One day a woman of average means waltzes by a jewellery shop window and spots a GBP20,000 diamond necklace. She can't get it out of her head. Eventually she gets the idea of sharing it with friends, persuading them to chip in a grand each to buy the necklace. This is the true story of 13 ordinary women, and one extraordinary adventure. The Necklace is the amazing true story of thirteen women who didn't want to give up on their dreams. They clubbed together to buy a gorgeous diamond necklace, agreeing that each of them would have it for four weeks at a time. They would meet every month to find out what the necklace (now dubbed 'Jewelia') had been up to. The club had some rules: if someone went to Paris, they got the necklace. At least once, everyone had to wear the necklace whilst making love. After two years, the necklace had been loaned out to nieces, grandmas, friends and granddaughters. It had been worn by brides and colleagues and sisters and friends. And when it was their turn for the necklace the women of Jewelia wore it for both the daily routines and special events of their lives, to teach school, to work in the farmer's market, to go fishing and skydiving. It started something. The Necklace is the story of how an object of desire became a catalyst for connection, friendship and more. It's like Calendar Girls, only maybe a bit more glamorous, glitzy and sparkling.

Beards they're all the rage these days. Take a look around: from hip urbanites to rustic outdoorsmen, well-groomed metrosexuals to post-season hockey players, facial hair is everywhere. The New York Times traces this hairy trend to Big Apple hipsters circa 2005 and reports that today some New Yorkers pay thousands of dollars for facial hair transplants to disguise patchy, juvenile beards. And in 2014, blogger Nicki Daniels excoriated bearded hipsters for turning a symbol of manliness and power into a flimsy fashion statement. The beard, she said, has turned into the padded bra of masculinity. Of Beards and Men makes the case that today's bearded renaissance is part of a centuries-long cycle in which facial hairstyles have varied in response to changing ideals of masculinity. Christopher Oldstone-Moore explains that the clean-shaven face has been the default style throughout Western history see Alexander the Great's beardless face, for example, as the Greek heroic ideal. But the primacy of razors has been challenged over the years by four great bearded movements, beginning with Hadrian in the second century and stretching to today's bristled resurgence. The clean-shaven face today, Oldstone-Moore says, has come to signify a virtuous and sociable man, whereas the beard marks someone as self-reliant and unconventional. History, then, has established specific meanings for facial hair, which both inspire and constrain a man's choices in how he presents himself to the world. This fascinating and erudite history of facial hair cracks the masculine hair code, shedding light on the choices men make as they shape the hair on their faces. Oldstone-Moore adeptly lays to rest common misperceptions about beards and vividly illustrates the connection between grooming, identity, culture, and masculinity. To a surprising degree, we find, the history of men is written on their faces.

Indonesian fashion has undergone a period of rapid growth over the last three decades. This book explores how through years of social, political, and cultural upheaval, the country's fashion has moved away from "colonial fashion" and "national dress" to claim its own distinct identity as contemporary fashion in a global world. With specific reference to women's wear, Contemporary Indonesian Fashion explores the diversity and complexity of the country's sartorial offerings, which weave together local textile traditions like batik and ikat-making with contemporary narratives. The book questions concepts of "tradition" and "modernity" in the developing world, taking stock of the elite consumption of luxury brands and the large-scale manufacturing of fast fashion, and introduces us to the rise of new trends such as busana muslim (or "modest wear"), creating a portrait of a vibrant and growing national and, increasingly, international, industry. Exploring clothing in shopping malls, on the catwalk, in magazines, and online, the book examines how Indonesian fashion is made, presented, and consumed, combining research in Indonesia with analysis and personal reflection. Contemporary Indonesian Fashion ultimately questions the deeply entrenched eurocentrism of "global fashion", simultaneously interrogating current homogenizing beauty and body image discourses posited as universal, by pointing to absences, silences, and erasures as reflected by contemporary Indonesian fashion- hence the "looking glass" of the title. Aptly illustrated, the book offers a new perspective on a rapidly developing new fashion capital, Jakarta.

Ulrich Lehmann brings together methods and ideas from social sciences and material production to offer a new political reading of fashion in today's post-democracy. Accessing rare source material across a wide range of European languages and cultures, he offers insight into new working structures in the manufacture of garments and textiles. Case studies include the male suit in Alfred Hitchcock's film North by Northwest (1959), the revolutionary production methods in the work of Carol Christian Poell and the innovative textile manufacture of Bonotto in Molvena (north-East Italy)

The book presents a portrait of Tirelli with the history of his apprenticeship and his passion not only for the painstaking reproduction of ancient garments and accessories but also for building up a priceless collection of tens of thousands of original items of clothing. A long chapter presents testimonials from faithful customers including the most illustrious Italian and foreign costume designers, winners of countless Oscars, some of whom have been with Tirelli from the outset. The rich array of illustrations - comprising sketches, photographs of finished costumes and scenes from plays and films - spans five decades of inventions and successes, and the work ends with a catalogue raisonne of the company's creations for theater, opera, cinema, and television.

Since the mid-20th century fashion has undergone phenomenal change at a rapid pace in the context of unprecedented social, political and cultural upheaval. This fully updated and expanded second edition of Costume Since 1945 brings this period to life through accessible, lively text and over 100 illustrations. From the austerity of the utility years to punk and protest to 21st century fast fashion and vintage style, the volume captures changes the mood and style of each era across street fashion, sportswear, formal wear from suits to couture gowns, underwear and nightclothes. Based on a wide range of sources, the author's illustrations offer engaging insights on fashion history as well as design inspiration. Written for students and scholars of costume design and fashion history, practitioners and anyone interested in historical dress, this book provides a unique perspective on fashion from a renowned international costume designer.

"Luxury Fashion and Culture" focuses on the study of how humans use high quality, highly pleasurable, and frequently rare products, services, and experiences to distinguish to themselves and others who they are as well as whom they are not - both within and across cultures. Luxury fashion enables the individual to transform herself - to play a part in scenes exuding refinement, acceptance, high status, and good taste and risk ridicule by playing the part badly. The chapters provide new theory, recipes of methods, and findings on how culture helps humans manage and respond to luxury fashion enactments. Rather than focusing on traditional cultural transformations, it focuses on personal expressions of self and archetypal role-playing and fulfilment through the power of luxury fashion. This volume: applies the perspectives of Veblen, Goffman, McCracken, Thompson, and Belk to provide a theoretical foundation to explain why and how humans buy and enact luxury fashion products, services, and experiences; includes confirmatory personal introspections of explanations of luxury fashion enactments with self-photographs and self-interpretations of the enactments to explain how individuals enact luxury fashion and respond to alternative fashion-marketing designs; and is unique in conjoining sociology, psychology, marketing, and economics to advance fashion marketing theory and research.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The veil can be an instrument of feminist empowerment, and veiled anonymity can confer power to women. Starting from her own marriage ceremony at which she first wore a full veil, Rafia Zakaria examines how veils do more than they get credit for. Part memoir and part philosophical investigation, Veil questions that what is seen is always good and free, and that what is veiled can only signal servility and subterfuge. From personal encounters with the veil in France (where it is banned) to Iran (where it is compulsory), Zakaria shows how the garment's reputation as a pre-modern relic is fraught and up for grabs. The veil is an object in constant transformation, whose myriad meanings challenge the absolute truths of patriarchy. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

A 'Coat of Many Colors' investigates Israel's first seven years as a sovereign state through the unusual prism of dress. Clothes worn by Israelis in the 1950s reflected political ideologies, economic conditions, military priorities, social distinctions, and cultural preferences, and all played a part in consolidating a new national identity. Based on a wide range of textual and visual historical documents, the book covers both what Israelis wore in various circumstances and what they said and wrote about clothing and fashion. Written in a clear and accessible style that will appeal to the general reader as well as to students and scholars, 'A Coat of Many Colors' introduces the reader both to Israel's history during its formative years and to the rich field of dress culture.

When it comes to fashion, few metropolitan areas are more synonymous with style than New York, London, Paris, and Milan. But the couture capitals of tomorrow may be located in less likely locales. Addressing the interplay between the development of fashion centers across the world and their relationship to consumption and street style in both local and global contexts, the books in the Street Style series aim to record emerging fashion capitals and their relationship to the physical landscapes of the street. By examining how particular ecologies of fashion are connected to the formation of gender, class, and generational identities, this series establishes a new methodology for recording and understanding identity and its connection to style.
"Havana Street Style" is the first book that explores and reveals the relationship between culture, city, and street fashion in Cuba's capital. Matching visual ethnography with critical analysis, the book documents a unique street style few in the United States have yet experienced.

The story of the world's first fashion-obsessed society in 18th-century London Caricatured for extravagance, vanity, glamorous celebrity and, all too often, embroiled in scandal and gossip, 18th-century London's fashionable society had a well-deserved reputation for frivolity. But to be fashionable in 1700s London meant more than simply being well dressed. Fashion denoted membership of a new type of society-the beau monde, a world where status was no longer determined by coronets and countryseats alone but by the more nebulous qualification of metropolitan 'fashion'. Conspicuous consumption and display were crucial; the right address, the right dinner guests, the right possessions, the right jewels, the right seat at the opera. The Beau Monde leads us on a tour of this exciting new world, from court and parliament to London's parks, pleasure grounds, and private homes. From brash displays of diamond jewellery to the subtle complexities of political intrigue, we see how membership of the new elite was won, maintained-and sometimes lost. On the way, we meet a rich and colourful cast of characters, from the newly ennobled peer learning the ropes and the imposter trying to gain entry by means of clever fakery, to the exile banned for sexual indiscretion. Above all, as the story unfolds, we learn that being a Fashionable was about far more than simply being 'modish'. By the end of the century, it had become nothing less than the key to power and exclusivity in a changed world.

In this innovative collaborative ethnography of Italian-Chinese ventures in the fashion industry, Lisa Rofel and Sylvia J. Yanagisako offer a new methodology for studying transnational capitalism. Drawing on their respective linguistic and regional areas of expertise, Rofel and Yanagisako show how different historical legacies of capital, labor, nation, and kinship are crucial in the formation of global capitalism. Focusing on how Italian fashion is manufactured, distributed, and marketed by Italian-Chinese ventures and how their relationships have been complicated by China's emergence as a market for luxury goods, the authors illuminate the often-overlooked processes that produce transnational capitalism-including privatization, negotiation of labor value, rearrangement of accumulation, reconfiguration of kinship, and outsourcing of inequality. In so doing, Fabricating Transnational Capitalism reveals the crucial role of the state and the shifting power relations between nations in shaping the ideas and practices of the Italian and Chinese partners.

Irish Aran knitting is a living tradition with a worldwide reach. Arans communicate warmth, comfort and a sense of home, which people the world over continue to respond to, even though the connection to our rocky outcroppings in the Atlantic Ocean may be long forgotten. Aran grew up in the harsh environment of the Aran Islands where everyday wear consisted of home-spun fabrics and knits. Today Aran survives as part of a rich craft heritage and as high and slow fashion on the catwalks of the world. Vawn Corrigan explores the history, mythology and growth of this iconic design in this beautiful and informative hardback book.

First published in 1956, What Shall I Wear is revolutionary fashion designer Claire McCardell's collection of fashion wisdom and philosophy and a vivacious guide to looking effortlessly stylishClaire McCardell, the revolutionary fashion designer credited with originating "The American Look," designed for the emerging active lifestyle of women in the 1940s and '50s. She was the originator of mix-and-match separates, open-back sundresses, and feminine denim fashion; she started the trend for ballet flats as a wartime leather-rationing measure. Spaghetti straps, brass hooks and eyes as fasteners, rivets, menswear details and fabrics-they were all started by McCardell. Her monastic and popover dresses achieved cult status, and her fashions were taken up by working women, the suburban set, and high society alike.First published in 1956, What Shall I Wear? provides a glimpse into the sources of McCardell's inspiration-travel, sports, the American leisure lifestyle, and her own closet-and how she transformed them into fashion while still approaching design from her chosen vantage point of usefulness. A retro treat for designers and anyone who loves fashion, both vintage and contemporary, the book is teeming with charming illustrations and still-solid advice for finding your own best look, creatively shopping on a budget, and building a real wardrobe that is chic and distinctive. What Shall I Wear? is a tribute to the American spirit in fashion.

This is the first global history of dress regulation and its place in broader debates around how human life and societies should be visualised and materialised. Sumptuary laws were a tool on the part of states to regulate not only manufacturing systems and moral economies via the medium of expenditure and consumption of clothing but also banquets, festivities and funerals. Leading scholars on Asian, Latin American, Ottoman and European history shed new light on how and why items of dress became key aspirational goods across society, how they were lobbied for and marketed, and whether or not sumptuary laws were implemented by cities, states and empires to restrict or channel trade and consumption. Their findings reveal the significance of sumptuary laws in medieval and early modern societies as a site of contestation between individuals and states and how dress as an expression of identity developed as a modern 'human right'.

Clothing appears in all forms of figurative painting, often taking up two thirds of a frame; yet it can often go unnoticed. Far more than a simple means of identifying the status or occupation of a figure, clothes and cloth are used creatively by artists to hint at ambiguities in character, adjust the emotional temperature, direct the eye or make subtle allusions. Drawing on works by artists over a period of six centuries, from Giotto to El Greco, Matisse to Cindy Sherman, the author reveals through paintings, fashion plates, photographs and film stills how drapery in art evolved from Renaissance extravagance to Neoclassical simplicity at the end of the 18th century, and has extended to infinite uses in all genres of Modern art. First published in 2002 to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the National Gallery, London, this beautifully illustrated - and beautifully written - book by pioneering art historian and critic Anne Hollander, is reissued with a new Foreword by Valerie Steele. As penetrating and insightful as when it was first published, it remains a must-read for today's generation of students and anyone with an interest in art and fashion.

When department stores like Le Bon Marche first opened their doors in mid-nineteenth-century Paris, shoppers were offered more than racks of ready-made frock coats and crinolines. They were given the chance to acquire a lifestyle as well--that of the bourgeoisie. Wearing proper clothing encouraged proper behavior, went the prevailing belief.

Available now for the first time in English, "Fashioning the Bourgeoisie" was one of the first extensive studies to explain a culture's sociology through the seemingly simple issue of the choice of clothing. Philippe Perrot shows, through a delightful tour of the rise of the ready-made fashion industry in France, how clothing can not only reflect but also inculcate beliefs, values, and aspirations. By the middle of the century, men were prompted to disdain the decadent and gaudy colors of the pre-Revolutionary period and wear unrelievedly black frock coats suitable to the manly and serious world of commerce. Their wives and daughters, on the other hand, adorned themselves in bright colors and often uncomfortable and impractical laces and petticoats, to signal the status of their family. The consumer pastime of shopping was born, as women spent their spare hours keeping up their middle-class appearance, or creating one by judicious purchases.

As Paris became the fashion capital and bourgeois modes of dress and their inherent attitudes became the ruling lifestyle of Western Europe and America, clothing and its "civilizing" tendencies were imported to non-Western colonies as well. In the face of what Perrot calls this "leveling process," the upper classes tried to maintain their stature and right to elegance by supporting what became the high fashion industry. Richly detailed, entertaining, and provocative, "Fashioning the Bourgeoisie" reveals to us the sources of many of our contemporary rules of fashion and etiquette."

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.

There are many different variations of academic dress, depending on the academic qualification held by the wearer. In this booklet, the different degrees and diplomas awarded by the University of Hertfordshire are described, together with the special gown, cap and hood associated with each award. There is also a section on the distinctive costume prescribed for the university's Senior Officers.

From couture fashion to opulent perfumes and decadent food, the luxury goods and services industry has grown at an unprecedented rate even in the context of a global recession. But in contemporary digital culture does luxury still reside in material things, or rather the look of things? In this first study of luxury through the lens of visual culture, Armitage argues that luxury is undergoing a shift from material culture to the immaterial culture of the visual, offering new forms of luxury engagement and unparalleled levels of pleasure never before offered to the senses. Calling for a new understanding of luxury in the changing visual landscape of contemporary society, Luxury and Visual Culture embraces an extraordinary range of cultural forms, including fashion, photography, social media, television, and art. From the masterpieces of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, to Richard Avedon's photography and Louis Vuitton's Flagship stores, the book explores key issues of globalization, digitization, consumer identity, "mass" luxury, and the role of art. This text is ideal for all students of contemporary luxury studies, as well as scholars and researchers in the field of visual culture.

Anthropologists have examined how diverse human populations modify and dress their bodies since the earliest days of the discipline. The Anthropology of Dress and Fashion: A Reader is the first authoritative anthology of the seminal writings of anthropologists studying clothing and fashion. From classic ethnographies of dress to cutting-edge contemporary research tracing the global circulation of clothing today, this comprehensive volume maps out this vibrant field of study's shifting preoccupations, theoretical innovations, and traditional and experimental methodologies. Comprised of over 40 curated extracts from the work of leading international scholars from Jonathan Friedman to Katherine Frank, the reader is divided into themed sections, each with an introduction and guide to further reading. With each extract introduced and contextualised, the reader will be an essential resource for students and scholars of fashion studies, social and cultural anthropology, material culture, sociology and related fields.

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.

The study of fashion has expanded into a thriving field of inquiry, with researchers utilizing diverse methods from across subject disciplines to explore fashion and dress in wide-ranging contexts. With an emphasis on material culture and ethnographic approaches in fashion studies, this groundbreaking volume offers fascinating insights into the complex dynamics of research and fashion. Featuring unique case studies, with interdisciplinary scholars reflecting on their practical research experiences, Fashion Studies provides rich and nuanced perspectives on the use, and mixing and matching of methodological approaches - including object and image based research, the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods and the fluid bridging of theory and practice. Engaging with diverse subjects, from ethnographies of model casting and street-style blogging, wardrobe studies and a material culture analysis of global denim wearing, to Martin Margiela's design and archival methods, Fashion Studies presents complex approaches in a lively and informative manner that will appeal to students of fashion, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and related fields.