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WEEK THREE

For study task 3 we were asked to "Locate, read and annotate at least 12 texts relevant to a possible project idea or area of interest. This may include journal articles, books, exhibition reviews, practitioner/artist interviews, documentaries, etc". I started by looking at the University library website, trawling articles for anything that referenced gender expression and clothing. I was pleased to see there were thousands of potentially helpful texts, but also found it to be easy to go down a rabbit hole, jumping from one text to another. I wanted to physically see the books I was looking at - drag is such a visual medium and it made sense to me that I'd find this the most helpful.


Happily for me, a new queer bookshop had just opened in Leeds, The Bookish Type. It was great to be able to go in an actual bookshop and speak to the staff and get recommendations. I came home with quite a few books on drag, and one on redefining masculinity.



Furthermore, in speaking to the shop owner, I was asked if I had heard of West Yorkshire Queer Stories, an online archive detailing the experiences of LGBTIQ+ from around West Yorkshire. I was given the following postcard:


This turned out to be incredibly helpful, as it not only gave me insight into the world of drag, but also did it on a local context. There was one story, Lesley's Jumpers, which I particularly liked as it described a different kind of gender expression through clothing - this time with knitting. It wasn't about silhouettes but rather the motif that had been knitted into the garment. I included this in my reference list, which now looks like this (but seems to be growing all the time):


I've selected quotes from each, which I intend to include in my project proposal. I have been looking at documentaries as well as books and academic papers as I want my research to be well-rounded. I'm still learning the rules on how to (properly) quote from these, and just having them all in list form is useful for showing me what I'm still missing. I think I still need more research on the physical differences between men and women's bodies, so that I can accurately make a case for the need to design dresses differently for male bodies.



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