Papers by Denise Nicole Green
Roller derby began as a sport in the 1920s, fell out of popularity in the 1970s, and garnered int... more Roller derby began as a sport in the 1920s, fell out of popularity in the 1970s, and garnered interest again in the 2000s, with 1500 leagues worldwide today (Donahoe, 2010; Mabe, 2007; USA Roller Sports, n.d.; WFTDA, 2019a). The sport was revived by the introduction of the flat track in the early 2000s and games, known as "bouts," were billed as a form of athletic entertainment: players combined elaborate costuming with athleticism, aggression, and gender expression in interesting and complex ways. In the United States today, the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) serves as the organizing and governing body for 236 leagues (WFTDA, 2019b), each with a unique logo that serves as a visual representation of the team. We seek to understand who is represented in the WFTDA logos and what these representations convey about the sport and the athletes who participate. WFTDA leagues are typically dominated by individuals who identify as women (WFTDA, 2010), with an estimated 100,000 active players (Lampert, 2015). Strübel and Petrie ( ) have argued that roller derby women are immersed in a subversive environment where they renegotiate acceptable body sizes, concepts of femininity and masculinity, and may reject heteronormative behaviors. Players display aggression, toughness, and power on the track-characteristics that do not align with dominant social expectations of women's behavior and "femininity" (Storms, 2008). In roller derby, larger bodies are valued and embraced (Krane, 2004): three shouldered "blockers" and a "pivot," who are frequently larger in size, must prevent a single, oftentimes smaller "jammer" from scoring by passing the pack (blockers and pivot), all the while skating around on a circular track (Mabe, 2007). Derby differs from other organized sports because of its theatricality: players choose a derby name and perform this alter ego by costuming their uniform (Brick, 2008; Carlson, 2010; Green & McCullough, 2009). Punk-or rockabillythemed apparel items, fishnet tights, ruffles, body paint, visible tattoos, and other forms of costuming enable players to fashion their identities. While celebrating individuality, each team also embraces a collective identity through a logo. The logo communicates who they are as a team, as is displayed on social media, jerseys, or other team-related media. In this study, we critically analyzed roller derby logos for WFTDA-member leagues (N=296, 100%) across the United States collected from the WFTDA website over a period of three weeks in January 2019. While there has been significant research on roller derby women's experiences playing and their related bodily practices (e.g. Strübel & Petrie, 2016), researchers have not examined the imagery that represents the different leagues. Using content analysis, we critically examined the meanings of the imagery for the different leagues. If WFDTA promotes the message "REAL. STRONG. ATHLETIC. REVOLUTIONARY," then how does the logo imagery that is used on the websites, team jerseys, and related social media reflect these principles or not? Additionally, WFTDA offers a diversity and inclusion statement specifically focusing on gender, offering definitions for transgender, intersex, and genderexpansive, where they define gender expansive as "an umbrella term used for individuals that broaden commonly held definitions of gender" (WFTDA, 2019c). Using an intersectional approach (Crenshaw, 1990), we examined the current leagues' logos to understand how they represent race, gender, body size, strength, and other aspects of identity. We used an inductive approach and first analyzed the logos following a grounded theory method (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). We used an open, axial, and selective coding process and looked for emergent
Natural Dyes in the United States: An Exploration of Natural Dye Use Through the Lens of the Circuit of Style-Fashion-Dress
Breaking Boundaries, Sep 15, 2022
In research, one can often find natural dyes touted as a sustainable alternative to synthetic dyes (
Craft and Social Media: Sites of Knowledge Production and Consumption
Breaking Boundaries, Sep 15, 2022
Chest-Binding Practices for Trans and Nonbinary Individuals within Different Spatiotemporalities: Redefining the Meanings of Space, Place, and Time
Fashion Theory
Craft and Social Media: Sites of Knowledge Production and Consumption
Breaking Boundaries
Radical Structural Change in North American Dress and Textile Museums and Collections: Critically Analyzing Social Justice, Oppression, and Empowerment
Clothing and Textiles Research Journal
The purpose of our research was to examine how dress and textile collections or museums have expl... more The purpose of our research was to examine how dress and textile collections or museums have explicitly and implicitly conveyed solidarity with social-justice efforts. This includes how institutions have made antidiscrimination part of their guiding principles, as well as how these ideologies may have materialized in exhibitions. Using content analysis, we analyzed mission statements, diversity statements, and exhibition titles and descriptions of 134 North American dress and textile museums or collections. We identified five themes in the mission statements: preserving knowledge, education, spectrum of social-justice related language, oppressive language, and other commitments. We found that about half of the museums or collections had diversity statements and most created solidarity statements against racism on social media. A little less than half of the institutions explicitly incorporated social justice within exhibition titles and descriptions. Positive steps were made among t...
Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty
Once-embodied garments take on new life through curation, where they have the potential to reveal... more Once-embodied garments take on new life through curation, where they have the potential to reveal histories, pose questions, inspire creativity, and challenge oppressive systems by bringing attention to inequalities and injustices through the lens of fashion. While the garment does this work materially, it is the curator and their team who conceptualize an exhibition, conduct in-depth research, design the display and author interpretive
text, all of which empowers artefacts to convey a narrative. However, the very ‘elevation’ of fashion within major museums has been tethered to an ideological fabrication of fashion as a Euromodern phenomenon,
which has created, produced, performed and sensationalized an exclusionary narrative of fashion history. At the same time, this narrative is being challenged through curation, especially in smaller institutions like
community archives, tribal museums and university fashion collections. The contributors to this Special Issue reflect on the latter within the context of the United States. They write about the challenges of producing curated displays while offering insights into, and evidence of, the possibilities that curatorial practice offers institutions of higher education and the communities they serve. University collections in the United States create a space of learning that offers possibility for rethinking, reimagining and critiquing fashion. Education is the premise of the university collection and therefore world building becomes possible through curation. While the university fashion collection is not without colonial baggage, corporate and industry connections, ideological interests and neo-liberal pressures, it is ideally a space premised on scholarly pursuit. This Special Issue grapples with the complexities of curating fashion in North American universities, and the potential of this work to agitate, challenge and resist dominant narratives.
text, all of which empowers artefacts to convey a narrative. However, the very ‘elevation’ of fashion within major museums has been tethered to an ideological fabrication of fashion as a Euromodern phenomenon,
which has created, produced, performed and sensationalized an exclusionary narrative of fashion history. At the same time, this narrative is being challenged through curation, especially in smaller institutions like
community archives, tribal museums and university fashion collections. The contributors to this Special Issue reflect on the latter within the context of the United States. They write about the challenges of producing curated displays while offering insights into, and evidence of, the possibilities that curatorial practice offers institutions of higher education and the communities they serve. University collections in the United States create a space of learning that offers possibility for rethinking, reimagining and critiquing fashion. Education is the premise of the university collection and therefore world building becomes possible through curation. While the university fashion collection is not without colonial baggage, corporate and industry connections, ideological interests and neo-liberal pressures, it is ideally a space premised on scholarly pursuit. This Special Issue grapples with the complexities of curating fashion in North American universities, and the potential of this work to agitate, challenge and resist dominant narratives.
Fashion and Fearlessness in the Wharton Studio's Silent Film Serials, 1914-1918
Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, 2019
Located 220 miles northwest of New York City and 2,670 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the small ... more Located 220 miles northwest of New York City and 2,670 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the small city of Ithaca, New York, is relatively isolated from the fashion and film capitols of the United States; however, between 1914–1919 it was home to Wharton Studio Incorporated, a bustling silent fi lm production company that made hundreds of films and serials starring the leading actors of the day. Ithaca, New York, thus earned the moniker “the biggest little city” in the mid 1910s when production attracted some of the most important motion picture actors of the day, including Lionel Barrymore, Theda Bara, Olive Thomas, Warner Oland, and Oliver Hardy. Presented chronologically in order of production, this paper focuses on five heroines of the Wharton silent serials—Pearl White, Jean Sothern, Grace Darling, Irene Castle, Marguerite Snow—and examines how they (and their characters) influenced women’s fashion during the mid-late 1910s, a period of time considered “one of the more experimental in women’s clothes.”1 Serials with female leads were among the most popular of the early serial genre, what fi lm historian Ben Singer has termed the “serial-queen melodrama.”2 With the release of each new episode, female leads transformed entrenched notions of femininity and expanded fashion possibilities.
Pivoting for the Pandemic, 2020
Fashion curation is an integral form of public scholarship within our field and yet has historica... more Fashion curation is an integral form of public scholarship within our field and yet has historically been overlooked as such. Unlike creative design scholarship, we have not collectively developed nor agreed upon methods for peer review. As a result, curatorial work is often not considered in tenure-review processes, despite fashion exhibitions meeting the core principles of disseminating scholarship beyond the academy. A recent article in the Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, “Fashion Exhibitions as Scholarship,” challenged members of our field to implement peer review of fashion curation as a way to encourage and elevate this important form of scholarship (Green, et al., 2019). In this experimental salon session, we built upon Green et al.’s (2019) work by using the innovative salon session format as a juried venue for presenting fashion exhibitions rooted in rigor and research. Five fashion exhibitions were presented and discussed during the session.
Breaking Boundaries
In the field of apparel manufacturing, there are two broad categories for dyes: natural and synth... more In the field of apparel manufacturing, there are two broad categories for dyes: natural and synthetic. Petroleum forms the base for synthetic dyes, while plants, animals, minerals, or fungus create natural dyes. In manufacturing, synthetic dyes have become a reliable source of inexpensive, consistent, and high-performing color (Gregory, 2007). Scientists and environmentalists have criticized synthetic dyes and manufacturers for contributing to water and soil pollution (Brigden et al., 2012; Gregory, 2007). The fashion industry is once again adopting natural dyes and citing them as a more eco-friendly and renewable option to synthetics after widely disregarding them for the last 160 years. Natural dyes are considered by some as a more environmentally friendly option because they are biodegradable (Cardon, 2007; Fletcher & Grose, 2012), and may reduce the fashion industry's impact on waterways and soil (Bechtold et al., 2003, p. 502). Nevertheless, natural dye use is a complex subject when it comes to sustainability. Experts have voiced concerns about natural dye production and noted various problems, including natural dyestuff production, multiple wet processing steps, color consistency and fastness, and scalability (
Curatorial reflections in North American university fashion collections: Challenging the canon
Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty
Once-embodied garments take on new life through curation, where they have the potential to reveal... more Once-embodied garments take on new life through curation, where they have the potential to reveal histories, pose questions, inspire creativity, and challenge oppressive systems by bringing attention to inequalities and injustices through the lens of fashion. While the garment does this work materially, it is the curator and their team who conceptualize an exhibition, conduct in-depth research, design the display and author interpretive text, all of which empowers artefacts to convey a narrative. However, the very ‘elevation’ of fashion within major museums has been tethered to an ideological fabrication of fashion as a Euromodern phenomenon, which has created, produced, performed and sensationalized an exclusionary narrative of fashion history. At the same time, this narrative is being challenged through curation, especially in smaller institutions like community archives, tribal museums and university fashion collections. The contributors to this Special Issue reflect on the latte...
Genealogies of Knowledge in the Alberni Valley
This Is Our Life: Haida Material Heritage and Changing Museum Practice by Cara Krmpotich, Laura Peers (review)
Native American and Indigenous Studies, 2016
Producing materials, places and identities : a study of encounters in the Alberni Valley
This dissertation explores how Nuuchaanulth people living in Port Alberni, British Columbia artic... more This dissertation explores how Nuuchaanulth people living in Port Alberni, British Columbia articulate their sense of place and belonging in the Alberni Valley through tuupatii (ceremonial rights and privileges), genealogies, histories, material culture, and everyday engagement with the landscape. Port Alberni is a small town located in the Alberni Valley, a region rich in resources at the head of Barkley Sound on the Western coast of Vancouver Island. The Valley has been home to the Huupach'esat-h for thousands of years, but in the last 200 years has become a coming-together-place for Nuuchaanulth people more generally. As such, I explore how Nuuchaanulth people produce places within the Valley, engage with the haahuulthii (traditional chiefly territories) of the Huupach'esat-h First Nation, and experience ongoing colonialism. I examine how places are produced through encounters between peoples, histories, memories, supernatural phenomena, material artifacts, ceremonies, and forms of cultural knowledge. I develop the concept of encounter to interpret how places are produced through frictional interfaces. Drawing upon four-and-a-half years of ethnographic research, I have found that cultural practices, such as potlatching, addressing grief, knowing genealogies, and participating in oral traditions, have strengthened Nuuchaanulth communities in the Valley amidst entrenched capitalism and ongoing colonialism. I begin by using the concept of encounter to illustrate histories on the Westcoast generally, and the Alberni Valley more specifically. Next, I focus on particular encounters between families of the Huupach'esat-h, Hikuulthat-h, and Nash'asat-h to connect genealogies to production of knowledge and place. In the last three chapters, I use different cultural forms (e.g., dress, weaving, and ceremonial curtains) to illustrate how bodies and materials work together to produce understandings of place. My intention is to give a sense of the contemporary situation facing Huupach'esat-h people, who live amidst hi [...]
Fashion and Cultural Studies
Bridging theory and practice, this accessible text considers fashion from both cultural studies a... more Bridging theory and practice, this accessible text considers fashion from both cultural studies and fashion studies perspectives, and addresses the growing interaction between the two fields. Kaiser and Green use a wide range of cross-cultural case studies to explore how race, ethnicity, class, gender and other identities intersect and are produced through embodied fashion. Drawing on intersectionality in feminist theory and cultural studies, Fashion and Cultural Studies is essential reading for students and scholars. This revised edition includes updated case studies and two new chapters. The first new chapter explores religion, spirituality, and faith in relation to style, fashion, and dress. The second offers a critique of "beauty" and considers dressed embodiment inclusive of diverse sizes, shapes and dis/abilities. Throughout the text, Kaiser and Green use a range of examples to interrogate the complex entanglements of production, regulation, distribution, consumption...
Fashion Exhibitions as Scholarship: Evaluation Criteria for Peer Review
Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 2019
Curated exhibitions are places where research practice, creative design, storytelling, and aesthe... more Curated exhibitions are places where research practice, creative design, storytelling, and aesthetics converge. In this article, we use the term “fashion exhibition” to refer to the organized display of extant dress-related items within museums or other public spaces. Curation, as a form of creative design research, produces numerous outcomes including museum exhibitions, digital archives, and associated publications; however, our field has not yet established a method to peer review fashion exhibitions. In this article, we build upon the work of previous scholars to propose criteria for evaluating fashion exhibitions. In doing so, we aim to elevate the scholarly status of fashion exhibitions, particularly those mounted by modestly funded institutions, and use the recent fashion exhibition, “Women Empowered: Fashions from the Frontline,” as an example to illustrate our argument.
Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 2020
Revival of roller derby in the early 2000s garnered significant interest in the sport, and an ext... more Revival of roller derby in the early 2000s garnered significant interest in the sport, and an extensive network of leagues began to form. By 2018, approximately 1,500 leagues were operating in North America, each with a unique logo. In this study, we focus on the league logos as a potent form of embodied fashion representation. Using content analysis, we examined all of the logos for U.S. Women’s Flat Track Derby Association–member leagues and have interpreted our findings through a critical cultural analysis. Revival of roller derby in the aughts has repositioned the sport as inclusive of diverse bodies; however, the logos tell a different story. League logos perpetuate hyperfeminized, thin-centric, white bodies—that is, the norms that derby athletes are performatively challenging through participation in the sport.