Asian American designers have received increased attention in the twenty-first century as fashion scholarship has broadened its inclusivity. However, most of this research focuses on Asian American designers after the 1980s and excludes the contributions of Japanese American designers during the mid-twentieth century. Out of the considerable number of Japanese American designers and seamstresses of the mid twentieth century one of the most successful creators was Linda Kinoshita. Similarly, to other Japanese Americans during World War II Kinoshita was forced into internment. After she was released, her career accelerated when she started working with English-American fashion designer Charles James. In 1955 Kinoshita opened her own atelier in New York and dressed some of the most fashionable women of New York City including former Vogue fashion editor Babe Paley. Kinoshita’s most prominent period of design occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, and she was most coveted for her skilled construction and creative design. The following research resurfaces Kinoshita’s life and career in efforts to form a more holistic understanding of American fashion history.

This study explores the complexities of cognitive dissonance in the fashion industry, specifically examining consumer choices between animal-based leather and vegan leather. By exploring consumers’ diverse attitudes toward these materials, the research aims to understand the cognitive imbalances individuals experience when weighing ecological concerns against their material preferences. Utilizing netnography—a methodology that examines online community opinions—the study investigates how users perceive and resolve cognitive dissonance arising from conflicting choices between animal-based and vegan leather. Through comprehensive analysis and categorization, this research highlights the intricate decision-making processes of consumers in the realm of leather-based fashion items. It provides insights into the interplay of ethical, environmental, and practical considerations guiding their choices.

This article investigates the “invisible media work” of independent fashion designers, highlighting the behind-the-scenes efforts essential for presenting their work on digital platforms like Instagram. These designers, positioned between art and the fashion industry, engage in tasks such as garment exchanges, negotiations, and social media management to mediate their work. This work contributes to make alternative fashion practices accessible in mediated form. The study examines these as mediation processes in the digital age, focusing on the balance between authenticity and strategic image management. Using Erving Goffman’s concepts of “front” and “back” regions, it explores the backstage activities that support the public image of designers’ work. The findings reveal the emotional and mental effort involved in maintaining a credible digital presence and highlight the unique challenges faced by independent designers compared to larger fashion brands. This research opens new avenues for understanding fashion mediation beyond the dominant industrial system and the work that lies behind it.

The fancy-dress costume worn by Queen Victoria (1819–1901) to her Stuart Ball in 1851 is an outlier amongst her surviving wardrobe. As an object of fancy dress, it combines the fashions of the mid-nineteenth century with those of the 1660s to produce a garment that is both fashionable and highly symbolic. While previous scholars and exhibition curators have been most interested in the dress as a window into Queen Victoria’s fashionable style and entertainments at Buckingham Palace, the materiality of the dress tells a deeper story. Made in the same year as the Great Exhibition, from the products of British colonial networks and structures, this dress is reflective of far more than a young woman’s fanciful tastes. The materials used firmly tied it to the mid-nineteenth century, particular with the inclusion of an Indian Banaras Brocade silk underskirt. It was the costume of a queen, worn to a highly publicized event. Reconsidering the costume as a transcultural garment broadens its significance and symbolism, reframing analysis of this costume to consider the recontextualization of an Indian fabric within this British royal fashion object.

For over two hundred years, Beau Brummell has reigned supreme in the sartorial imaginary as the king of the dandies; the very origin of masculine fashionability. The problem with the outsized sartorial legacy of Brummell is that much of it is closer to fiction than fact—he didn’t actually say many of the things attributed to him, and even his contemporaries insisted that he couldn’t rightly be called a dandy. However apocryphal stories of Brummell might be, his name was to have lasting impact on both fashion and masculinity. He took a particular style of understated elegance—in contrast to the overt fashionability still associated with the upper class—and perfected it through his stylized performance of it. In this article, I analyze the sources relating to the life and legacy of Brummell in order to understand how they have influenced the ways in which previous fashion historians have talked about the history of men’s dress. I show how Brummell’s fashions were not invented by him, but inspired by an earlier generation, arguing that his true influence was the importance of visually plain but materially expensive goods in ascerbic performances of taste. Finally, I argue for the key role that other dandies (and their critics) have played in the lasting story of masculine fashionability.