As the US involvement in Afghanistan comes to its calamitous end, I have been thinking about how this twenty-year conflict can be looked at through the lens of Costume Studies. Costume Studies is the cultural analysis of dress in its broadest definition, through an interdisciplinary approach incorporating cultural studies, sociology, and history. The vast majority of the US has experienced the war in Afghanistan (and the broader Global War on Terror) as purely a media event in newspapers, TV News, social media, and refracted through visual entertainment like movies to video games. The war has created a visual language of clothes and uniforms that have become representative of the conflict-- and the public’s understanding of it.
Vol. 01 No. 02
Vol. 01 No. 02
Vol. 01 No. 02
As the US involvement in Afghanistan comes to its calamitous end, I have been thinking about how this twenty-year conflict can be looked at through the lens of Costume Studies. Costume Studies is the cultural analysis of dress in its broadest definition, through an interdisciplinary approach incorporating cultural studies, sociology, and history. The vast majority of the US has experienced the war in Afghanistan (and the broader Global War on Terror) as purely a media event in newspapers, TV News, social media, and refracted through visual entertainment like movies to video games. The war has created a visual language of clothes and uniforms that have become representative of the conflict-- and the public’s understanding of it.