Visual Representations of Place: The Id Fashion Show and the "Dunedin Look"

Abstract

From the Olympic Games to the local community street party, festivals and events are inherently visual in nature. Despite this, there is limited research that interrogates this at any scale of event and especially as it relates to notions of place. Many events are used to create and/or maintain a destination image; they are said to "represent" place and reflect place culture. Fashion events are unequivocally a spectacle, and many have strong links with destination branding (e. g., Paris Fashion Week); in these instances, fashion has helped to shape the image of the destination. Fashion is rooted in a sense of local place identity, and as such, fashion events can facilitate the representation of place to attendees and the media audience alike, whether inadvertently or deliberately. This article examines visual and written representations of place through a case study of the iD Fashion Show held annually in Dunedin, New Zealand. An inductive thematic analysis was carried out on the visual imagery and accompanying text in the show's promotional material (such as marketing material and official show programs) and other media discourse since its inception in 2000 until 2017, focusing on the show's contribution to constructions and representations of a distinctive "Dunedin look." The findings demonstrate a strong association between place and fashion and highlight the usefulness of a visual approach in identifying tensions in the written and visual discourses around representations of place.