ADH International Conference 2023

Joe Hancock – Conference Convenor

Joseph “Joe” Henry Hancock, II is an international authority in fashion branding as a form of storytelling. He is known internationally for his scholarship on cargo pants.  He started in academia after 20 years in the retailing industry, having been a leader for such legendary companies as The Gap, L. Brands, and Target Corporation. His work has included the ideologies of diversity, equity, and inclusion since the writing of his master’s thesis in 1997. Social justice is second nature to him as the only gay child of a single parent who was victimized by the bullying of the 1970s and 1980s. He has consistently advocated for those marginalized and social outcasts. For the past 19 years, he has been his mother’s in-home provider and caregiver, who suffered from a stroke in 2004. During his tenure at Drexel University, Dr. Hancock has conducted over five international conferences and spearheaded programming for the Two-Spirit communities, GLBTQIA communities, Black communities, Asian communities, and others. His most recent workshops includes Drag Culture and its impact on material and consumer cultural identities. 

He has written the books Brand/Story: Ralph, Vera, Johnny, Billy and Other Adventures in Fashion Branding (2009), Brand/Story: Explorations and Cases in Fashion Branding (2016, both through Fairchild) and edited the books Fashion in Popular Culture: Literature, Media & Contemporary Studies (2013), Global Fashion Brands: Style, Luxury & History (2014), Cotton: Companies, Fashion & The Fabric of Our Lives (2016), and Transglobal Fashion Narratives: Clothing Communication, Style Statements, and Brand Storytelling (2018) all with Intellect Books UK. In 2019, he co-edited the collection The Fashion Business Reader (2019, Bloomsbury); the first comprehensive reader reinforced the impact of the arts and humanities in understanding the business side of fashion. Dr. Hancock’s works on branding and storytelling have appeared in such publications as The Brand Challenge, edited by Kartikeya Kompella (Kogan Page 2016), and Strategic Design Thinking, edited by Natalie Nixon (Bloomsbury, 2015) and The Luxury Economy and Intellectual Property: Critical Reflections edited by Haochen Sun, Barton Beebe, and Madhavi Sunder (Oxford Press, 2015). For the past 11 years, Dr. Hancock has been the Principal Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Fashion, Style, and Popular Culture (Intellect Publishers). He is working on a photographic monograph discussing Jeans (2023) and a third edition of his first book, soon to be called Fashion Branding Stories (2022), both with Bloomsbury. 

In leadership, he is the former Executive Director for Events for the Popular Culture/American Culture Associations (PCA/ACA, 2010-2015) and was their 2009 recipient of the Felicia F. Campbell Award for Area Chairs in addition to being given two PCA/ACA President Awards in 2013 and 2018. He was awarded Drexel University’s Steinbright Cooperative Career Center’s Faculty of the Year in 2008. In 2011 he received the 2011 Stanley J. Gwiazda Professorship Award from the Goodwin College of Professional Studies for his ability to teach and engage adult students. He was awarded the 2018-2019 Honors College Faculty of the Year and was their Faculty Fellow that same year! Dr. Hancock has received over $180,000 in grants, fellowships, awards, and corporate gifts for Drexel University. He has been the invited speaker, lectured, and taught courses at Denison University, Thomas Jefferson University, Sacred Heart University, Albright College, Cornell University, University of Delaware, Oregon State University, The Ohio State University, Ohio University, the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, Stockholm University Sweden, and London College of Fashion. 

Fashion and Revolution in the Philippines: The Story of the Pineapple Shirt and Butterfly Sleeved Gown

If there is anything in global popular culture that harkens to the Philippines, it is former first lady and now first mother Imelda Marcos’ supposed astronomical pairs of shoes and her iconic butterfly sleeved ball gowns that she wore even in the stark hot sunlight. Second to the butterfly sleeved dress is the see through embroidered pineapple silk fabric mostly used in shirts called the Barong Filipino. This talk explores the history of these iconic outfits and how they are rooted in the Filipino experience with western empire and colonialism, centering how fashion transcends personal expression into acts of political empowerment and liberation.

Biography
Francis Tanglao Aguas is a dramatist, producer, director, choreographer, performer and professor. He is the inaugural Associate Dean of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Anti-Racism at Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design where he is Professor of Film Studies. A graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television where he received his BA magna cum laude and MFA Summa Cum Laude, he is the winner of the Palanca Award, the Philippines’ national prize in literature.

Beyond the Binary: A Journey to Self-Love and Acceptance

Join Tony Ferraiolo, as he takes you on his personal journey beyond the binary that led him to self-love and acceptance. Ferraiolo will share with his audience how he learned to accept himself and how working with transgender and non-binary youth helped him heal his own heart, and how fashion had a lot of impact on his social transition and self-esteem. Tony ends this talk by guiding his audience through a love and kindness meditation.

Biography
Tony Ferraiolo is known as a compassionate and empowering Life Coach and a motivating and thought-provoking trainer. Since 2005 Tony has provided training to over 75,000 people around the country. Tony has dedicated himself to both promoting competent and respectful health care for the transgender community, by educating providers, and advocating on behalf of patients. Also, training educators on providing a safe and respectful space for transgender children in a school environment. He encompasses a unique ability to make light of a sometimes-challenging situation which puts his audience at ease to fully participate in his training.

Tony is the subject of the award-winning documentary “A Self-Made Man” and the Author of the book series “Artistic Expressions of Transgender Youth”. He also hosted the A&E miniseries Transitioning, where he coached three transgender young adults through social transition.

Queer Style Workshop

The importance of elements of styling, mannerisms and clothing cannot be underestimated in queer and trans cultures. Dress practices have played an important role in queer cultures since the beginning of the nineteenth century with visual codes of appearance used to signify sexuality, sexual preference, and membership to a queer community. This workshop engages with key elements of queer dress styles by examining the role that dress plays in producing narratives of queer subjectivities and representation. Beginning with the dandy and the mannish lesbian, the historical formation of queer subjectivities in Western modernity and their association with a sartorial style has been framed around lesbian butch-femme identities and gay effeminate and masculine-presenting mannerisms and appearance.  This workshop examines queer fashion is a powerful signifier of sexual identity and self-expression that affirms queer and gender non-conforming identities. We explore how these material expressions have changed over time beginning in the nineteenth century to the millennium with the adoption of gender non-conforming styles.

Biography
Dr Vicki Karaminas is Professor of Fashion, Gender and Sexualities at the College of Creative Arts, Massey University New Zealand where she directs the Doctoral Studies program for the School of Design.

No Biting Allowed: How Hip-Hop Culture Mastered the Art of Sneaker Customization.

This workshop explores the means and methods by which Hip-Hop culture influenced sneaker customization (and by default apparel too) from the 70s up to current times. This workshop puts an emphasis on the daily motivation to be different from everyone else and showcases how sneakers were used to do that.

Biography
Sean Williams is a born and raised Brooklynite who fell in love with sneakers at the age of 13. By age15, with a few years of work experience under his belt he began buying sneakers with his own money. Sean has owned thousands of pairs of sneake rs over the years his love of sneakers has transformed over the years in some very noteworthy ways. In 2007, OSD (Obsessive Sneaker Disorder) was founded by longtime friend Dee Wells and Sean was asked to become a part of the historical movement. As a business partner in OSD, LLC Sean’s love of sneakers has transformed into a mission for the company that has 3 words “Appreciate, Educate, Elevate”.

These days, those 3 words are a part of everything Sean does regarding the world of sneakers. He has accepted the personal mission of making sure that the younger generations know the potential that exists for them in the athletic footwear business as not only consumers, but as the future professionals in the industry. Sean has been featured in various noteworthy TV shows, publications, and web sites such as NBC’s “The Today Show”, Maxim magazine, Slate.com, and Sneaker Freaker just to name a few. In 2012, Sean and his partner Dee made the list of “50 Most Influential People in Sneakers Right Now” published by Complex magazine.

In 2018, Sean became a Rankin Scholar at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. The first such honor ever bestowed upon someone in sneaker culture. In 2019, Sean made history as Co-curator of the first Hip-Hop apparel and sneaker exhibition at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. In 88 days of residency the exhibition amassed foot traffic and exposure to 9.8 million people. In 2020, Business Insider added Sean to the “Power List: 28 Most Outstanding People of Color Transforming the Sneaker Industry.”