Fashion Statements in a Site of Conflict

This article is an analysis of critical fashion practices in Israel/Palestine based on interviews conducted with two design teams: Israeli-Palestinian brand ADISH and Palestinian brand tRASHY. These two brands share a commitment to fashion design and fashion image-making as tools of community building: a project that goes hand in hand with a rethinking of systems of production and labor. The aesthetic and political dimension of their practices, however, are inevitably marked by the different experiences and positionalities (as Israelis or Palestinians) of their respective founders. I situate their creative practices in the wake of the post-Oslo Accords and suggest that such practices should be understood as part of a broader creative solidarity movement that contests nationalism, oppression, and separation. The affective labor involved in the development of community-building design projects, the cooperative creative process, and the generation of capital used to support local female workers as well as refugee and/or LGBTQ populations in Palestine are the constituents of a larger grassroots mobilization aimed at fostering change. This article contributes to ongoing scholarly work on art practices of world-making and explores how fashion could provide a stage for rethinking both the aesthetic and the political in a contested sociopolitical landscape.