Someone else's dissertation
On realizing just how retired I am
I thought I was over it. After nine years of retirement, I had finally buried the unfinished book. I believed I’d let go of my former life. Whenever a discussion turned to a question that I once would have chased down a rabbit hole, I had a pat answer: “That’s someone else’s dissertation”.
It sure sounded like I had let it all go, moved on, put it behind me.But last week I got the latest issue of Dress, the journal of the Costume Society of America. And there was an 18 -page article that I could have written, if… If I hadn’t abandoned an identical project two years ago. Apparently, it was “someone else’s dissertation”. As scholars do, I checked the citations for my name. Nada. Of course, there was nothing, because I never published any of the research. My 2017 conference talk doesn’t count, nor does the 2024 Substack post. No. Someone else had asked the question, done the research, and published it. How did that make me feel? Amused? Satisfied? Relieved? Don’t I wish.
Of course I read the article, which is actually great.And this is what I learned:
One of the authors has maintained a blog since 2011 about clothing for older women. I am not mentioned there, either.
This is the second article on the subject that the co-authors published in Dress.
There was a book on the subject by yet a third scholar published in 2023. A book I never heard of.
Now that a few days have passed, my initial feelings of guilt, jealousy and sadness have faded.I realize that letting go of my former life really means letting go.
What a relief.
Mally, L., & Keist, C. (2026). Fitting In: The History of Half Size Clothing in America. Dress, 52(1), 35–52.
Mally, L., & Keist, C. (2022) “The Origins of the New Half Sizes in the 1920s,” Dress 48, no. 2 (2022): 163–74.
Peters, L. D., (2023). Fashion Before Plus-Size: bodies, bias, and the birth of an industry. Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
The obligatory blast from the archives:
The half-size mystery solved
As mysteries go, this will never enjoy a BBC production. After all, it features no bodies, no stolen jewels, and no charismatic detective. Just an aging professor, dressed in well-worn L.L. Bean basics, trying to figure out what happened to the women's clothing range formerly known as "half sizes".
It's going on fourteen years for me, this June 22nd. Most of the time I don't think about "work" I used to do anymore. But when I read/see/hear about some public official bragging about a solution to some community issue that I either implemented years ago, or had developed a recommendation for, I feel a bit chagrined. Then I watch Father Ted or Fawlty Towers and forget about it