From the South's pageant queens to the importance of beauty parlors to African American communities, it is easy to see the ways beauty is enmeshed in southern culture. But as Blain Roberts shows in this incisive work, the pursuit of beauty in the South was linked to the tumultuous racial divides of the region, where the Jim Crow-era cosmetics industry came of age selling the idea of makeup that emphasized whiteness, and where, in the 1950s and 1960s, black-owned beauty shops served as crucial sites of resistance for civil rights activists. In these times of strained relations in the South, beauty became a signifier of power and affluence while it reinforced racial strife. Roberts examines a range of beauty products, practices, and rituals - cosmetics, hairdressing, clothing, and beauty contests - in settings that range from tobacco farms of the Great Depression to 1950s and 1960s college campuses. In so doing, she uncovers the role of female beauty in the economic and cultural modernization of the South. By showing how battles over beauty came to a head during the civil rights movement, Roberts sheds new light on the tactics southerners used to resist and achieve desegregation.

In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book Liza Dalby traces the history of the kimono - its designs, uses, aesthetics and social significance - and in doing so explores the world of the geisha, last wearers of the kimono. The colourful and stylised kimono, the national garment of Japan, expresses not only Japanese fashion and design taste but also reveals something of the soul of Japan. Amazingly beautiful, many today consider it impractical, too uncomfortable to wear in modern life - it was generally discarded by men for suits and ties a century ago, and now only worn occasionally by women. However, the kimono still retains a powerful hold on the Japanese heart and mind, and provides a link to Japan's past.

The history of footbinding is full of contradictions and unexpected turns. The practice originated in the dance culture of China's medieval court and spread to gentry families, brothels, maid's quarters, and peasant households. Conventional views of footbinding as patriarchal oppression often neglect its complex history and the incentives of the women involved. This revisionist history, elegantly written and meticulously researched, presents a fascinating new picture of the practice from its beginnings in the tenth century to its demise in the twentieth century. Neither condemning nor defending foot-binding, Dorothy Ko debunks many myths and misconceptions about its origins, development, and eventual end, exploring in the process the entanglements of male power and female desires during the practice's thousand-year history. "Cinderella's Sisters" argues that rather than stemming from sexual perversion, men's desire for bound feet was connected to larger concerns such as cultural nostalgia, regional rivalries, and claims of male privilege. Nor were women hapless victims, the author contends. Ko describes how women - those who could afford it - bound their own and their daughters' feet to signal their high status and self-respect. Femininity, like the binding of feet, was associated with bodily labor and domestic work, and properly bound feet and beautifully made shoes both required exquisite skills and technical knowledge passed from generation to generation. Throughout her narrative, Ko deftly wields methods of social history, literary criticism, material culture studies, and the history of the body and fashion to illustrate how a practice that began as embodied lyricism - as a way to live as the poets imagined - ended up being an exercise in excess and folly.

Dress and fashion are powerful visual means of communicating ideology, whether political, social or religious. From the communist values of equality, simplicity and solidarity exemplified in the Mao suit to the myriad of fashion protests of feminists such as French revolutionary women's demand to wear trousers, dress can symbolize ideological orthodoxy as well as revolt. With contributions from a wide range of international scholars, this book presents the first scholarly analysis of dress and ideology through accessible case studies. Chapters are organized thematically and explore dress in relation to topics including nation, identity, religion, politics and utopias, across an impressive chronological reach from antiquity to the present day. Dress & Ideology will appeal to students and scholars of fashion, history, sociology, cultural studies, politics and gender studies.

The Great Han is an ethnographic study of the Han Clothing movement (Hanfu yundong), a neo-traditionalist and majority racial nationalist movement that has emerged in China since 2001. Participants come together both online and in person in cities across China to revitalize their utopian vision of the authentic "Great Han" and corresponding "real China" through pseudo-traditional ethnic dress, reinvented Confucian ritual, and anti-foreign sentiment. Employing close analysis of movement ideas and practices, this book finds that the movement's "real China," envisioning a pure, perfectly ordered, ethnically homogeneous, and secure society, is in fact an imaginary vision constructed in response to the challenging realities of the present. Yet this national imaginary is reproduced precisely through its own perpetual elusiveness. The Great Han is a pioneering analysis of Han identity, nationalism, and social movements in a rapidly changing China.

Dress and fashion practices in Africa and the diaspora are dynamic and diverse, whether on the street or on the fashion runway. Focusing on the dressed body as a performance site, African Dress explores how ideas and practices of dress contest or legitimize existing power structures through expressions of individual identity and the cultural and political order. Drawing on innovative, interdisciplinary research by established and up and coming scholars, the book examines real life projects and social transformations that are deeply political, revolving around individual and public goals of dignity, respect, status, and morality. With its remarkable scope, this book will attract students and scholars of fashion and dress, material culture and consumption, performance studies, and art history in relation to Africa and on a global scale.

Teaching Fashion Studies is the definitive resource for instructors of fashion studies at the undergraduate level and beyond. The first of its kind, it offers extensive, practical support for both seasoned instructors and those at the start of an academic career, in addition to interdisciplinary educators looking to integrate fashion into their classes. Informed by the latest research in the field and written by an international team of experts, Teaching Fashion Studies equips educators with a diverse collection of exercises, assignments, and pedagogical reflections on teaching fashion across disciplines. Each chapter offers an assignment, with guidance on how to effectively implement it in the classroom, as well as reflections on pedagogical strategies and student learning outcomes. Facilitating the integration of practice and theory in the classroom, topics include: the business of fashion; the media and popular culture; ethics and sustainability; globalization; history; identity; trend forecasting; and fashion design.

This is the first book in English to deal comprehensively with German fashion from World War I through to the end of the Third Reich. It explores the failed attempt by the Nazi state to construct a female image that would mirror official gender policies, inculcate feelings of national pride, promote a German victory on the fashion runways of Europe and support a Nazi-controlled European fashion industry. Not only was fashion one of the countrys largest industries throughout the interwar period, but German women ranked among the most elegantly dressed in all of Europe. While exploding the cultural stereotype of the German woman as either a Brunhilde in uniform or a chubby farmers wife, the author reveals the often heated debates surrounding the issue of female image and clothing, as well as the ambiguous and contradictory relationship between official Nazi propaganda and the reality of womens daily lives during this crucial period in German history. Because Hitler never took a firm public stance on fashion, an investigation of fashion policy reveals ambivalent posturing, competing factions and conflicting laws in what was clearly not a monolithic National Socialist state. Drawing on previously neglected primary sources, Guenther unearths new material to detail the inner workings of a government-supported fashion institute and an organization established to help aryanize the German fashion world.How did the few with power maintain style and elegance? How did the majority experience the increased standardization of clothing characteristic of the Nazi years? How did women deal with the severe clothing restrictions brought about by Nazi policies and the exigencies of war? These questions and many others, including the role of anti-Semitism, aryanization and the hypocrisy of Nazi policies, are all thoroughly examined in this pathbreaking book.

How does culture shape notions of sexuality and gender? Why are transvestites in the West so often seen as deviant or perverse, while they are accepted in other societies? What are the implications for the categories of male and female when considering transvestism? Transvestism, and its cultural practice, is a useful lens through which we can view and thus debate models of sex, gender and sexuality. Drawing on primary fieldwork, Unzipping Gender offers a cross-cultural study of transvestism through an examination of transvestites in Britain and the Hijras of India. The author tackles the critical question of whether or not transvestism is motivated primarily by sex or gender, and she challenges the straightforward binary divide that dominates Western theories of gender. Taking into account the importance of material culture, she also pays close attention to the detail of dress and considers the artefactual nature of the construction of the self through clothing. Highlighting the differences between the two groups and drawing on further cross-cultural perspectives, Suthrell illustrates the social construction of sex and gender. She considers the roles that emotion, mythology, imagery and belief systems play in influencing ideas about sex and gender in different cultures. Since sex and gender must inevitably be intertwined, Suthrell argues for a more sophisticated response to the complex practice of transvestism. In order to gain a deeper understanding of sex and gender issues, it is imperative to examine the underlying social and symbolic structures. This unique study across cultures leads the way.

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.

Features work by an impressive list of international female designers. Besides the internationally famous names, it also considers the women behind the scenes of many fashion houses, whose far-reaching influence is something that has been completely overlooked in fashion history. Published to accompany an exhibition at Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague. 'The little seamstress' is how the renowned Coco Chanel was once disdainfully described by her contemporary Paul Poiret. He targeted her because she was a woman, but in fact he saw her as a major competitor. Times have changed. More fashion houses are now run by women than ever before. A perfect moment, therefore, for an overview that focuses on strong women in fashion. Femmes Fatales tells fashion history from the perspective of femail designers. Do they design differently for women than their male counterparts? What influence have they had? What does being a woman mean in terms of their creations? And what is their vision for fashion? This book includes work by Coco Chanel, Jeanne Lanvin, Elsa Schiaparelli, Mary Quant, Vivienne Westwood, Sonia Rykiel, Zandra Rhodes, Miuccia Prada, Maria Grazia Chiuri (Dior), Fong Leng, Sheila de Vries and Iris van Herpen, and many others. Text in Dutch and English.

Representations of fashionable femininity have multiplied throughout the 20th century, with complex versions of feminine identity being found in fashion store advertising, magazines, photography, and museum collections. This book examines the relationship between women's fashion, female representation and femininity in Britain throughout the 1900s. The authors unpick the dynamics of the fashion system and set fashion into the context of British social life, using the oral history accounts of women of all classes to highlight the meanings of particular fashions.

Throughout its long history, home dressmaking has been a formative experience in the lives of millions of women. In an age of relative affluence and mass production, it is easy to forget that just over a generation ago, young girls from middle- and working-class backgrounds were routinely taught to sew as a practical necessity. However, not only have the skills involved in home dressmaking been overlooked and marginalized due to their association with women and the home, but the impact home dressmaking had on women's lives and broader socioeconomic structures also has been largely ignored.
This book is the first serious account of the significance of home dressmaking as a form of European and American material culture. Exploring themes from the last two hundred years to the present, including gender, technology, consumption and visual representation, contributors show how home dressmakers negotiated and experienced developments to meet a wide variety of needs and aspirations. Not merely passive consumers, home dressmakers have been active producers within family economies. They have been individuals with complex agendas expressed through their roles as wives, mothers and workers in their own right and shaped by ideologies of femininity and class.
This book represents a vital contribution to women's studies, the history of fashion and dress, design history, material culture, sociology and anthropology.

British Fashion Design is an insightful and informative investigation of the British fashion industry, focusing on the young designers whose work is rapturously received in the international market, but who often struggle at the brink of bankruptcy at home.
In analysing the economic, ideological and artistic working of this pre-eminent cultural industry, British Fashion Design draws on interviews with young fashion designers and with others working in the `fash biz' which surrounds and markets their products - stylists, fashion writers, magazine editors and retailers.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203168011

Concentrating on the general shift away from colour in men's clothing that began around 1800, John Harvey traces the transition to black from the 15th century, to 16th century Venice, 17th century Spain, and eventually to the Netherlands. The text seeks to show how black evolved from being smart and elegant fashion to serving as a cultural marker. The volume points to the fact that in current times the colour black retains its associations with strength and cruelty as well as its authority.

Originally published in 1989, this ground-breaking ethnographic exploration of tattooing-and the art world surrounding it-covers the history, anthropology and sociology of body modification practices; the occupational experience of the tattooist; the process and social consequences of becoming a tattooed person; and the prospects of \u0022serious\u0022 tattooing becoming an accepted art form. Curiously, despite the greater prevalence of tattoos and body modification in today\u2019s society, there is still a stigma of deviance associated with people who get or ink tattoos. Retaining the core of the original book, this revised and expanded edition offers a new preface by the author and a new chapter focusing on the changes that have occurred in the tattoo world. A section on the new scholarly literature that has emerged, as well as the new modes of body modification that have come into vogue are included along with a new gallery of photographs that shows some splendid examples of contemporary tattoo art. A directory of artists' websites invites readers to discover the range of work being done around the world-from \u201csuits\u201d (full body tattoos) to skulls.

Color speaks a powerful cultural language, conveying political, sexual, and economic messages that, throughout history, have revealed how we relate to ourselves and our world. This ground-breaking compilation is the first to investigate how color in fashionable and ceremonial dress has played a significant social role, indicating acceptance and exclusion, convention and subversion. From the use of white in pioneering feminism to the penchant for black in post-war France, and from mystical scarlet broadcloth to the horrors of arsenic-laden green fashion, this publication demonstrates that color in dress is never straightforward. Divided into four parts - solidarity, power, innovation, and desire - each section highlights the often violent, emotional histories of color in dress across geographical, temporal and cultural boundaries. Underlying today's relaxed attitude to color lies a chromatic complexity that speaks of wars, migrations and economics. Bringing together cutting-edge chapters from leading scholars, it is essential reading for students of fashion, textiles, design, cultural studies and art history.

What if fashion was a state? What kind of state would it be? Probably not a democracy. Otto von Busch sees fashion as a totalitarian state, with a population all too eager to enact the decrees of its aesthetic superiority. Peers police each other and deploy acts of judgment, peer-regulation, and micro-violence to uphold the aesthetic order of fashion supremacy. Using four design projects as tools for inquiry, Von Busch explores the seductive desires of envy and violence within fashion drawing on political theories. He proposes that the violent conflicts of fashion happen not only in arid cotton fields or collapsing factories, but in the everyday practice of getting dressed, in the judgments, sneers, and rejections of others. Indeed, he suggests that feelings of inclusion and adoration are what make us feel the pleasure of being fashionable-of being seductive, popular, and powerful. Exploring the conflicting emotions associated with fashion, Von Busch argues that while the current state of fashion is bred out of fear, The Psychopolitics of Fashion can offer constructive modes of mitigation and resistance. Through projects that actively work towards disarming the violent practices of dress, Von Busch suggests paths towards a more engaging and meaningful experience of fashion he calls "deep fashion."

"A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair." Times Literary Supplement How have our attitudes to hair changed over time? In what ways have new technologies influenced hair-related practices and beliefs? Is hair just about fashion or does it express social, spiritual, and cultural meanings? In a work that spans nearly 3,000 years these ambitious questions are addressed by 60 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. With the help of a broad range of case material they illustrate trends and nuances of the culture of hair in Western societies from ancient times to the present. Volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make the set as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the reader the choice to gain an overview of a period by reading one volume, or to follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. The six volumes cover: 1 - Antiquity (600 BCE to 800 CE); 2 - Middle Ages (800 to 1450); 3 -Renaissance (1450 to 1650); 4 - Age of Enlightenment (1650 to 1800); 5 - Age of Empire (1800 to 1920); 6 - Modern Age (1920 to 2000+). Themes (and chapter titles) are: 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. The page extent for the pack is approximately 1,800pp. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors and an Introduction and concludes with Notes, Bibliography, and an Index. The Cultural Histories Series A Cultural History of Hair is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com).

'An inspirational and motivational must-read, packed with practical tips to push for positive change' Zanna van Dijk The climate is changing, so why aren't we? After all, we are the generation of change. The severity of climate change leaves no one indifferent. The Climate is Changing, Why Aren't We? will not try to convince you that climate change exists - we know that. It offers easy to understand insights into the structures that suffocate our future, while upholding a sense of optimism and humanising the climate story. From the clothes you buy, plastics you use and food you eat, to knowing how to harness the power of social media and technology to get our voices heard and demand climate action, Daisy Kendrick, founder of Ocean Generation, weaves together inspirational stories, shocking statistics and easy green switches to make in your everyday life to tackle climate change on an individual level. The Climate is Changing, Why Aren't We? will help to grant future generations the rights they deserve.

In 2005, British supermodel Kate Moss went to Glastonbury with her then-boyfriend, indie rocker Pete Doherty. Their unwashed appearance captured widespread attention, propelling the British indie music scene and its signature look-slender bodies clad in skinny jeans-to the center of popular fashion. Using this fashionable watershed as a launching point, Fashioning Indie narrates indie's evolution: from a 1980s British music subculture into a 21st-century international fashion phenomenon. It explores the lucrative transformation of indie style, first into high concept menswear and later into "festival fashion"-a womenswear phenomenon that remade what indie looked like and provided a launching point to reimagine who the ideal subject of indie could be. Fashioning Indie is essential reading for academic and popular audiences, offering an original account of what happens when a subculture is incorporated into the commercial fashion system. As the music and fashions of festivals face increasing scrutiny in debates about diversity and inclusion, and the transformations of indie style coincide with the global expansion of the second-hand retail sector, the book offers also essential insights into the broader culture of popular fashion in the 21st century and the values that inform it.

Combining transnationalism and exoticism, transorientalism is the new orientalism of the age of globalization. With its roots in earlier times, it is a term that emphasizes alteration, mutation, and exchange between cultures. While the familiar orientalisms persist, transorientalism is a term that covers notions like the adoption of a hat from a different country for Turkish nationalist dress, the fact that an Italian could be one of the most influential directors in recent Chinese cinema, that Muslim women artists explore Islamic womanhood in non-Islamic countries, that artists can embrace both indigenous and non-indigenous identity at the same time. This is more than nostalgia or bland nationalism. It is a reflection of the effect that communication and representation in recent decades have brought to the way in which national identity is crafted and constructed-yet this does not make it any less authentic. The diversity of race and culture, the manner in which they are expressed and transacted, are most evident in art, fashion, and film. This much-needed book offers a refreshing, informed, and incisive account of a paradigm shift in the ways in which identity and otherness is moulded, perceived, and portrayed.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Picture Post magazine was made famous by its pioneering photojournalism, which vividly captured a panorama of wartime events and the ordinary lives affected. This book is the first to examine this fascinating primary source as a cultural record of women's dress history. Reading the magazine's visual narratives from 1938 to 1945, it weaves together the ways in which design, style and fashion were affected by, and responded to, the state of being at war - and the new gender roles it created for women. From the working class of Whitechapel to the beach sets of the Bahamas, and from well-heeled Mayfair to middle-class New York, Women in Wartime takes a wide-angled lens to the fashions and lifestyles of the women featured in Picture Post. Exploring the nature of femininity and the struggle to be fashionable during the war, the book reveals critical connections between clothing and social culture. Drawing on a unique range of photographs, Women in Wartime presents a living history of how women's clothing choices reflect changing perceptions of gender, body, and class during an era of unprecedented social change.