This book critically examines recent theories of fashion which have sought to legitimize its pleasures and defend it as an avenue for self-expression. Through a series of essays which address different aspects of fashion in postmodern culture including the wearing of makeup, cosmetic surgery, tattoos, the role of ornament in dress and the blurring of gender boundaries, it is argued that the greatest concern today lies not in the failure to acknowledge the pleasures of fashion, but, on the contrary, in the tendency to elevate it to a dominant position in everyday life where the cultivation of one's physical appearance supplants all other sources of identity formation.

This book casts a critical look at the dominant position that fashion has come to occupy in contemporary society. It addresses various aspects of fashion in postmodern culture including makeup, cosmetic surgery, tattoos, ornament in dress and the blurring of gender boundaries.