Silhouettes of the Soul - Meditations on Fashion, Religion, and Subjectivity

What is the relationship between the soul, or inner life, and what we wear in the making of identity and belief? What bearing do religious and political belonging, respectability, and resistance have on the way in which we dress? Why have more traditional religious practices been so prescriptive about body adornment? Historically, fashionable dress and religion have been positioned as polar opposites. Silhouettes of the Soul brings them together, placing them in conversation with each other. By moving beyond traditional, social scientific, and historical analysis of religious attire and adornment the book presents a variety of disciplinary approaches from across regional, social, and religious locations.

Contentious and challenging, as well as academically rigorous, the book's diverse range of contributors - from fashion and religious studies scholars, to designers, activists, monastics, and journalists - explore the relationship between religion and fashion, extending the meanings and possibilities of both dress and spirituality. Combining interviews and personal stories with more traditional theoretical analysis, Silhouettes of the Soul offers new ways of looking at the relationship between religion, personal convictions, and self-expression - our sense of self and our sense of fashion.

List of contents

List of Illustrations
List of Contributors

Introduction
Otto von Busch (Parsons School of Design, USA) and Jeanine Viau (University of Central Florida, USA)

Section One: Interfacing the Divine

Section One Introduction by Otto von Busch (Parsons School of Design, USA) and Jeanine Viau (University of Central Florida, USA)

1. The Future Body as Ultimate Dress
Fiona Dieffenbacher (Parsons School of Design, USA)

2. No One Can Tell: On the Silent Glamour of Meher Baba
Nicola Masciandaro (Brooklyn College, CUNY, USA)

3. Embodiments of Shakti: Cosmic Power Displayed by Kumaris, Incarnate Goddesses of Nepal
Liz Wilson (Miami University of Ohio, USA)

4. Interview with Kodo Nishimura
Otto von Busch (Parsons School of Design, USA) and Mark Larrimore (The New School, USA)

Section Two: Practices of Emulation and Transformation

Section Two Introduction by Otto von Busch (Parsons School of Design, USA) and Jeanine Viau (University of Central Florida, USA)

5. Naked or Nude? Reading the Threads, the Bare and the Threadbare in Ancient Indian Religion
Joseph Walser (Tufts University, USA)

6. Empowered Entrepreneurs: Women of Muslim Faith and the Modest Fashion Movement in the U.S.
Hassanah El-Yacoubi (University of California Riverside, USA)

7. Fashioning the Subject: Black Queerness, Identity, and an Ethic of Honor
Benae Beamon (Bucknell University, USA)

8. From the Medieval Christ to Fashion’s Heroin Chic: The Sublime Emulation of the Emaciated Paradigm in Secular and Religious Iconography
Tanya White (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada)

9. In and Out of One Another’s Closets: A Dialogue
Jeanine Viau (University of Central Florida, USA) with Shekinah Morrison (University of Central Florida, USA)

Section Three: The Radiance of the Concealed

Section Three Introduction by Otto von Busch (Parsons School of Design, USA) and Jeanine Viau (University of Central Florida, USA)

10. Making Islamic Masculinities: Clothing Traditions in African American Islam
Michael Muhammad Knight (University of Central Florida, USA)

11. Holly Woodlawn, Trash Queen: Queer Agency and Resistance in the Pursuit of Glamour
Jared Vázquez (University of Denver, USA)

12. Fashioning A Glamour: Magical Embodiment in Contemporary Witchcraft
Kristen J. Sollée (The New School, USA)

13. Interview with Damcho
Otto von Busch (Parsons School of Design, USA)

Index

About the author

Otto von Busch is Associate Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design, USA. He holds a PhD in design from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and was previously Professor of Textiles at Konstfack University, Sweden. He has published articles in The Design Journal, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, Fashion Practice, CoDesign Journal, The Journal of Modern Craft, Textile Cloth and Culture, Craft Research, Organizational Aesthetics, Creative Industries Journal and the Journal for Artistic Research, and has contributed chapters on design activism to The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Product Design (2017), The Routledge Companion to Design Research (2015), The Routledge Handbook of Sustainability and Fashion (2014), as well as other design anthologies.Jeanine Viau is Associate Lecturer of Religion and Cultural Studies at the University of Central Florida, USA.

Summary

What is the relationship between the soul, or inner life, and what we wear in the making of identity and belief? What bearing do religious and political belonging, respectability, and resistance have on the way in which we dress? Why have more traditional religious practices been so prescriptive about body adornment? Historically, fashionable dress and religion have been positioned as polar opposites. Silhouettes of the Soul brings them together, placing them in conversation with each other. By moving beyond traditional, social scientific, and historical analysis of religious attire and adornment the book presents a variety of disciplinary approaches from across regional, social, and religious locations.

Contentious and challenging, as well as academically rigorous, the book's diverse range of contributors - from fashion and religious studies scholars, to designers, activists, monastics, and journalists - explore the relationship between religion and fashion, extending the meanings and possibilities of both dress and spirituality. Combining interviews and personal stories with more traditional theoretical analysis, Silhouettes of the Soul offers new ways of looking at the relationship between religion, personal convictions, and self-expression - our sense of self and our sense of fashion.

Foreword

Exploring the relationship between fashion and religion, authors reveal the cultural, religious and esoteric beliefs and practices involved in our decisions about dress and identity.

Additional text

This volume draws together scholars from diverse disciplinary homes to offer concepts and frames to help our understanding of the role of clothing in theological constructions, devotional practices, and cultivation of the self, as well as the broader aesthetics of concealment of the human form.

Product details

• Authors: Jeanine Viau, Otto Von Busch, VON BUSCH OTTO
• Assisted by: Jeanine Viau (Editor), Otto Von Busch (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.02.2022
• EAN: 9781350179905
• ISBN: 978-1-350-17990-5
• No. of pages: 216
• Series: Dress Cultures
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Interior design, design; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; Cultural Studies, RELIGION / General, DESIGN / Fashion & Accessories, DESIGN / Textile & Costume, Fashion design & theory, history of design, Fashion and textile design, Religious life and practice, Religious life & practice