This course provides students with the theoretical tools and historical knowledge for analysing and understanding fashion systems, from social, geographical and political perspectives. We begin by examining the global context in which the fashion system operates, looking at the international division of labour in late capitalism and the way this is linked to practices of material and symbolic production. Material production refers to the production of textiles and clothing, from field to factory, whilst symbolic production is connected to practices of meaning-making. From there we move on to problematize individual nations as ‘imagined communities’, also looking at fashion diffusion and the creation of fashion cities, both ‘first tier’ and ‘second tier’. These are placed in historical context by studying hierarchies of power, such as those underpinned by colonialism, globalisation and neoliberalism. Students will look at the beneficiaries of such systems as well as the implications they hold for the construction of identity in local contexts. A number of critical tools and concepts are introduced to help make sense of fashion and identity in the twenty-first century, drawing from post-colonial theory. The course concludes by looking at the impact of the fashion system on both people and planet and the complexities and contradictions of ‘sustainable’ approaches to fashion. True to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of Fashion Studies, this course will draw on debates in Cultural Studies, Sociology, Media Studies, Cultural Geography, Design History and Post-colonial Theory.