The Institute for Modern Dress

Research • Education • Publishing

Latest Research Series

“Modern Dress Behavior Series”

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Modern Dress Behavior Series (2025)
How Clothing Quietly Controls Behavior
How Clothing Quietly Controls Behavior
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Individual Publications

Standalone insights into dress, power, and identity

“The Institute for Modern Dress examines the relationship between clothing, culture, and identity. Through research, documentation, and dialogue, we study how garments reflect human behavior, design, and history, bridging the gap between material and meaning.”

About the Institute

The Institute for Modern Dress studies how clothing reflects culture, identity, and behavior.

Our work bridges fashion and research—documenting the design systems, materials, and rituals that define modern dress.

Through observation and publication, we seek to understand not just what people wear, but why.

A white T-shirt with bold black text reading "ALIVE NOT THREAD LIFE IS THE UNIFORM" hangs in front of a whiteboard. The whiteboard contains handwritten notes and blue sticky notes related to fashion and fabric topics.

(Photo Taken By Hank Powell, 2025)

  • “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, it has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”

    — Coco Chanel

  • “Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.”

    — Marc Jacobs

  • “We study creation itself, not to change what people wear, but to understand why they do.”

    — Connor Carmichael

  • “Clothing doesn’t lie. It shows everything about the person who wears it.”

    — Yohji Yamamoto