Portrait © Caroline Heider

Dr. Monica Titton is a sociologist, fashion theorist and culture critic.

She currently works as a Senior Scientist at Modeklasse, the Fashion Department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her work develops a critical, sociological perspective at the intersections of fashion, politics, art, and identity. Her research is guided by an effort to expand and develop theoretical frameworks for critical analyses of fashion, and is informed by the traditions of cultural studies, critical theory, feminism and postcolonial theory.

Concerns with postcolonial inquiry in fashion theory, feminist activism and corporeality have become central to her most recent research. In addition to her scholarly work, she regularly writes about fashion, art, and culture for newspapers, magazines, museums, and cultural institutions.

Her most recent publication is the volume “Fashion Knowledge - Theories, Methods, Practices and Politics” (co-edited with Elke Gaugele, Intellect Publishers 2022). Other recent publications include “Fashion and Postcolonial Critique” (co-edited with Elke Gaugele, Sternberg Press 2019) and “Afterthought: Fashion, Feminism and Radical Protest” in the special issue “Fashion as Politics: Dressing Dissent” of Fashion Theory co-edited with Elke Gaugele (vol. 23, issue 6, 2019). She serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Fashion Studies, Critical Studies of Fashion & Beauty, and the Bloomsbury Fashion Central Advisory Board.
In March 2023, Monica was Visiting Professor in the MA program Fashion Studies at the Department of History, Anthropology, Religion & Arts of La Sapienza Università di Roma (Rome, Italy).

Monica received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Vienna (2015). Previously she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Austrian Center for Fashion Research at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Prior to that, she worked as an associate lecturer and researcher at universities in Austria (University of Vienna, University of Art and Design Linz, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) and in Great Britain (London College of Fashion, University of Winchester), where she taught courses on the sociology of art, culture and society in poststructuralism and postmodern theory, the sociology of fashion, styles and identity, fashion theory, and research methods.

She currently teaches courses on the cultural history of fashion in the 20th and 21st centuries, cultural studies and research strategies for fashion design students at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.