2026/03/01 by Marceline Parker, Jacqueline Parker
paper · doi:10.1111/rsr.70187
openalex publication_date 2026/03/01 · openalex created_date 2026/07/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/24
Neal is a professor of religious studies at Wake Forest University (North Carolina). This Element focuses on the clothing and fashion of new religious movements (NRMs) and the American general public's views of new religious movements in relation to clothing and fashion. The short book is split into three sections. Section One examines the “cult leader” as a stereotype and how fashion helped shape this figure of the American religious landscape. Neal identifies a typology of NRM leader dress: the robed monk, the suited minister, and the mantled royalty. Examples include A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for the monk archetype, Father Divine and L. Ron Hubbard for the minister, and Sun Myung Moon and Uriel (of the Unarius Academy of Science) for the royal figure. Section Two analyzes the clothing patterns of three NRMs: the Children of God (now the Family International), the Latter-day Saints, and the Nation of Islam (focusing on women specifically). Through these examples, Neal shows the intricate ways NRMs navigate assumptions and stereotypes in the United States. Section Three discusses the fashion scene's notice of two NRMs' clothing styles, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Texas and the Rajneeshees of the Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, in 2018. “Cult-like” dress and “cultcore” aesthetic became fashionable, even if the exact origins of the dress was not known to those in the fashion industry. The Introduction and Concluding Thoughts Sections bookend the material well. This Element also features a vast number of useful images, mostly of NRM leaders and members, but some also show celebrities, who are not part of an NRM, dressing in “cult-like” garb, capitalizing on the 2018 (and before) cultcore trend. This book serves as a wonderful point of entry to the study of fashion, NRMs, and religion in general, as Neal regularly points out that many of her conclusions about NRMs and dress are applicable to all religions in American society.