This week, Dress: Fancy speaks with Professor Therèsa M. Winge from Michigan State University to explore the compelling, complicated and challenging world of cosplay. A distinct form of fancy dress, cosplay is unique for enabling people to explore themselves and their society by adopting the clothing and character traits of favourite (fictional) characters. As Professor Winge explains, few forms of costume are simultaneously as escapist and revealing about contemporary society and politics as this increasingly popular entertainment.

 

Links

•  Therèsa M. Winge, Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination(2019)
• Therèsa M. Winge, ‘Costuming the Imagination: Origins of Anime and Manga Cosplay’, Mechademia, 1 (2006), 65-76.
• Barbara Brownie and Danny Graydon, The Superhero Costume: Identity and Disguise in Fact and Fiction (2016).
• James Pethokoukis, ‘Why the rise of cosplay is a bad sign for the U.S. economy’, The Week (9 October 2014). https://theweek.com/articles/443181/why-rise-cosplay-bad-sign-economy.
• Adam Ozimek, ‘No, The Rise Of Cosplay Is Not A Bad Sign For The U.S. Economy’, Forbes (14 October 2014). https://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2014/10/14/no-the-rise-of-cosplay-is-not-a-bad-sign-for-the-u-s-economy/#1bd1b4a66f41.