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Queer Style
"Queer Style" offers an insight into queer fashionability by addressing the role that clothing has played in historical and contemporary lifestyles. From a fashion studies perspective, it examines the function of subcultural dress within queer communities and the mannerisms and messages that are used as signifiers of identity. Diverse dress is examined, including effeminate 'pansy, ' masculine macho 'clone, ' the 'lipstick' and 'butch' lesbian styles and the extreme styles of drag kings and drag queens. Divided into three main sections on history, subcultural identity and subcultural style, "Queer Style" will be of particular interest to students of dress and fashion as well as those coming to subculture from sociology and cultural studies.
- GenresFashion
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 29, 2013
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December 19, 2019
Oddly it seems that there are two versions of this book listed on goodreads, one of which has Adam Geczy as first author, and one that does not.
Anyway, this book reads to me like a CV-padding kind of book. Geczy has written about similar things in other books so this reads more like a summary of several different strains of thought rather than something especially unique. It's a slim volume of only 140 pages.
Really this book should be called "gay style with some lesbian and nonwestern gender-nonconforming content." The language definitely reflects that this was written in 2013. The biggest issue to me is that the gay chapter is easily more than twice as long as any of the other chapters. Also odd to me is that analysis of the style of bisexual and transgender people is largely absent. The authors seem to want to group all western queers into the categories of gays and lesbians, and gays and lesbians are the primary people involved in activities like drag balls. The analysis, especially of gay male style, is white as hell. The lesbian chapter has at least a few paragraphs on black queers, albeit mostly confined to discussion about the 1920's.
I'd personally also like to quibble with his assessment of s/m that the pain is primarily an act and that real pain isn't inflicted. It seems that the author is unfamiliar with the extensive use of needles and scarification happening in many lesbian communities, going back to at least the 70s. Besides the fact that the author seems to think that the military uniform fetishists are a larger part of the sm and leather scenes than they are, although I do wonder if many kinksters' disavowal of Nazi play is a matter of them protesting too much.
I think this would be a better introductory text than a book for serious scholars. I admit that I think that the exhibit the Fashion Institute of Technology put on about queer style to better unify brevity with visual appeal. It's a lot easier to talk about mollies and Greta Garbo and Keith Haring when you have the actual clothes they wore in front of you. This book was pretty much just a more detailed version of that show.
This book did not have nearly enough pictures.
Anyway, this book reads to me like a CV-padding kind of book. Geczy has written about similar things in other books so this reads more like a summary of several different strains of thought rather than something especially unique. It's a slim volume of only 140 pages.
Really this book should be called "gay style with some lesbian and nonwestern gender-nonconforming content." The language definitely reflects that this was written in 2013. The biggest issue to me is that the gay chapter is easily more than twice as long as any of the other chapters. Also odd to me is that analysis of the style of bisexual and transgender people is largely absent. The authors seem to want to group all western queers into the categories of gays and lesbians, and gays and lesbians are the primary people involved in activities like drag balls. The analysis, especially of gay male style, is white as hell. The lesbian chapter has at least a few paragraphs on black queers, albeit mostly confined to discussion about the 1920's.
I'd personally also like to quibble with his assessment of s/m that the pain is primarily an act and that real pain isn't inflicted. It seems that the author is unfamiliar with the extensive use of needles and scarification happening in many lesbian communities, going back to at least the 70s. Besides the fact that the author seems to think that the military uniform fetishists are a larger part of the sm and leather scenes than they are, although I do wonder if many kinksters' disavowal of Nazi play is a matter of them protesting too much.
I think this would be a better introductory text than a book for serious scholars. I admit that I think that the exhibit the Fashion Institute of Technology put on about queer style to better unify brevity with visual appeal. It's a lot easier to talk about mollies and Greta Garbo and Keith Haring when you have the actual clothes they wore in front of you. This book was pretty much just a more detailed version of that show.
This book did not have nearly enough pictures.
Displaying 1 of 1 review