Fashion Today

Fashion Today is a kaleidoscopic, colourful and provocative survey of the fashion world, from the introduction of Dior's New Look in 1947 to the present day.

This book is a thematic overview of fashion in the widest sense imaginable, ranging from haute couture to street-style, from the one-off to the mass market. It illustrates, with elegance and flair, just how vital and everlasting a part fashion has played in reflecting and influencing twentieth-century attitudes: from the sexual revolution and rise of popular culture in the 1960s to the consumerism of the 1980s and 90s.

Fashion Today places current fashion not only in the contexts of youth, sexuality, fetishism, exoticism and historicism, but also in the contexts of previous fashion movements. It demonstrates dynamically that fashion reflects not only its surroundings and its subjects but ultimately itself.

Aesthetically and intellectually stimulating, this volume is a must-have for anyone who has even the vaguest interest in any aspect of the fashion world today. Its breadth of scope and depth of insight are unprecedented.

Colin McDowell is a fashion historian and Senior Fashion Writer for The Sunday Times. He is the author of many books on the subject, including Literary Companion to Fashion (1995) and Galliano (1997).