The Culture of Fashion. A New History of Fashionable Dress (Studies in Design) - Softcover

Breward, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719041252 ISBN 13: 9780719041259

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 1995

Synopsis

This illustrated survey of 600 years of fashion investigates its cultural and social meanings from medieval Europe to 20th-century America. It provides a guide to the changes in style and taste, and challenges existing fashion histories, showing that clothes have always played a pivotal role in defining a sense of identity and society, especially when concerned with sexual and body politics. With a chronological structure, each chapter focuses on both male and female fashion of a specific period, covering its fascinating developments. It discusses: androgynous dressing; body piercing; fabrics, clothing and the rise of city life; dress, and the changing shape of the human body; controversies surrounding trousers and leg wear for both men and women; exposure of flesh; fashion and social status; and the dissemination of fashion through travel, film, magazines and catwalk shows.

About this title

About the Author

Chris Breward is Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion (London Institute.) In 1995, he published the first academic textbook on fashion, The Culture of Fashion. He has curated various exhibitions, including 2004's Capital Fashion for the Museum of London.

From the Back Cover

This illustrated survey of 600 years of fashion investigates its cultural and social meanings from medieval Europe to 20th-century America. It provides a guide to the changes in style and taste, and challenges existing fashion histories, showing that clothes have always played a pivotal role in defining a sense of identity and society, especially when concerned with sexual and body politics. With a chronological structure, each chapter focuses on both male and female fashion of a specific period, covering its fascinating developments. It discusses: andrognous dressing; body piercing; fabrics, clothing and the rise of city life; dress, and the changing shape of the human body; controversies surrounding trousers and leg wear for both men and women; exposure of flesh; fashion and social status; and the dissemination of fashion through travel, film, magazines and catwalk shows.

From the Inside Flap

This major illustrated survey of 600 years of fashion investigation its cultural and social meanings from medieval Europe to twentieth-century America. Breward's ground breaking work provides the reader with a clear guide to the changes in style and taste and shows that clothes have always played a pivotal role in defining a sense of identity and society, especially when concerned with sexual and body politics.

Reviews

English design and fashion historian Breward constructs an informative history of Western European fashion that draws equally on established scholarship (based primarily on formal developments) and more recent critical theories. Starting with the Middle Ages, each chapter is devoted to a different century and paradigm, from how fashion shaped the body during the 14th century to the impact of consumer culture in this one. The effect is akin to watching one of those time-lapse sequences of flowers blooming, as hemlines rise and fall, corsets squash and squeeze, flounces come and go and colors grow florid and fade while listening to a learned commentary on the social, political and cultural significance of this seemingly arbitrary activity. Indeed, there are many voices, as Breward quotes generously from period documents as well as from contemporary scholars. This is one of the book's strengths, along with its focus on men's fashions and the politics of gender?male homosexuality in particular. Some weaker aspects are the author's prose style, which can be inelegant, and the uneven picture research. When it comes to this century's fashions, the book's English bias also proves problematic. (The current street fashion is summed up by a picture of a bloke in a baseball cap and flight jacket.) Otherwise, this is a solid survey of dress and the issues currently surrounding it?there's much to know about a farthingale.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0719041252
• ISBN 13: 9780719041259
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244