• Duration

    6 weeks

  • Session Dates

    October 12–November 16, 2025

  • Meeting Days & Times

    Sundays, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm ET

  • Format

    Online, Live

    Fashion from the Periphery

    This 6-week course traces the intrinsic relationship between fashion and colonialism across the last 500 years. Taking a comparative/global approach, it investigates how the clothed body was a key site for the construction of identities and the inscription of difference as the European (and later North American) empires originated and expanded.

    Image caption: Vicente Albán (Ecuador, active 1769-1796), “Noble Woman with Her Black Slave (Señora principal con su negra esclava),” c. 1783. Oil on canvas, 81.3 × 106 cm. LACMA, Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2014.89.1).

    What You'll Gain:

    Students will come away with a deeper understanding of how dress has been a strategic tool for both the construction of empires and resistance against colonialism around the world.

    • A deeper understanding of the entangled histories of fashion and colonialism, beginning in the fifteenth century to the present day
    • Developed fluency in critical thinking that problematizes hegemonic narratives, histories, theories, and concepts of fashion stemming from the history of colonization and imperialism
    • Developed familiarity with the use of fashion as a tool for communication, subjection, resistance, and negotiation throughout human history
    • An acute ability to recognize the legacies of colonialism in contemporary fashion, including imagery, narratives, design practices, and production systems

    Modules

    This course involves weekly assigned readings/media, discussions, and occasional activities.

    • 1. Redefining fashion from the periphery
      2. Early encounters: Fabricating the “Other”
      3. Expanding empires: Fashion at the frontier
      4. Beyond exploration: From enterprise to colonial control
      5. Modern empires: The global fashion system
      6. Legacies of colonialism: Decolonizing fashion

    Meet your Instructor

    Laura Beltrán-Rubio, PhD

    About
    Dr. Laura Beltrán-Rubio is an international speaker, award-winning researcher, writer, curator, and creative consultant. She received her Ph.D. from William & Mary (Williamsburg, VA) and an M.A. in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design (New York). With more than a decade working in different spaces within the art and design world, Dr. Beltrán-Rubio’s mission is to expand the narratives of art and design to create more diverse, equitable, and socially just societies.

    Read her full bio.
    Created with