Date: Feb 14, 2007

THE HOFSTRA CULTURAL CENTER PRESENTS DEFINING CULTURE THROUGH DRESS: INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES

April 19-21, 2007; Featuring Some of the Country’s Leading Fashion Experts, Analysts and Trendsetters; Fashion Shows

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY ... An editor of Vogue, the Curator-in-Charge of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; one of the nation's leading bridal retailers and a host of television's Full Frontal Fashion are among the participants in the Hofstra University conference Defining Culture Through Dress: Individual and Collective Identities.

Fashion's impact on culture and society will be the focus of this April 19, 20 and 21 interdisciplinary event. There will be in-depth discussion of fashion in literature, religion, the mass media, ethnic identity and how fashion influences self-image. Participating experts and scholars hail from the fields of sociology, psychology, art, history, anthropology, communication, journalism and business, as well as fashion experts.

Highlights include:

Thursday, April 19:

Opening keynote address by Harold Koda, Curator-in-Charge, Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Performance of an original show Fashion Statements!, conceived of and directed by Bob Spiotto, Hofstra's artistic director of community arts programs.

Panels on "Men and Women of the Cloth"; "Middle Eastern and African Identities"; "Communicating Fashion"; "Fashion and a Sustainable Environment" with eco-fashion model and activist Summer Rayne Oakes; "Latin American Identities"; "Fashion Dynamics and Brazilian Identity"; "Fashion and Image" with David Wolfe, a creative director with Doneger Creative Services (Doneger is the leading source of global market trends and merchandising strategies to the retail and fashion industry); and "The Arts and Literature."

Friday, April 20:

Panel on "The Influence of Movies on Fashion" featuring Marlaine Glicksman of Vogue magazine and Deborah Landis of the Costume Designers Guild

Panel on HipHop fashion and a fashion show presented by Rocawear

Cocktail party at the Hofstra Museum to celebrate the opening of the exhibition What We Wear

Banquet featuring address by James Aguiar, co-host of Full Frontal Fashion

Other panels include "Fashion Uniforms and Uniformity"; "European Women: Twentieth Century Fashion Statements"; "Asian Identities"; and "The Gender? of Fashion."

Saturday, April 21:

A fashion show of Ladies' Church Hats, modeled by The Women's Ministry of Union Baptist Church in Hempstead, NY

Bridal fashion show, sponsored by David's Bridal

Panels include "The Rich and Famous: Upperclass European Women's Fashions" with Isabella Campagnol Fabretti, curator of the Rubelli Textile Collection in Venice, Italy; "Dress as Spatial Entities"; and "Fashion Identities: American Experiences."

For a complete conference itinerary, for conference registration and fees and for other information visit www.hofstra.edu/Culture or call the Hofstra Cultural Center at (516) 463-5669.

Related Link: Cultural Center