Related Papers
Transformative Works and Cultures
Stranger than Fiction: Fan Identity in Cosplay
2010 •
Nicolle Lamerichs
Academic accounts of fan cultures usually focus on creative practices such as fan fiction, fan videos, and fan art. Through these practices, fans, as an active audience, closely interpret existing texts and rework them with texts of their own. A practice scarcely examined is cosplay ("costume play"), in which fans produce their own costumes inspired by fictional characters. Cosplay is a form of appropriation that transforms and actualizes an existing story in close connection to the fan community and the fan's own identity. I provide analytical insights into this fan practice, focusing on how it influences the subject. Cosplay is understood as a performative activity and analyzed through Judith Butler's concept of performativity. I specifically focus on boundaries between the body and dress, and on those between reality and fiction. I aim to show that cosplay emphasizes the personal enactment of a narrative, thereby offering new perspectives on fan identity.
Fashion Practice:
2020 •
deepsikha chatterjee
THESIS : MASTER OF DESIGN - IZMIR UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES - DESIGN STUDIES PROGRAM
CEASELESS ALLURE OF FEMMES-FUTURES: FASHION IMPACT OF THE SCI-FI FILM HEROINE
2019 •
Aslısu Tu
Fashion and film have been hand in hand since the early days of cinema. In particular, there is a distinct connection in terms of design between fashion and iconic sci-fi movies. This interaction has transformed the way femininity has been perceived through design, and how this relationship has resonated in contemporary fashion collections. Backed with theories by Baudrillard's Simulacra and Volt's Futurist Manifesto, the thesis opens up the idea that the female body is subject to visual empowerment constructed with the expressive materials and shapes. The mutual language of films and fashion collections underscores the feminine strength as a visual perception by design elements they encase. The thesis also delves deep into female presence as sci-fi heroines and how this phenomenon has become an identity code through fashion as a medium. Tracing cross-pollinating sci-fi inspirations that are inscribed into garments as solid materials with the guidance of multifaceted views suggested by cultural theorists, this study bridges the „ceaseless appeal‟ of sci-fi aesthetics with the bodily transformations that fashion offers.
Fashion, Costume and Visual Cultures (FCVC2019):FCVC2019 abstracts
Nadir Tati, La Mode De l’Angola au Monde
2019 •
Margarida Amaro
Notre analyse porte sur le travail de la créatrice de mode angolaise Nadir Tati, gardienne des traditions et des coutumes africaines, elle devient un médiateur interculturel unique dont la créativité se traduit par des collections inspirées par l'histoire et le quotidien de la culture angolaise. La créativité de Nadir Tati, à l'instar d'autres créateurs de mode africains, oscille entre l'inspiration de son Afrique ancestrale et les influences naturelles qu'elle ressent lors de ses voyages à travers le monde, des États-Unis à l'Asie, en passant par l'Europe, notamment le Portugal, dans sa détermination de placer son agenda dans l’arène mondiale de la mode, dans l'affirmation d'une identité et la manifestation de la mémoire d’une culture (Lotman & Uspenski, 1975). En renvoyant à différentes manières d'être dans le monde, à différentes styles de vie (Landowski, 2012), Tati réinvente les formes locales comme le pagne d’ Angola ou le turban, en lui apportant une allure contemporaine à travers des rappels fonctionnels et esthétiquement adaptés à la vie urbaine, envisageant une clientèle cosmopolite . Ce travail de transformation du pagne - dans une société où l'utilisation du tissu dépasse de loin la mode et symbolise l'art de vivre, établissant le lien entre les temps anciens et les générations actuelles - témoigne de la richesse culturelle et d'un exceptionnel savoir-faire traditionnel mais reflète aussi un l’impulse rénovateur en sortant du cadre traditionnel vers un monde globalisé (Rovine, 2015). C’est la sémiotique de la culture qui nous apporte une théorie, des concepts et des méthodologies pour analyser comment la dialectique de la tradition et de l’innovation, dans un processus de transmutation des formes, c’est-à-dire de la transformation, opère sémantiquement dans le travail de cette créatrice de mode, précurseur de la nouvelle génération de créateurs angolais, hors d’exotismes et en procès de régénération de la mode global.
Designing Hedda: Questioning the Canonical Play Hedda Gabler, as a Feminist Text Through Abstraction
2016 •
Bethany Eddy
Transformative Works and Cultures
Harley Quinn and the carnivalesque transformation of comic book fandom
2021 •
Liam Burke
The antihero Harley Quinn was first introduced as the Joker's "henchwench" in Batman: The Animated Series (1992). The character soon developed a dedicated fan base, including enthusiasts who did not conform to traditional definitions of comic book fans. Recognizing Harley Quinn's popularity, DC Comics subsequently incorporated the character into comic book continuity. Today, Harley Quinn is a transmedia icon extended across multiple media platforms. In this article, audience research and creator interviews were performed to show how Harley Quinn has been used by both fans and industry stakeholders to transform long-standing (and often outdated) definitions of comic book fandom. Much of Harley Quinn's transformative potential comes from invoking a carnivalesque tradition that defies boundaries. Harley Quinn's popularity is not simply symptomatic of a widening comic book fandom but was active in that transformation.
In Search of Authorship: The Role of the Costume designer in characterisation-three case studies of Australian Screen Costume Design
Erin Roche
Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection (Enevold, MacCallum-Stewart, 2015)
Express Yourself: An Affective Analysis of Game Cosplayers
2015 •
Nicolle Lamerichs
This contribution to Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection (Enevold, MacCallum-Stewart, 2015) seeks to understand cosplay as a creative expression of love for games. I have added a link to googlebooks, but feel free to e-mail me for a draft at n.a.lamerichs@gmail.com
Scene
Costuming as Subculture: The Multiple Bodies in Cosplay
2014 •
Nicolle Lamerichs
This article explores the subculture of cosplay, short for ‘costume play’. In this particular practice, fans create and wear costumes that allow them to re-enact existing fictional characters from popular culture. These outfits and subsequent performances are a physical manifestation of their immersion into the fictional realms of television, games and movies, among others. Cosplay can be understood as the culture of costuming that occurs beyond the institutional remit of the theatre. Especially in western countries, cosplay is intimately connected to the carnivalesque space of the fan convention, where fans gather and re-enact their favourite characters. I argue that embodiment plays a unique role in cosplay that should be interrogated closely. The fan performer relies on multiple bodies and repertoires that are intimately connected to the fan’s identity and the performed character.
DiGRA: Defragging Game Studies
Cosplay: Material and Transmedial Culture in Play
2013 •
Nicolle Lamerichs
"Through “cosplay” (costume play) fans perform existing fictional characters in self-created costumes, thereby enriching and extending popular narratives. Cosplay is a scarcely studied form of appropriation that transforms and actualizes an existing story or game in close connection to the fan community and the fan’s own identity (Lamerichs, 2011; Newman, 2008; Okabe, 2012; Winge, 2006). The activity can be read as a form of dress up. In the field of game studies, dress up is an often overlooked but significant category of play with its own affordances (Fron, Fullerton, Morie, & Pearce, 2007). While dress up can involve actual costumes or fantasy play, it is also encouraged in digital games and their user-generated content. Customizable characters and “dollhouse” structures in The Sims series are but one example (Wirman, 2011). Similarly, cosplay provides the player with the joys of make-belief and productive play. This paper explores the possibilities of reading the costume itself as a product that facilitates performance and play. I analyze cosplay as a transmedial activity that is constructed at different online and offline sites through small-scaled ethnography and close-reading. The transmediality of cosplay is foregrounded in the methodology that, rather than adopting a player-centered approach, construes a cultural reading that involves both participants and spectators (e.g., photographers, fans, media professionals or outsiders such as parents). Through two case-studies, I focus on the costume’s materiality and emerging performances. The first case details the materiality of cosplay through its consumption culture. Cosplay blurs the relations between labor and play. The activity takes shape at fan conventions but also increasingly at promotional events of the industry itself. Costumes are commodified by fans themselves as well that sell their cosplay photos, commission their dress from others or buy parts of them. Increasingly, costumes and accessories are sold over platforms as eBay and Etsy which will illustrate the dynamics between commerciality and creativity. The second case explores the visuality of the costume through its mediation. While the costume can be experienced first-hand at convention sites, it is also remediated in photography, for instance, thereby extending its potential audience and performative possibilities. I exemplify this transmediality through cosplayer music videos (CMV) that are commonly produced at convention sites. These rich videos are created by and for fans and juxtapose different cosplayers and texts. Informed by work on other fan videos such as “machinima” (Lowood & Nitsche, 2011) I propose a reading of a selected corpus of videos. Thus, this study analyzes the dynamics of costume culture as it transcends the convention grounds."
