2025 Costume Society of America Grants, Projects, Awards, and Honors Announced
Costume Society of America (CSA) is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2025 grants, projects, awards, and honors. "We are excited to celebrate this year’s awardees, honorees, and grant recipients. We could not do this without the dedication and effort of our committees,” says Colleen Pokorny, CSA Vice President for Awards and Honors. Patricia Edmonson, Vice President for Grants and Projects adds, “Our dedicated committee members and chairs have worked hard this year to give each submission the attention it deserves. I also want to thank members who applied for their efforts in the process and hope more continue to engage with us!” All awards, grants, and projects are funded through the generosity of donors to the CSA Endowment.
Two Costume Society of America Fellows have been chosen this year to honor their significant contributions to the field of costume, including their work as editors of the organization’s publications: Christina Bates and Kelly L. Reddy-Best. Bates, costume historian and longtime curator at the Canadian Museum of History, has been the recipient of numerous CSA awards and honors, including the Scholar’s Roundtable Honor (2008), the Betty Kirke Excellence in Research Award (2023) and the Millia Davenport Publication Award (2013). Her most notable service to CSA was as Editor-in-Chief of Dress from 2014 to 2022. Reddy-Best is Morrill Professor in the Fashion Design and Merchandising program at Iowa State University, and starting July 2025, she will be Professor and Chair of Family and Consumer Sciences at Illinois State University. Her service to CSA includes guest editing the first special issue of Dress on LGBTQ+ fashions and developing and leading CSA’s first diversity committee. She has served as the editor for the Costume Society of America book series with Kent State University Press since 2023.
In addition to this esteemed recognition, CSA annually celebrates its members by presenting a variety of awards to honor their accomplishments. For example, this year’s Betty Kirke Excellence in Research Award is given to Hilary Davidson for her research titled Digital Clothing Reconstruction as a Fashion History Methodology. The Millia Davenport Publication Award goes to Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing by Elizabeth L. Block. This year’s Mary D. Doering Guardian Honor goes to Megan Osborne, Collections Manager and Assistant Curator at the Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising, Colorado State University.The Costume Design Award is given to Dennis Wright for his work on House of Desires at Brigham Young University and The Howard Vincent Kurtz Emerging Theatre Artist Award is given to Henry Cawood for the designs forOnce Upon a Mattress at Stage West Theatre, Fort Worth, Texas. This year, three Richard Martin Exhibition Awards were given: Gilding Northeast Ohio: Fashion and Fortune, 1870-1900, curated by Brian Centrone for The Massillon Museum (large exhibition); Fashion After Dark, curated by Patty Edmonson at the Western Reserve Historical Society (small exhibition); and Harlem Noire: Fashion Movement, Moment, & Memory, curated by Dyese L. Matthews for Cornell University (student exhibition). The recipient of the new Creative Work Honor will be chosen at this year’s symposium in Los Angeles, and the Presidential Award Winner(s) will be announced, as well.
As well as presenting honors and awards, CSA provides grant funding to support individuals and organizations within the field. These include theCSA Travel Research Grant, which has been given this year to Rachel Silberstein for her research International Diplomacy and Industrial Collecting: Charting Qing Dynasty Chinese Dress and Textile History in the Collections of National Museums Scotland. The 2025 Angels Project Grant is given to Flight Path Museum in Los Angeles. Two Adele Filene Student Presenter Grants go to LaDyra Lyte and Mfon-Abasi Obong.
A full list of all of CSA’s grants, honors, and awards can be found below. They will be celebrated on Monday, June 2, 2025, during CSA’s 51st Annual National Meeting and Symposium in Los Angeles.
- Costume Society of America Fellow Honor: Christina Bates, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Ames, Iowa
- Mary D. Doering Guardian Honor: Megan Osborne, Collections Manager and Assistant Curator, Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising, Colorado State University
- CSA Creative Work Honor: to be determined
- CSA Costume Design Award: Dennis Wright, House of Desires, Brigham Young University
- CSA Richard Martin Exhibition Award, Large Exhibition: Gilding Northeast Ohio: Fashion and Fortune, 1870-1900, Brian Centrone, The Massillon Museum, Ohio
- CSA Richard Martin Exhibition Award, Small Exhibition: Fashion After Dark, Patty Edmonson, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
- CSA Richard Martin Exhibition Award, Student Exhibition: Harlem Noire: Fashion Movement, Moment, & Memory, Student Curator: Dyese L. Matthews, Faculty Advisors: Denise N. Green and Catherine Blumenkamp, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
- Millia Davenport Publication Award: Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing by Elizabeth L. Block (The MIT Press)
- Millia Davenport Publication Honorable Mention: Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America by Rachel S. Gross (Yale University Press)
- CSA Howard Vincent Kurtz Emerging Theatre Artist Award: Henry Cawood, Once Upon a Mattress, Stage West Theatre, Fort Worth, Texas
- Betty Kirke Excellence in Research Award: Hilary Davidson for her research titled Digital Clothing Reconstruction as a Fashion History Methodology
- Scholars’ Roundtable: From Zoom to Lectra: The Tools, Theories, and Technologies That Move Dress Forward; Laura Camerlengo, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Daniel Drak, Parsons School of Design; Alyssa Ridder, Metropolitan State University of Denver; and Dina Smith-Glaviana, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- CSA Travel Research Grant: Rachel Silberstein, International Diplomacy and Industrial Collecting: Charting Qing Dynasty Chinese Dress and Textile History in the Collections of National Museums Scotland
- College and University Collection Care Grant: Alabama A&M University, Huntsville, Alabama
- CSA Small Museum Collection Care Grant: Coastal Mississippi Mardis Gras Museum, Biloxi, Mississippi
- CSA Dependent Care Grant: Nadia Abdallah
- Adele Filene Student Presenter Grants: LaDyra Lyte, Louisiana State University; Mfon-Abasi Obong, Louisiana State University
- CSA Angels Project: Flight Path Museum, Los Angeles, California
- Presidential Award Winner(s): announcement forthcoming
Pictured above from left to right:
Detail of ensemble loaned by Lana Turner to the Richard Martin Exhibition Award winning exhibition Harlem Noire: Fashion Movement, Moment, & Memory, curated by Dyese Matthews (Parsons, The New School) at Cornell University (Photo by Ryan Issa for Cornell University, 2024); cover of Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing by Elizabeth L. Block (The MIT Press), recipient of the Millia Davenport Publication Award; “Final Costume 2 – Castano,” a costume for House of Desires at Brigham Young University by Dennis Wright, recipient of the CSA Costume Design Award.
