A spectrum of thanks to Jonathan Kemp and queerguru for the glowing review of CLOSET CASES: Queers on What We Wear by Megan Volpert, up today!
Kemp says, "These are tender, painful, playful testimonies to the power and importance of clothes for queers. . . .From the significance of a flashy tie being worn in a classroom to the sexual semiotics of lesbian body hair, from leather man drag to cowboy boots – the topics are as diverse as the queers depicted in the photos wearing the item of clothing or outfit being written about. . . . Fashion becomes crucial in the expression of or experimentation with the ‘self’ in all its radical complexity and its paradoxical and often contradictory gestures. The selves on proud display here are all hard-won: if our bodies are battlefields then what we wear is sometimes battle dress . . .”