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Dialogues on Dress: Cora Harrington
The history of dress and the future of fashion act in dialogue, always interfacing to inform our present moment. The Costume Society of America’s diverse members exemplify this reality like no other; through the constant connections across time and disciplines they draw, our membership of costume curators, designers, artists, and so much more embody fashion’s ubiquitous presence - and dress’ daily power to teach us all something new.
We hope you will join us for CSA’s new Dialogues on Dress series, interviews now available monthly in our e-News and website.
Interested in getting in touch? Email enews@costumesocietyamerica.com
Images clockwise from upper left: press tour and opening day of the exhibit; Cora’s book, In Intimate Detail; Cora at a lingerie trade show, where she curated a gallery of independent designers and hosted a book signing; a page from the book. Photos courtesy of Cora Harrington.
Dialogues on Dress: Cora Harrington
While currently in her second year at FIT’s Fashion and Textile Studies Master’s Program, Cora Harrington may already be a household name for you. From 2008 - 2022, Cora was otherwise known as The Lingerie Addict, an alias so recognizable that The New York Times reported on its end, and her book, In Intimate Detail, was born of it. While her background in Sociology and Anthropology as an undergraduate no doubt provided solid underpinnings (just like lingerie to an ensemble, as Cora reminded me) for a foundational approach to lingerie in a sociological context, Cora is self-taught. Her beginnings in dress were guided by genuine curiosity, a desire for a community of like-minded learners, and generous industry professionals. Just hearing its origin story will likely make you nostalgic for the time of “free information from passionate people” in the blogosphere's early years, or perhaps its sentiment will herald a new future for fashion. One that returns to thoughtful, long form content, reflecting our collective desire to learn and broaden our knowledge, something that Cora is a particular proponent of. From her early career with crisis clients at a nonprofit, to her tenure as The Lingerie Addict, to just this week writing for FIT Museum & Graduate Program’s All That Glitters… exhibition, Cora exemplifies multidisciplinary, lifelong learning and a passion for all the varied facets of fashion.
Read our conversation below. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Please paint a brief sketch of your background, personal & professional.
I grew up in central Georgia, definitely a southern girl. My first career was in the nonprofit industry. I started my site on a lark, the first iteration called Stockings Addict - I was really into tights and hosiery. It was a way to decompress; my job was so serious, but stockings, not so much. This was when pinup photography had a resurgance and burlesque was taking off, so naturally my interest grew beyond hosiery and I started talking more about intimate apparel in general [in the early 2010s]. I found there were people who wanted a site that discussed lingerie in a way that wasn’t about sex or eroticism. Somewhat unexpectedly, I found my niche here, and became a lot more interested in the technical, cultural, and historical aspects of intimate apparel. Things like what a certain bra shape said about the time we were living in. I ran The Lingerie Addict from 2008-2022, wrote a book, and now I’m going back to school to learn more about fashion in a formal setting for the first time. It’s been a gift to be able to go back to school at this time in my life.
What was the experience of building your blog and public presence like?
I think so much about how information was in a lot of ways easier to find then… if you remember those early iterations of blogging, there was so much free information out there and forums for people passionate about these micro niches. I often wish I had saved more from that time, especially as Google has made it almost impossible to organically discover things like that anymore. There has always been a repository of self-taught scholars and those doing work outside of formal settings, and their work should be just as respected. I think as more people grow tired of social media and algorithms dictating what they see, tired of the general noise, folks are looking to just read cool stuff again! But how do you discover things organically now? [Something like Substack] is great, but it still is siloed. Looking back, so much of [building the Lingerie Addict] was impromptu and without strategy. I wasn’t originally thinking about building a ‘brand.’ But what I tried to do on all of my platforms was provide a space for learning and exploration. I created a space on Facebook that was a body snark-free zone, allowing for people to approach the topic of lingerie without the baggage that can come with it. The blog and brand were really born authentically from that desire to create this kind of space.
I would love to hear how you would characterize your relationship to dress over the years. How has fashion influenced your work as well as personal journey?
For so long, what I wore was so essential to my public face; it’s been interesting these past couple years in graduate school to not have that component when I move through the world. I don’t think of myself as a brand anymore, so my thoughts around dress over the last few years have shifted away from my personal style to dress as a study. It’s funny because [FIT] is a fashion school, but there is zero judgement around what you wear, perhaps because it’s such an intensive program.
How have your graduate studies influenced your trajectory or interests in the field of fashion?
I think I hit the ceiling on what I could learn on my own before I went back to school. You can be self-taught, but at a certain point you need outside professionals to learn from. The educators at FIT think about and treat their students like future colleagues - it is an extremely collaborative environment.
My thesis, centered around fairtyales in fashion using the lens of standpoint theory, explores how things would have been interpreted at different points in history. Stories have different meanings depending on when you are hearing them. How do we get people to understand things that they’ve already heard before differently? That’s something I’m getting to explore a lot in my graduate studies.
I love the dual curation and conservation focus of the program - you have to take intro level classes in both. There’s a science component, you all get basic lab work and training! Everyone knows basic textile repair, how to analyze fibers microscopically, how to dress mannequins, etc. Every graduating class puts on an exhibition - from pitching the concept, to curating, and beyond. This year’s exhibition has both an in-person and online component, and for the first time it’s using garments from the study collection. My role was as a writer; the challenge, but also excitement, around it is how do you take all the stories and history behind one garment and condense it to just 5o words? My favorite description I wrote was for a velvet Oscar de la Renta gown with jeweled cuffs.
[All that Glitters… is on view at the FIT Museum from February 26 - March 23, 2025]
~ The challenge, but also excitement, around it is how do you take all the stories and history behind one garment and condense it to just 50 words? ~
As those in creative industries will relate to, juggling many projects at once comes with the territory of this work. How do you stay balanced, and how do you stay inspired?
These last few years, I’ve had to re-learn how to learn. Going back to school has a ramp up period. Staying balanced is something I’m absolutely still negotiating. One direction will lead to another, and priorities arae always changing. Things are getting done, because they have to, but I’m still figuring it out!
Favorite fashion fact, or piece of dress - lingerie or otherwise!
I do a lot of research into the history of the bra, understanding underpinnings is essential to understanding outwear. We see examples of bras in sculptures and mosaics from antiquity; there’s the famous one of athletes wearing bandeaus, but there are other examples with a huge variety of this type of garment, even though there’s this idea that bras are a newer invention. And if you knew that, would that change how you see these sculptures or visual touchpoints?
Over the next five years, how do you see your work evolving? Tell me about a dream project, a vision, or general directional mood…
I would love to write more books. A great thing about social media is the democratization of fashion, but unfortunately a downside is less room for in-depth research. A lot of extensive and interesting research, by necessity, can only be found in books. I would like to contribute to that body of knowledge, there are always more books from different perspectives to be written.
I would also love to do more work curating an exhibit. I’m hoping to partner with The Underpinnings Museum in the UK. It’s an exclusively online museum, and the Director is an excellent example of someone who is outside of academia but intensely knowledgeable, bringing something to the world of fashion that hasn’t been done before and fulfilling a niche outside of traditional channels.
What does the future of fashion look like to you?
Such a complicated question… fashion will always be relevant, that’s a given, but I could not have predicted where we are now. But I do hope to see a return to more thoughtful, more long-form content. Right now, there is a constant churn and spectacle, so that by the time you’ve formulated a thought it’s old news. This is really to the detriment of all fashion. I hope we see a slowing down in the way we share and digest in the next few years.
Final thoughts?
It’s never too late to go back to school. And I will always reinforce that there are so many different ways to acquire knowledge. There are people doing really amazing work outside of academic spaces, so don’t discount their knowledge.
~ Right now, there is a constant churn and spectacle, so that by the time you’ve formulated a thought it’s old news. This is really to the detriment of all fashion. I hope we see a slowing down in the way we share and digest in the next few years. ~
Thank you so much to Cora Harrington for having this conversation with me! I hope you will check out her work, and make a visit to see All that Glitters… this month.
~Madison Brito Taylor
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