Costume Society of America

08/27/2026

September is just a few days away, and these are the exhibitions and events you won’t want to miss.

Check out some of the latest exhibitions, events, projects, and talks organized and curated by CSA Members and Institutions.

1️⃣ [Exhibition] Garment Labels: The Fine Print of Dress(ing) (University of Nebraska – Lincoln)
***On view through November 24th, 2026***

2️⃣ [Talk] Brims and Bonnets: History of Headwear (Plymouth Antiquarian Society – Plymouth, MA)
***September 8th, 2026 at 2pm***

3️⃣ [Exhibition] Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion in American Silent Film (Bard Graduate Center – New York, NY)
***Opens September 18th, 2026***

4️⃣ [Exhibition] Keeping Alive the Remembrance: Commemorating America’s Founding (Yale University Art Gallery – New Haven, CT)
***On view through October 19th, 2026***

5️⃣ [Exhibition] Textile Alchemy: The Art of Reiko Sudo and Nuno (Los Angeles County Museum of Art – Los Angeles, CA)
***On view through September 20th, 2026***

6️⃣ [Talk] Machine Stitch: A Talk on Digital Embroidery & Materiality (The New School – New York, NY)
***Tuesday, September 29th at 12pm***

08/26/2026

Tomorrow!

Join us for this month’s Dress & Drinks with Shelley Burian, the Lisa and Bernard Selz Curator at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum.

🗓️Wednesday, August 26th at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific

✨FREE Webinar, Open to All

Shelley will guide us through garments drawn primarily from Indigenous cultures across Mexico, Central America, and South America, illuminating how textile production has long served as a living tradition and a form of cultural expression. She'll share how the intricate construction techniques of Andean weavers reflect not just extraordinary skill, but also dialogue between the diverse peoples of the Inka empire and the political, religious, and social structures that bound them together.

🔗Click the link to register: https://costumesocietyamerica.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/event-detail?event=728

08/24/2026

The new exhibition at at the George Washington Museum and the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. displays rarely exhibited garments from one of the world’s largest empires, the Inka Empire, which expanded beyond the Cusco Valley to occupy much of South America’s western region.

"Weaving an Empire: Textiles of the Inka World" highlights the dress practices of diverse communities under Inka rule who dressed to reflect allegiance to the empire and their own local styles and traditions.

Check it out this exhibition on view through December 19th!

08/20/2026

Join us for this month’s Dress & Drinks with Shelley Burian, the Lisa and Bernard Selz Curator at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum.

🗓️Wednesday, August 26th at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific

✨FREE Webinar, Open to All

Shelley will guide us through garments drawn primarily from Indigenous cultures across Mexico, Central America, and South America, illuminating how textile production has long served as a living tradition and a form of cultural expression. She'll share how the intricate construction techniques of Andean weavers reflect not just extraordinary skill, but also dialogue between the diverse peoples of the Inka empire and the political, religious, and social structures that bound them together.

🔗Click the link to register: https://costumesocietyamerica.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/event-detail?event=728

08/19/2026

The Costume Society of America and the Northeastern Region are pleased to announce the call for submissions for the 53rd Annual Meeting and Symposium to be held in Burlington, Vermont, from June 6 through 10, 2027.

⚠️The deadline for submissions is October 15th, 2026

🔗Review submission instructions and rubrics at the link: https://www.costumesocietyamerica.com/upcoming-symposium

Not a member yet? Join today.

08/17/2026

CSA member Chloe Chapin has recently written an article for Lit Hub on the civic meaning behind trends in men’s fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Read “The Clothes Make the Man: How Dark Suits Defined the Early American Republic” here: https://lithub.com/the-clothes-make-the-man-how-dark-suits-defined-the-early-american-republic/

08/12/2026

✨NEW BOOK ALERT✨ with introduction by CSA member Sharon Sadako Takeda!

Edited by Michaela Hansen, with a foreword by Michael Govan, a preface by Jason Wu, an introduction by Sharon Sadako Takeda and Michaela Hansen, and essays by Michaela Hansen and Mei Mei Rado, this richly illustrated volume was recently published by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in association with DelMonico Books–D.A.P.

Published to accompany the exhibition of the same title at LACMA (June 14–October 12, 2026), the book explores the evolution of modern Chinese women’s fashion from the late Qing dynasty through the 1960s.

As the first major exhibition outside China to comprehensively examine this subject, it highlights the creativity, resilience, and sartorial heritage of generations of Chinese women whose lives—and wardrobes—spanned continents and cultures.

🔗The book is available for purchase at the link: https://www.thelacmastore.org/collections/fashioning-chinese-women-empire-to-modernity/products/fashioning-chinese-women-empire-to-modernity

08/10/2026

Join CSA member, Meghan Hansen, Registrar at the Skirball Cultural Center, for an informal tour of the current exhibition, Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976-86, on Saturday, August 22 at 1:00 pm. The exhibition features posters, flyers, and other punk ephemera along with some really great examples of punk anti-fashion.

RSVP to Meghan at [email protected] by Friday, August 14. Tickets are available for purchase in advance on the Skirball website.

08/07/2026

Application deadline is coming up!

✨COPY EDITOR APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN!!✨

Costume Society of America seeks a Copy Editor for its annual peer-reviewed journal, Dress.

The journal fulfills the CSA objective: "to publish a periodical containing articles of enduring educational interest on the subject of costume,”’ and thus represents the highest level of scholarship and addresses the diverse interests of the membership.

The first volume of Dress was published in 1975 and moved to two issues per volume in 2013. Since that time, publication has been targeted for spring and fall of each year. Working closely with, and under the direction of, the Principal Editor and the Deputy Editor, this technical role will assist to prepare issues for publication by copy editing all journal contents.

The primary role of the Dress Copy Editor is to identify spelling, grammatical and stylistic errors and inconsistencies in a manuscript prior to the submission to the Taylor & Francis Production system. This includes reviewing for formatting and presentation according to the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) and the Taylor & Francis Style Guide for Dress.

Another important duty is the checking of the spelling of all names, titles, dates, and links. The Copy Editor will suggest revisions to the text using track changes and identify queries that the Principal Editor should review with the author.

🔗Click the link for more info and to apply: https://costumesocietyamerica.app.neoncrm.com/np/constituent/co/data/create.do?webFormId=34&

08/05/2026

🗞️This edition of Dialogues on Dress features Summer Lee Jack, costume designer and professor at Middlebury College.

As a costume designer and theater professor, Summer Lee Jack is expert at dissolving the lines between disciplines. Whether that’s showing student athletes just how similar theater is to their sport, (think rehearsal, audiences, adrenaline, teamwork), bringing entomology professors into class to discuss insects and textile conservation, or simply discovering the joys of moving between scholarship and practice.

After a robust career freelancing for theaters across New York City, with plenty of schlepping bags of garments on the subway, Summer now teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont as an Assistant Professor of Theater. In the balance of teaching design, sewing, history, conservation, and more, she helps students unlock their creativity and discover theater is for anyone and everyone.

Through it all, her enthusiastic and unwavering growth mindset is palpable. Summer’s work is a needed reminder that “you just have to be willing to be bad at something before you become good at it. That's something all of us have to learn.”

🔗Read the full interview at the link: https://www.costumesocietyamerica.com/dialogues-on-dress-summer-lee-jack