm - 2.00 pm

Fashion images have been inextricably linked to consumption, seen as visual evidence of branding strategies and consumer desire. This session, chaired by Jo Entwistle (Senior Research Fellow, London College of Fashion) focuses attention on the labour of image making behind and in front of the camera, and examines some of the material realities of fashion modelling and styling. Speakers include model Ashley Mears and Melissa Richardson (Take Two model agency).

The Fashion City

Nash Room 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

In an era of global spectacle, fashion has become one important means by which cities attempt to assert a unique, stylised identity. This session, chaired by Dr. Alison J Clarke (Chair, Design History & Theory, University of Applied Arts Vienna), will investigate the role of fashion week in selling the city, specifically how London Fashion Week has supported British fashion design and promoted London as a global fashion capital. Speakers include Professor Christopher Breward (Deputy Director of Research, Victoria & Albert Museum), Annette Worsley-Taylor (former Creative and Marketing consultant for London Fashion Week), and Anais Horn (Art Director of Viennese fashion magazine Wienerin).

Plenary: The Future of Fashion

Nash Room 3.30 pm - 4:30 pm

Roger Tredre (trend commentator and consultant to WGSN), Lee Lapthorne (Director of On/Off) and Susan Postlethwaite (Senior Lecturer in Fashion, Camberwell College of Arts) will reflect on the kinds of predictions raised by the fashion industry and those raised across this symposium.

Friday all day: £15/£12 Concs/£10 Members
Saturday all day: £10/£9 Concs/£8 Members

Date	Time	Venue	Book
Friday 24 November 2006	12:00 pm	Throughout the ICA
Saturday 25 November 2006	1:00 pm	Throughout the ICA	book