My name is Sonia-Doris Andras and I am currenty a PhD student (confirmed in April 2014) at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. I have been largely self-funded until now (with a number of smaller grants and funding for travel, software and conferences) and I have reached a point where I should start writing on my thesis, but my funds have largely run out. At this point, if I want to complete my degree and deliver a proper, if not distinguished thesis, I need to devote my time and energy to the writing part of my work.
Because of my circumstances and the nature of my research, I cannot hold even a normal part-time job that requires a constant stay in one location. I need to travel back and forth from Romania to the UK and hold extensive research trips, either with sensitive materials I own and cannot be transported back and forth and constant visits to Bucharest libraries and institutions.
My research deals with women’s fashion in interwar Bucharest as a key to identifying the social, political and economic inner-workings of interwar Romanian society as part of an endeavour to make a significant contribution to knowledge in a field that has little representation on the international academic scene.
I will use the money for: tuition fees, accommodation fees (rent, council tax, bills, etc.), living expenses, and transportation (commuting, flights, etc.). If the funding will be enough I may also use it for conferences, research trips and other expenses (unexpected expenses related in any way to my research and livelihood while I am a PhD candidate in London.
Here is also some more information about my past, present and future research:
Past Research
A passion for history, especially that of civilization and culture.
A long-time interest in dystopia, propaganda and Communist and Post-Communist dissident literature, especially related to the manipulation of language.
An affinity for illustrated periodicals as a perfect key in decoding the unwritten and forgotten mechanisms of past societies.
Current Research
My project explores the fashion of the Romanian capital, Bucharest, during the Hohenzollern monarchy between the two World Wars (1919-1939). I chose this time frame because it was an era of significant economic, social and cultural changes and a major progress towards a modern state, particularly obvious in architecture, the arts and fashion.
Key Research Questions
What was the connection between fashion, gender and social structure?
How different cultural and historic sartorial references, from traditional Ottoman to the latest Western trends, influenced Bucharest fashion during that period?
Did fashion help to shape the Romanian society in the period 1919-1939? How?
Aim: exploring the main characteristics and mechanisms of Bucharest’s society as reflected in the mainstream women’s fashion in the interwar period
Objectives
Gathering original material that has been little used or left out of relevant research.
Building a flexible research model in which visual and textual representations are synthesised with women’s fashion.
Studying fashion in interwar Bucharest as a phenomenon intrinsically connected with the city’s historical, social, political and economic background.
Establishing a new research topic that is relevant to both Western and Romanian academics in the field of Fashion Studies (as a part of Cultural Studies, with an accent on Representation and Gender Studies) and producing an original work in this field.
Future Research
I plan to continue researching the history of Romanian fashion and its cultural, social, political, economic implications on the contemporary and present Romanian society, to the extent of my possibilities and availability of primary sources.
If you wish to lend me a helping hand, please do so here.
This is from my PhD Funding campaign on GoGetFunding.
