Silhouettes of the Soul: Meditations on Fashion, Religion, and Subjectivity

What is the relationship between the soul and the second skin - or clothing - in the making of identity and belief? What bearing do religious and political belonging, respectability, and resistance have on the way in which we dress? Why have more traditional religious practices been so prescriptive and punitive about body adornment? Historically, fashionable dress and religion have been positioned as polar opposites; Silhouettes of the Soul brings them together, placing them in conversation with each other, moving beyond traditional, social scientific and historical analysis of religious attire and adornment to approach the topics from a variety of approaches and disciplines and across regional, social and religious locations.
Contentious and challenging, as well as academically rigorous, the book's diverse range of contributors - from fashion and religious studies scholars, to designers, activists, preachers, and journalists - explore the relationship between religion and fashion, bringing religious practice and spirituality from a conservative paradigm and extending its meanings. Combining interviews and personal stories with more traditional theoretical analysis, Silhouettes of the Soul offers new ways of looking at the relationship between religion, belief and self-belief - our sense of self and our sense of fashion.