During the semester this course will examine fashion as a form of communication, as a way to use clothes to communicate points of views and ideas in a larger social context. This means that we will look not only at the use of fashion and clothing today, but its historical development and its importance in establishing social hierarchy, gender roles, class and political expression past as well as present. The final goal of the course is a research paper, in which the students develop a topic using both primary and secondary sources to interpret,  analyze and critically assess their given subject within a specific historical context, ending the semester as a blossoming expert in their chosen subject matter.