Between 1974 and 1989, significant changes were taking place in the lives of Singaporean women and in their local fashion industry. These shifts were not only reflected in but actively shaped by the magazine Her World.
In Her World, Women and Fashion in Singapore, Nadya Wang uses dress as a lens through which to view fragments of the magazine over 15 years. Advocating for a new and decentred understanding of the evolution of the Singapore woman, Wang’s writing also traces the creation of a fashion industry that pivoted from seeking validation from global fashion cities to establishing itself as the lead of a Southeast Asian fashion community.
Visual analysis of archival materials is combined with oral history interviews to demonstrate how the women of Singapore engaged with local and global ideas, fashion and beauty commodities, and imagery of models and beauty queens in their self-fashioning. Challenging existing understandings of their agency, this book attests to the creativity and adaptability of Singapore women and Singapore fashion designers.
Introduction 1. Between Work and Home: Fashioning Singapore Women, 1974-1979 Duties at Home and at Work Self-Fashioning in Everyday Singapore Performing “Masculine” Jobs Successful Career Women in Domestic Spaces 2. Creative Agency: Creating the Singapore Fashion Identity, 1980-1987 A Collective Fashion Dream The Fashion Designers’ Creative Agency An Independent “Singaporeanness” 3. Mix and Match: Self-Fashioning Singapore Women, 1980-1988 Diffusion Lines Boutiques and Department Stores Shopping and Wearing Hybrid Looks 4. The Racial Politics of Advertising: Selling to Singapore’s Career Women, 1978-1985 Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder Make-Up and Covering Up 5. The Ideal Look of Singapore Women, 1983-1989 The New Ideal Figure Local Beauty Pageants Multiracial Models 6. Ageing Together: Her World, Singapore Women and the Fashion Industry, 1986-1989 The Relativity of Age Working Mother of the Year Dressing One’s Age The Maturing Fashion Industry Conclusion Bibliography Index
Nadya Wang is an independent art and fashion academic. In her professional practice, she is Founder and Managing Editor of Art & Market and Fashion & Market, spotlighting practices in the Southeast Asian art and fashion communities respectively. She is also Editor, Open Space and Reviews, at the International Journal of Fashion Studies. She holds a PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art. More at nadyawang.net.
Reviews for Her World, Women and Fashion in Singapore 1974-1989: Accidental Career Girl to Working Mother of the Year
Her World, Women and Fashion in Singapore 1974-1989 offers a vital, non-Eurocentric exploration of how fashion magazines, like Her World, have reflected and shaped evolving female and multicultural identities in Southeast Asia. Nadya Wang thoroughly showcases the multifaceted narratives of Singaporean women, the development of a Southeast Asian fashion industry, while also revealing the history and construction of diverse national identities. * Faith Cooper, Creator, Asian Fashion Archive, USA * Fashion as showcased in Singapore’s home-grown Her World magazine is the lens through which Nadya Wang examines the space women hold in Singapore in the years 1974-1989, the choice of dates reflecting the sometimes disruptive and changing role of women from homemakers and wives to working professionals. Wang unearths depth in the parallel worlds of fashion and womanhood and analyses the nuances of the changing role of women and fashion in Singapore as they sought validation abroad and at home. The language is intellectually analytical and, at the same time, engagingly informal and the author’s passion for the subject shines through. As a former journalist at Her World and a Singapore woman who lived through those times, it is such a pleasure for me to have my life and fashion choices defined as having such a significant a place in my country’s cultural evolution. * Violet Oon, chef; arts, culture and food critic; former journalist at Her World magazine, Singapore *
