The 2022 CSA Scholars’ Roundtable considered the teaching of fashion history in an era of globalization, increased awareness of social justice, and amplified understanding of the effects of colonization. This report documents the authors’ panel presentation and summarizes the audience’s comments and discussion.

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Phelps Associates, a business operated by the husband-and-wife design team of William Drown Phelps (1890–1962) and Elizabeth Heintges Phelps (1909–87) from 1940 until 1969, was critically acclaimed for creating accessories and sportswear that embodied American ideals from patriotism to practicality. The Phelpses’ accessories designs celebrated handcraft traditions in the making of leather goods, while

Activists often have used dress to express solidarity with Black resistance movements such as the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In our research, we built upon our own and previous scholars’ work by analyzing the intersections of activism, identity, and dress in a specific space, place, and context: twenty-first-century Black women college students during the Black Lives Matter movement

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Ahead of Print, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Ahead of Print, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Ahead of Print, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Ahead of Print, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Ahead of Print, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

This article is concerned with identification and interpretation of the costumes featured in two portraits of Polish aristocratic women by Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Katarzyna Potocka née Branicka in Oriental Costume, 1854 (National Museum in Warsaw) and Wieńczysława Barczewska, Madame de Jurjewicz, 1860 (Museum of Fine Arts in Boston). The former outfit, brought by the wearer from her journey to the

In the mid-1920s, American clothing manufacturers introduced a new size range they called the “new half sizes.” It was in response to emerging biometric data showing that women were not as tall as the standard sizes designers had assumed. In addition, the new sizes added extra room at the waist and hip, intended to accommodate those who had abandoned corsets. Initially, manufacturers claimed that this

In this essay, I argue that clothing played an important role in the establishment and maintenance of the postwar American project of independence and “normalcy.” Using previously unpublished sources, I trace the history of Functional Fashions, a clothing line of accessible garments for disabled persons in the United States that existed from 1958 to 1976. Designer Helen Cookman created the line as

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

Published in Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2022)

(2022). Welcome to Vol. 48, No. 1. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. i-ii.

(2022). In Memoriam. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 95-96.

(2022). Dandy Style: 250 Years of British Men’s Fashion. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 111-113.

(2022). Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 101-105.

Clothing was hugely important in the identification of criminal suspects at large, missing persons, or deceased strangers in the nineteenth century. Descriptions of dress thus feature prominently in the Irish police gazette, the Hue and Cry, which published wanted notices from across the island. This article explores what descriptions in the Hue and Cry reveal about clothing and the wearer in Ireland

(2022). Queering the Subversive Stitch: Men & the Culture of Needlework. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 119-121.

This article examines the development of sartorial visual itineraries for nativism and white nationalism in the United States between about 1840 and 1865. For scholars studying the history of racism in the United States, the documents of so-called “scientific racism” are of paramount importance. These privilege the biovisual body as a site of epistemological and ontological truth. But the first years

The One Hour Dress was considered a “sensation” when introduced in 1923 by sewing and fashion expert Mary Brooks Picken (1886–1968) of the Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Through demonstrations held at American department stores between 1923 and 1925, Picken sought to stop a national decline in sales of sewing equipment and supplies. Endorsement by film actress

(2022). All Dolled Up: Fashioning Cultural Expectations. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 97-100.

Established in 1947, the house of Pucci is best known for its iconic prints. Yet even before the Puccimania of the Swinging Sixties, commercial sewing patterns were an important part of Pucci’s popular reception. Over the course of almost two decades, Emilio Pucci licensed his fashion designs with American pattern companies including the McCall Corporation and the Vogue Pattern Service, the independent

(2022). Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 115-117.

(2022). Correction. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 123-123.

(2022). Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls, 1800 to 1960. Dress: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 107-110.

A Masonic apron in the collection of the Canadian Museum of History has an unusual story: produced in rural Vermont in the 1820s, seven decades later it came into the possession of Ralph Lawton Broadbent, a Canadian civil servant and Mason. This research report proposes a biography for the apron in the intervening years and hints at the multiple possible meanings that Masons might attribute to their

This research report examines a contemporary debate within the ballet world about Gaynor Minden pointe shoes. Gaynor Minden represents the first disruptive innovation to pointe shoe designs in 200 years. These innovative shoes reduce the severe pain of learning to dance on pointe, but ballet traditionalists disapprove of Gaynor Minden on the grounds that they dilute the pointe tradition. This report

Socially conscious fashion entrepreneurs in the twenty-first century built many of the first visibly queer- and trans-focused fashion brands. In this paper, we critically examine nine of these brands that produced and distributed undergarments or other objects worn near or against the skin, such as binders, packers, underwear, lingerie, and bras. We draw upon oral histories with the brand directors

(2021). Welcome to Vol. 47, No. 2. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. i-i.

The Costume Society of America (CSA) Scholars’ Roundtable Honor committee is charged with nominating scholars to lead a discussion at the national symposium that challenges the organization members to think about future possibilities. In 2021, five CSA Scholars’ Roundtable Honorees (Karen DePauw, Kristen Morris, Linda Pisano, Eulanda Sanders, and Sarah Scaturro) discussed the purpose, place, and future

(2021). The Wig: A Hairbrained History. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 221-223.

(2021). Costume Society of America Fellow 2021 Patricia Hunt-Hurst. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 229-230.

(2021). Costume Society of America Fellow 2021 Gayle Strege. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 231-232.

This article analyzes the history of two extant bloomer costumes from the 1850 s, one in the collections of the San Diego History Center and the other in the Cortland County, New York Historical Society. An analysis of the two bloomer costumes reveals two different styles of dress-reform outfits worn by women during this era. Biographical information on the women who owned these outfits expands upon

This research documents the fashioning of Charles Pierce, a prominent female impersonator in the mid-to-late twentieth century. During his career of over forty years, Pierce delivered acclaimed comedic impressions of gay icons such as Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn. This paper contextualizes and interprets the development of Pierce’s cross-dressing from tuxedo and a few woman’s fashion accessories

(2021). Women’s Lives and Clothes in WW2: Ready for Action. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 225-227.

(2021). Fashion and Beauty in the Time of Asia. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 217-219.

(2021). Welcome to Vol. 47, No. 1. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. i-ii.

(2021). Made It: The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 107-111.

(2021). WOMEN EMPOWERED: Fashions from the Frontline. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 113-117.

From 1841 to 1844, the Auburn Prison in New York State, now the Auburn Correctional Facility, was the location of an early experiment in the manufacture of sewing silk, a type of thread used in garment production. Incarcerated men worked in throwing mills to transform cocoons into sewing silk; they reeled, combed, and dyed silk filaments, added twist, and wound the thread onto bobbins. The Auburn Prison

(2021). Reading Fashion in Art. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 103-105.

(2021). In Memoriam. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 119-120.

(2021). Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 99-102.

(2021). The Dangers of Fashion: Towards Ethical and Sustainable Solutions. Dress: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 95-97.

Iridescent, color-shifting beetle wing casings have been embroidered onto dress around the world for centuries. This paper explores a variation of the practice from its roots in Mughal-era India through its translocation and transformation by English dressmakers during the East India Company and colonial eras. This paper considers the first recorded English women to wear such garments, how and where

(2020). Welcome to Vol. 46, No. 2. Dress: Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. (i)-(ii).