Theresa M. Winge
Associate Professor of Fashion Design and Theory | Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES
An expert on fashion and dress, Theresa M. Winge focuses her research on the construction of identity within visual and material cultures.
Media
Publications:
Documents:
Videos:
Audio/Podcasts:
Biography
Therèsa M. Winge is an Associate Professor in Apparel and Textile Design, in the Art, Art History, and Design department at Michigan State University. Common throughout her research and design, she focuses on the construction/deconstruction of subcultural visual and material cultures, dress, and narratives. Her research examines subcultural dress for its meanings and construction of identity. Winge deconstructs the bricolage of specific subcultural dress for its significant elements that contribute to the creation of her conceptual apparel designs, utilizing both traditional and innovative techniques and methodologies. Her first book Body Style (2012) is about subcultural body modifications, and her second book Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination (2018).
Industry Expertise (1)
Education/Learning
Areas of Expertise (8)
Material Culture
Steampunk
Subculture
Culture
Fashion
Dress
Punk
Cosplay
Education (3)
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: Ph.D., Dress Studies 2004
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: M.A., Subcultures, Dress, Quantum Physics 2004
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: B.S., Clothing Design 2004
Researched subcultures and their dress Design--apparel, graphic, websites, etc.
Links (7)
News (4)
Is ink indecent?
The Varsity online
2016-09-11
In The Berg Companion to Fashion, Valerie Steele defines the ‘tattoo’ as “a permanent or semi-permanent body modification that transforms the skin.” According to Steele, the word tattoo comes from the Tahitian word ‘tautau’, meaning “to mark something.” The practice of tattooing involves puncturing the skin and depositing pigments, like ink, to create permanent patterns and designs.
MSU Experts Can Discuss All Things Oscars
MSUToday online
2016-02-22
Who will take home Hollywood’s most prestigious awards, The Oscars, at the Academy Awards on Feb. 28? Who, and what, will wow the fashion police?
ATD Students Finalists in 3-D Printing Challenge
MSUToday online
2015-05-15
As part of professor Theresa Winge’s apparel and textile specialized design course, students participated in the 2015 Extreme Redesign 3-D Printing Challenge. ATD students Ashley Christensen and Lauren Aquilina took third place in the competition and MacLain Credeur and Autumn Hauer were finalists in the top 10.
Costumed fans put a gender spin on classic characters
CNN online
2013-09-03
"Men are often quagmired in tropes of 'maleness,' " said Theresa Winge, an assistant professor of apparel and textile design at Michigan State University and an expert on crossplay. "While it is not uncommon for males to dress as women characters, most male cosplayers have male and nongendered characters that speak to their fandom."
Journal Articles (5)
Chapter 1 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Dressed in Street Fashions? Investigating Virtually Constructed Fashion Subcultures
Emerald InsightTheresa M. Winge
2018 In May 2016, Aleks Eror’s op-ed article ‘Dear fashion industry: Stop making up bogus subcultures’ on the HighSnobiety website accuses the fashion industry of creating ‘quasi-subcultures’, such as Normcore, Seapunk and Health Goth to promote specific fashion trends via the Internet. Eror argues that these fashion subcultures do not exist in resistance to mainstream culture (as he understands subcultures), but instead offer the specific fashions and their designers cache for being associated with a counterculture and connecting with alternative trends.
Tokyo subcultural street styles: Japanese subcultural street style as a uniform
Ingenta ConnectTheresa M. Winge
2017 Japanese subcultural groups create safe and inventive spaces for youth to explore new identities, styles and globalization that are not available to them in other areas of their dominant culture. Japanese youth often join subcultures in the process of rejecting their parents’ generational values and the workforce uniforms commonly associated with adulthood and socio-economic failures of past generations. Accordingly, the Japanese subcultural street styles visually communicate a desire for prolonged childhood and deferred responsibilities of adulthood, while drawing significantly from global stimuli.
If at first you don’t succeed, rip it out and try again: The benefits of failure among DIY handcrafters
Clothing CulturesStalp, Marybeth C; Winge, Therèsa M
2017 Failure is a vital part of the creative process – we learn through failure. However, within the current culture that publicly celebrates success and achievement (sometimes at all costs) people are often hesitant to admit their failures – failure has become not just something to experience, but a negative and stigmatizing label, something to be avoided at all costs. Because of this, our ‘congratulatory culture’ reduces the importance of the creative process (including failure), especially in creative work. In this article, we focus on people who encounter failure regularly. We study people who make things with their hands – Do-It-Yourself (DIY) handcrafters who work with fibres and textiles. In our qualitative interview study with 44 North American handcrafters (e.g. those engaged in leisure weaving, knitting, crochet, patchwork), we examine ‘failure’, how handcrafters discuss the importance of failure, and how failure fits importantly into the creative process. We present discourse offered by the studies of the creative process and the importance of ‘failure’, as well as firsthand examples from our research and ethnographic experiences. We explore the complex creative process, including simultaneously positive and negative experiences.
Tokyo subcultural street styles: Japanese subcultural street style as a uniform
East Asian Journal of Popular CultureWinge, Therèsa M.
2017 Japanese subcultural groups create safe and inventive spaces for youth to explore new identities, styles and globalization that are not available to them in other areas of their dominant culture. Japanese youth often join subcultures in the process of rejecting their parents’ generational values and the workforce uniforms commonly associated with adulthood and socio-economic failures of past generations. Accordingly, the Japanese subcultural street styles visually communicate a desire for prolonged childhood and deferred responsibilities of adulthood, while drawing significantly from global stimuli. Using ethnographic methods, it is revealed how many of the elements from Japanese subcultural dress are culturally authenticated from western styles and aesthetics, and their public display communicating the subculture member’s understanding of conspicuous consumption of perceived global ideals − wealth, diversity, authenticity and individuality. While these subcultural street styles function as alternatives to the standard Japanese uniforms (e.g., the business suit or occupational uniform), this dress style also communicates a new and modern identity for Japanese youth. Japanese subcultural street styles are so prescribed that they are, in fact, uniforms.
Sustainability + Fashion = re:Dress
Fashion PracticeTherèsa M. Winge
2015 ... fifteen gowns vastly ranged in color and materials from black velvet to black plastic garbage bags to multicolored lottery tickets (Figure 1). In 2010, Apparel and Textile Design students enrolled in the Global Context for Sustainability course in the Art, Art History, and Design Department were challenged to design gowns that were not only sustainable but also avant-garde. Forty-two student designers followed a “cradle to cradle” philosophy as developed by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2002). In other words, the designers considered the carbon footprint and social responsibility directly connected to the raw materials, production, and design, as well as the second life of the gown beyond the exhibit. Student designers tackled the challenging aspects of the design utilizing diverse sustainability strategies, such as upcycling and zero-waste methods …
