This article examines how Hollywood costume designers helped shape consumer culture through product endorsement during the studio era. Drawing on extensive archival research, it highlights how designers like Adrian and Travis Banton, celebrated for their glamorous on-screen creations, were enlisted to promote ordinary household items like washing powders and hosiery. These campaigns emphasized the designers' expertise in garment care and fashion, transforming everyday products into aspirational tools for achieving Hollywood-style sophistication. The study reveals how the studio system extended costume designers' influence beyond film production, transforming them into trusted authorities in marketing and taste-making. Through a nuanced analysis of promotional campaigns housed in the J. Walter Thompson Collection at Duke University's Rubenstein Library and the Gary and Sandra Baden Collection of Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, the article uncovers the overlooked labour of costume designers as cultural intermediaries, who not only shaped Hollywood's visual identity but also bridged the gap between aspirational glamour and accessible consumer goods. By situating these practices within a broader context, the study offers fresh insights into the commercialization of Hollywood glamour and its enduring legacy in consumer culture.
The appearance of recognizably fascist, and usually Nazi, references in fashion advertising and at fashion shows is nothing new; whether categorized as Nazi chic, Nazi retro, or-in some cases-Nazi porn, images recalling the Third Reich continue to have an incandescent presence on the runways of Paris, Milan, London and New York. What a half-century ago Susan Sontag labelled 'fascinating fascism' seems to have lost none of its appeal, even as current political polemics traffic indiscriminately in associations and analogies that reach back into what has been called Europe's dark century. This article explores three lodestone sources of this cultural phenomenon, in Italian sensationalist cinema of the 1960s, in what is still perhaps the most notorious of art-house films of the 1970s, and in the gay leather culture that originated in San Francisco, spread to New York and other urban centres, and persists-disease, repression and cultural backlash notwithstanding-to this day.
This article is framed within studies on the role of fashion publications in the dissemination of certain models of femininity. During the 1950s and 1960s, when Spanish high fashion was embarking on a process of internationalization, industry magazines in the United States conveyed the concept of national identity through a specific female archetype. First, a terminological study of how Harper's Bazaar and Vogue constructed a narrative around Spanish women based on a symbolic repertoire previously used to disseminate a specific imaginary of the Italian feminine paradigm. Comparing this with the transalpine ideal circulating in media across the pond, reports starring Lola Flores, Lucia Bos & egrave; and Naty Abascal, figures well known to the American public, were analysed. Finally, an attempt has been made to determine whether Spain managed to project a new and alternative female archetype.
Offering a glimpse into the inner workings of a glamorous yet elusive industry, fashion documentaries have become an established genre in global popular culture over the last twenty years. Looking back at two fashion documentaries-The September Issue and Bill Cunningham New York-which feature prominent producers of fashion images, this article examines how the release of both films in the late 2000s contributed to re-presenting what Roland Barthes termed the 'mythology of fashion' at a critical juncture for the industry, by foregrounding the creative processes of powerful image makers. It concludes by demonstrating how fashion documentaries, while aiming to convey authenticity, nonetheless bring the longstanding debate surrounding cin & eacute;ma v & eacute;rit & eacute;'s promise of naturalism to the surface, where portraying the 'real' picture is complicated by director positionality and the agendas of different actors within the global fashion industry.
This article examines the collaborative relationship between director Luca Guadagnino and fashion designer Jonathan Anderson in Challengers (2024) and Queer (2024), exploring how costume functions as a key narrative and aesthetic device. Through a close reading of both films, this article investigates how Anderson's designs articulate themes of desire, power and identity - ranging from the commodification of sportswear and branding in Challengers to the melancholic elegance and sartorial decay in Queer. Drawing on theories of film and costume, queer and subcultural style, the article argues that clothing in these films not only constructs character but also operates as a visual language that encodes cultural concerns around masculinity, queerness and social status.
Review of: Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop , curated by John Bright and Keith Lodwick, Fashion and Textile Museum, London, September 2025–March 2026
The resurgence of the press tour as a catalyst for generating attention around forthcoming films reflects the increasing convergence of the fashion and celebrity culture industries. This is particularly evident in the stylistic practice of so-called ‘method dressing’, exemplified by the promotion of recent mainstream productions such as the Dune franchise (Denis Villeneuve 2021, 2024, 2026), Wicked Parts 1 and 2 (Jon M. Chu 2025–26) and Barbie (Greta Gerwig 2023). The aim of this short cut is to analyse the phenomenon through the lens of Guy Debord’s concept of the society of the spectacle – in which media outlets employ fashion-related rituals to enchant potential consumers. Focusing on the case study of the Wuthering Heights press tour (Emerald Fennell 2026) – embodied by Margot Robbie and orchestrated by stylist Andrew Mukamal – this analysis examines and deciphers the actress’s red carpet looks, highlighting their resemblance to the fin-de-siècle fashion aesthetics described by Caroline Evans in Fashion at the Edge (2003). Through this comparison, and guided by a critical perspective that takes into account the inevitable commercialization of contemporary celebrity culture, the article argues that aesthetics once associated with rebellion, disruption and the expression of a historical moment become, in this context, diluted into a form of decadent spectacle.
This article examines the way in which contemporary masculinity is performed and redefined through the red-carpet appearances of Timothée Chalamet. Using Chalamet as a case study, it explores how the red carpet functions as a site of gendered performance, where traditional codes of male dress and behaviour are both upheld and subverted. Drawing on the work of Richard Dyer, Chris Rojeck, Pamela Church Gibson and Max Weber, the study situates Chalamet within the framework of celebrity, charisma and cultural capital, tracing how his fashion choices articulate shifting ideals of masculine identity in twenty-first-century popular culture. The analysis introduces the concept of a ‘masculine system’ to map the hierarchies of masculine performance, from hegemonic ideals to more fluid and inclusive expressions. Within this system, Chalamet’s fashion and public persona occupy a liminal space, neither traditionally masculine nor overtly queer.
This article examines the relationship between Negative Aesthetics and New Sincerity in the cinema of Yorgos Lanthimos, focusing on the role of costume as a material and performative medium in the construction of identity within the Greek Weird Wave. The study argues that, despite their apparent opposition, Negative Aesthetics and New Sincerity converge through their shared emphasis on imperfection, discomfort and emotional exposure. Drawing on the aesthetic theories of Theodor Adorno, Yuriko Saito and Noël Carroll, the article first outlines the shift from beauty and harmony towards discomfort, estrangement and negative emotion as productive aesthetic experiences. It then situates costume within film theory as a performative and ideological tool that shapes the cinematic body and communicates social norms, power relations and identity. Through close analysis of The Lobster (2015) and Poor Things (2023), the article demonstrates how Lanthimos uses costume to visualize biopolitical control, emotional repression and the fragility of social identity. In The Lobster , standardized dress codes produce uniformity and alienation, while in Poor Things , costume becomes a vehicle of embodied memory and self-discovery. The article ultimately argues that Lanthimos’s cinema combines the aesthetics of discomfort with a post-ironic sincerity, creating a new mode of emotional engagement in contemporary art cinema where authenticity emerges through estrangement, performativity and the rejection of aesthetic comort.
This article examines the transformation of skirts in Bollywood item songs from culturally ambivalent garments into cinematic instruments of erotic spectacle. Drawing on ethnographic observation, visual analysis and a mixed-methods study of 40 item songs, I propose the concept of costumization to describe how everyday garments are materially altered, choreographically activated and visually stabilized within popular media. The analysis shows that skirts appear disproportionately in item-song sequences and are frequently associated with performers positioned outside normative femininity. I argue that what is being eroticized is not the garment itself, but a skirted identity , produced through movement, camera work and rhythmic repetition. Through repeated cinematic pairings, the skirt becomes a visual shorthand for sensuality within a broader sartorial media assemblage . By situating skirts within histories of region, caste and performance, the article demonstrates how cinema reorganizes existing cultural meanings into a coherent visual grammar of spectacle, where clothing functions as an active agent in shaping gendered visibility and affect.
This article examines how social-issue-driven fashion films construct representations of queer men through narratives of self-exploration, intimacy and relationships. While fashion films have often been discussed in terms of aesthetics and branding, this study highlights their potential to engage with social issues with a focus on queer men. Through textual analysis of a selection of queer social-issue-driven fashion films, the article identifies recurring themes of shame, isolation, self-acceptance and the celebration of queer love. Particular attention is given to East Asian queer men, whose visibility remains limited in both western and Sinophone media. By situating works such as Kiss the Rabbit God and Hungry? Will You Join Me? within broader cultural frameworks, the article explores how intimacy and identity are represented through the intersections of sexuality, ethnicity and tradition. In doing so, it argues that fashion films provide nuanced yet ambivalent spaces for imagining queer men’s lives and identity beyond heteronormative constraints.
Offering a glimpse into the inner workings of a glamorous yet elusive industry, fashion documentaries have become an established genre in global popular culture over the last twenty years. Looking back at two fashion documentaries – The September Issue and Bill Cunningham New York – which feature prominent producers of fashion images, this article examines how the release of both films in the late 2000s contributed to re-presenting what Roland Barthes termed the ‘mythology of fashion’ at a critical juncture for the industry, by foregrounding the creative processes of powerful image makers. It concludes by demonstrating how fashion documentaries, while aiming to convey authenticity, nonetheless bring the longstanding debate surrounding cinéma vérité’s promise of naturalism to the surface, where portraying the ‘real’ picture is complicated by director positionality and the agendas of different actors within the global fashion industry.
The Cartier exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, showcases over 350 pieces of jewellery and watches, highlighting the brand’s nearly two-century-long history of craftsmanship, innovation and international influence. This study examines the exhibition from the perspective of immersive display design, focusing on how projection technology mediates the relationship between visitors and physical objects. Through a qualitative analysis of three key exhibition spaces – A Philosophy of Design, Masters of Invention and Constant Reinvention – the research investigates the varying roles of projections, from auxiliary atmospheric elements to narrative centrepieces. Findings indicate that projections enhance emotional engagement, spatial perception and storytelling, while complementing rather than replacing physical exhibits. This study contributes to the understanding of immersive exhibition strategies by demonstrating how digital media can be integrated with material culture to enrich audience experience and convey complex brand narratives.
Many YouTube content creators sell self-branded merchandise to supplement their revenue. This research situates YouTube fan merchandise within the broader history of film tie-ins and fashion licensing. We conduct content analysis on the video content and fan apparel from three of the most-subscribed YouTube channels to explore the design strategies that these YouTubers use to create their self- branded fan apparel. Product placement, verbal promotion and scarcity marketing are techniques used to advertise the apparel and create an immersive experience for fans. YouTube fan apparel is positioned as a material interface that fans can use to find community and bond with the creators they follow, while articulating and expressing their own fashion identity through liminal play. This apparel brings elements of the YouTuber's story world into the fan's everyday wardrobe, blurring the boundaries between these virtual and embodied worlds.
This article provides a methodology for how post-feminism intervenes in the creation of classic characters in Jane Austen's works. Through Charlotte's multifaceted and contradictory approach to characterization, it materializes the mechanisms of post-feminist ideology's reconcile the femininity during the Regency period. Sanditon, this article adopts a substantial comparative analysis of the original and the adapted representative heroine Charlotte, Lady Denham's femininity, and it highlights the gap between the successful femininity represented by Charlotte and the representative perfect womanhood in the nineteenth century. In addition, through Charlotte's contradictory post-feminist nature between her desire for affection and self-fulfilment, this article argues that behind the successful femininity represented by Charlotte is a return to the traditional family structure, thereby maintaining the patriarchal agenda.
This article elaborates on the discursive and representational dress narratives by the leading male characters in Sanditon (2019-23, PBS) and that of Sidney Parker in particular. Unlike any of the other men, he wears black costumes throughout the first series and brings characteristics as well as manners totally different from theirs to the story. Hero or anti-hero? Sidney Parker's performance invites a discussion on Hamlet's monochrome persona in rhetorical and emotional black. Parker's screen character is also considered as a further elaboration on Andrew Davies's 'Darcy-model', a scholarly concept pertaining to Mr Darcy's dark costumes and performance in Pride and Prejudice (1995, BBC).
Review of: Fashioning James Bond: Costume, Gender and Identity in the World of 007, Llewella Chapman (2022) London: Bloomsbury, 320 pp., ISBN 978-1-35025-848-8, p/bk, £20.69
Review of: Fashionable Masculinities: Queers, Pimp Daddies and Lumbersexuals, Vicki Karaminas, Adam Geczy and Pamela Church Gibson (eds) (2022) New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 263 pp., ISBN 978-1-97882-329-7, p/bk, $52.95
This issue is devoted to Indian film costume, with essays on film and fashion design, textile heritage and the crafters of film ‘looks’. With a majority of articles focusing on Hindi language films, the issue nevertheless offers a model for further publication on costume in film industries elsewhere in the subcontinent. The articles’ insights range from masculinity, handicrafts, everyday practice in costume and ‘look’ to costume ageing and the sari in fashion.
