Cosplay, short for "costume play", has grown from its origins at fan conventions into a billion-dollar global dress phenomenon. Costuming Cosplay takes us from elaborately crafted DIY costumes to online fandoms, examining how the practice of portraying fictional characters from popular culture through dress and performance has become a creative means of expressing and playing with different identities. With an approach that ranges from admiration and role-play to gender performance, this is the first book to fully examine the subculture and costume of the Cosplay phenomenon. Drawing on extensive first-hand research at conventions across North America and Asia, Theresa M. Winge invites us to explore how Cosplay functions as a meritocracy of creativity, escapism, and disguise, and offers a creative realm in which fantasy and new forms of socializing carry as much importance as costume. Illustrated with color photographs of both celebrity and amateur Cosplayers, Costuming Cosplay is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion and costume, popular culture, anthropology, gender, and media studies, as well as global players and fans of Cosplay.

Illustrated with specific subcultural examples and interviews with subculture members, "Body Style" explores the subcultural body and its style within global culture. Analyzed, theorized, politicized, and sensationalized, the subcultural body functions as a framework where individuals build a sense of self and subcultural identity. Drawing on eleven years of research examining the intersections within specific urban subcultures including Urban Tribalists, Modern Primitives, Punks, Cybers, Industrials, Skates, among others, the book reveals the subculture body as a site for understanding subcultural identity, resistance, agency and fashion. Divided into three main sections on subcultural body history, subcultural body identity and subcultural body styles, this book will be of particular interest to students of dress and fashion as well as those studying subculture from sociology and cultural studies perspectives.

Cosplay, short for "costume play", has grown from its origins at fan conventions into a billion-dollar global dress phenomenon. Costuming Cosplay takes us from elaborately crafted DIY costumes to online fandoms, examining how the practice of portraying fictional characters from popular culture through dress and performance has become a creative means of expressing and playing with different identities. With an approach that ranges from admiration and role-play to gender performance, this is the first book to fully examine the subculture and costume of the Cosplay phenomenon. Drawing on extensive first-hand research at conventions across North America and Asia, Theresa M. Winge invites us to explore how Cosplay functions as a meritocracy of creativity, escapism, and disguise, and offers a creative realm in which fantasy and new forms of socializing carry as much importance as costume. Illustrated with color photographs of both celebrity and amateur Cosplayers, Costuming Cosplay is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion and costume, popular culture, anthropology, gender, and media studies, as well as global players and fans of Cosplay.

Illustrated with specific subcultural examples and interviews with subculture members, "Body Style" explores the subcultural body and its style within global culture. Analyzed, theorized, politicized, and sensationalized, the subcultural body functions as a framework where individuals build a sense of self and subcultural identity. Drawing on eleven years of research examining the intersections within specific urban subcultures including Urban Tribalists, Modern Primitives, Punks, Cybers, Industrials, Skates, among others, the book reveals the subculture body as a site for understanding subcultural identity, resistance, agency and fashion. Divided into three main sections on subcultural body history, subcultural body identity and subcultural body styles, this book will be of particular interest to students of dress and fashion as well as those studying subculture from sociology and cultural studies perspectives.