This book is specifically devoted to qualitative research methods in fashion studies. It traces the history of fashion studies and provides readers with a guided introduction to the entire research process. It gives an overview of the key methodological approaches such as ethnography, semiology, and object-based research, and shows the student reader how "to do" research by combining theoretical and practical perspectives.

Using case studies, the author outlines the major issues and methodological strategies that researchers employ, and examines the range of approaches in the field. Fashion, the author demonstrates, can be treated as a material object, an abstract idea, a social phenomenon, a system, a cultural value, or an attitude among many other approaches.

This book is a practical guide for those without prior experience in fashion research and, as such, it offers an ideal first text for students conducting research for the first time.

Yuniya Kawamura is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York. She is the author of The Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion (Berg, 2004) and Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies (Berg, 2005).