An original contribution to fashion studies, Fashion in American Life challenges existing approaches to fashion in America by considering who ‘makes’ fashion—when, where, and how. Avoiding the usual emphasis on the ‘history of fashion’ which perpetuates the myth of fashion designers, and New York, as the originators of American fashion, this exploration of the everyday allows us to see American fashion as a form of agency, self-identification, creative engagement, and politics.
Moving away from the well-trodden accounts of fashion designers and the dominance of New York, much of the fashion uncovered has been under-represented in previous accounts. Through contemporary and historical research, authors challenge the nature of both ‘fashion’ and ‘America’ by addressing the many complexities of a nation whose people have diverse histories and cultures, including stories and experiences that have been forgotten, marginalized and left out of the fashion ‘canon’.
Race, gender, ethnicity, and class are employed as critical lenses to shed new light on how fashion might be defined and addressed within America (as a country, but not as a series of United States), with case studies looking at First Nations, Latinx and African American dress. The intellectual framing of the volume, and the methods and case studies included, also present tactics that can be applied to other contexts, making this book about revisiting ‘fashion’ more widely, not just in America. Fashion in American Life makes a unique contribution to the literature of fashion studies, fashion history, cultural studies, and beyond.
List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: Fashion in American Life Hazel Clark and Lauren Downing Peters Section One: Refashioning the Everyday Introduction: Refashioning the Everyday Hazel Clark and Lauren Downing Peters 1 Sovereignty Every Day: Mobilizing Indigenous Fashion from the Northwest Coast Laura J. Allen 2 Haoles in Hawaiian Shirts Andrew Reilly 3 “Smart Togs for Action”: Everyday Clothes for Rural Women in Texas in the 1950s Rebecca Jumper Matheson 4 Examining the Ordinary: Mourning Adornment and Black Death Rikki Byrd Section Two: Revisiting the Everyday Introduction: Revisiting the Everyday Hazel Clark and Lauren Downing Peters 5 Rags: The Birth of Personal Style in Print Laura McLaws Helms 6 Playing Seminole Indian: The Cultural Appropriation of Seminole Men’s Fashion Amanda Thompson 7 Working from the Periphery: The National Association of Fashion and Accessories Designers (NAFAD) and the Promotion of Black Fashion Einav Rabinovitch-Fox 8 Primitivizing Accessories: ‘Slave Jewelry’ and the Construction of White Femininity in 1920s America Victoria Rose Pass Section Three: Recovering the Everyday Introduction: Recovering the Everyday Hazel Clark and Lauren Downing Peters 9 Extra-ordinary Americans: Oral History, Workwear, and the U.S. Postal Service Alison Bazylinski, Lynn Heidelbaugh, and Rachel Lifter 10 1970s Fashion and Women: Finding the Everyday at the Intersection of Image, Archive and Oral History Alexis Romano 11 Preserving the Latinx Sartorial Experience Through Digital Archives Michelle McVicker 12 Self-Fashioning, Participatory Research, and the “Will to Adorn” Diana Baird N’Diaye Index
Hazel Clark is Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies, and currently Director of MA Fashion Studies, Parsons School of Design, New York. Her most recent books are Fashion and Everyday Life: London and New York (Bloomsbury, 2017) with Cheryl Buckley, and Fashion Curating (Bloomsbury, 2018) co-edited with Annamari Vänskä. Lauren Downing Peters is Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies and Director of the Fashion Study Collection at Columbia College Chicago. She is the author of Fashion Before Plus-Size: Bodies, Bias and the Birth of an Industry (Bloomsbury, 2023).
Reviews for Fashion in American Life
For anyone looking for a guide to the future of fashion this book is essential. It is a worthy addition to a fashion scholar's library. * Patricia Cunningham, The Ohio State University, USA * Full of fascinating, surprising, and often subversive untold stories about people’s engagement with everyday dress in America, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the exciting, expanding field of fashion studies. * Fiona Hackney, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK * This book offers a wide-ranging collection of essays on the everyday fashions of ordinary Americans. Contributions by emerging scholars as well as seasoned authors represent diverse voices and multi-disciplinary approaches useful to anyone interested in American fashion. * Linda Welters, University of Rhode Island, USA *
