This new edition of a classic work offers a concise introduction to the sociology of fashion, and demystifies the workings of the fashion system. From the origins of fashion studies and the difference between clothing and fashion, through to an exam…
Fashion History: A Global View proposes a new perspective on fashion history. Arguing that fashion has occurred in cultures beyond the West throughout history, this groundbreaking book explores the geographic places and historical spaces that have b…
Offering a unique anthology of primary texts, this sourcebook opens a window on the writing that shaped and mirrored Victorian fashion, taking us from corsets to crinolines, dandies to decadent 'New Women'. A user-friendly collection that provides a…
Less than three decades ago, when the Chinese bought cloth or clothes, they would have had to use a government-issued coupon. Today the Chinese fashion industry is one of the most dynamic in the world - it not only supplies fashions to the increasin…
Fashion is bound up with promoting the 'new', concerned with constantly changing aesthetics. The favoured styles or looks of a season arise out of the work of a vast range of different actors who collectively produce, select, distribute and promote…
Libertine practices have long been associated with transgression and social deviance. This innovative book is the first to focus fully on the relationship between libertinism as a social phenomenon and as a form of fashion. Taking the reader from ea…
Costume defines the superhero, disguising and distinguishing him or her from the civilian alter ego. The often garish garb expresses a hero's otherness and empowers its wearers to seek a primal form of justice.This book provides the first interdisci…
Unique and exciting, this ethnographic study is the first to address a little-known subculture, which holds a fascination for many. The first decade of the twenty-first century has displayed an ever increasing fixation with vampires, from the recent…
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 consider…
The study of fashion has expanded into a thriving field of inquiry, with researchers utilizing diverse methods from across subject disciplines to explore fashion and dress in wide-ranging contexts. With an emphasis on material culture and ethnograph…
Born in the late 19th century, jazz gained mainstream popularity during a volatile period of racial segregation and gender inequality. It was in these adverse conditions that jazz performers discovered the power of dress as a visual tool used to def…
Technology has been an essential factor in the production of dress and the cultures of fashion throughout human history. Structured chronologically from prehistory to the present day, this is the first broad study of the complex relationship between…
Numerous tastemakers exist in and between fashion production and consumption, from designers and stylists to trend forecasters, buyers, and journalists. How and why are each of these players bound up in the creation and dispersion of trends? In what…
Changing trends in fashion have always reflected large-scale social and cultural changes. Changing Fashion presents for the first time a multi-disciplinary approach to examining fashion change, bringing together theory from fashion studies, cultural…
When we think of Italian fashion, Gucci, Max Mara and the meteoric rise of Prada immediately spring to mind. But Italian fashion has a dark history that has not previously been explored. The Fascism of 1930s Italy dominated more than just politics -…
For some time now the body has been a central topic across a range of social science disciplines. Similarly, there has been a growing interest in the cultural meaning of clothing. But curiously, even though people are nearly always clothed, the rela…
Winner of the 2019 John Collier Jr Award Street style blogging has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity over the last decade. Amateur photographers, often with no formal training in fashion, have become critical arbiters of taste and trends, in…
Latin American fashion's recent gain in popularity can be seen most obviously in mass-market ranges throughout the industrialized West. From the tango-inspired dress of Argentina and guerrilla chic in downtown Buenos Aires to swimwear on Copacabana…
From clothing to the painted and scarified nude body, through overt, public display or esoteric symbols known only to the initiated, dress can convey information about beliefs, faith, identity, power, agency, resistance, and fashion. Taking a 'sense…
From Rococo to Edwardian fashions, Japanese street style has reinvented many western dress styles, reinterpreting and altering their meanings and messages in a different cultural and historical context. This wide ranging and original study reveals t…
Why is fashion "in fashion" in museums today? This timely volume brings together expert scholars and curators to examine the reasons behind fashion's popularity in the twenty-first century museum and the impact this has had on wider museum practice.…
Armed with cheap digital technologies and a fiercely independent spirit, millions of young people from around the world have taken cultural production into their own hands, crafting their own clothing lines, launching their own record labels, and fo…
Clothes are inherently geographical objects, yet few of us consider the social and economic significance of their journey from design to production to consumption. The Geographies of Fashion is the first in-depth study of fashion economies from a ge…
Dress is everywhere imbued with symbols that reflect different meanings in different contexts. This compelling book convincingly demonstrates how clothing is analogous to a working language and is similarly underpinned by deeper meanings and philoso…
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…
Mere clothing is transformed into desirable fashion by the way it is represented in imagery. Fashion's Double examines how meanings are projected onto garments through their representation, whether in painting, photography, cinema or online fashion…
This title provides an interpretative overview of the groundbreaking and often idiosyncratic writings of eight theorists whose work has influenced the conceptual and theoretical basis of our contemporary understanding of clothes and the fashion syst…
Imagine a world where the oppressive, over-feminized images of women from advertising, television, films, and magazines have re-armed themselves with army boots, body modifications, and flamboyant hair. Is this just another fairy tale, and if so, wh…
Nudity features regularly in all major media. So why is it illegal to appear naked in public? Nudity has always been paradoxical. In modern consumer culture, it is actively encouraged in some contexts, but criminal or deviant in others. Images of nu…
The mainstreaming of pornographic imagery into fashion and popular culture at the turn of the millennium in Britain and the US signalled a dramatic cultural shift in construction of both femininity and masculinity. For men and women, raunch became t…
Cosplay, short for "costume play", has grown from its origins at fan conventions into a billion-dollar global dress phenomenon. Costuming Cosplay takes us from elaborately crafted DIY costumes to online fandoms, examining how the practice of portray…
Asian fashion has become a global phenomenon of economic, political and social import. But the industry in Asia remains characterized by the gap between traditional centres of fashion and the marginalized periphery. This book explores Asian fashion…
Goth Culture explores Goths' expressive practices of dress, fashion, style and the body, in relation to issues of identity and representation. The book shares vivid accounts of the author's experiences exploring gender and sexuality and doing fieldw…
This is the first academic study of sneakers and the subculture that surrounds them. Since the 1980s, American sneaker enthusiasts, popularly known as "sneakerheads+? or "sneakerholics+?, have created a distinctive identity for themselves, while sne…
Although it can be difficult to think of fashion in anything other than a contemporary context, as a concept it is hardly new. Costume historians trace the birth of fashion back to the thirteenth century and writings on fashion date back as early as…
Wedding clothes are not only distinctive forms of dress, but are also steeped in years of cultural tradition. This book, drawing on case studies from around the world, considers how wedding attire is both a statement of tradition and a vehicle for c…
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 le…
This text sets out to fill a gap in the existing literature on the ambivalence of fashion and dress by drawing on a wide range of women's experiences with their wardrobes, and providing empirical data. The contributors provide case studies of the re…
Competitive ballroom is much more than a style of dance. Rather, it is a continually evolving and increasingly global social and cultural arena: of fashion, performance, art, sport, gender and more. Ballroom explores the intersection of dance cultur…
Competitive ballroom is much more than a style of dance. Rather, it is a continually evolving and increasingly global social and cultural arena: of fashion, performance, art, sport, gender, and more. Ballroom explores the intersection of dance cultu…
A Cultural History of Jewish Dress is the first comprehensive account of how Jews have been distinguished by their appearance from Ancient Israel to the present. For centuries Jews have dressed in distinctive ways to communicate their devotion to Go…
The act of undressing has a multitude of meanings, which vary dramatically when this commonly private gesture is presented for public consumption. This ground-breaking book explores the significance of undressing in various cultural and social conte…
Costume historians trace the birth of fashion back to the 13th century and writings on fashion date back as early as the 16th century. This text reprints classic fashion writings, all of which have had a profound impact on our understanding of fashi…
How has fashion mirrored the social and cultural changes that have taken place in modern China? To what extent has fashion contributed to those changes? This book provides the first comprehensive account of modern Chinese fashion from 1978 to the pr…
The way a society deals with hair speaks volumes about its structures, its wealth, and its values. How is hair arranged? Is it left long or cut short? How often is it washed? Do men and women treat their hair differently and what does this tell us a…
