Roland Barthes was one of the most widely influential thinkers of the 20th Century and his immensely popular and readable writings have covered topics ranging from wrestling to photography. The semiotic power of fashion and clothing were of perennial interest to Barthes and The Language of Fashion - now available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series - collects some of his most important writings on these topics. Barthes' essays here range from the history of clothing to the cultural importance of Coco Chanel, from Hippy style in Morocco to the figure of the dandy, from colour in fashion to the power of jewellery. Barthes' acute analysis and constant questioning make this book an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the cultural power of fashion.

This book contains everything you need to know about modern history of dress design, from the corset-free styles of 1920s flappers to the conceptual constructions of modern artists. Since Coco Chanel invented the little black dress in 1926 it has become a staple for a woman's wardrobe. Even considering the many decades it's been since women discovered trousers and separates, women dream of wearing glorious, glamorous gowns, whether it's on the Hollywood red carpet, or perhaps on her wedding day... No item of clothing has endured for longer than the dress. Yet the last century alone has seen the most radical changes of style - hemlines swinging from ankle to thigh; outlines alternating between the body-hugging and the bell - and our fascination with `the frock' has not gone away. From Gres' draping to Dior's New Look, from Mary Quant's mini to Hussein Chalayan's mechanical marvels and Kate Middleton's wedding dress, this book looks at the dress in a century of fashion. Thematic chapters set out the inspirations and implications for each new change in style alongside stunning photography. A celebration of the dress in all its forms, Fabulous Frocks is sure to fire any fashionista's imagination. `A glorious celebration of a hundred years of the dress' - Daily Mail The chapters include: Changes 1908-1958 Changes 1958 onwards Must Have Classical Fantasy Seduction Feminine Art

Imagine a new critical theory that bases its literary value on fashion. In this theory exists a community that explores and interrogates conventionality, and in American literature of the 20th century, it includes fashion and home decoration, two paths to achieving white femininity, a prized component of many novels written by and for women. Drawing on cultural materialism and its connection to the cultural forms of objects, including apparel, Making it Work: 20th Century American Fiction and Fashion provides readers a new understanding of the aims of American writers, and the desires of their readers.

This detailed study is the first exploration of rural consumption of clothing in early nineteenth-century Britain. Drawing on evidence from a range of sources including newspapers, trade directories, court records, visual sources and surviving garments, Toplis investigates how the apparel of the mass of the British population was acquired.

How transnational modernity is taking shape in and in relation to Asia Fashion and Beauty in the Time of Asia considers the role of bodily aesthetics in the shaping of Asian modernities and the formation of the so-called "Asian Century." S. Heijin Lee, Christina H. Moon, and Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu train our eyes on sites as far-flung, varied, and intimate as Guangzhou and Los Angeles, Saigon and Seoul, New York and Toronto. They map the transregional connections, ever-evolving aspirations and sensibilities, and new worlds and life paths forged through engagements with fashion and beauty. Contributors consider American influence on plastic surgery in Korea, Vietnamese debates about "the fashionable," and the costs and commitments demanded of those who make and wear fast fashion, from Chinese garment workers to Nepalese nail technicians in New York who are mandated to dress "fashionably." In doing so, this interdisciplinary anthology moves beyond common characterizations of Asians and the Asian diaspora as simply abject laborers or frenzied consumers, analyzing who the modern Asian subject is now: what they wear and how they work, move, eat, and shop.

* An essential reference for students, curators and scholars of fashion, cultural studies, and the expanding range of disciplines that see fashion as imbued with meaning far beyond the material. * Over 300 in-depth entries covering designers, articles of clothing, key concepts and styles. * Edited and introduced by Valerie Steele, a scholar who has revolutionized the study of fashion, and who has been described by The Washington Post as one of "fashion's brainiest women." Derided by some as frivolous, even dangerous, and celebrated by others as art, fashion is anything but a neutral topic. Behind the hype and the glamour is an industry that affects all cultures of the world. A potent force in the global economy, fashion is also highly influential in everyday lives, even amongst those who may feel impervious. This handy volume is a one-stop reference for anyone interested in fashion - its meaning, history and theory. From Avedon to Codpiece, Dandyism to the G-String, Japanese Fashion to Subcultures, Trickle down to Zoot Suit, The Berg Companion to Fashion provides a comprehensive overview of this most fascinating of topics and will serve as the benchmark guide to the subject for many years to come.

We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media and real-time fashion mediation, complicating the basic dynamic of identity displays, and creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption,by examining a diverse series of case studies - from ninety-year old fashion icons to the paradoxical rebellion in 'normcore', and from soccer jerseys in Kenya to heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis' seminal concept of 'identity ambivalence' in Fashion, Culture and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of 'status ambivalence', in which fashioning one's own identity has become increasingly complicated.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. "A remarkable resource for the field of fashion studies suitable for both newcomers ... [and] seasoned practitioners." - Fashion Historia "A precious source in the study of the subject ... inspiring." - The Journal of Dress History The last decade has seen the growing popularity and visibility of fashion as a cultural product, including its growing presence in museum exhibitions. This book explores the history of fashion displays, highlighting the continuity of past and present curatorial practices. Comparing and contrasting exhibitions from different museums and decades-from the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 to the Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011, and beyond-it makes connections between museum fashion and the wider fashion industry. By critically analyzing trends in fashion exhibition practice over the 20th and early 21st centuries, Julia Petrov defines and describes the varied representations of historical fashion within British and North American museum exhibitions. Rooted in extensive archival research on exhibitions by global leaders in the field-from the Victoria and Albert and the Bath Fashion Museum to the Brooklyn and the Royal Ontario Museums-the work reveals how fashion exhibitions have been shaped by the values and anxieties associated with fashion more generally. Supplemented by parallel critical approaches, including museological theory, historiography, body theory, material culture, and visual studies, Fashion, History, Museums demonstrates that in an increasingly corporate and mass-mediated world, fashion exhibitions must be analysed in a comparative and global context. Richly illustrated with 70 images, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion history and museology, as well as curators, conservators, and exhibition designers.

"A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair." Times Literary Supplement 19th and early 20th-century hair appears to be everywhere when you start to look, from the abundant locks of the pre-Raphaelites to the myriad objects on show at the Great Exhibitions. The latter, hosted at venues such as the Crystal Palace, hinted at the level of global trade in hair economies, from hair harvest, hairpieces, and hairwork to commodities for styling and adornment. It was a period when hair became fetishized in all sorts of ways, from fashioning hair to moralising constriction, from suggestions of sexuality in abundant free-flowing locks, to intricate hair-incorporating jewellery which offered spiritual connections to the dead. In a period of increasing globalization and associated anxieties, hair came to express identity not just for the individual but for different cultures. Perhaps inevitably, hair itself became a contested site of signification whether as the strands of the diaspora, the cut locks of the underclass, or the coiffures of the court. A Cultural History of Hair in the Age of Empire presents an overview of the tangled tresses of hair in this period, with essays covering: Religion and Ritualized Belief; Self and Society; Fashion and Adornment; Production and Practice; Health and Hygiene; Gender and Sexuality; Race and Ethnicity; Class and Social Status and Cultural Representations.

"A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair." Times Literary Supplement Hair, or lack of it, is one the most significant identifiers of individuals in any society. In Antiquity, the power of hair to send a series of social messages was no different. This volume covers nearly a thousand years of history, from Archaic Greece to the end of the Roman Empire, concentrating on what is now Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Among the key issues identified by its authors is the recognition that in any given society male and female hair tend to be opposites (when male hair is generally short, women's is long); that hair is a marker of age and stage of life (children and young people have longer, less confined hairstyles; adult hair is far more controlled); hair can be used to identify the 'other' in terms of race and ethnicity but also those who stand outside social norms such as witches and mad women. The chapters in A Cultural History of Hair in Antiquity cover the following topics: religion and ritualized belief, self and society, fashion and adornment, production and practice, health and hygiene, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, class and social status, and cultural representations.

Fashion Game Changers traces radical innovations in Western fashion design from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Challenging the traditional silhouettes of their day, fashion designers such as Madeleine Vionnet and Cristobal Balenciaga began to liberate the female body from the close-fitting hourglass forms which dominated European and American fashion, instead enveloping bodies in more autonomous garments which often took inspiration from beyond the West. As the century progressed, new generations of avant-garde designers from Rei Kawakubo to Martin Margiela further developed the ideas instigated by their predecessors to defy established notions of femininity in dress, creating space between body and garment. This way, a new relationship between body and dress emerged for the 21st century. With over 200 images and commentaries from an international range of leading fashion curators and historians, this beautifully illustrated book showcases some of the most revolutionary silhouettes and innovative designs of over 100 years of fashion.

The fashion show and its spaces are sites of otherness, representing everything from rebellion and excess through to political and social activism. This conceptual and stylistic variety is reflected in the spaces they occupy, whether they are staged in an industrial warehouse, on a city street, or out in the open landscape. Staging Fashion is the first collection of essays about the presentation and staging of fashion in runway shows in the period from the 1960s to the 2010s. It offers a fresh perspective on the many collaborations between artists, architects and interior designers to reinforce their interdisciplinary links. Fashion, architecture and interiors share many elements, including design, history, material culture, aesthetics and trends. The research and ideas underpinning Staging Fashion address how fashion and the spatial fields have collaborated in the creation of the space of the fashion show. The 15 essays are written by fashion, interior, architecture and design scholars focusing on the presentation of fashion within the runway space, from avant-garde practices and collaboration with artists, to the most spectacular and commercial shows of recent years, from Prada to Chanel.

This comprehensively revised and updated second edition of Fashion Journalism examines the vast changes within the industry and asks what they mean for the status, practices, and values of journalism worldwide. Providing first-hand guidance on how to report on fashion effectively and responsibly, this authoritative text covers everything from ideas generation to writing news and features, video production, podcasting, and styling, including advice on how to stay legally and ethically safe while doing so. The book takes in all types of fashion content - from journalism to branded content, and from individual content creation to editorial for fashion brands. It explores their common practices and priorities, while examining journalists' claim to special status compared to other content producers. In conjunction with expanded theory and research, the book includes interviews with journalists, editors, bloggers, filmmakers, PRs, and brand content producers from the UK, the US, China, and the Middle East to offer all a student or trainee needs to know to excel in fashion journalism.

This book offers a stunning visual record of the evolution of women's sporting attire in Western fashion over nearly two centuries. With selections from Keds, Pendleton, and Spalding and garments by Coco Chanel, Claire McCardell, and Jean Patou, among many others, it features familiar names in the development of sport, industry, and dress, as well as significant rediscoveries. Standing at the intersection of the history of fashion and feminism, Sporting Fashion highlights the extraordinary impact of new technologies and evolving social mores on women's clothing for sport. It explores how the basic forms of women's sportswear we know today-from swimsuits to sneakers- were developed and codified during a time when women were achieving more freedom. Full colour illustrations of sport and leisure ensembles are included, along with magazine spreads and archival images. In thematic sections, the authors approach the range of ways women entered into the sporting world- from traveling to calisthenics, golfing to tennis, motorcycling to promenading. The book looks at examples of clothing that allowed women to walk freely and compete in sports previously restricted to men. It explores how designers both reacted to and encouraged the growing acceptance of exposed skin at public beaches and pools-and how cold weather fashion made its way onto the slopes and the ice. Never before have the garments and accessories that defined women's roles as both spectators and athletes been presented on this scale and in such detail.

Fashion by Design, Second Edition, explains how the elements and principles of design relate to fashion, based on the philosophy of the Bauhaus Experiment of the 1920s and 1930s, which is the foundation for art education in the United States. The book is structured into three parts: the stages of the design process (inspiration, identification, conceptualization, exploration/refinement, definition/modeling, communication, and production); physical elements (such as line, shape, form, space, texture, light, pattern, color, and value); and theoretical principles (like balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion, and unity) of design. This is reinforced by fashion designer profiles and illustrations covering art, architecture, and fashion. The book aims to improve the designer's eye for creating fashion and related art forms; to identify terminology used in the communication of fashion; and to show how other factors, such as the human form, clothing structure, historic silhouettes, fashion trends, culture, and industry trends, may impact the development of a line or a collection. New to this Edition: -A more user-friendly order of information, in a more condensed language style, with updated color visuals -Expanded section on the design process, with information on sustainable design -New creative assignments at the end of chapters with application to the fields of fashion design (including the development of a design journal), fashion merchandising (such as styling, product development, buying or trend research) and theater arts (such as costumes, sets, lighting) STUDIO Features: -Study smarter with self-quizzes featuring scored results and personalized study tips -Review concepts with flashcards of essential vocabulary - Downloadable "Paper Dolls" pdfs for students to interact with key concepts of the design process Instructor Resources: -PowerPoint (R) slides featuring key concepts from each chapter -Instructor's Guide with sample course outlines for teaching and tools for integrating the STUDIO with the course

The Nigerian and West African practice of aso ebi fashion invokes notions of wealth and group dynamics in social gatherings. Okechukwu Nwafor's volume Aso ebi investigates the practice in the cosmopolitan urban setting of Lagos, and argues that the visual and consumerist hype typical of the late capitalist system feeds this unique fashion practice. The book suggests that dress, fashion, aso ebi, and photography engender a new visual culture that largely reflects the economics of mundane living. Nwafor examines the practice's societal dilemma, whereby the solidarity of aso ebi is dismissed by many as an ephemeral transaction. A circuitous transaction among photographers, fashion magazine producers, textile merchants, tailors, and individual fashionistas reinvents aso ebi as a product of cosmopolitan urban modernity. The results are a fetishization of various forms of commodity culture, personality cults through mass followership, the negotiation of symbolic power through mass-produced images, exchange value in human relationships through gifts, and a form of exclusion achieved through digital photo editing. Aso ebi has become an essential part of Lagos cosmopolitanism: as a rising form of a unique visual culture it is central to the unprecedented spread of a unique West African fashion style that revels in excessive textile overflow. This extreme dress style is what an individual requires to transcend the lack imposed by the chaos of the postcolonial city.

Visual Typologies from the Early Modern to the Contemporary investigates the pictorial representation of types from the sixteenth to the twenty- first century. Originating in longstanding visual traditions, including street crier prints and costume albums, these images share certain conventions as they seek to convey knowledge about different peoples. The genre of the type became widespread in the early modern period, developing into a global language of identity. The chapters explore diverse pictorial representations of types, customs, and dress in numerous media, including paintings, prints, postcards, photographs, and garments. Together, they reveal that the activation of typological strategies, including seriality, repetition, appropriation, and subversion has produced a universal and dynamic pictorial language. Typological images highlight the tensions between the local and the international, the specific and the communal, and similarity and difference inherent in the construction of identity. The first full- length study to treat these images as a broader genre, Visual Typologies gives voice to a marginalized form of representation. Together, the chapters debunk the classification of such images as unmediated and authentic representations, offering fresh methodological frameworks to consider their meanings locally and globally, and establishing common ground about the operations of objects that sought to shape, embody, or challenge individual and collective identities.

In The Fashion Reader, Linda Welters and Abby Lillethun have selected 76 influential articles to offer insight into the critical theories and conversations that surround this huge international industry. Many of the essays are drawn from books, journals, magazines, and exhibition catalogues, bringing together new and established concepts to offer a solid grounding in the history, business and culture of fashion. Fourteen of the chapters were written expressly for this edition. For added context, each of the fifteen parts has an introduction from the editors, guiding you through the interdisciplinary world of fashion studies, and each part concludes with suggestions for further reading. This third edition has been substantially revised to highlight issues of sustainability, identity, the body, as well as global perspectives from "The Commodification of Ethnicity" to "The Cultural Heritage of Tattooing."

This book traces the interconnectedness of women's sartorial practices and social change in 20th-century Britain. Based on a wide range of cultural texts, which include literary works, magazines, posters, advertisements and political cartoons, this study endeavours to prove that due to the metaphorical function of clothing, womenswear imparted significant information about women's positions in society during transformative historical moments.

Here is a new look at some very smart, old shoes. In 1896, detailed engravings of 3000 styles of shoes and boots for men, women, and children were cataloged for sale by Geo. D. Ramsdell of Rochester, N.Y. They included the most fashionable designs in shoes for a discriminating clientele. Today, these shoe designs look romantic and stylish and enjoy renewed popularity among the young and old alike. The styles shown here will inspire another look at the beautiful shapes, materials, and workmanship that were expected of a shoe in 1896. The styles for women include laced and buttoned boots; flat and spring-heel styles; wool, straight, and congress shoes; oxfords; and slippers. For men there are dress shoes in wool and leather, sporting and oxford types, boots, rubbers, leggings, overgaiters, and slippers. For boys and girls there are everyday and dressy shoes, oxfords, and again, slippers. This book also presents charming advertising cuts for the retail trade to use when it publicized these shoes in newspapers. A Price Guide relates the values for shoes of this type on the market today.

In recent years, menswear has moved decisively center stage. Menswear Revolution investigates the transformation of men's fashion through the lens of shifting masculinities, examining how its increasing diversity has created new ways for men to explore and express their identities. Harnessing sustained market growth and creative dynamism on the runway, ground-breaking designers from Raf Simons and Hedi Slimane to Craig Green have revolutionized the discipline with their bold re-imaginings of the male wardrobe. Analysing the role of the media in shaping attitudes to men's fashion, Menswear Revolution studies how competing narratives of masculinity are reflected in popular discourse. Taking us from the mod and peacock revolutions of the 1960s to the new wave aesthetics of the 1980s, the book explores historical precedents for today's menswear scene - and looks at the evolution of the 'ideal' male body, from the muscular to the lean and boyish. Combining interviews with fashion professionals with close analyses of garments and advertising, Menswear Revolution provides an authoritative account of menswear design today. Highlighting its relationship to changing concepts of gender, the book provides a much-needed update to scholarship on masculinity, fashion and the body.

Beyond Princess Culture: Gender and Children's Marketing explores the impact of a post-princess space, examining potential agency and empowerment in the products' users while acknowledging that at least some alternatives continue to perpetuate components of the rigidly gender-coded princess culture. This book collectively critiques the commodification of the post-princess child consumer through analysis of historical and contemporary toys, video games, clothing, websites, and other popular culture phenomena. Guided by theories from feminist and gender studies, Beyond Princess Culture demonstrates how the marketing of children's products has and continues to perpetuate and challenge hegemonic notions of gender, race, ethnicity, ability, and other positions of intersectionality, as situated in the social, economic, and historical contexts.

Global Perspectives on Sustainable Fashion showcases the global fashion industry's efforts to reduce the negative impacts associated with fashion production and consumption. Illustrated throughout with infographics, photographs and diagrams of creative works, eighteen essays focus on six regions, examining sustainable fashion in the context of local, cultural and environmental concerns. Also included are 18 regional 'Spotlight' sections highlighting the differences and similarities across regions by concentrating on examples of best practice, design innovation and impact on the community.

In the last half of the 19th century, the women of America were beginning to develop their own sense of style. Although influenced by European fashions and the social and economic changes of the time, they made clothing choices based upon their personal aspirations and their practical everyday needs. Providing an overview of fashion influences for each decade from the 1860s to the end of the century, Everyday Fashion in Found Photographs presents iconic garments, using sources from the period, to provide commentary and detailed description of the styles of the time. Previously unpublished vintage photographs show women across the social spectrum wearing items such as the Garibaldi shirt, the cuirass bodice, the Mother Hubbard, bicycle bloomers, and much more. Names, dates and functions of garments are examined in detail, and ties are established between social and historical contexts and the evolution of clothing styles. This illustrated book is for readers who want to identify and understand specific clothing items as well as gain insight into the mind-set of fashionable women from Victorian-era America. Dress history scholars, costume designers, curators of costume collections, social and cultural historians and those who appreciate vintage photographs can learn about elements of late 19th century women's dress and thereby develop an understanding of what was fashionable, and why.