“Un-Fashioning Peruvian Stereotypes: Exploring Hidden Multifaceted Identities in Fashion Exhibitions”
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Fashion Studies. Parsons Paris 2020.
This thesis examines the way in which museums construct discourses about ‘Peruvian culture’ through the display of dress and fashion in the twenty-first century. The questions that guide this research are: How do museums construct discourses about cultures that are usually seen as the ‘Other’? And how do the exhibitions analyzed used dress and images of dress to create an idea of Peru within the popular imagination?
Focusing on two exhibitions — "Weavers of the Clouds: Textile Arts of Peru” at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, England and “Alta Moda” at the Mario Testino Museum in Lima, Peru — this thesis analyzes the power of museum institutions in creating prevalent discourses in the popular imagination. In addition, this work explores the stories that are left untold when museums rely on essentialist representations of cultures.