ABSTRACT
Cosplayers (amateur costumers) in Australia reimagine and reuse ‘junk’ objects, transforming them into costume components. As cosplayers reject the expensive materials used by professionals, aesthetics are inverted: trash becomes treasure, endings become beginnings, and thriftiness becomes prestigious creativity. Reuse in the cosplay community demonstrates how enduring reuse practices are enmeshed with a community’s social and aesthetic systems. Through reuse, cosplayers form webs of relations that connect practitioners, skills, objects, and identities. The example of cosplay demonstrates a holistic approach that looks beyond material impacts to consider the importance of socially embedded practices of reuse.
