With short texts and numerous costumed figures that pop-up in three dimensions, this book is organized chronologically into themes: Egypt and the beginning of costume, the Elizabethan period, 18th-century France, the Victorian Opera (the age of Tiffany and Sargent), the Kimono, Chanel and the liberation of women's clothing, and Fashion as Art (Fortuny and Miyake). 7 pop-up spreads.
Modernism à la Mode argues that fashion describes why and how literary modernism matters in its own historical moment and ours. Bringing together texts, textiles, and theories of dress, Elizabeth Sheehan shows that writers, including Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, W.E.B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, turned to fashion to understand what their own stylized works could do in the context of global capital, systemic violence, and social transformation. Modernists engage with fashion as a mood, a set of material objects, and a target of critique, and, in doing so, anticipate and address contemporary debates centered on the uses of literature and literary criticism amidst the supposed crisis in the humanities. A modernist affect with a purpose, no less. By engaging modernism à la mode—that is, contingently, contextually, and in light of contemporary concerns—this book offers an alternative to the often-untenable distinctions between strong or weak, suspicious or reparative, and politically activist or quietist approaches to literature, which frame current debates about literary methodology. As fashion helps us to describe what modernist texts do, it enables us to do more with modernism as a form of inquiry, perception, and critique. Fashion and modernism are interwoven forms of inquiry, perception, and critique, writes Sheehan. It is fashion that puts the work of early twentieth-century writers in conversation with twenty-first century theories of emotion, materiality, animality, beauty, and history.
Over 1,000 illustrations document elegant ladies' fashions from 1860 to 1914: evening gowns, wedding ensembles, bathing costumes, cycling outfits, and much more. Accompanied by hundreds of stylish accessories.
Harnessing the romance of the world of fashion and high art, this fascinating story of a collection of miniature mannequins describes the birth of Théâtre de la Mode, the Theater of Fashion. Full of stars such as Robert Ricci (Nina Ricci's son), filmmaker Jean Cocteau, and other members of the 1944 haute couture industry, the story follows 237 miniature fashion dolls through their epic tour of Europe and North America, bringing fashion, elegance, and beauty into a war-torn world. Also included are new colour photographs of the mannequins, the reconstructed sets, and close-up details of clothing so sewers, designers, and fashion mavens can appreciate the creativity of Paris designers at the end of World War II.
How eighteenth-century fashion publications assumed a leading role in defining women's legitimate sphere of activities. In Market à la Mode, Erin Mackie examines the role that The Tatler and The Spectator, two eighteenth-century British lifestyle magazines, played in the growth of fashion and how they influenced their readers. She traces the commercial context in which they operated, focusing on the processes of commodification, fetishization, and revisions of gender identity. Mackie's study makes clear that fashion publications, far from being commentaries on passing trends, assumed a leading role in defining women's legitimate sphere of activities as well as in the development of commerce as recreation.
Over 130 dazzling pages from famed fashion periodical featuring fashions for all occasions by the great French couturiers of the Twenties — Patou, Worth, Molyneux, Paquin, Vionnet, Lanvin, and many more. Introduction and captions by editor, who is curator of Costume Collection, Museum of the City of New York.
Art and fashion have long gone hand in hand, but it was during the modernist period that fashion first gained equal value to – and took on the same aesthetic ideals as – painting, film, photography, dance, and literature. Combining high and low art forms, modernism turned fashion designers into artists and vice versa. Bringing together internationally renowned scholars across a range of disciplines, this vibrant volume explores the history and significance of the relationship between modernism and fashion and examines how the intimate connection between these fields remains evident today, with contemporary designers relating their work to art and artists problematizing fashion in their works. With chapters on a variety topics ranging from Russian constructionism and clothing to tango and fashion in the early 20th century, Fashion and Modernism is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion, dress history, and art history alike. Contributors: Patrizia Calefato, Caroline Evans, Ulrich Lehmann, Astrid Söderbergh Widding, Alessandra Vaccari, Olga Vainshtein, Sven-Olov Wallenstein
This book traces the development of wedding attire from the silver and white brocades of eighteenth-century formal, aristocratic weddings to the elegant crinoline revival of the late 1950s. Whenever possible, Shelley Tobin focuses on gowns and accessories where she can trace the provenance of the wearer, or the maker, to provide a social history of the past 300 years. The accoutrements of the brides reflected the luxury trades of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it was not until the 1850s that the white wedding became an established tradition. Even then, it was not available to everyone. Although formal, the wedding gown followed fashion and was often recycled as a suitable dress for the first presentation at court as a married woman. Wedding veils, if not passed down through the family, might also be used in another form, particularly as christening robes during the early twentieth century. The trend for producing costume dramas for stage and screen (e.g., Sense and Sensibility directed by Ang Lee, 1995) has seen the recreation of a number of period styles, and these in turn have influenced today's deigners.
