In recent years, geeks have become chic, and the fashion and beauty
industries have responded to this trend with a plethora of
fashion-forward merchandise aimed at the increasingly lucrative fan
demographic. This mainstreaming of fan identity is reflected in the glut
of pop culture T-shirts lining the aisles of big box retailers as well
as the proliferation of fan-focused lifestyle brands and digital
retailers over the past decade. While fashion and beauty have long been
integrated into the media industry with tie-in lines, franchise
products, and other forms of merchandise, there has been limited study
of fans' relationship to these items and industries.
Sartorial Fandom shines a spotlight on the fashion and beauty cultures
that undergird fandoms, considering the retailers, branded products, and
fan-made objects that serve as forms of identity expression. This
collection is invested in the subcultural and mainstream expression of
style and in the spaces where the two intersect. Fan culture is, in many
respects, an optimal space to situate a study of style because fandom
itself is often situated between the subcultural and the mainstream.
Collectively, the chapters in this anthology explore how various axes of
lived identity interact with a growing movement to consider fandom as a
lifestyle category, ultimately contending that sartorial practices are
central to fan expression but also indicative of the primacy of fandom
in contemporary taste cultures.
