The New Latin American Fashion Reader

by Regina A. Root (Editor), Stephanie N. Saunders (Editor)

Overview

The New Latin American Fashion Reader invites readers to engage with key questions and in contemporary debates around decolonization, sustainability, and agency, in the context of Latin American fashion production and design.

With its publication in 2005, The Latin American Fashion Reader established a more diverse and inclusive approach to fashion, bringing about explorations of historical foundations, altered cultural landscapes, and the potential to understand more fully consumption trends. Since then, Latin American fashion's presence on the international stage has grown amidst an urgent need for decolonization, increased representation and sustainability, at moments of political upheaval.

Taking up the story where The Latin American Fashion Reader left off, this multi-authored book allows contributors from the Americas and beyond, many of whom have encountered challenges to their craft and work, to share experiences, ideas, and knowledge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350517479
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/11/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Regina A. Root is Full Professor of Modern Languages&Literatures at William&Mary, USA. She is an international expert in participatory design and cultural production, having authored, edited and co-edited works like The Latin American Fashion Reader (Bloomsbury, 2005), Couture and Consensus (2010), The Handbook of Fashion Studies (Bloomsbury, 2013), among others. She is co-editor, with Hazel Clark, of the Bloomsbury Fashion In Action series.

Stephanie N. Saunders is Associate Professor of Spanish at Lyon College, USA. She is the author of Fashion, Gender and Agency in Latin American and Spanish Literature (2021).
Stephanie N. Saunders is Associate Professor of Spanish at Lyon College, USA. Her research focuses on body studies, space studies, migration, and identity. She is the author of Fashion, Gender and Agency in Latin American and Spanish Literature (2021).

Table of Contents

Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Reimagining Rupture and Repair

I: Archival Considerations
1. Archives Matter: Dress Histories, Buildings, and the Digital Era (Rita Morais de Andrade, Universidade Federal do Goiás, Brazil)
2. Catholic Reliquary Lockets in the Colonial Americas: Foreign Objects with Native Presence (Alison Napier, Independent Scholar, USA)
3. Manila Shawls, Trading Routes and Global Encounters (Inés Corujo Martín, CUNY New York City College of Technology, USA)
4. Decolonizing Fashion, Assembling a Ruana History. Genealogies of a Resisting and Undesirable Garment (Edward Salazar Celis, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA)
5. The Name of the Clothes: Cuban Fashion Brands, 1959–1989 (María A. Cabrera Arús, New York University, USA)

II: Culture's Empowering Lens
6. Afro-Brazilian Styles: Dress, Race, and Coloniality in Nineteenth-Century Portraits (Alliny Cabral, Independent Scholar, Brazil)
7. Spotting Afro-Peruvian Women: A (Brief) Sartorial History in Polka Dots (Tamara Walker, Barnard College, USA)
8. “Are Feminists Elegant?”: Shaping Gender and Literary Style Through Fashion (Alba Aragón, Bridgewater State University, USA)
9. Imagining through Images: Clothes and Family Memories in Afro-Brazilian Identity (Hanayrá Negreiros, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil)

III: Social Unrest and Resistance
10. Skirting the Colonial Gaze: Indigenous Reconfigurations of Feminine Identity (María Claudia Andre, Hope College, USA)
11. Fashion, Performance, and Re-existing in Trans Representation (Stephanie N. Saunders, Lyon College, USA)
12. The Politics of Clothed Bodies in Chile's Social Outburst (Pía Montalva, Independent Scholar, Chile)
13. Fashion in Distress: Cultural Fragments and Recycled Identities in Contemporary Argentina (Regina A. Root, William&Mary, USA)
14. From Low to High: Fashion, Reggaeton, and Latino Male Idols (William Cruz Bermeo, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Colombia)

IV: Creative and Collective Agency
15. The Fashion of Face Masks in Mexico: Protest, Culture, and Idnetity during the COVID-19 Pandemic (Andrea A. Gaytán Cuesta, University of North Florida, USA)
16. Transnational Experiences in Fashion: The Work of Equihua, Barragán and Ricardo Seco (Tanya Meléndez-Escalante, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, USA)
17. The National Movement of Maya Weavers and Neocolonialism in Fashion Intellectual Property (Kedron Thomas, University of Delaware, USA)
18. Design as a Natural Healer (Maria Carolina Garcia, Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo, Brazil)