UCLA

This dissertation explores the fan fashion industry and the practice of adapting costumes into everyday clothing from 2010-2020. The 2010s can be seen as the beginnings of a second “golden age of cinema fashions,” when the supply and demand for film and television-inspired clothing started to peak. As a result of cultural and industrial shifts throughout the 2000s due to the rise of digital technologies and social media, transmedia franchises became the norm, while licensed merchandise and brand partnerships gained renewed importance as ways to make up for profit losses from streaming sites and an overcrowded content marketplace. The prevalence of social media catalyzed the mainstreaming of fan practices in addition to making it easier for the media industry to capitalize on the labor of online fan communities. Convergence culture and the influence of neoliberal ideals form the context for an exploration of costume designers’ and fans’ creative labor, personal identity, and the meaning and value of fan fashion.

Fan fashion provides a space for costume designers and fans to play with IP and offer personalized contributions to the transmedia story world. However, work-for-hire contracts and strict licensing guidelines ensure that IP owners maintain legal and economic control. Although many media workers and fans view the system as exploitative, they are forced to operate within it. So, while they continue to push for proper compensation for their labor, costume designers and fans often focus on the symbolic rewards they receive, like press, experience, and a social network. Through a series of case studies, I illuminate the different ways fan fashion manifests itself, the exploitative aspects of the industry, and the tactics used by costume designers, fans, and their supporters to advocate for change.