Heather M. Akou

As a historian of fashion, dress, and the body, my main interest is in making the study of dress more inclusive towards non-Western and underrepresented cultures. I teach and conduct research as an Associate Professor in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University. I am also the co-founder and co-director of the Dress and Body Association. I have published extensively about African dress and fashion, contemporary Islamic fashion, and working-class histories of dress in the US. Currently, I am writing a monograph about the history of service-industry uniforms in the US and gathering data about secret society regalia.