Linda Bradley, professor in the Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles, and co-authors Debbie Christel, former AMDT assistant professor, and Nicole O’Donnell, a graduate student in the Murrow College of Communication, received the 2017 Fashion and Textiles Best Paper Award from the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles, to be announced at the society’s fall conference, Oct. 21.
The award recognizes their paper, “Coping by crossdressing: an exploration of exercise clothing for obese heterosexual women,” as the best in the humanities and social sciences, selected annually among the papers published in the society’s journals.
“Our paper points out there is a large demographic whose needs are not being met,” Bradley said. “Plus size women—size 14 and up—are the majority of adult American women, yet many can’t find adequate clothing to wear while working out.
“A surprising number of the women we interviewed gave up on women’s clothing and simply went to the menswear section for comfortable sweats and T-shirts,” Bradley added. “Their intent was to simply find something comfortable and modest to wear. They really wanted fashionable, feminine styles to wear and were upset that there were so few choices for them in the retail marketplace.”
The authors have been invited to present their work at the 2018 International Conference of Fashion and Textiles, May 26, 2018, in Seoul.