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Call for Papers: Clothing Cultures

Special Issue: Clothing Then, Clothing Now: Dress during Times of Unrest

There is much said about clothing in dark times. In their most basic sense, clothing is a protector; a barrier between our flesh and the world outside, and it is this form of soft armour that enables dress to take on more symbolic properties associated with states of ‘feeling’ or being safe.

Yet, we are also aware that clothing is a means of communicating not just our identity/ies but our world view, and the clothes we wear can be seen as articulating systems of belief that create a politics of individuality and a political individual within the masses. Likewise, we know that particular kinds of dress and dress motifs (colours/symbols/patterns) are associated with specific political organizations and ideologies, and can ‘code’ dress, and wearers, in specific ways (i.e. the green, while and purple of the suffragette movement, Dr Martens boots, a safety pin) and these innocuous objects and motifs demonstrate the rich potential of dress for ideological manipulation and appropriation. In these respects, clothing tells stories or punctuates the political landscape at a given moment.

As we are increasingly aware of political instability in our own times, as well as the increase in mass protest, activism and voices of dissent across nations and around the world, we might wonder what to wear?

Clothing Cultures seeks papers on dress in times of unrest that might include, but are not limited to:

• Dress and propaganda – political dress and politician’s dress codes, campaign clothing, dressing for change (Trump’s cap, Obama’s beige suit, Blair’s Burberry shirt, Thatcher’s pussy bow, Hilary Clinton’s campaign suits, etc.)
• War and restoration
• Non-western voices – activism, dissent, difference, appropriation
• Dress and dissent – activism, anti-brand clothing/consumer choice, re-branding, defacing logos, anti-fashion (Nike protests, reappropriation of logos, Primark labels)
• Dress and protest/celebration – slogan clothing, pussy hats, clothing for marches, trans-nationalism (Suffragettes, Pride, the flag as brand)
• DIY clothing , viral dress projects, buy less, second hand
• Sub-cultural dress and subversive styles (dress reform, zoot suits, northern soul, cyberpunk, hipsters, etc.)
• Appropriated garments – the white vest, t-shirts, lumberjack shirt, ski masks

Please contact Dr Jo Turney at J.A.Turney@soton.ac.uk for further details.

For more information about the journal including the full call for papers, click here >> www.intellectbooks.com/clothing-cultures