For Sociology: Alex Hoppe

Why does one pair of jeans feel right, while another looks hopelessly out of date? And how much of our personal fashion taste is shaped before we even enter a shop?

In this episode of For Sociology, host Kevin Caners speaks with sociologist and Kohli Fellow Alex Hoppe about the people, processes and decisions behind the clothes we wear. Drawing on eleven months of fieldwork inside clothing factories in India, Alex explains how suppliers are taking on design work long associated with Western fashion capitals.

Alex begins by recalling the socks he needed to fit in at school, which first sparked his interest in fashion and belonging, and how a month in Nicaragua at sixteen set him on the path to sociology.

The conversation then turns to how suppliers help trends gather momentum, why fashion remains so difficult to predict, and what changing tastes in everything from clothes to baby names reveal about social life. Alex also reflects on his two years as a Kohli Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the slow work of turning field observations into a book.

For Sociology is a podcast from the Kohli Foundation. Learn more at kohlifoundation.eu.

00:00 Introducing Alex Hoppe

02:27 Cool socks and fitting in

04:28 A turning point in Nicaragua

08:14 Why study fashion?

11:53 What is fashion?

15:26 When suppliers become designers

19:48 Inside India’s clothing factories

23:03 Turning fieldwork into a book

28:26 Who shapes what we wear?

30:11 Why trends are hard to predict

33:13 How designers spot trends

35:38 Quick-fire questions

41:41 The book and what comes next

45:46 Closing and credits