A revelatory new approach to understanding fashion in America that focuses on the stories told by worn, imperfect, and ordinary clothes

Expanding the history of American fashion, this volume highlights garments that carry material traces of everyday wearers' bodies, such as stains, rips, tears, mending, and signs of hand craftsmanship. In-depth examinations of ten case-study objects-ranging from activist Jae Jarrell's Urban Wall Suit (ca. 1969) to an unknown child's pair of sneakers found at a dumpsite in the Sonoran Desert near Arizona's border with Mexico-reveal the embodied dress practice of ordinary people.

With a focus on themes of citizenship and assimilation, essayists shed light on how fashion and dress have been used to shape and challenge constructs of American identity at the intersections of race, ethnicity, body size, ability, and gender over more than two centuries. Authors mine community archives to shift the dominant narratives of American fashion and embodiment as they address absences and omissions and consider archive-body interactions. Interviews with wearers and makers and close-ups of the interior of garments illuminate how worn objects function as active witnesses to the American experience.

Distributed for Bard Graduate Center

Exhibition Schedule:

Bard Graduate Center, New York (February 21-July 6, 2025)