Abstract

Fashion – and the luxury sector in particular - is a paradigmatic object for studying the cultural, social, and political dimensions of global capitalism. A powerful industry in today's economy, visually omnipresent and central to consumers' desires, fashion is nonetheless based on an internationally structured organization of labor, and of women's labor more specifically. The fashion industry is a "precious field" to analyze how capitalism articulates and mobilizes old and new forms of work and how it shapes desirable imaginaries.

About the Speaker

Giulia Mensitieri is an anthropologist who studies the transformations of capitalism from the vantage point of work, the political power of imaginaries, exploitation, and new forms of alienation. For the past decade, her field of investigation has been luxury fashion. She is the author of the book "The most beautiful Job in the World: Lifting the veil on the fashion industry” and an international public figure on issues related to exploitation and global inequalities in cultural and creative industries.