DECADOCS is a pioneering research and training programme enabled by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN) aimed at reinterpreting the concept of decadence. Traditionally associated with decline, decadence will be explored through new perspectives, focusing on sustainability, transnationalism, and sensoriality. The programme offers tailored intersectoral training in collaboration with museums, archives, galleries, and other partners, reinforcing its scientific and social impact.
‘The “New Sublime”: A Reappraisal of Fashion’s Decay in the Era of Ecological Crisis’
🇵🇹 & 🇮🇹
Lusofona University and IUAV
‘The “New Sublime”: A Reappraisal of Fashion’s Decay in the Era of Ecological Crisis’ intends to understand contemporary processes of decaying garments as a legacy of 19th-century decadent fashion. The process of decaying garments or textiles remains regretfully neglected in the context of decadent fashion, despite its potential to bear on sustainable processes. The project renegotiates the relationship between material embodiments of decadence and sustainability, with the aim to contribute to the cultural and material history of fashion through the analysis of textile conservation or damage on one hand, and, on the other hand, to reshape the relationships between sustainability and the fashion industry. It also aims to involve a wider audience through a site-specific installation at Fondazione Pistoletto. The project involves archival research, analysis of archival materials, art and design practices, and fashion curation, as well as visits to fashion industries, and short stays to research centres and fashion museums in Portugal, and Italy.
Doctoral candidates will receive comprehensive mentoring and training. In addition to local supervision and support, the successful candidates will receive benefit from an extensive programme of doctoral training and access to an interdisciplinary network of scholars and researchers exploring different aspects of decadence from the nineteenth century to the present.
Specific tasks include
- Researching fashion and textile archives
- Carrying our objects-based analysis of archival material
- Designing fashion by applying decay processes and methodologies
- Co-curating an installation/exhibition in the context of art centres and/or museums.
Supervisors
DECADOCS 