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We found that the systematic use of Delphi consensus diagnostic criteria resulted in substantial changes in management patterns in cases of suspected pyoderma gangrenosum (PG), including a reduction in systemic corticosteroid use, and significantly improved clinical outcomes. This improvement may have resulted from a combination of reduced misdiagnosis, optimized management and reduced iatrogenic harm. Increased utilization of validated diagnostic criteria for PG could optimize provider heuristics, increase diagnostic accuracy, and optimize management and clinical outcomes.

This article considers the possibilities and limitations of plus-size clothing— a subcategory of ready-to-wear that is deeply embedded in the history of dieting, exercise, standardized sizing, and the industrialization of clothing manufacturing in the United States. In doing so, it draws on fashion theory and disability theory in exposing how plus-size clothing functions as a normalizing mechanism, thereby inhibiting innovation in this sector. The article concludes with a counterexploration of the possibilities of “fat clothes” and the novel w ays of seeing and existing in the world that they might enable.

Objective: To review the pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, clinical efficacy, safety, dosing and administration, and place in therapy of avatrombopag for the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia and chronic liver disease-associated thrombocytopenia. Summary: Avatrombopag is an orally administered thrombopoietin receptor agonist approved for the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia and is the first oral thrombopoietin receptor agonist approved for the treatment of perioperative thrombocytopenia associated with chronic liver disease in adults. The efficacy and safety of avatrombopag has been demonstrated in a multicenter, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled phase III study in the setting of immune thrombocytopenia and in 2 identically designed, multicenter, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled phase III trials in the setting of thrombocytopenia associated with chronic liver disease. The most common adverse events reported in the clinical trials were headache, fatigue, and gastrointestinal toxicities. The incidence of bleeding events was comparable between the avatrombopag and placebo treatment groups in each study. Avatrombopag has not been shown to be associated with hepatoxicity and does not require food restriction like the other oral thrombopoietin receptor agonist for immune thrombocytopenia, eltrombopag. Also, unlike eltrombopag for immune thrombocytopenia, it can be dosed less frequently than once daily. Conclusion: Avatrombopag offers another safe and effective oral option for the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia without food restrictions and an alternative, transfusion-sparing option for thrombocytopenia associated with chronic liver disease patients undergoing surgery.

Porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT) is a phototoxic cutaneous disease linked to elevated liver iron levels and photosensitizing heme precursors. Here, we report a 65-year-old man with a history of hypertension and heavy alcohol and tobacco use who presented to clinic for evaluation of an intensely pruritic rash on his arms present for 6 years. A biopsy completed 3 years prior demonstrated a lichenoid drug eruption.

Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”. Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, Illinois, June 10-Septemebr 22, 2019

Although a mainstay of popular fashion discourse, the notion of “figure flattery” is an enduringly neglected concept in the fashion literature. In seeking to partially fill this gap, this article engages in a close examination of the slenderizing design discourses of the “stoutwear” industry—the historical precursor to today’s “plus-size” fashions—in order to flesh out a working theory of figure flattery. Drawing upon a close reading of extant advertisements and design commentary published in the popular fashion press and industry trade journals dating to between the years 1915 and 1930, or the peak of stoutwear production, this article aims to show how stoutwear was not merely made to fit the stout body, but to also help the wearer to fit in, socially and aesthetically. Through this analysis, this article situates fashion as a productive site in which fashions for the stout woman were not only created, but in which the stout body was itself constructed.

Background The thrombopoietin (TPO) agonists, eltrombopag and romiplostim, stimulate the production of platelets and offer an effective treatment option in relapsed/refractory immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Recently published 2019 ITP guidelines recommend the TPO agonists as second-line therapy following corticosteroids; however, little data offer insights into comparative efficacy and tolerability. Study question Is there a difference in the efficacy between romiplostim and eltrombopag in relapsed/refractory ITP? Study design We conducted a single-center, retrospective chart review of patients with ITP treated with romiplostim or eltrombopag. Measures and outcomes The primary objective was a sustained platelet response, defined as platelets greater than 50,000/μL in more than 66% of clinic visits over a 6-month period. Secondary objectives sought to evaluate response to and tolerability of TPO agonists. Results The study included 107 consecutive patients, 67 (63%) on romiplostim and 40 (37%) on eltrombopag. Previous corticosteroids and rituximab were used in 95% and 50% of patients, respectively. There was no difference identified in platelet responses between the TPO-RAs, 72% romiplostim versus 65% eltrombopag (P = 0.520). In addition, no differences were identified in secondary measures of response. Conclusions In our experience with romiplostim and eltrombopag for ITP, we did not identify a difference in the efficacy of these agents. Further larger and prospective evaluations should be considered.

The idea that fashion studies is “in-becoming” is one that is frequently revisited within the scholarly literature. In her 2002 book, The Study of Dress History, Lou Taylor identifies the 1990s as ...

In the introduction to her book, Contours of the Nation: Making Obesity and Imagining Canada, 1945–1970, Deborah McPhail observes how, “as a medicalized category of diseased embodiment defined and ...

In a sense, the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition ‘Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern’ is a new way of telling an old story. Most are aware of the beloved artist’s longtime marriage to and collaborations w...

Between 1986 and 1988, American Vogue ran a series of advertorials entitled “Fashion Plus.” Documenting the mid-1980s explosion of designer-led plus-size fashion, the series offers a rare glimpse into an overlooked moment in the history of large-size dress; however, it also stands as a singular foray into plus-size fashion for Vogue—a periodical that marginalizes representations of non-normative bodies. While its mere inclusion within the pages of Vogue is historically significant, this article will shift its focus by examining the crucial role pose played in the advertorial’s postmodern “refashioning” of the fat female body. While interrogating the concept of fashioning as a process that occurs at the intersection of text, image, body and garment, this article also considers how an embodied vernacular of fashion posing transformed the fat female body, making it “fit” for the pages of Vogue. Indeed, by striking identifiably “modelesque” poses, the models of “Fashion Plus” upset deeply entrenched n...

Exhibition Review: Stephen Burrows: When Fashion Danced, The Museum of the City of New York, March 22‒July 28, 2013

This dissertation examines how fashion media discourses created the conditions through which the fat, female body was both known and constructed within the context of the early large-size garment industry in the United States, or what between the years 1915 and 1930 was known as “stoutwear.” Drawing on a wide array of media sources, including women’s and fashion magazines, trade journals, catalogs and style guides, and employing Michel Foucault’s archaeological method, the dissertation examines the productive nature of fashion discourse in the construction and constitution of the fleshy body, or how the discourses of stoutwear brought order to the disorderly, fat, female body. While previous studies of the relationship between dress and the body have theorized how the body is fashioned, this dissertation builds upon these works through its focus on how discourse manifests fashion practices and thereby gives shape to the cultural body. The first chapter provides an overview of this premise, reviews the small body of extant literature on plus-size fashion and defines key terms used in the dissertation. As an extension of the introduction, the second chapter outlines key methodological and theoretical concerns, including the practice of studying a history of fashion “without fashion,” discourse analysis, visual analysis, technologies of the body, fashion media discourse and dress as a situated bodily practice. The ensuing analytical chapters are organized so that they proceed from “macro” practices (i.e. the construction and constitution of the industry, stoutwear design and advertising strategies) to the “micro” (i.e. embodied dress practices) so as to evidence how the discourses of stoutwear touched every level of fashion practice. Chapter three provides a broad historical foundation for the study by examining the origins of the stoutwear industry and identifying the key actors and firms who were instrumental in consecrating the idea of a stoutwear industry separate from, but adjacent to, the burgeoning ready-to-wear industry. Thereafter, chapter four explores the design discourses of stoutwear and how these intersected with the aesthetics of modernism and the nascent technology of standardized sizing. Chapter five examines the practice of selling stoutwear, and specifically how stoutwear was advertised within the women’s and fashion press and how it was sold within department stores. Key issues in this chapter include the representational conventions of depicting fat women in the fashion media and the segregation of stoutwear into separate departments. Chapter six considers what it meant to look stout and how the stigma of stoutness was constructed within mainstream fashion media and ancillary to the slender ideal. Finally, chapter seven looks closely at style guides as a site of self-fashioning discourses. The dissertation concludes that stoutwear discourses were underpinned by a “slenderness imperative,” or a disciplinary regime that manifested a “stout ideal,” or a stout body that visibly aspired toward slenderness. In its entirety, this interdisciplinary dissertation illuminates a history that has been almost entirely neglected within conventional histories of fashion at large, and within American fashion specifically, while also contributing to the theoretical literature on the relationship between fashion, dress and the body.

If there is one idea that may be taken away from The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s exhibition, Faking It: Originals, Copies, and Counterfeits, it is that authenticity in fashion i...

How do you tell a history of fashion without clothing or textiles? This was precisely the question that confronted curatorial director Tracy Jenkins and her dress history MA students in staging ‘Be...

This article examines the dynamics of the brand-focused online community blog Effortless Anthropologie, devoted to the popular retailer Anthropologie, with particular emphasis on how brand values are created, espoused and disputed by its members in a dynamic and interactive online forum. Using relevant literature on the concept of brand community, the net is expanded to capture the activities of a community that exists primarily online. We use examples of posts and commenting activity to demonstrate that it is the existence of the blog that facilitates and maintains such a strong sense of community. This, along with the fact that the blog exists independently from the retailer that it values – that is, it is not a company blog – forces us to reconsider our concept of how brand communities are formed and maintained in the virtual realm. From this analysis, we can learn how brand communities are facilitated by blogs and how they take on a unique dimension online. Consumers use blogs like Effortless Anthropologie to find a community of like-minded users and be a part of a community existing outside of the retail sphere. Retailers and marketers might engage with or be aware of the sense of trust, bonding and loyalty that such an online community engenders.

This article examines the overlooked market of plus-size fashion and explores the ways in which the fashion industry neglects and marginalizes fat consumers. Faced with limited options in garments colloquially known as “plus-size” or “outsize” that are typically relegated to dark corners of clothing stores and are excluded from the pages of high fashion periodicals, the plus-size consumer lacks options in fashioning her self-identity. Under these circumstances, the role the fashion industry has played in further entrenching fat stigma in the collective consciousness and in abetting the processes of fat identity formation amongst plus-size consumers merits closer examination. Drawing upon the collected sartorial biographies of three self-identifying plus-size women, this article considers the ways in which fat identities are formed through the intimate practices of self-fashioning and via social channels such as shopping and fashion blogging, thereby bridging the fields of fat studies and fashion s...

Abstract: “Vintage” as a fashion term is difficult to pin down. While some scholars argue that vintage only applies to fashion items that are at least twenty years old, others argue that it is also an easily manufactured and commodifiable sensibility. This article offers a revised definition of vintage as performance and bridges the fields of fashion studies, cultural studies, and ethnography. Using the Brooklyn Flea in Brooklyn, New York, as my primary research site, I use interviews and in-depth ethnographic observation to provide a new framework through which we can come to understand the Brooklyn vintage phenomenon and observe an example of aesthetic renewal in a vibrant consumption landscape. I suggest that, through this case study and through the lens of performance, we can come to understand vintage as produced in interactions between cultural actors (principally the consumers and purveyors of vintage objects) and disseminated by street-style photographers, who spread images of the flea online to the virtual viewing public.