What does it mean to get dressed? New collection Dressays answers

Dressays, a new anthology of essays, explores how self, culture and community entangle with dress, as told through the lens of personal essays and anthologised by an expert in fashion studies.

Edited by writer and academic Dr Rosie Findlay, the book explores what the things we wear reveal about the complex bonds we have with ourselves, our communities and the world around us.

The anthology offers insight into a wide spectrum of human experience while showing how dress is inextricably linked to our cultures and histories. With essays from respected and award-winning writers, the book spans stories of friendship, parenthood, coming of age, racial identity, chronic illness and much more.

The collection is available in the UK from 25^th June 2026 and internationally from 3^rd September 2026. All details and full table of contents available at Bloomsbury Publishing.

Editor Dr Rosie Findlay said:

This collection is an argument against overlooking dress as something superficial.

It is a treatise against individualism: the clothes we wear are interwoven with our relationships with others and the ways in which we define ourselves.

Dressays is a collection for all the people who like to think deeply about dress and the human experience. For them, I hope this anthology will be a breath of oxygen.

Haley Mlotek, author of No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce said of the collection:

Findlay’s expertly chosen selection of essays is a much-needed addition to the existing canon of literature on fashion and its many uses… an elegant, moving collection that will undoubtedly inspire all who read it.

Durga Chew-Bose, author of Too Much and Not the Mood and writer and director of Bonjour Tristesse (2024), described the collection as:

Roving, nuanced and fiercely observed. An inquiry into garments that anatomizes the broader and oftentimes personal implications of what we wear.

Dr Rosie Findlay is a feminist media studies scholar and a Senior Lecturer in Media at City St George’s, University of London. She researches fashion media and the politics of fashion.

She wrote one of the first long-form studies on fashion blogging (Personal Style Blogs: Appearances that Fascinate) and her research on contemporary fashion media and communications has been widely published. She is also a writer, having published essays on fashion and dress in publications such as Granta and Vestoj.

Her expertise has been sought by publications including Elle UK, Stylist Magazine, Vogue Business, Harper’s Bazaar US, Vogue Singapore, Esquire Australia and T Magazine China.