Viscose Journal, Issue 4 – Trans

Viscose is a new journal for fashion criticism. Launched between Copenhagen and New York in 2021, the periodical publishes critical writing and projects by a wide range of authors from the worlds of art, fashion, literature, and academia. Through specially edited thematic issues, Viscose gives space to projects that challenge and expand the possibilities of research, practice, and critique of fashion.

This special issue of Viscose critically explores the numerous relationships between transness and fashion. The issue sets out to ask two ambivalent questions: what is a fashion theory of transness, and what might a trans theory of fashion be? Co-edited with scholars Alex Esculapio and Che Gossett, Viscose 04 productively confronts fashion studies with trans aesthetics and trans studies, and attempts to excavate the largely invisible archives of trans history that form the underside of fashion itself.

The issue, co-published with Leslie Lohman Museum in New York, features new contributions by a global cast of trans and queer writers, artists, and creatives, responding to the porous notion of “trans cultural production” as a genre full of potentiality. The issue features a wealth of archival and contemporary moments of trans fashion production spanning 50 years. The cover, designed by NYC-based designer and bookmaker Rissa Hochberger, celebrates histories of independent queer publishing, and doubles as a detachable poster.

In the issue: Make It Fashion Keep It Trans by Enantios Dromos and Scopeta Shephard; Grandma and Greer, 1983 NYC by Paul Munroe; Roundtable on Trans Fashion Working by Cruz Valdez, Dara Allen, Tracey Norman, Connie Fleming; Against Rehabilitation: The Trans Fashioning of Lorenza Böttner by Iarlaith Ni Fheorais; All Trans Women are Artists: Trans Visibility and the Cis Gaze by McKenzie Wark; Marionetting by Wong Bing Hao; "This Is Not A Dress Rehearsal:" Sartorial Politics in the Tartan Skirt by Alex Esculapio; Trans Oral History Project: Working Retail; It Is Hard Being This Chic by Travis Alabanza; Chances of Carapace by Jaya Jacobo; Performativity by Chella Man; Terminal Fashion Shoot (1996) by Davora Lindner; Review: The Candy Book of Transversal Creativity: The Best of Candy Transversal Magazine, Allegedly by Fenella Hitchcock; Excerpts From A Family Album by Rosa Kwir; Brown Trans Study: Fashioning Pleasure And Loss by Francisco J. Galarte; Dazzling Visions by Jacqueline Landvik; "Nice Gender DId Your Mum Pick It Out For You?": Fashion And Dress In The Museum of Transology; '70s Tokyo Transgender by Satomi Nihongi, and more!

9.75 x 13", 172 pages
softcover