In his consideration of the language of the fashion magazine--the structural analysis of descriptions of women's clothing by writers about fashion--Barthes gives us a brief history of semiology. At the same time, he identifies economics as the underlying reason for the luxuriant prose of the fashion magazine: "Calculating, industrial society is obliged to form consumers who don't calculate; if clothing's producers and consumers had the same consciousness, clothing would be bought (and produced) only at the very slow rate of its dilapidation."

Remarkably thorough illustrated overview based on rare period photographs, periodicals, other contemporary sources. Description and information about hundreds of fashions: morning dresses, riding outfits, carriage costumes, evening dresses, bridal gowns, more. Also millinery, footwear, underclothing, other apparel. 891 black-and-white line illustrations. 226 halftones. Bibliography. 3 glossaries.

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.

The sweeping crinolines, corsets, bustles, bonnets and parasols of Victorian Britain are indispensable to our period dramas, and their influences can still be seen within burlesque and steampunk fashions. This is no surprise, as nineteenth-century clothing was so wide-ranging and decorative. We might unfairly think gentlemen's costume to be rather plain and uniform, but this is more by contrast to the overwhelming ostentation, luxury fabrics, fine accessories and constantly evolving silhouettes of ladies' fashion. This colourful introduction to what the Victorians wore describes the vibrant, fancy materials and lace edging at one end of the spectrum, and the tightlaced sobriety of mourning apparel at the other. It examines both high fashion imports from Paris and more modest everyday wear, evening costume, bridal styles, children's clothes and sportswear, and explores the social and cultural backdrop to clothing in Britain's great age of industry and empire.

A Textile Traveler's Guide to Peru and Bolivia draws on author Cynthia Samake's decades of independent travel in Peru and Bolivia. Her experiences roaming the remote hillsides and bustling cities of both countries combined with her academic research in traditional textiles and costumes create an indispensable guide filled with useful knowledge and frolicking fun adventure. From weekly village markets in the Peruvian highlands to fanciful costumes of Bolivia's Carnival, Samake guides readers through the living legacy of two-thousand years of textile tradition in the Andean highlands and beyond. A Textile Traveler's Guide to Peru and Bolivia is an excellent resource for discovering artisans, markets, shops, museums, and festivals. Geared to independent minded travellers, this guide presents refreshing and genuine descriptions for lodgings, restaurants, and transportation that only years of life on the road could inform. Expert advice helps travellers to know what textile treasures they'll discover at each location, how to distinguish quality textiles, and how to bargain intelligently and ethically. With abundant photographs, this guide celebrates the colour, joy, and energy of folklife in Peru and Bolivia.

During the medieval period, people invested heavily in looking good. The finest fashions demanded careful chemistry and compounds imported from great distances and at considerable risk to merchants; the Church became a major consumer of both the richest and humblest varieties of cloth, shoes, and adornment; and vernacular poets began to embroider their stories with hundreds of verses describing a plethora of dress styles, fabrics, and shopping experiences. Drawing on a wealth of pictorial, textual and object sources, the volume examines how dress cultures developed - often to a degree of dazzling sophistication - between the years 800 to 1450. Beautifully illustrated with 100 images, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Medieval Age presents an overview of the period with essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, visual representations, and literary representations.

Exploring style in a global culture In A Rhetoric of Style, Barry Brummett illustrates how style is increasingly a global system of communication as people around the world understand what it means to dress a certain way, to dance a certain way, to decorate a certain way, to speak a certain way. He locates style at the heart of popular culture and asserts that it is the basis for social life and politics in the twenty-first century. Brummett sees style as a system of signification grounded largely in image, aesthetics, and extrarational modes of thinking. He discusses three important aspects of this system-its social and commercial structuring, its political consequences, and its role as the chief rhetorical system of the modern world. He argues that aesthetics and style are merging into a major engine of the global economy and that style is becoming a way to construct individual identity, as well as social and political structures of alliance and opposition. It is through style that we stereotype or make assumptions about others' political identities, their sexuality, their culture, and their economic standing. To facilitate theoretical and critical analysis, Brummett develops a systematic rhetoric of style and then demonstrates its use through an in-depth exploration of gun culture in the United States. Armed with an understanding of how this rhetoric of style works methodologically, students and scholars alike will have the tools to do their own analyses. Written in clear and engaging prose, A Rhetoric of Style presents a novel discussion of the workings of style and sheds new light on a venerable and sometimes misunderstood rhetorical concept by illustrating how style is the key to constructing a rhetoric for the twenty-first century.

Style inspiration for everyone, no matter your size. Be inspired by 100 of the very best plus-size street style images from around the world. Plus-size fashion is daring, experimental and deeply personal. There's no longer any shame in not fitting the traditional ideals of beauty, as proven by Gabi Gregg, Tess Holliday, Beth Ditto and thousands of bloggers and models acround the world. The online plus-size fashion community is loud, international and confident. Millions of #ootd photos are shared everyday, showing off amazing style and beautiful people. Plus+ gathers together the very best, and celebrates all shapes, sizes and aesthetics - a beautiful, sharply designed, glossy collection to inspire everyone, plus-size or otherwise.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Who ponders the sock? This common object is something people tug on and take off daily with hardly a thought. Unraveling the garment's history, construction, and use, Kim Adrian's Sock reintroduces us to our own bodies- vulnerable, bipedal, and flawed. Sock reminds us that extraordinary secrets live in mundane material realities, and shows how this floppy, often smelly, sometimes holey piece of clothing, whether machine-made or hand-knit, can also serve as an anatomy lesson, a physics primer, a love letter, a weapon, a fetish, and a fashion statement. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Hair, a primary marker of our mammalian nature, is an extraordinary indicator of economic and social standing, political orientation, religious affiliation, marital status, and cultural leanings, among other things. The meanings of hair are deep, powerful, and so strongly embedded in cultural conditioning that they are usually understood unconsciously (and all the more strongly for that). In untangling its myriad meanings, Scott Lowe reveals just how little we control our hair, no matter the style: each and every passer-by decides on its significance anew. From Hittites to hippies and Pentecostals to porn stars, Hair combs through a ubiquitous personal yet public object, a charged and carefully managed dead thing. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Style of dress has always been a way for Americans to signify their politics, but perhaps never so overtly as in the 1960s and 1970s. Whether participating in presidential campaigns or Vietnam protests, hair and dress provided a powerful cultural tool for social activists to display their politics to the world and became both the cause and a symbol of the rift in American culture. Some Americans saw stylistic freedom as part of their larger political protests, integral to the ideals of self-expression, sexual freedom, and equal rights for women and minorities. Others saw changes in style as the erosion of tradition and a threat to the established social and gender norms at the heart of family and nation. Through the lens of fashion and style, Dressing for the Culture Wars guides us through the competing political and social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Although long hair on men, pants and miniskirts on women, and other hippie styles of self-fashioning could indeed be controversial, Betty Luther Hillman illustrates how self-presentation influenced the culture and politics of the era and carried connotations similarly linked to the broader political challenges of the time. Luther Hillman's new line of inquiry demonstrates how fashion was both a reaction to and was influenced by the political climate and its implications for changing norms of gender, race, and sexuality.

Mainstream fashion system is experienced in an unsustainable cycle with the global supply chain. It is an unsustainable system not only because of its effects on the environment and ecology, but also because of the unfair working conditions which put a social distance between the employer and the employee. This structure, which has greedy characteristics with its production and consumption rates, due to its `fast' cycle on a global scale, recreates a `throwaway' consumption culture every day which causes a waste problem that cannot be solved by the linear production model. Together with this, the non-transparent global supply chain builds the modern slavery system in the third world countries by applying hard labour conditions and violating human rights. Slow fashion movement, which has emerged as an alternative to this course, builds an ecological, sustainable and ethical sense of fashion for design, production and consumption relations. Slow fashion promises a hope for the search of a more humane and ethical future, for the production of long-lasting, enduring, unique, and eco-friendly goods that have been made with care for local values and have respect for craftwork. Slow fashion promises these by also making relationships between the designer, producer and consumer transparent. This book consists of eleven chapters discussing the following issues in the context and socio-politics of slowness: The social justice system of fashion, the social and environmental effects of supply chain, the probability of creating a cyclical economic system rather than the linear cycle of production and consumption, the creative waste management strategies, the role of slowness in association of design and craft, the responsible consumption understanding created by slowness as opposed to the illusion of hedonic sense of consumption and happiness, our emotional and sensual relationship with clothes, and the role of education for the creation of a sustainable fashion system. Contributing authors: Duygu Atalay, Otto von Busch, Hazel Clark, Irem Yanpar Cosdan, Alex Exculapio, Erica de Greef, Alison Gwilt, Alastair Fuad-Luke, Solen Kipoz, Sanem Odabasi, Alice Payne, Yuksel Sahin, Nesrin Turkmen

Masks are found world-wide in connection with seasonal festivals, rites of passage, and curative ceremonies. They provide a means of investigating the paradoxical problems that appearances pose in the experience of transitional states. In this far-reaching work, A. David Napier studies mask iconography and the role played by masks in the realization of change. The masks of preclassical Greecein particular those of the Satyr and the Gorgonprovide his starting point. A comparison of Greek to Eastern and especially Indian models follows, and the book concludes with an examination of the interpretation of Hindu ideas in Bali that demonstrates the importance of ambivalence in mask iconography.

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.

Presents a guide to fashion for the modern man or woman, offering tips on different male and female body types, how to select the right outfit for every occasion, great fashion for every budget, and other suggestions.

Over the past 40 years, Japanese designers have led the way in aligning fashion with art and ideology, as well as addressing identity and social politics through dress. They have demonstrated that both creative and commercial enterprise is possible in today's international fashion industry, and have refused to compromise their ideals, remaining autonomous and independent in their design, business affairs and distribution methods. The inspirational Miyake, Yamamoto and Kawakubo have gained worldwide respect and admiration and have influenced a generation of designers and artists alike. Based on twelve years of research, this book provides a richly detailed and uniquely comprehensive view of the work of these three key designers. It outlines their major contributions and the subsequent impact that their work has had upon the next generation of fashion and textile designers around the world. Designers discussed include: Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, Naoki Takizawa, Dai Fujiwara, Junya Watanabe, Tao Kurihara, Jun Takahashi, Yoshiki Hishinuma, Junichi Arai, Reiko Sudo & the Nuno Corporation, Makiko Minagawa, Hiroshi Matsushita, Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Helmut Lang.

Fashion Africa is a visual overview of contemporary African fashion, compiled with an ethical perspective. This guide is the first of its kind to bring together designers, design companies, ethical manufacturers and more, all with an African connection. In the book, the author works tirelessly to promote Africa as a place not just for sourcing materials, but with the potential to be a vital epicenter of trade within the global marketplace. Fashion Africa is a comprehensive guide to the designers, materials, and sustainable practices available on continental Africa and provides an excellent resource in conjunction for the very vibrant growing industry already in existence.

The transformation of China from a major site for clothing manufacture to an intensely fashion consuming society has been widely documented. Less has been written about the making of Chinese fashion. In Fashion in Multiple Chinas, expert authors explore how a multitude of Chinese fashions operate across the widespread, fragmented and diffused Chinese diaspora. They challenge the idea of Chinese nationalism as 'one nation', as well as of China as a single reality, revealing the realities of Chinese fashion as diverse and comprising multiple practices. They also demonstrate how the making of Chinese fashion is composed of numerous layers, often involving a web of global entanglements between manufacturing and circulation, retailing and branding. Chapters cover the mechanics of the PRC fashion industry, the creative economy of Chinese fashion, its retail and branding, and the cultural identity of Chinese fashion from the diasporas comprising the transglobal landscape of fashion production.

A History of Fashion and Costume is an eight-volume set that examines the development of costume and fashion over time - from the earliest cave dwellers to the present - along with the social history that gave rise to it. Introducing readers to the rich world of fashion and dress, this set vividly depicts the changing styles, processes, and trends - from the first people to wear clothes in the last Ice Age to the courtly fashion of medieval Europe to the globalization of Western style - that led us to the clothing of today. Describing both the practical uses of clothing and the highly impractical clothes that have been used throughout history to convey social status, these volumes provide a compelling look at the effects of fashion and costume on society. Each accessible volume describes the fashions of the time, styles and designs, and the changing use of materials. Beautiful illustrations and engaging text examine clothing as well as the jewelry, hairstyles, hats, and footwear that accompanied the fashions and made them unique. Special features in each volume include a foreword written by a fashion industry expert as well as a helpful glossary, timeline, and index.

Winner of the Association of Dress Historians Book of the Year Award, 2021 In 1939, fashion became an economic and symbolic sphere of great importance in France. Invasive textile legislation, rationing and threats from German and American couturiers were pushing the design and trade of Parisian style to its limits. It is widely accepted that French fashion was severely curtailed as a result, isolated from former foreign clients and deposed of its crown as global queen of fashion. This pioneering book offers a different story. Arguing that Paris retained its hold on the international haute couture industry right throughout WWII, eminent dress historians and curators come together to show that, amid political, economic and cultural traumas, Paris fashion remained very much alive under the Nazi occupation - and on an international level. Bringing exciting perspectives to challenge a familiar story and introducing new overseas trade links out of occupied France, this book takes us from the salons of renowned couturiers such as Edward Molyneux and Robert Piguet, French Vogue and Le Jardin des Modes and luxury Lyon silk factories, to Rio de Janeiro, Denmark and Switzerland, and the great American department stores of New York. Also comparing extravagant Paris occupation styles to austerity fashions of the UK and USA, parallel industrial and design developments highlight the unresolvable tension between luxury fashion and the everyday realities of wartime life. Showing that Paris strove to maintain world dominance as leader of couture through fashion journalism, photography and exported fashion forecasting, Paris Fashion and World War Two makes a significant contribution to the cultural history of fashion.

The Fashion Business Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic and cutting-edge writings on the global fashion business, from production to consumption. Bringing together a rich interdisciplinary and international range of writings in one volume, this essential text encompasses creative, theoretical, and practical approaches from scholarship spanning business, the social sciences, arts, and humanities. As well as extracts from ground-breaking journal articles, book chapters, and other key writings, the reader includes several newly commissioned articles on contemporary themes and methodological approaches. Each section of the volume contains an introduction by an expert scholar plus a guide to further reading, and each individual extract is introduced so that readers can place important writings in context. This is an essential course text for students on a wide range of fashion and business courses and a one-stop authoritative reference for scholars and professionals.

This work is a comparative study of the three "great" American wars of the twentieth century: World War I, World War II and Vietnam. The book explores several aspects of American popular culture, like fashion, film and the societal mores of each era. While a number of books have covered fashion during individual wars, this is the first study to compare several major conflicts, drawing some conclusions regarding the lasting influences of wardrobe over an entire century. This book provides short background information for each war, briefly covering earlier conflicts that shaped the hostilities of the twentieth century. Although the emphasis is on women's clothing, participation and service, men are not ignored. Their fashions not only speak to the times, but the enormity of their sacrifices.

A window on the world's most stylish city, with profiles of 20 diverse and inspiring Parisian women accompanied by gorgeous full-colour photographs by model and fashion designer Jeanne Damas, and Lauren Bastide, former editor-in-chief of French Elle.

"We've always been crazy in love with this city. . . We love its arrogance, its clumsiness, its simplicity. And especially the women who live here."

In Paris dispels the myth that there is only one type of Parisian woman, and offers a rare glimpse of the city that real Parisiennes live in - taking us into their homes, their careers, their style - and what being Parisian means to them.

Profiles of twenty real-life women of Paris - artists, activists, booksellers, and filmmakers, aged fourteen to seventy, living in tiny attic studios, grand apartments, or houseboats - are accompanied by more than 100 full-colour photographs by Jeanne herself as well as tips on secret Parisian hideaways and the French art de vivre: from the five types of red wine to order depending on the occasion, and the bars to drink them in, to the best red lipsticks, and places to be kissed.

Witty, elegant, and modern, In Paris reveals the secret to living like a Parisian, wherever and whoever you are.

The global beauty business permeates our lives, influencing how we perceive ourselves and what it is to be beautiful. The brands and firms which have shaped this industry, such as Avon, Coty, Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, and Shiseido, have imagined beauty for us.
This book provides the first authoritative history of the global beauty industry from its emergence in the nineteenth century to the present day, exploring how today's global giants grew. It shows how successive generations of entrepreneurs built brands which shaped perceptions of beauty, and the business organizations needed to market them. They democratized access to beauty products, once the privilege of elites, but they also defined the gender and ethnic borders of beauty, and its association with a handful of cities, notably Paris and later New York. The result was a homogenization of beauty ideals throughout the world.
Today globalization is changing the beauty industry again; its impact can be seen in a range of competing strategies. Global brands have swept into China, Russia, and India, but at the same time, these brands are having to respond to a far greater diversity of cultures and lifestyles as new markets are opened up worldwide.
In the twenty first century, beauty is again being re-imagined anew.

Turkey has witnessed remarkable sociocultural change under the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), particularly regarding its religious communities. As individuals with pious identities have increasingly gained access to state power and accumulated economic influence, so religious appearances and practices have become more visible in Turkey's `secular' public spaces. More than this, consumption practices have changed and new Islamic and Islamist identities have emerged. This book investigates three of the most widespread faith-inspired communities in Turkey: the Gulen, Suleymanli and the Menzil. Nazli Alimen compares these communities, looking at their diverse interpretations of Islamic rules related to the body and dress, and how these different groups compete for power and control in Turkey. In tracing what motivates consumption practices, the book adds to the growing interest in the commercial aspects of modest and Islamic fashion. It also highlights the importance of clothing and bodily rituals (such as veiling, grooming and food choices) for the formation of community identities. Based on ethnographic research, Alimen analyses the relationship between the marketplace and religion, and shows how different communities interact with each other and state institutions. Of particular note are the varied expressions of Islamic masculinities and femininities at play. Appealing to a cross-disciplinary readership, the book will be relevant for scholars within Turkish Studies, Gender Studies, Islamic Studies, Fashion, Consumption Studies, Sociology of Religion and Middle Eastern Studies.