The fashion industry is a complex and ramified system that produces desirable images, imaginaries and commodities. Despite the high visibility of fashion products, a large part of the work that makes them – and the creative one in particular – remains unknown. What kind of workers produce fashion? What are the professions that animate this world? Who among these workers is visible in the media representations of the fashion work and who is not? What are the internal hierarchies and structures of power? How value and money are distributed? What skills do workers need to find their place in the creative work of fashion? The research exhibition showOFF explores the different forms of labour, the different professions and the different values involved in fashion image-making. Starting from a contemporary French women’s magazine editorial, the students of the MA in Fashion Studies at The New School Parsons Paris actively collected interviews of the actors involved in the making of the shooting. In the exhibition, these fragments of labour are then contextualized and developed into larger issues of creative work in the fashion industry. showOFF points out issues connected to creative capital, hierarchy, value, and network in order to deconstruct and reveal the mythologization of labour within the fashion system. In occasion of the exhibition vernissage, there will be a roundtable talk with photographer Joan Braun, stylist Teddy Czopp & creative director Karim Zehouane, moderated by Dr Giulia Mensitieri.

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