Dressed in Dreams, Tanisha C. Ford
Dressed in Dreams, Tanisha C. Ford
List: $22.99 | Sale: $16.09
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Dressed in Dreams
A Black Girl's Love Letter to the Power of Fashion

Author: Tanisha C. Ford

Narrator: Tanisha C. Ford

Unabridged: 7 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/25/2019


Synopsis

This program is read by the author.

Essence’s 10 BOOKS WE’RE DYING TO TOSS INTO OUR SUMMER TOTES | The Philadelphia Inquirer's BIG SUMMER BOOKS FOR 2019 | 6 BOOKS THAT COMPLICATE THE IDEA OF INDEPENDENCE by Colorlines | Bitch Media's 15 NONFICTION BOOKS FEMINISTS SHOULD READ THIS SPRING

"Everyone from the shopaholic to the clearance rack queen will see themselves in [Ford's] pages." —Essence

"Takes you not only into the closet, but the inner sanctum of an ordinary extraordinary Black girl who discovered herself through clothes." —Michaela Angela Davis, Image Activist and Writer

From sneakers to leather jackets, a bold, witty, and deeply personal dive into Black America's closet In this highly engaging book, fashionista and pop culture expert Tanisha C. Ford investigates Afros and dashikis, go-go boots and hotpants of the sixties, hip hop's baggy jeans and bamboo earrings, and the #BlackLivesMatter-inspired hoodies of today.

The history of these garments is deeply intertwined with Ford’s story as a black girl coming of age in a Midwestern rust belt city. She experimented with the Jheri curl; discovered how wearing the wrong color tennis shoes at the roller rink during the drug and gang wars of the 1980s could get you beaten; and rocked oversized, brightly colored jeans and Timberlands at an elite boarding school where the white upper crust wore conservative wool shift dresses.

Dressed in Dreams is a story of desire, access, conformity, and black innovation that explains things like the importance of knockoff culture; the role of “ghetto fabulous” full-length furs and colorful leather in the 1990s; how black girls make magic out of a dollar store t-shirt, rhinestones, and airbrushed paint; and black parents' emphasis on dressing nice. Ford talks about the pain of seeing black style appropriated by the mainstream fashion industry and fashion’s power, especially in middle America. In this richly evocative narrative, she shares her lifelong fashion revolution—from figuring out her own personal style to discovering what makes Midwestern fashion a real thing too.

About Tanisha C. Ford

Tanisha C. Ford is a pop culture expert and star academic. A Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center, she has written for the New York Times, ELLE.com, the Atlantic, the Root, and featured on NPR, among other places. Ford is the author of Dressed in Dreams, Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful, and Liberated Threads, which won the 2016 Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Foundation Award for best book on civil rights history. She lives in Harlem.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Gabriella on October 26, 2019

What a bright read! Tanisha Ford’s Dressed in Dreams is enough parts memoir and (black pop) cultural commentary for either audience to be satisfied and surprised in every chapter. Speaking of chapters, each is organized around a fashion staple of a certain time period and geographic place. In terms......more

Goodreads review by Alicia on January 11, 2020

I thoroughly enjoy a nonfiction topic that balances the memoir/biographical context with the point of the story. For example: Lab Girl told us the story of a nerdy woman who loved science and spent all her time working with her partner in the lab but also told us her personal story too. Ford's is th......more

Goodreads review by Ari on December 04, 2021

"From a young age, black girls are sent messages that we aren't enough, but we also get a lot of messages about how we are too much, our lives caught between these contradictions." ('Bamboo Earrings', 167)  I am finally getting around to writing this review (in 2021)! I got it from the library but d......more

Goodreads review by Alison Rose on November 09, 2021

Don't have much to say about this one partially because LIFE is a thing that insists on happening in increasingly aggravating ways, and also because I just…don't have much to say. I liked learning about the history and meaning behind some of the iconic Black fashion elements she covers, and seeing h......more

Goodreads review by M on July 31, 2019

I get it. I understand it. While the author and I didn't quite have the same timeframe and cultural/fashion cache this book and the tales of fashions within were quite familiar. I was reminded of growing up and not being able to wear Nike (of any sort) because my mom recalled sensational news storie......more