Kelly L Reddy-Best
Biographic Data
| ID | 1244812 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kelly L Reddy-Best |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kelly L |
| FAMILY NAME | Reddy-Best |
| SIGNATURE | REDDY-BEST K L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Iowa State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2813-0988 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
LGBTQ+ Communities, Fashion, Style, and Dress: A Scoping Review
In our review, we assess the intersection of LGBTQ+ identities with fashion, style, and dress, providing a comprehensive overview of current peer-reviewed research on the topic. Drawing from a scoping review approach, we analyzed studies published between 2000 and 2024 that address the relationship between LGBTQ+ identities and fashion-related practices. The research identifies key themes and trends, highlighting the evolving academic landscape o…
The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, 3rd ed., Joanne Entwistle (2023)
Review of: The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory , 3rd ed., Joanne Entwistle (2023) Cambridge: Polity Press, 281 pp., ISBN 978-1-50954-789-0, p/bk, $28.95
This uniform doesn’t mean anything’: Black Second World War soldiers and their experiences in uniform
In our research, we prioritize the voices and experiences of Black Second World War soldiers and their experiences while in uniform. We specifically focused on Black men from the Midwest to examine their unique experiences with the South and Jim Crow laws and drew upon all ten oral history transcripts from the University of Kansas’s ‘World War II: The African American Experience’ project. These included individuals such as John H. Adams, a Tuskeg…
Contemporary queer fashion media as personal liberations: Qwear, digital media and twenty-first-century queer fashion shows
In the twenty-first century, the emergence of numerous fashion brands catering to queer and trans communities has been accompanied by the establishment of notable queer-focused fashion media platforms. Noteworthy among these are DapperQ and Qwear , which specialize in exploring the intersections of fashion, style and the experiences of queer and trans individuals. This study delves into the history and intricacies of Qwear , one of these contempo…
Gay Rodeos, Western Wear, and Unresolved Tensions in 21st-Century North America Cowboy Culture and Esthetics
In the 1970s, activists founded the International Gay Rodeo Association in the North American Midwest, disrupting traditional heteronormative and hypermasculine norms within cowboy culture. In this research, we critically analyze the intersections of cowboy manifestations and twenty-first century LGBTQ+ communities in North American queer cowboy portrayals via the gay rodeo. Specifically, we examine how the gay rodeo creates space for LGBTQ+ styl…
Muslim women consumers: Critical interpretations of US modest fashion brands entangled with the fashion-advocacy-capitalist-façade
Following 9/11, some young Muslim American women have been wearing hijabs to assert their Islamic identities. They are also seeking fashionable modest clothing, yet, despite their growing buying power, the US modest fashion market targeting Muslim women appears underserved. The purpose of this study was to critically examine how niche modest fashion brands in the United States target Muslim women while drawing upon theoretical concepts centring o…
Undergraduate curators: Production of a justice-oriented fashion museum exhibition
The purpose of this scholarship on teaching is to examine how undergraduate students can engage with justice-oriented fashion history through curating a small fashion exhibition as a group project in a single 17-week semester. I explore how both scaffolding and formative assessment techniques shaped this undergraduate learning experience. To build this case study, I drew upon multiple sources including the syllabus, course materials provided to t…
Challenging the fashion academy: Intersectional perspectives on justice in the evolving fashion system
This Special Issue of the journal focuses on the intricate relationship between justice and the fashion system, presenting a collection of groundbreaking research articles and reviews. The aim is to highlight the importance of intersectional and advocacy-based research in fashion studies, with a focus on historically marginalized identities. The articles employ diverse research methods, including literature reviews, material culture analysis, int…
Cereal Box Chic, Ready-to-Wear, and Couture: Luis Estévez’s Unique Fashion Designer Evolution as a Cuban American in the Twentieth Century
Luis Estévez, a prominent fashion designer whose work spanned from the 1950s to the 1990s, made an enduring impact on the industry. His clientele included notable public figures like former First Lady Betty Ford. His career, marked by both successes and challenges, demonstrated his adaptability. While he primarily focused on high-end elegant and understated fashions, he also ventured into accessible markets, providing stylish paper patterns for h…
Scholars’ Roundtable: Crossroads of Dress and Adornment: Creativity, Culture, and Collaboration
The 2023 CSA Scholars’ Roundtable focused on the role of collaboration within teaching, learning, costume design, and museum practice. The scholars reflected on the challenges, successes, opportunities, and failures encountered when engaging in collaboration. This report is based on an edited and condensed transcript of the authors’ panel presentation and summarizes the audience’s comments and discussion
JessicaOutOfTheCloset: Intersections of Vintage Styles, Gender, Queerness, and Disability in Online Spaces
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard is a British internet and television personality who creates digital content for various social media platforms. Her content focuses on vintage dressing and a variety of other intersecting subjects. In consideration of the recent rise in popularity of vintage dressing and the need for continued research about people with historically marginalized identities, she is a notable subject for sartorial study. We utilized netnogr…
Art, Media, and Fashion: Negotiating Queerness and Catholicism Through Depictions of Saint Sebastian, From the 15 th Century to the Present
Queerness and Catholicism have historically been at odds with one another. The Church's condemnation of queer individuals was pervasive globally for centuries, yet one way queerness and Catholicism converge is via Saint Sebastian depictions. The purpose of this research is to examine how and why Sebastian, a Catholic saint, has come to serve as an icon for the queer community as well as how dress has been used in depicting shifting representation…
Transformative live-action roleplay and Dagorhir costumes: Regulation, consumption and power dynamics, 1977 to the present
Dagorhir is one of the largest and oldest documented live-action roleplay groups. Dagorhir organizers have published multiple game regulations via handbooks with much emphasis on costumes since the 1970s. Dagorhir facilitates community building, identity negotiation and creative storytelling that expands beyond the game through transformative play. In our research, we examine how these costume regulations have influenced fantasy character and rea…
Garments, Accessories, and Stories: Intersections of Black Woman Identity, Black Resistance, and Collegiate Activism
Activists often have used dress to express solidarity with Black resistance movements such as the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In our research, we built upon our own and previous scholars’ work by analyzing the intersections of activism, identity, and dress in a specific space, place, and context: twenty-first-century Black women college students during the Black Lives Matter movement from 2013 to 2019 who were attending land-…
Chest-Binding Practices for Trans and Nonbinary Individuals within Different Spatiotemporalities: Redefining the Meanings of Space, Place, and Time
Styling-fashioning-dressing, which involves embodied and material articulations of style, is one way that trans and nonbinary individuals negotiate, produce, and perform their gender identities. Chest binding is a practice that involves compressing chest tissue to achieve a flattened esthetic. In this paper, we examined the spatiotemporal production of chest binding—that is, we considered bodies, space, and time as mutually constitutive and explo…
Visibly Queer- and Trans-Fashion Brands and Retailers in the Twenty-First Century: The Production and Distribution of Binders, Packers, Underwear, Lingerie, and Bras
Socially conscious fashion entrepreneurs in the twenty-first century built many of the first visibly queer- and trans-focused fashion brands. In this paper, we critically examine nine of these brands that produced and distributed undergarments or other objects worn near or against the skin, such as binders, packers, underwear, lingerie, and bras. We draw upon oral histories with the brand directors, objects from each company, news articles, and o…
The Fashion System’s Environmental Impact: Theorizing the Market’s Institutional Actors, Actions, Logics, and Norms
Drawing on institutional theory, we examined New York Times readers’ views on fashion’s environmental impact by analyzing and interpreting comments posted in response to a sustainability and fashion-focused opinion article. Based on our interpretations, we developed a model to think through new opportunities in the mechanics of the organizational field of fashion. Collectively, readers identified multiple actors responsible for fashion market’s e…
BDSM Women’s Dress Consumption: Experiences, Meanings, and Intersectional Identities
CSA Scholars’ Roundtable Presentation: Design and Curatorial Scholarship: Purpose, Place, Present, and Future
The Costume Society of America (CSA) Scholars’ Roundtable Honor committee is charged with nominating scholars to lead a discussion at the national symposium that challenges the organization members to think about future possibilities. In 2021, five CSA Scholars’ Roundtable Honorees (Karen DePauw, Kristen Morris, Linda Pisano, Eulanda Sanders, and Sarah Scaturro) discussed the purpose, place, and future of design and curatorial scholarship. In thi…
In Memoriam: Dana Renee Goodin (1987–2020)
Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion , Tanisha C. Ford New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020
In Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion, Tanisha Ford PhD, Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, takes the reader on a journey through
Authentic style–fashion–dress negotiations of married lesbian couples on their wedding day
In 2015, a United States Supreme Court ruling allowed same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Since that time, there have been over one million same-sex marriages in the United States, and the number of same-sex marriages has increased every year (Romero, 2017). With this work, we conducted an in-depth, exploratory study on how lesbian married couples in the United States negotiated their style–fashion–dress on their wedding day. The work was guided …
Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus, Queer Spaces, Collectives Styles, and Activist Dress, 1984 to the Present
During the 1970s, people in the United States founded gay and lesbian choruses for political activism, coming out, and celebration. We examined the history of one of these choruses, the Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus (DMGMC). We asked, how do their bodies in motion and styling-fashioning-dressing produce, distribute, and negotiate queer representations? How do they appear across space and time? How can these style-fashion-dress acts open multiple in…
Apparel Consumption and Embodied Experiences of Gay Men and Transgender Women in India: Variety and Ambivalence, Fit Issues, LGBT-Fashion Brands, and Affordability
The purpose of this study was to explore Indian LGBT individuals' apparel consumption practices and embodied experiences related to fashion, style, and the body. Specifically, our research questions were these: What are Indian LGBT individuals' experiences like when navigating the fashion system, and how do they experience their own embodiment in what they wear and how they appear? A qualitative, phenomenological approach was used to answer the r…
Packers, dilators and the options for either male or female: Navigating movement of transgender and gender non-conforming bodies, appearances and luggage through airport security
In this article, we investigate the experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals leading up to and moving through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport lines. We used a qualitative research method and analysed fourteen in-depth interviews of TGNC individuals. Based upon analysis of the data, three larger themes emerged, each with several subthemes. First, the TGNC participants engaged in extra packing or …
LGBTQ Women, Appearance Negotiations, and Workplace Dress Codes
The purpose of this study was to explore LGBTQ women's experiences with unwritten or formal dress codes at work. I asked: What are LGBTQ women's experiences in the workplace with appearance management, and what are LGBTQ women's experiences navigating the written and unwritten dress codes in the workplace? To answer the research question, interviews were conducted with 24 self-identifying LGBTQ women. Six key themes emerged from the data. Themes …
Trans traveling and embodied practices: Panopticism, agency, dress, and gendered surveillance
Pre-topsurgery, the body scanning machine would most likely error: ” Transgender and gender nonconforming travel and tourism experiences
Apparel Consumption and Embodied Experiences of Gay Men and Transgender Women in India: Variety and Ambivalence, Fit Issues, LGBT-Fashion Brands, and Affordability
The purpose of this study was to explore Indian LGBT individuals' apparel consumption practices and embodied experiences related to fashion, style, and the body. Specifically, our research questions were these: What are Indian LGBT individuals' experiences like when navigating the fashion system, and how do they experience their own embodiment in what they wear and how they appear? A qualitative, phenomenological approach was used to answer the r…
Male Hair Cannot Extend Below Plane of the Shoulder" and "No Cross Dressing: Critical Queer Analysis of High School Dress Codes in the United States
In this study, we questioned how high school dress codes outlined in official handbooks were written or presented in regard to the gender binary, either/or perspective. We critically analyzed how or if they allowed for flexibility in expression of gender and sexual identity and if they supported, encouraged, or affirmed a variety of expressions, in particular transgender and gender non-conforming expressions, throughout the text or images. The co…
Art, Media, and Fashion: Negotiating Queerness and Catholicism Through Depictions of Saint Sebastian, From the 15 th Century to the Present
Queerness and Catholicism have historically been at odds with one another. The Church's condemnation of queer individuals was pervasive globally for centuries, yet one way queerness and Catholicism converge is via Saint Sebastian depictions. The purpose of this research is to examine how and why Sebastian, a Catholic saint, has come to serve as an icon for the queer community as well as how dress has been used in depicting shifting representation…
The Fashion System’s Environmental Impact: Theorizing the Market’s Institutional Actors, Actions, Logics, and Norms
Drawing on institutional theory, we examined New York Times readers’ views on fashion’s environmental impact by analyzing and interpreting comments posted in response to a sustainability and fashion-focused opinion article. Based on our interpretations, we developed a model to think through new opportunities in the mechanics of the organizational field of fashion. Collectively, readers identified multiple actors responsible for fashion market’s e…
BDSM Women’s Dress Consumption: Experiences, Meanings, and Intersectional Identities
Authentic style–fashion–dress negotiations of married lesbian couples on their wedding day
In 2015, a United States Supreme Court ruling allowed same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Since that time, there have been over one million same-sex marriages in the United States, and the number of same-sex marriages has increased every year (Romero, 2017). With this work, we conducted an in-depth, exploratory study on how lesbian married couples in the United States negotiated their style–fashion–dress on their wedding day. The work was guided …
“Making Cool Things Hot Again”: Blackface and Newfoundland Mummering
This article critically examines instances of blackface in Newfoundland Christmas mummering. Following Peter Narváez’s call for analysis of expressive culture from folklore and cultural studies approaches, I explore the similarities between these two cultural phenomena. I see them as attempts to work out racial and class tensions among the underclasses dwelling in burgeoning seaport towns along the North American seaboard that were intimately con…
Miki Vargas: Queer-fashion photographer and The Handsome Revolution
This study documents and analyses the life and work of Miki Vargas (1973–present), a photographer who captured and promoted images, for both commercial and personal projects, of masculine women and transmen and circulated these photographs in the media where this aesthetic is largely if not almost entirely absent. Vargas worked at the forefront of the burgeoning queer-fashion movement in the twenty-first century as the cornerstone photographer fo…
‘I cut it [her hair] real short right after I got the job’: Queer coding during the interview for LGBTQ+ women
The purpose of this study was to examine how lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and/or questioning women manage their appearance during and after the interview process. I conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 22 self-identifying LGBTQ+ women who worked in an environment with business casual or business dress code expectations and were between the ages of 23 and 39. Based upon analysis of the data, four key themes emerged. These themes inc…
QueerCrip fashion in the twenty-first century: Sky Cubacub and the QueerCrip Dress Reform Movement
Sky Cubacub, designer, artist and twenty-first century activist, based in Chicago, Illinois, creates garments and accessories for their fashion brand Rebirth Garments while critically considering gender, body size and ability, using the body and its expressions as a site of resistance and rebellion. This research is a case study of the life of Sky Cubacub and their work. We used the oral history method and triangulated information from the oral h…
LGBTQ Women, Appearance Negotiations, and Workplace Dress Codes
The purpose of this study was to explore LGBTQ women's experiences with unwritten or formal dress codes at work. I asked: What are LGBTQ women's experiences in the workplace with appearance management, and what are LGBTQ women's experiences navigating the written and unwritten dress codes in the workplace? To answer the research question, interviews were conducted with 24 self-identifying LGBTQ women. Six key themes emerged from the data. Themes …
Pre-topsurgery, the body scanning machine would most likely error: ” Transgender and gender nonconforming travel and tourism experiences
Packers, dilators and the options for either male or female: Navigating movement of transgender and gender non-conforming bodies, appearances and luggage through airport security
In this article, we investigate the experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals leading up to and moving through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport lines. We used a qualitative research method and analysed fourteen in-depth interviews of TGNC individuals. Based upon analysis of the data, three larger themes emerged, each with several subthemes. First, the TGNC participants engaged in extra packing or …
Fashion social marketing: Analysing reactions to Lane Bryant's #PlusIsEqual
In 2015, Lane Bryant, one of the first plus-size retailers, launched #PlusIsEqual, a social-marketing campaign to promote equality for fat bodies. Before this campaign, the intersections of social causes and marketing were largely absent from the fashion media landscape. The purpose of this study was to analyse the reaction to Lane Bryant's campaign by following and analysing the Twitter hashtag and campaign website for six months. Notions of the…
Queer Fashion and Style: Stories from the Heartland—Authentic Midwestern Queer Voices through a Museum Exhibition
Aspects of our identities such as sexuality and gender are negotiated through style-fashion-dress. We analyzed the recent history of style-fashion-dress through a queer lens by examining how queer identities have been negotiated on and around the body by women in the Midwest region of the United States from the late twentieth century to the present. Based on our research, we created an exhibition using community-participatory practices that allow…
Scholars’ Roundtable Presentation: Do We Study Diversity in Dress
In 2019, four CSA Scholars’ Roundtable Honorees (Kelly Reddy-Best—Iowa State University, Carmen Keist—Bradley University, Tameka N. Ellington—Kent State University, and Nancy Deihl—New York University) discussed “do we study diversity in dress?” Dr. Michael Mamp (Central Michigan University), a 2018 honoree, moderated the 90-minute session. He started by asking the panelists questions such as “Do we study diversity in dress?” “How does your posit…
Trans traveling and embodied practices: Panopticism, agency, dress, and gendered surveillance
Male Hair Cannot Extend Below Plane of the Shoulder" and "No Cross Dressing: Critical Queer Analysis of High School Dress Codes in the United States
In this study, we questioned how high school dress codes outlined in official handbooks were written or presented in regard to the gender binary, either/or perspective. We critically analyzed how or if they allowed for flexibility in expression of gender and sexual identity and if they supported, encouraged, or affirmed a variety of expressions, in particular transgender and gender non-conforming expressions, throughout the text or images. The co…
CSA Scholars’ Roundtable Presentation: Design and Curatorial Scholarship: Purpose, Place, Present, and Future
The Costume Society of America (CSA) Scholars’ Roundtable Honor committee is charged with nominating scholars to lead a discussion at the national symposium that challenges the organization members to think about future possibilities. In 2021, five CSA Scholars’ Roundtable Honorees (Karen DePauw, Kristen Morris, Linda Pisano, Eulanda Sanders, and Sarah Scaturro) discussed the purpose, place, and future of design and curatorial scholarship. In thi…
In Memoriam: Dana Renee Goodin (1987–2020)
Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion , Tanisha C. Ford New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020
In Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion, Tanisha Ford PhD, Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, takes the reader on a journey through
Authentic style–fashion–dress negotiations of married lesbian couples on their wedding day
In 2015, a United States Supreme Court ruling allowed same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Since that time, there have been over one million same-sex marriages in the United States, and the number of same-sex marriages has increased every year (Romero, 2017). With this work, we conducted an in-depth, exploratory study on how lesbian married couples in the United States negotiated their style–fashion–dress on their wedding day. The work was guided …
Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus, Queer Spaces, Collectives Styles, and Activist Dress, 1984 to the Present
During the 1970s, people in the United States founded gay and lesbian choruses for political activism, coming out, and celebration. We examined the history of one of these choruses, the Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus (DMGMC). We asked, how do their bodies in motion and styling-fashioning-dressing produce, distribute, and negotiate queer representations? How do they appear across space and time? How can these style-fashion-dress acts open multiple in…
Apparel Consumption and Embodied Experiences of Gay Men and Transgender Women in India: Variety and Ambivalence, Fit Issues, LGBT-Fashion Brands, and Affordability
The purpose of this study was to explore Indian LGBT individuals' apparel consumption practices and embodied experiences related to fashion, style, and the body. Specifically, our research questions were these: What are Indian LGBT individuals' experiences like when navigating the fashion system, and how do they experience their own embodiment in what they wear and how they appear? A qualitative, phenomenological approach was used to answer the r…
Visibly Queer- and Trans-Fashion Brands and Retailers in the Twenty-First Century: The Production and Distribution of Binders, Packers, Underwear, Lingerie, and Bras
Socially conscious fashion entrepreneurs in the twenty-first century built many of the first visibly queer- and trans-focused fashion brands. In this paper, we critically examine nine of these brands that produced and distributed undergarments or other objects worn near or against the skin, such as binders, packers, underwear, lingerie, and bras. We draw upon oral histories with the brand directors, objects from each company, news articles, and o…
The Fashion System’s Environmental Impact: Theorizing the Market’s Institutional Actors, Actions, Logics, and Norms
Drawing on institutional theory, we examined New York Times readers’ views on fashion’s environmental impact by analyzing and interpreting comments posted in response to a sustainability and fashion-focused opinion article. Based on our interpretations, we developed a model to think through new opportunities in the mechanics of the organizational field of fashion. Collectively, readers identified multiple actors responsible for fashion market’s e…
BDSM Women’s Dress Consumption: Experiences, Meanings, and Intersectional Identities
Transformative live-action roleplay and Dagorhir costumes: Regulation, consumption and power dynamics, 1977 to the present
Dagorhir is one of the largest and oldest documented live-action roleplay groups. Dagorhir organizers have published multiple game regulations via handbooks with much emphasis on costumes since the 1970s. Dagorhir facilitates community building, identity negotiation and creative storytelling that expands beyond the game through transformative play. In our research, we examine how these costume regulations have influenced fantasy character and rea…
Garments, Accessories, and Stories: Intersections of Black Woman Identity, Black Resistance, and Collegiate Activism
Activists often have used dress to express solidarity with Black resistance movements such as the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In our research, we built upon our own and previous scholars’ work by analyzing the intersections of activism, identity, and dress in a specific space, place, and context: twenty-first-century Black women college students during the Black Lives Matter movement from 2013 to 2019 who were attending land-…
Chest-Binding Practices for Trans and Nonbinary Individuals within Different Spatiotemporalities: Redefining the Meanings of Space, Place, and Time
Styling-fashioning-dressing, which involves embodied and material articulations of style, is one way that trans and nonbinary individuals negotiate, produce, and perform their gender identities. Chest binding is a practice that involves compressing chest tissue to achieve a flattened esthetic. In this paper, we examined the spatiotemporal production of chest binding—that is, we considered bodies, space, and time as mutually constitutive and explo…
Muslim women consumers: Critical interpretations of US modest fashion brands entangled with the fashion-advocacy-capitalist-façade
Following 9/11, some young Muslim American women have been wearing hijabs to assert their Islamic identities. They are also seeking fashionable modest clothing, yet, despite their growing buying power, the US modest fashion market targeting Muslim women appears underserved. The purpose of this study was to critically examine how niche modest fashion brands in the United States target Muslim women while drawing upon theoretical concepts centring o…
Sociology (30 works) · Fashion and Cultural Textiles (29 works) · Art (18 works) · Gender Studies (18 works) · Political science (18 works) · Psychology (18 works) · Aesthetics (13 works) · Crafts, Textile, and Design (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Queer (10 works)