Winner, ASTR Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theater History Finalist, Association for Theatre in Higher Education Outstanding Book Award " Theatricality of the Closet teems with incisive analysis of the meaning in garments on stage, off stage, and everywhere in between . Carriger advances a bold new definition of theatricality and its connection to identity, which will be of interest far beyond costume, fashion, or performance studies." -- Modern Drama " Theatricality of the Closet is bursting with new ideas, exciting theoretical insights, and excellent archival research." -- Theatre Survey "[Carriger's] careful examination of gothic lolita provides a fitting conclusion to the book's valuable examination of the semiotics, performativity, and theatricality of fashion historiography. It testifies to the lasting ways in which the spectacular excesses of Victorian dress--and its complicated bodily performances of gender, sexuality, nationality, and race--still shape fashion today." -- Victorian Studies "With Theatricality of the Closet , the question is not about whether the book will be applicable beyond fashion in Victorian England and Meiji Japan. Theatricality of the Closet 's articulation of theatricality is so complex, so pertinent, so well conceived that the question is rather: Where will we go next?" -- Theatre Journal "Carriger's stunning manuscript . enfolds fashion, theatre and performance as theoretical framework, embracing the slipperiness of the diachronic and its capacities for (re)appropriation, resonance and uncanniness.

" -- Performing Ethos "Lively and deeply researched, this remarkable study is an insightful contribution to histories of modernity, comparative performance studies, and culture and gender studies in which the simple act of dressing is a struggle over how the future is imagined." --Peter Eckersall, CUNY Graduate Center.