Fashion is both big business and big news. From models eating disorders and sweated labour to the glamour of a new season's trends, statements and arguments about fashion and the fashion industry can be found in every newspaper, consumer website and fashion blog. Books which define, analyse and explain the nature, production and consumption of fashion in terms of one theory or another abound. But what "are" the theories that run through all of these analyses, and how can they help us to understand fashion and clothing?

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Fashion Theory: an introduction" explains some of the most influential and important theories on fashion: it brings to light the presuppositions involved in the things we think and say about fashion every day and shows how they depend on those theories. This clear, accessible introduction contextualises and critiques the ways in which a wide range of disciplines have used different theoretical approaches to explain and sometimes to explain away the astonishing variety, complexity and beauty of fashion. Through engaging examples and case studies, this book explores:

• fashion and clothing in history
• fashion and clothing as communication
• fashion as identity
• fashion, clothing and the body
• production and consumption
• fashion, globalization and colonialism
• fashion, fetish and the erotic.

This book will be an invaluable resource for students of cultural studies, sociology, gender studies, fashion design, textiles or the advertising, marketing and manufacturing of clothes."

Mendings tells an intimate story about family, selfhood, and the love and loss lodged in garments. In this narrative about making meaning of brokenness and grief, Megan Sweeney reflects on her childhood entanglement with her mother, her loss-filled relationship with her alcoholic father, and her attachment to the clothes that have mended her as she has mended them. Sweeney explores how clothing fosters communication and enables us to cultivate relationships with ourselves and with others, both living and deceased. In dialogue with other clothing lovers, writers, fiber artists, evolutionary biologists, historians, and environmentalists, Sweeney also foregrounds the entwinement of clothing, race, and gender as she considers the ethics and environmental effects of clothing consumption, the history of clothing in the US prison system, and the roles that textiles play as sources of creativity, artistry, and self-fashioning, even within conditions of constraint. For Sweeney, the act of mending is a way of living. Unlike fixing, which leaves no trace of damage or loss, mending allows Sweeney to embrace holes, rips, and threadbare patches as part of her life's design.

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Fashion Theory: A Reader brings together and presents a wide range of essays on fashion theory that will engage and inform both the general reader and the specialist student of fashion. From apparently simple and accessible theories concerning what fashion is to seemingly more difficult or challenging theories concerning globalisation and new media, this collection contextualises different theoretical approaches to identify, analyse and explain the remarkable diversity, complexity and beauty of what we understand and experience every day as fashion and clothing. This second edition contains entirely new sections on fashion and sustainability, fashion and globalisation, fashion and digital/social media and fashion and the body/prosthesis. It also contains updated and revised sections on fashion, identity and difference, and on fashion and consumption and fashion as communication. More specifically, the section on identity and difference has been updated to include contemporary theoretical debates surrounding Islam and fashion, and LGBT+ communities and fashion and the section on consumption now includes theories of 'prosumption'. Each section has a specialist and dedicated Editor's Introduction which provides essential conceptual background, theoretical contextualisation and critical summaries of the readings in each section. Bringing together the most influential and ground breaking writers on fashion and exposing the ideas and theories behind what they say, this unique collection of extracts and essays brings to light the presuppositions involved in the things we all think and say about fashion. This second edition of Fashion Theory: A Reader is a timeless and invaluable resource for both the general reader and undergraduate students across a range of disciplines including sociology, cultural studies and fashion studies.

What happens to punks, clubbers, goths, riot grrls, soulies, break-dancers and queer scene participants as they become older?
For decades, research on spectacular 'youth cultures' has understood such groups as adolescent phenomena and assumed that involvement ceases with the onset of adulthood. In an age of increasingly complex life trajectories, "Ageing and Youth Cultures" is the first anthology to challenge such thinking by examining the lives of those who continue to participate into adulthood and middle-age.
Showcasing a range of original research case studies from across the globe, the chapters explore how participants reconcile their continuing involvement with ageing bodies, older identities and adult responsibilities. Breaking new ground and establishing a new field of study, the book will be essential reading for students and scholars researching or studying questions of youth, fashion, popular music and identity across a wide range of disciplines.

In a country that has always prided itself on its toughness, individuality, and youthful spirit, we share one common thread, woven through time and unchanged in popularity -- durable cotton denim jeans. Journey through the history of jeans, from their invention during the Gold Rush through the turbulent eras that preceeded the 21st Century. Watch as denim slacks help Americans define themselves, whether that definition is strong, unpretentious, pretentious, informal, comfortable, classless, haute couture, hard-working, or reliable. Also, revisit the craze for vintage blue jeans, when faded and worn fueled a frenzy of global buying. Artful photography of denim as seen on bodies, in retail stores, and in the flea markets of America, add to the thoughful essays, making this a iconic book certain to be treasured in fashion circles for decades.

Divided into three sections on cosmetics, clothes and hairstyling, this book explores how early modern women regarded beauty culture and in what ways skin, clothes and hair could be used to represent racial, class and gender identities, and to convey political, religious and philosophical ideals.

From workaday marigolds to hand-wear custom crafted for the Queen, gloves perform many functions - insulation from the cold, protection from injury, and even ceremonial roles. Gloves have been used since prehistoric times, but in Britain their use as formal and fashion items took off during Elizabeth I's reign, and played a surprisingly significant cultural role well into the nineteenth century. They were often given as precious gifts, used in coronation ceremonies, sent to indicate assent, or even to offer a formal challenge. This beautifully illustrated history, published in association with the Worshipful Company of Glovers of London, delves into the glove's place in history, offers detailed descriptions of their production in the artisanal workshop and on the factory floor, and also tells the fascinating story of the closely guarded privileges of the glove-makers' guilds.

Often described as the "hottest" retail phenomenon, ephemeral retail concerns the growth of pop-up stores as a new mode of retailing. These temporary stores "pop-up" without notice, quickly attract crowds, then disappear or morph into something else. Although they share similarities with traditional physical stores and online stores, ephemeral stores outshine existing retail formats as they have many unique and differentiating characteristics. These stores are becoming more popular among distribution channels as they offer exclusive and surprising retail experiences. Many established brands have already integrated these new points of sale into their distribution channels, while other brands are adopting them to raise communication, awareness, sales or just for experimentation. This phenomenon is finding its place amongst retailers not only for its efficiency and effectiveness but also for its unique impact, providing a sense of novelty that makes it particularly attractive to postmodern consumers seeking hedonic experiences. This concise text introduces all aspects of this growing phenomenon and contextualises it within existing channels of distribution. It explores brand atmospheric interventions that are designed to affect customer emotions, behaviours or experiences, as well as practices retailers adopt to build relationships with their customers. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in retail marketing and branding.

The childlike character of ideal femininity has long been critiqued by feminists, from Mary Wollstonecraft to Simone de Beauvoir. Yet, women continue to be represented as childlike in the western fashion media, despite the historical connotations of inferiority. This book questions why such images still hold appeal to contemporary women, after three, or even four, waves of feminism. Focusing on the period of 1990-2015, Picturing the Woman-Child traces the evolution of childlike femininity in British fashion magazines, including Vogue, i-D and Lula, Girl of my Dreams. These images draw upon a network of references, from Kinderwhore and Lolita to Alice in Wonderland and the femme-enfant of Surrealism. Alongside analysis of fashion photography, the book presents the findings of original research into audience reception. Inviting contemporary women to comment on images of the 'woman-child' provides an insight into the meaning of this figure as well as an evaluation of theory on the 'female gaze'. Both scholarly and accessible, the book paves the way for future studies on how readers make sense of fashion imagery.

This final volume in the four-volume series Habits of Being shows how the dialectic between everyday appearance and outrageous acts is mediated through clothing and accessories. It considers how clothing and accessories can move quickly from the ordinary to the extravagant. Employing many different approaches, these essays explore how wearing an object-a crown, a flower, an earring, a corsage, a veil, even a length of material-can stray beyond the bounds of the body on which it is placed into the discrepant territory of flagrantly excessive public signs of love, status, honor, prestige, power, desire, and display. The varied contributions of scholars (historians, ethnographers, literary and film critics) and artists (photographers, sculptors, writers, weavers, and embroiderers) take up the threads of these forays into history, psyche, and aesthetics in surprising and useful ways. With examples from around the world, contributors address how the simple action of ornamenting the body, even with something as common as a button, are open to elaborate interpretations-which themselves offer new understandings of human behavior and artistic endeavor. When our "habits of being" receive close scrutiny, they seem anything but habitual. Contributors: Mariapia Bobbiobi; Camilla Cattarulla, U of Rome Three; Paola Colaiacomo, Sapienza, U of Rome; Maria Damon, Pratt Institute of Art; Joanne B. Eicher, U of Minnesota; Maria Giulia Fabi, U of Ferrara; Margherita di Fazio; Adeena Karasick, Fordham U; Tarrah Krajnak, Pitzer College; Charlotte Nekola, William Paterson U; Victoria R. Pass, Maryland Institute College of Art; Amanda Salvioni, U of Macerata; Maria Anita Stefanelli, U of Rome Three.

One of the nation's biggest suppliers of costume jewelry since the 1970s, Avon's vast body of work is omnipresent in the antiques and collectibles market. Authors Monica Lynn Clements and Patricia Rosser Clements have compiled a complete tour of the subject for new and old collectors alike. Avon Collectible Fashion Jewelry and Awards is an indispensable guide to the full range of Avon costume jewelry, with approximately 450 detailed color photos and current market values for more than a thousand pieces. This volume encompasses the broad range of Avon's jewelry products, from their popular holiday creations to replicas of historic masterpieces, from men's watches to children's charms, and from novelty wear to perfumed pins.

This broad-reaching collection of essays constitutes a thorough introduction to the fields and methodologies concerned with studies of textiles and dress of the Middle Ages. New themes and critical viewpoints from many disciplines are brought to bear on the medieval material in the areas of archaeology, art and architecture, economics, law, history, literature, religion, and textile technology. The contributors address surviving objects and artifacts and interpret representations in texts and images. The articles extend in time from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries, and cover Europe from Scandinavia, England, and Ireland in the north, to Italy and the Mediterranean basin in the south. Emphasis is placed on the significant role of trade and cultural exchanges as they impact appearance and its constituent materials.

Learning how to think through fashion is both exciting and challenging, being dependent on one s ability to critically engage with an array of theories and concepts. This is the first book designed to accompany readers through the process of thinking through fashion. It aims to help them grasp both the relevance of social and cultural theory to fashion, dress, and material culture and, conversely, the relevance of those fields to social and cultural theory. It does so by offering a guide through the work of selected major thinkers, introducing their concepts and ideas. Each chapter is written by an expert contributor and is devoted to a key thinker, capturing the significance of their thought to the understanding of the field of fashion, while also assessing the importance of this field for a critical engagement with these thinkers ideas. This is a guide and reference for students and scholars in the fields of fashion, dress and material culture, the creative industries, sociology, cultural history, design and cultural studies."

Fashion and wisdom from style rebels in New York City and beyondIn a world where stores, clothes, and trends have become increasingly standardized, fashion is one of the most powerful ways to explore and express our personalities, identities, and individuality. For years, photographer Robbie Quinn has come across style rebels and "streets unicorns" across the world, stopping them for impromptu photoshoots and testimonials. In these pages, he shares their images, viewpoints, and aspirations with the hopes of inspiring readers to rediscover the most authentic parts of themselves.A vibrant plea against ageism, racism, homophobia, and all other discriminations, this book is a love letter to those who aren't afraid to stand out, embrace nonconformity, and share who they are with the world.

Now available in a brand-new edition, this popular and widely praised instructional textbook has become a standard for classroom use in fashion design courses. Twenty-four step-by-step exercises tutor students in methods for finding inspiration, developing techniques to sharpen their observational skills, and in creating fashion drawings in color and black-and-white media. Separate sections coach students in getting started, and on understanding figure proportions, planning and designing garments, and creating and assessing flat specification drawings. New in this expanded and updated edition is a section that provides detailed instruction in digital art techniques. This beautifully illustrated guide is organized into units that reflect curricula at leading international design colleges. Added features include a designer's glossary and an index. The book's more than 300 color illustrations are as instructive as they are handsome.

Fashion Writing and Criticism provides students with the tools to critique fashion with skill and style. Explaining the history and theory of criticism, this innovative text demonstrates how the tradition of criticism has developed and how this knowledge can be applied to fashion, enabling students to acquire the methods and proper vocabulary to be active critics themselves. Integrating history and theory, this innovative book explains the development of fashion writing, the theoretical basis on which it sits, and how it might be improved and applied. Through concise snapshot case studies, top international scholars McNeil and Miller analyse fashion excerpts in relation to philosophical ideas and situate them within historical contexts. Case studies include classic examples of fashion writing, such as Diana Vreeland at Harper's Bazaar and Richard Martin on Karl Lagerfeld, as well as contemporary examples such as Suzy Menkes and the blogger Tavi. Accessibly written, Fashion Writing and Criticism enables readers to understand, assess and make value judgments about the fascinating and changeable field of fashion. It is an invaluable text for students and researchers alike, studying fashion, journalism, history and media studies.

In the turbulent political and social landscape of Revolutionary France, dress played a major role in defining and displaying new identities. What people wore was, in fact, a vital symbol of their allegiances and beliefs. Drawing on a wide range of documentary and visual sources, this book offers a vivid picture of the highly charged politics of Revolutionary appearances. The author explores the dynamic complexity of the new socio-political world, where the identification of who stood for what was such an urgent, if vexed, issue: where identical items of dress could stand for opposing political ideologies, where a variety of institutions - from local societies to the national assembly - tried to define the meanings associated with clothing, and where the clothes a person wore could seal their fate. Tracing the stories surrounding the liberty cap, the different manifestations of official dress, the tricolore cockade and the sans-culotte provides a new and exciting insight into the complexities and uncertainties that made up life in Revolutionary France and the political culture that it created.

Modest fashion has been gaining momentum in the mainstream global fashion industry over the past half-decade and is now a multi-billion-dollar retail sector. Its growing and now consistent appearance on high-profile fashion runways, on celebrities and in the headlines of fashion publications and news outlets, has shown that the modest fashion movement is hugely relevant to consumers. This is particularly true for millennials who are attracted to the feminist influences behind concealing your body, follow faith-based dress codes, or are attuned to social media, where more and more modest fashion bloggers are using imagery to inspire their followers. While the movement can credit European high fashion houses, like Gucci, for making conservative dresses and layering "in style" and "on trend," and subsequent Western labels like DKNY, H&M and Mango for dabbling in the realm of modest wear, it is the newly emerging group of faith-influenced fashion brands who are driving the revolution, along with a new crop of Muslim fashion bloggers. These have helped catapult demure dressing trends globally. This book speaks to the various personalities and companies who have helped shape the modest fashion industry into such a significant retail sector, while also exploring the controversies that lie at the heart of the movement, such as one pressing question: even if it covers the skin but is flamboyant, modeled with the purpose of attracting attention, and publicly promoted on social media, can fashion truly be modest?

'What a fabulous book - a must for any royal watcher! It's elegant, stylish and gloriously illustrated. I didn't want it to end. I loved the original and innovative approach to the subject, and the new insights I gained. I cannot recommend it highly enough.' Alison Weir One of the Independent's 'best books to give this Christmas'. A lavishly illustrated celebration of the 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II and the British Royal Family from the unrivalled archive of British Vogue. 'Vogue, like the royal family, has been through many evolutions of its own, and to view Her Majesty's life though the record of our pages is truly a document of history.' - Edward Enninful, Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue Four monarchs (crowned and uncrowned); one abdication; one royal investiture; a jewel box of jubilees and many, many royal marriages... British Vogue has borne witness to a century of royal history. The Crown in Vogue is the magazine's 'special royal salute' to our longest serving monarch and her 'assured and unwavering' presence in the lives of a nation. Vogue's first star photographer, Cecil Beaton, was entranced by the House of Windsor and the admiration was mutual. A younger star photographer, Antony Armstrong Jones, left Vogue to marry the Queen's sister and returned as Lord Snowdon. The Queen's cousin, Vogue's Lord Lichfield proved an insightful photographer of royal style along with many of Vogue's fashion photographers including Horst, Norman Parkinson and David Bailey. With visual treasures from Vogue's unrivalled archive and contributions through the decades from the most perceptive of royal commentators - from Evelyn Waugh to Zadie Smith - The Crown in Vogue is the definitive, authoritative portrait of Queen Elizabeth II's magnificent reign - and of royalty in the modern age.

Many of the world's most famous hats have their origins in Britain; in the Middle Ages there were civil and religious laws requiring hats to be worn and in Victorian Britain a person would no more leave home without a hat than a pair of trousers. It is no surprise that London's oldest surviving shop, Lock and Co., is a hatter. From practical everyday caps and bonnets to military headwear, top hats, and even the coronation crown, hats of all sorts have passed through its doors and continue to do so after more than 300 years. In this fascinating new book David Long reveals how much of Britain's social history can be understood through its headwear, and in exploring the ways in which a hat speaks volumes about its wearer's rank and status he tells the stories of the people beneath some of the most famous hats of history.

The Mongol period (1206-1368) marked a major turning point of exchange - culturally, politically, and artistically - across Eurasia. The wide-ranging international exchange that occurred during the Mongol period is most apparent visually through the inclusion of Mongol motifs in textile, paintings, ceramics, and metalwork, among other media. Eiren Shea investigates how a group of newly-confederated tribes from the steppe conquered the most sophisticated societies in existence in less than a century, creating a courtly idiom that permanently changed the aesthetics of China and whose echoes were felt across Central Asia, the Middle East, and even Europe. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, fashion design, and Asian studies.

Inspired by a rapidly changing fashion landscape, Fashion: New Feminist Essays offers historical and contemporary studies that reveal the relationships between fashion with gender, sexuality, race, and age. Fashion is a rich terrain for feminist scholars in the twenty-first century. Explicit engagements with feminist and queer politics, critical interventions by industry outsiders across digital platforms, diversifying images of stylish bodies, and ongoing discussions of the ethics and sustainability of fashion production: all of these point to an urgent need to reappraise the relationship of fashion to feminism and other justice-seeking movements. The essays in this collection take up fashion as a feminist critical tool that uniquely holds together the lived and represented body with larger cultural structures. Contributors unearth surprising new lines of connection between gender, sexuality, race, age, and religion in their relationship to capitalism, both historically and in the present. Bringing together established and emerging scholars, and perspectives from gender studies, history, sociology, philosophy, and literary studies, Fashion: New Feminist Essays traces the far-reaching impact of this most feminized of forms, underscoring the significance of fashion studies for understanding the politics of culture. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Australian Feminist Studies journal.

In the decade since Writing for the Fashion Business was first published, the Internet and social media have upended the field of journalism and the fashion world, revolutionizing both industries and changing the very nature of storytelling. This second edition devotes significant space to digital content, with dedicated chapters covering online content, social media, and streaming video content. In addition to journalism, it also includes instruction on how to write for new promotional approaches emerging in the fashion world like influencer and experiential marketing, and introduces inclusion vocabulary to ensure non-discriminatory narratives. Whether in the form of an article, book, press release, email, or DM, students will gain an understanding of how written communication methods sync up with today's most common methods of commerce and communication. New to this Edition: -Trending Topic box features in each chapter discuss recent, real-life controversial situations within the fashion industry and invite students to share their ideas, concerns, and recommendations related to the situation -All new Industry Profiles in each chapter allow students to read first-hand accounts of what it's like to work in the sector of the fashion business that corresponds to the chapter topic -Chapter ending Review Questions and Learning Activities prompt students to test their knowledge STUDIO Features Include: -Review concepts with flashcards of essential vocabulary Instructor Resources -Instructor's Guide provides suggestions for planning the course and using the text in the classroom, supplemental assignments, and lecture notes

Michel Pastoureau's lively study of stripes offers a unique and engaging perspective on the evolution of fashion, taste, and visual codes in Western culture.

"The Devil's Cloth" begins with a medieval scandal. When the first Carmelites arrived in France from the Holy Land, the religious order required its members to wear striped habits, prompting turmoil and denunciations in the West that lasted fifty years until the order was forced to accept a quiet, solid color. The medieval eye found any surface in which a background could not be distinguished from a foreground disturbing. Thus, striped clothing was relegated to those on the margins or outside the social order -- jugglers and prostitutes, for example -- and in medieval paintings the devil himself is often depicted wearing stripes. The West has long continued to dress its slaves and servants, its crewmen and convicts in stripes.

But in the last two centuries, stripes have also taken on new, positive meanings, connoting freedom, youth, playfulness, and pleasure. Witness the revolutionary stripes on the French and United States flags. In a wide-ranging discussion that touches on zebras, awnings, and pajamas, augmented by illustrative plates, the author shows us how stripes have become chic, and even, in the case of bankers' pin stripes, a symbol of taste and status. However, make the stripes too wide, and you have a gangster's suit -- the devil's cloth indeed

This book explores the consumption of counterfeit fashion goods. Despite the importance of the consumer in counterfeiting policy, there has been a lack of attention within criminology about the demand for counterfeit goods. A tendency to explain counterfeit consumption through deviance or 'othering' reinforces stereotypical assumptions about consumers and overplays the importance of superficial factors in consumption. This book develops an understanding of why counterfeit markets exist through exploring consumer behavior in consuming counterfeit fashion, and examining this in relation to attitudes on fashion, crime, harm and victimization. The book argues that there is a need to consider demand for illicit goods within a broader understanding of the nature of fashion and the fashion industry. This book will appeal to those with an interest in illicit markets, consumer behavior, fashion, criminology, and the harms associated with fashion and consumer industries more generally.