While African American dress has long been noted as having a distinctive edge, many people may not know that debutante balls - a relatively recent phenomenon within African American communities - feature young women and men dressed, respectively, in conventional symbols of female purity and male hegemony, and conforming to gender stereotypes that have tended to characterize such events traditionally. Within the Hmong American community, mothers and aunts of teenagers use bangles, lace and traditional handwork techniques to create dazzling displays reflecting the gender and ethnicity of their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, as they participate in an annual courtship ritual. This book examines these events to show how dress is used to transform gender construction and create positive images of African American and Hmong American youth. Coming-of-age rituals serve as arenas of cultural revision and change. For each of these communities, the choice of dress represents cultural affirmation. This author shows that within the homogenizing context of American society, dress serves as a site for the continual renegotiation of identity - gendered, ethnic and otherwise.

Cool Shades provides the first in-depth exploration of the enduring appeal of sunglasses in visual culture, both historically and today. Ubiquitous in fashion, advertising, film and graphic design, sunglasses are the ultimate signifier of 'cool' in mass culture; a powerful attribute pervading much fashion and pop cultural imagery which has received little scholarly attention until now. Accessible and highly engaging, this book offers an original history of how sunglasses became a fashion accessory in the early twentieth century, and addresses the complex variety of meanings they have the power to articulate, through associations with vision, light, glamour, darkness, fashion, speed and technology in the context of modernity. Cool Shades will be of great interest to students of fashion, design, visual and material culture, cultural studies and sociology, as well as general readers fascinated by this iconic fashion staple.

An essential companion to the Harry Potter books, The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of fairytales from the wizarding world, via the enchanted pen of J.K. Rowling. Rich with allusions and symbols from the Harry Potter stories, and enhanced with fascinating commentary from beloved sage Professor Albus Dumbledore, this is a Hogwarts Library book to treasure and enjoy for years to come. All of the gorgeous, grim and gothic detail of the Bard's five bewitching tales has been brought to life by Chris Riddell, thrice winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal. Much loved by generations of witches and wizards, and translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger, this beautiful edition is the perfect gift for Harry Potter fans. Mischievous and witty, Beedle the Bard's stories are a deeply satisfying read in the tradition of all great fables and fairytales. Kindnesses are rewarded and selfishness shown to be the ruin of many a wizard. Burping cauldrons, hairy hearts and cackling stumps are met along the way. Each tale is brought vividly to life with Riddell's trademark wry humour and elegance, including 'The Tale of the Three Brothers', familiar to readers of Harry Potter from the crucial role it plays in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now available in a paperback format featuring a brand new cover by Chris Riddell, this edition contains all of the mesmerising illustrations from the original hardback plus an exclusive additional art print of Harry, Ron and Hermione for readers to take out and keep. Prepare to be spellbound! The Tales of Beedle the Bard is published in aid of Lumos, an international children's charity founded in 2005 by J.K. Rowling.

A TIMES BESTSELLER, January 2022 A TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR A BBC HISTORY MAG BOOK OF THE YEAR A DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Expressive, bold and quite beautiful' The Lady '[a] delight of a book' Antonia Senior, The Times 'ravishingly lovely' The Times Ireland '[a] lively retelling of British myths' Apollo Magazine Soaked in mist and old magic, Storyland is a new illustrated mythology of Britain, set in its wildest landscapes. It begins between the Creation and Noah's Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants from an age when the children of Cain and the progeny of fallen angels walked the earth, to the founding of Britain, England, Wales and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans. These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong, inhabited with characters now half-remembered: Brutus, Albina, Scota, Arthur and Bladud among them. Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning artworks and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary. We visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge and Wayland's Smithy, spanning the length of Britain from the archipelago of Orkney to as far south as Cornwall; mountains and lakes such as Snowdon and Loch Etive and rivers including the Ness, the Soar and the story-silted Thames in a vivid, beautiful tale of our land steeped in myth. It Illuminates a collective memory that still informs the identity and political ambition of these places. In Storyland, Jeffs reimagines these myths of homeland, exile and migration, kinship, loyalty, betrayal, love and loss in a landscape brimming with wonder.

During the colonial period, Pacific Islanders’ acceptance of clothing was seen by Europeans as a civilizing sign. In reality, Islanders’ use of foreign cloth and clothing generally involved translating indigenous preoccupations into new forms of dress. Today, both imported and indigenous cloth feature prominently in Pacific Island exchange, religious practice, clothing, domestic space, public political activity, festivals, and the art and tourist markets. This book sets out to examine the multiple histories of cloth and clothing in the Pacific and to investigate its role in social innovation and resistance from the period of contact to the present day.
The past three decades have witnessed the emergence of Pacific fashion stylists as well as cloth producers who, like anthropologists, are acutely aware of how globalization impacts on identity. Typically, their work integrates both Pacific and introduced forms. This book compares these synthetic forms with others that developed in the region during the colonial period, when foreign cloth was typically adapted and incorporated within indigenous textile systems, and shows how cloth is central to the transmission of identity as well as a vehicle for associative thinking.
From an analysis of the place of cloth in traditional Tahitian religion, to fashion activism within the diaspora population in New Zealand, Clothing the Pacific provides fascinating insights into the shifting relationship between cloth and social imagination. By tracing the diverse responses to the imposition of dress upon Pacific Islanders, this book profoundly challenges Western assumptions about the place of cloth in culture.

Broken Threads tells the story of the destruction of the Jewish fashion industry under the Nazis. Jewish designers were very prominent in the fashion industry of 1930s Germany and Austria. The emergence of Konfektion, or ready-to-wear, and the development of the modern department store, with its innovative merchandising and lavish interior design, only emphasized this prominence. The Nazis came to see German high fashion as too heavily influenced by Jewish designers, manufacturers and merchandisers. These groups were targeted with a campaign of propaganda, boycotts, humiliation and Aryanization. Broken Threads chronicles this moment of cultural loss, detailing the rise of Jewish design and its destruction at the hands of the Nazis. Superbly illustrated with photographs and fashion plates from the collection of Claus Jahnke, Broken Threads explores this little-known part of fashion and of Nazi history.

Written for high school students and general readers alike, this insightful treatment links the storied past of various Apache tribes with their life in contemporary times. Written for high school students and general readers alike, Culture and Customs of the Apache Indians links the storied past of the Apaches with contemporary times. It covers modern-day Apache culture and customs for all eight tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma since the end of the Apache wars in the 1880s. Highlighting tribal religion, government, social customs, lifestyle, and family structures, as well as arts, music, dance, and contemporary issues, the book helps readers understand Apaches today, countering stereotypes based on the 18th- and 19th-century views created by the popular media. It demonstrates that Apache communities are contributing members of society and that, while their culture and customs are based on traditional ways, they live and work in the modern world. Takes an in-depth look at the Apache language today Discusses modern-day Apache artists, writers, musicians, and tribal leaders Contains an assortment of historical and modern photographs as well as charts and illustrations Provides a chronology of major historical events

This book presents folktales in the Herati dialect of the Afghan Persian language, along with useful transcriptions and translations. This dialect is spoken by the sedentary population of Herat city and the adjacent area situated in the northwest of Afghanistan. Historically, the area in question was part of the Persian province of Khorasan that was known for its significant role in the development of Persian culture in general and literature and philosophy in particular. Suffice it to say that the classical Persian language (Farsi) is considered to have originated in that region. For centuries, Herat has been one of the main cultural centers of the Khorasan province, and according to a reliable historic source, it was in Herat that the first poetical piece in Farsi was composed. The area was the birthplace of many most prominent Persian-speaking poets such as Ferdowsi, F. 'Attar, Khayyam, to mention a few. Others such as Jami and Ansari were originally from the Herat area and their shrines are located in the city. Given the fact that many early Persian-speaking poets came from this region (Khorasan) and from Herat in particular, their native Khorasani dialects--including Herati-- considerably influenced the language of Persian classical literature. The Herati dialect linguistic importance from the synchronic perspective is based on the fact that it serves as a bridge between the Persian dialects of western Iran and the Tajiki of Central Asia. In addition, given the geographic position of Herat (situated on the border between modern Afghanistan and Iran), its dialect also shares many common characteristics with the Persian dialects of Iran and those of Afghanistan. Despite its cultural and linguistic importance for studies in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, this region has never been open to field research (especially by westerners) because of its long political instability and constant wars. There is no similar published work in English on this particular Persian dialect and its oral literature. Based on academically informed fieldwork and presented in a scientific fashion, this study provides information previously unavailable and is thus valuable to the academic discourse in Iranian linguistics. The materials were collected by the author during field research in Afghanistan in the 1980s from illiterate dialect speakers (a category which has preserved the dialect the most in terms of purity and entirety). The book helpfully provides a grammatical introduction to the Herati dialect, a glossary of dialectal and common words, as well as approximately 500 explanatory notes. This book will be of interest to linguists and language learners, especially those studying Afghan Persian. It will also be useful as a language learning aid for intermediate and advanced students of spoken Afghan Persian in general and of Persian (in the broader sense) dialectology in particular, foreign NGO workers or interpreters/translators who find themselves in the field in western Afghanistan or far eastern Iran. Though the present book is by no means a study in folklore literature or anthropology, these texts containing ethnographic data will also be of value to folklorists or ethnographers.

This book examines the entire sweep of Japanese clothing history, from the sophisticated fashion systems of late-Edo period kimonos to the present day, providing possible theories of how Japan made this fashion journey and linking current theories of fashion to the Japanese example.  The book is unique in that it provides the first full history of the last two hundred years of Japanese clothing. It is also the first book to include Asian fashion as part of global fashion as well as fashion theory. It adds a hitherto absent continuity to the understanding of historical and current fashion in Japan, and is pioneering in offering possible theories to account for that entire history. By providing an analysis of how that entire history changes our understanding of the way fashion works this book will be an essential text for all students of fashion and design.

America's oldest city, St. Augustine, has its fair share of things that go bump in the night. With such a long and varied history, it's no surprise that a few restless souls have stayed on long after their lives ended.