12 March 2004

Dedicated followers of fashion

Kate is available for interview. Call Jenny Marra on 01382 344910. Photo opportunity 2pm, Saturday 13 March, DCA.

How can fashion be superfluous when governments are considering legislation on it? Talking through the significance of the French government's impending laws on headscarves and how women are prisoners to fashion is Kate Gleeson, a fashion psychologist speaking at Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre tomorrow (Saturday 13 March).

Kate will say that young women of 14, 15 and 16 believe that they have to tread a fine line between wanting to look feminine and sacrificing their reputations as "tarts" and that there is an acute recognition among teenagers that there is "appropriate" dress.

Some of us would like to be as fashionable as Sarah Jessica Parker but would we not be laughed at walking down Dundee or Dunfermline High Street in pink velour hotpants and fluffy leg warmers? Kate will talk about the dilemmas of fashion and how most of us are restricted much more than we realise to what is safe and acceptable.

Kate Gleeson from the University of the West of England will deliver her talk "The Tyranny of Fashion" at Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre in Dundee tomorrow (Saturday 13 March) at 2pm. The event is sponsored by the University of Dundee. All welcome.

By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk