Roles of artefacts in fashion research: Arts-Informed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Fashion is a complex of concepts which encompasses many often elusive, interconnected and overlapping meanings, thus, it is difficult to unequivocally define it. However, stemming from the typology of definitions proposed by Crane [1] based on how fashion is manifested within contemporary western culture, it can be articulated that, irrespective of the definition, clothing is a primary way of fashion’s manifestation. In my practice-based doctoral investigation into older men’s experiences of fashion [2], I built on this assumption, by adopting clothing as a key analytical term and conceptual lens to my creative interpretations. This, had important implications for the various roles of artefacts in this research process, including different objects belonging to the study participants (recorded and documented via methods of in-depth interviews and personal inventories), and the artefacts I produced as a creative practitioner in response to the empirical material I gathered.
In this paper, I discuss the threefold role of the artefacts in a fashion research process, in relation to the corresponding threefold role of interpretation and the hermeneutic circle model I developed for my study. I argue that, it was through my embodied interactions with various objects that were utilized as a) stimuli for conversation and dialogue; b) a ‘canvas’ for my practical experimentations and creative interpretations; and, c) a medium for knowledge dissemination, that I co-constructed new experiential understandings and offered fresh perspectives of the phenomenon under study.