Deirdre Clemente is a historian and curator of 20th century American material culture, specializing in clothing and fashion. Her work has been profiled in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, GQ, The Atlantic, and Harper’s Bazaar. Clemente is the director of the UNLV public history program. She is completing her book manuscript East Coast/West Coast: A History of the American Fashion Industry, which looks at how New York and Los Angeles became the fashion capitals of the country.

A former journalist, Clemente has an MA in Museum Studies: Costumes and Textiles from the Fashion Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in history from Carnegie Mellon University. Her book Dress Casual: How College Kids Redefined American Style (UNC Press, 2014) explores how and why collegians pioneered the adoption of casual dress – one of the most pervasive cultural shifts of the 20th century. She is an expert in the use of fashion in the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald and served as a historical consultant for costume in Baz Luhrmann's film, The Great Gatsby.