Staging Authenticity
Enter: resplendent male warriors known as baris enter carrying sharp, pointed spears. They wear embroidered gold and red shields over...
Prose
THE DISMEMBERED BODY: NOTES ON FASHION, FETISH, AND SHAME
Of what does a woman consist? Where does her selfhood reside? In some Platonic form Woman, the theoretical perfection of...
The Making of A Star
What was difficult for Marilyn – or for Norma Jeane, who lived inside the Marilyn persona – was her need...
Old Teen
Threva Throneberry pretended for over a decade to be fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen. She presented herself as a fresh-faced, pigtailed...
Tutti-Frutti Camp
Carmen Miranda's brief life span ended abruptly in 1955. Known as 'the Brazilian Bombshell' throughout her life, she was trapped...
That’s Not Me
I found different host bodies until he finally settled into one, like locating that rare impossible blood-donor match. I finally...
The Phantom Jacket
The persona of the architect first emerged in the Renaissance, when the discipline forcibly elevated itself above the building trades,...
Aquanautica: Fathoming Futures of Underwater Apparel?
Can we fathom a framework for underwater fashion? Iconographies of underwater pursuits and their accompanying imaginaries find frequent form in...
Retail Therapy
And it is the most unsure customers that I remember best: Sarah, who was looking for her perfect denim jacket,...
Chinese Life And Fashions
In modern hats and dresses the details always have a point – to bring out the color of the eyes,...
Dressing Like a Madwoman
There are two photographs of Amanda Bynes on my desktop titled 'covers.' In one she is wearing a combination that...
How It Is
American Poet Maxine Kumin wrote this poem in 1974, after the suicide of her friend, the poet Anne Sexton. During...