Keyword – folk

Keszeg, Anna:

Trash, Post-Soviet Aesthetics, Craftsmanship

Visual Discourses of Banal Eastern Europeanism in Contemporary Global Fashion

This paper analyses the labels of global visual culture in general, and in the fashion industry in particular, with regard to Eastern Europe. It is to develop a framework of criteria that exposes techniques of colonisation and self-colonisation. It explores five visual stylistic layers, including trash, folk motifs, post-Soviet aesthetics, brutalism, and DIY culture. These categories have been defined and refined using generative artificial intelligence. Each phenomenon is examined through a representative case study. It also addresses the ‘New East’ label, which reflects on these labelling practices as a kind of forceful concept. The analysis seeks to uncover the dynamics between banal Eastern Europeanism and self-colonisation.

Keywords: Eastern Europeanism, folk, self-colonisation, trash, visual styles