Essay Feedback

This is the feedback i was given about my essay

A potentially very interesting essay Alice. I think the central problem of fashion and display are very fruitful and, as you say, recent moves to take fashion history out of the museum is potentially interesting.


A few things: Derrida isn’t easy. There are lots of books however that will help you understand the idea of the parergon and its potential applications in display. I think the David Wills perspective is a useful one, but don’t neglect Fashion Theory journal in any literature search on the subject, the library does subscribe.


Slow down. There is potential here for a dissertation topic, but only if you slow down and show us what this looks like. Sometimes – as with Jerszy Seymour – you evoke some powerful images but never really follow through with thorough visual analysis. Showing us an image isn’t enough, we need to picture it in our own minds and use the language you’ve skilled us in order to make the argument all the more powerful.


For a dissertation, maybe:


Slow down – think about each of your themes: how to make a frame, what a frame does, outside of the frame etc as potential separate chapters.


Wills is ok, but you’re going to have to get your head around Derrida if it’s to move up to another level. A closer look at the book by Nicholas Royle in the library will help. John Berger’s Ways of Seeing will also articulate the frame and might help you put it in to a visual language.


I liked the essay and it’s an interesting topic. Unfortunately you almost try a bit too hard to say too many things in this essay and sometimes you move on too quickly.


If this was a stand-alone essay I’d recommend a provisional mark of 64. It’s potentially interesting and well thought-out, but I think you need to show us a bit more and focus on one/two key themes around ‘framing’ fashion.



I think from this feedback it has given me some potential ideas for my dissertation
I would quite like to carry on the subject for my dissertation, and i can see how it is a very large subject to cover for such a short essay.
I do feel that i found it hard to fit all i wanted to say into my essay, and found that I almost cut out some of the main points of the important topics that i spoke about in my essay.
To carry this on i feel i need to look at derrida in more depth, to better understand the frame.