Research project
Fabulous Femininities: Extravagant Costume and Transformative Thresholds
- Start date: 1 September 2020
- End date: 31 August 2023
- Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council
- Primary investigator: Dr Jacki Willson
- Co-investigators: Professor Alice O'Grady, Dr Elspeth Mitchell
- External co-investigators: Claire Nally (Northumbria University)
Value
£503,381
Description
Fabulous Femininities will seek to understand the way that resistant feminine identities are performed by burlesque club-goers via specific DIY approaches to costume. The immersive and ethnographic study will focus on a range of club events and participants (performers, club-goers, costumers etc) in order to document, understand and theorize the transformative threshold between the everyday self and the extravagant spectacle. The project will explore transformative elements of costume in order to understand the way costume performs, imagines and politicizes alternative forms of 'femininity'.