Katy Keene as a Ludic Site for Fashion and Self-Fashioning

Abstract

This article explores child readers of the Katy Keene comic as creators and designers of playful fashion. When Katy Keene launched in 1949, the editor, Bill Woggon, invited child readers to become co-creators of the comic’s content, calling on them to suggest storylines and to submit original designs for the clothes and accessories that Katy wore. Each published design included a line of text crediting the designer, and special issues featured profiles and photographs of readers, placing them centre stage in the comic alongside their heroine Katy. The paper dolls included in the comic invited further creative play, encouraging readers to continue the game of dressing Katy, America’s “Queen of Pin-Ups and Fashions,” at home. In this way, Katy Keene offered opportunities for both fashioning and self-fashioning, becoming a ludic space where children played with ideas and images of fashion, mixing pieces inspired by haute couture with outlandish inventions of their own. I argue that by enabling children to become creators of fashions, Katy Keene offered young readers the opportunity to develop their own aesthetic sense—both individually and as a community.