MARIA PAPADIMITRIOU: ΦIRMA GYPSY GLOBALES

The dress of the Gypsies (Roma) can be the vehicle for an anthropological and sociological investigation of a way of life whose most prominent characteristic is movement and non-conformity to a dominant order.

The Gypsy people have long been scattered throughout Europe and have to this day preserved their autonomy, living in closed nomadic groups that rely on a heightened sense of tradition in matters of identity, dress, physicality, sexuality, material culture, family and relations between genders.

The activities of ΦIRMA GYPSY GLOBALES help reconstruct the history and genealogy of a Gypsy fashion house. The brand designs and manufactures lines of accessories, apparel, and objects which are represented alongside actual objects used by the Gypsies in their attire as symbols of the rituals that inform the tribe’s laws and relations, setting behavior patterns and determining cultural and aesthetic representations of the body.

ΦIRMA GYPSY GLOBALES is a comment on the notions of appropriation, displacement, inauthenticity, copying, mimesis, and variation. It also proposes an interpretation of the constant transformation of symbols and life practices, alongside such contemporary trends as reusing and recycling.

This special edition archives all relevant anthropological and historical content and is interspersed with instances of artistic representation.

Edited by:

Maria Papadimitriou

Year of publication:

2014

ISBN:

978-618-5039-11-0

English - Greek / Paperback / 24 x 30 cm / 272 pages