Salvation Armany: gay sensibility between high fashion and everyday dressing practices

Abstract

The paper considers the link between gay people and the fashion world, their role and and relationship to clothing in different fashion registries, as pointed out by Jennifer Craik, in high and in everyday fashion. Based on secondary literature the paper will outline current problematizations of the relationship between gays and high fashion, as well as their importance for the history of high, elite, designer fashion. In the second part of the paper, based on empirical research on the behavior of gay people in Belgrade fashion-wise, the discourses and practices of everyday fashion within the gay population of the capital of Serbia are presented, with a focus on three aspects of dressing practices: consumption of fashionable clothing and accessories with a focus on shopping, evaluation and hierarchization of branded clothing and the skill of combining them which respondents believe represents the key to their unique styles.