- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Fashion, Style & Popular Culture
- Issue Home
Fashion, Style & Popular Culture - Current Issue
Marginalized Identities and ADH Abstracts, Mar 2024
- Editorial
-
-
-
Editorial
More LessWe live in a time of celebrating differences and want diversity. Diversity of skin tones, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, sexualities, genders, pronouns, ages, fashions and styles, but I find that no one wants to celebrate differences in ideas or ways of expression. We want to silence people and assimilate ideas. I am not about silence nor is this publication. For ten volumes, we have celebrated diversity and various tones in papers. We do not believe in restricting how our authors write, speak and tell their fashion and style truthfully. Fashion, Style & Popular Culture (FSPC) celebrates diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging of scholars and their works.
-
-
- Introduction
-
-
-
Challenging the fashion academy: Intersectional perspectives on justice in the evolving fashion system
Authors: Kelly L. Reddy-Best and Dyese L. MatthewsThis Special Issue of the journal focuses on the intricate relationship between justice and the fashion system, presenting a collection of groundbreaking research articles and reviews. The aim is to highlight the importance of intersectional and advocacy-based research in fashion studies, with a focus on historically marginalized identities. The articles employ diverse research methods, including literature reviews, material culture analysis, interviews and historical investigations. The articles cover a range of topics that examine justice within the fashion industry. One article critically analyses scholarship on Black women and fashion, highlighting the dominance of research centred on resistance, oppression and Eurocentric beauty standards. Another article explores the representation and experiences of Muslim women in modest fashion brands, examining the intersection of oppression, agency and capitalist practices. Additionally, the issue includes articles centred on fatness and fashion, discussing transgressive dress on YouTube, resistance against weight stigma on Instagram, and the historical development of sizing systems for fat bodies. Two reviews featured in the Special Issue provide insights into the relationship between fashion and intersectional feminism in American society, as well as the historical significance of Bomba attire in Puerto Rico. Overall, this collection of articles and reviews offers a comprehensive exploration of fashion studies through the lens of historically marginalized identities, shedding light on the industry’s potential to challenge discrimination and promote inclusivity. The issue calls for continued engagement with intersectional and advocacy-based research to drive the growth and evolution of the discipline, ultimately working towards a more equitable and inclusive fashion industry.
-
-
- Articles
-
-
-
Beyond Afros and activism: Analysis of Black and African American women and fashion, style, dress and identity in fashion studies literature
Authors: Cydni Meredith Robertson, Caroline Kopot and Jaime L. MestresThere is much scholarship on dress and identity and the social, psychological and cultural aspects of dress within the textile and apparel discipline. While there is certainly much literature on dress, identity, fashion and the self, we sought to examine how Black women are centred in this area of research. To achieve our goal, we engaged in a systematic literature review to critically analyse how Black women’s dress and identity are explored in fashion studies scholarship, which involved searching for recurring themes and then making suggestions for future research to fill in gaps regarding Black women’s dress and identity expression. To narrow the scope of this research, we focused on two named theoretical perspectives: Black feminist thought and Africana womanism. After analysis of the publications, we identified two major themes: research centring resistance, oppression and Eurocentric beauty standards and holistic representations of Black women. Overall, our findings highlight that both Black feminist thought and Africana womanism theories could benefit from more expansive utilization within fashion studies research. Both frameworks are lightly referenced, especially Africana womanism, and, because of its rarity, could contribute newer and more critical knowledge to the discipline. There is so much more to explore about Black women’s dress outside of these concepts. We hope to inspire new research on Black women with holistic representations of the self and style.
-
-
-
-
Breaking cover: Plus-size transgressive dress on YouTube
Authors: Arienne McCracken, Mary Lynn Damhorst and Eulanda A. SandersNon-stigmatizing depictions of plus-size lovers of fashion are not easily found in traditional mass media, but in social media, fat fashion enthusiasts can readily be found. The purpose of this study was to investigate the little-studied phenomenon of plus-size YouTube content creators who make videos about fat fashion. To that end, thirteen individuals who wear plus-size women’s apparel took part in semi-structured interviews. A major theme found in the data analysis was transgression. Interview participants were staunch advocates of breaking discriminatory, unspoken societal rules that constrained them, especially in relation to dress. Three subthemes were found in relation to transgression: visibility, representation and agency. Embracing visibility, as seen in interviewees’ performance of fatness in public and in social media, may help to portray fatness as a human characteristic that is just as ‘normal’ as thinness. Serving as a positive role model to others was also embraced by participants, who hoped to assist their viewers in dealing with the consequences of living in the fatphobic US culture. The interviewees demonstrated and promoted agency through fashion, in marked contrast to their past experiences of being powerless and disparaged because of their size. Through celebration of mainstream, conforming fashion, the fat fashion vloggers are transgressive by joyfully wearing styles which previously were discouraged or often unavailable for plus-size consumers.
-
-
-
Redefining nude: Unravelling nylon’s unmarked norms
More LessIn this article I critically examine the history of nylon stockings in the United States through the lenses of race and gender. Drawing on visual and material culture examples related to nylon and nude colours, I show how whiteness was standardized and presented as the unmarked norm. Employing an intersectional feminist approach, my archival research expands the narrative beyond these exclusionary practices, highlighting how in ensuing decades individuals and companies marketed and crafted nylon foundationwear for a wider range of consumers. These examples offer a vital counter-history to nylon’s normalization of bodies and mass production that mobilized a standard ideal of womanhood as white, thin, heterosexual and cisgender. The legacy of the creation of ‘nude’ colours that standardize whiteness as the norm can still be seen today in foundationwear branding and everyday items like bandages. However, this has not gone unchallenged and there are increased efforts to address this, particularly among Black-owned businesses like gc2b, Nude Barre and Browndages. It is important to historicize the emergence of standard practices, such as singular definitions of nude and limited sizing practices, and how they serve to reinforce norms of racialized gender. Deconstructing these practices and critically examining less documented alternatives uncovers and addresses embedded power structures within standardization.
-
-
-
Muslim women consumers: Critical interpretations of US modest fashion brands entangled with the fashion-advocacy-capitalist-façade
Authors: Shanti Amalanathan and Kelly L. Reddy-BestFollowing 9/11, some young Muslim American women have been wearing hijabs to assert their Islamic identities. They are also seeking fashionable modest clothing, yet, despite their growing buying power, the US modest fashion market targeting Muslim women appears underserved. The purpose of this study was to critically examine how niche modest fashion brands in the United States target Muslim women while drawing upon theoretical concepts centring on oppression and agency related to the long history of gendered Islamophobia Muslims have experienced. We analysed eleven brands’ websites and social media applying the constant comparative method and identified four themes: empowering Muslim women, reclaiming modesty as modern and beautiful, meeting fashionable modest wear demand, and rejecting and perpetuating colourism. In our analysis of the digital discourses of US modest fashion brands, we revealed that these brands emerged to meet the demand of young Muslim woman in the United States who are embracing the hijab and modest clothing as a potent symbol of resistance against western ideologies, the fashion system’s oppressive acts towards Muslim women and traditional Islamic dress codes. Yet, their advocacy-centred messages – empowerment, reclaiming modesty as beautiful – operate within a profit-driven system, which we theorize as a fashion-advocacy-capitalistic-façade. The fashion-advocacy-capitalist-façade concept helps explain the slippery slope that fashion brands are tiptoeing as they aim to empower Muslim women, offer trendy modest clothing, reject traditional Islamic dress codes for women and create space in the fashion market for this unmet demand. Although these brands aim to promote a positive sense of self for Muslim women, they cannot be withheld from critical examination and potential interpretations when operating within the capitalist-driven industry that is so often plagued with significant injustices.
-
-
-
Flaunting fat and sharing fashion: A multimodal analysis of how two Black fatshion influencers resist weight stigma on Instagram
Authors: Kaitlyn A. McIntosh and Davina M. DesRochesFat fashion blogging has largely been celebrated for its resistance potential. Historically, much of this blogging was collaborative with a focus on sharing information and counter-aesthetic images on plus-size fashion. With the rise of the advertising-driven social media platform Instagram, individuals can capitalize on fatshion blogging by becoming social media influencers who promote brands and encourage purchasing decisions. This article uses visual semiotic analysis and critical discourse analysis to show how two fat Black fashion influencers use fashion, flaunting and fat discourse to resist weight stigma. We argue that these efforts complicate our understanding of fat resistance due to the neo-liberal intensification of the entrepreneurial self. Exploring the fat fashion Instagram phenomenon opens new avenues for reflecting on digital resistance to weight stigma and how this is undermined by capitalist interests.
-
-
-
The nuances of sizing for stouts in the early twentieth century
Authors: Carmen N. Keist and Lynn MallyMass manufactured garments for women have been around since the beginning of the twentieth century. With mass production, a ‘standardization’ of sizing was needed. Standardization of clothing was difficult as bodies were (and still today) not statistically proportionate and clothing was not one size fits all. To tackle the ‘difficult’ to fit – fat women, known as stout – manufacturers and retailers devised myriad sized numbering systems to accommodate different shaped fat bodies. They introduced half, odd and extra sizes along with stylish, stubby and old-fashioned stouts to create perfectly proportioned and specially designed garments to fit stout women with little to no alterations. These systems were confusing for consumers, retailers and manufacturers as no sizing system corresponded with any sort of standardization among businesses. This frustration further relegated fat women to the fringes of the apparel industry as undesirable and unfashionable.
-
- Book Review
-
-
-
Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism, Einav Rabinovitch-Fox (2021)
More LessReview of: Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism, Einav Rabinovitch-Fox (2021)
Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 272 pp.,
ISBN 978-0-25204-401-4, h/bk, $110
-
-
- Exhibition Review
-
-
-
Resistencia y Libertá: Exhibición DEL traje DE Bomba desde el siglo XVII hasta el presente (‘Resistance and freedom: Exhibition of the Bomba dress from the seventeenth century to today’), curated by Milteri Tucker Concepción, Museo Casa Blanca, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, 4–25 June 2023
More LessReview of: Resistencia y Libertá: Exhibición DEL traje DE Bomba desde el siglo XVII hasta el presente (‘Resistance and freedom: Exhibition of the Bomba dress from the seventeenth century to today’), curated by Milteri Tucker Concepción, Museo Casa Blanca, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, 4–25 June 2023
-
-
- Event Review
-
-
-
Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo, Fall/Winter 2023, Tokyo, 13–18 March 2023
By Ali KhanReview of: Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo, Fall/Winter 2023, Tokyo, 13–18 March 2023
-
-
- Introduction
-
- Conference Workshops
-
- Conference Abstracts
-
- Retraction Notice
-
Most Read This Month Most Read RSS feed
Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed
-
-
Fashion and Appropriation
Authors: Denise Nicole Green and Susan B. Kaiser
-
- More Less