Fashion on Television provides a comprehensive critical examination of the intersection between fashion, television and celebrity culture. The book brings together theoretical approaches to the symbolic force of television and fashion-forward programming on a global scale. Examining case studies such as Sex and the City, Gossip Girl, Ugly Betty and Mad Men, the book examines how TV has made style icons out of leading actresses and fashion-conscious consumers out of audiences. Using a varied methodology, including textual and contextual analysis, this study explores the cultural uses of onscreen fashion at the level of industry, text and intertext. Fashion on Television is essential reading for those seeking to understand the cultural function of costume in a television context. Written accessibly with a multi-disciplinary approach, it will appeal to students and scholars from film and media, fashion and cultural studies, to sociology and women's studies.
From longtime fashion director, consultant, media personality, and author, Hal Rubenstein, comes a lush, full color, illustrated guide to the most influential fashion on television from the 1950s to today, revealing the surprising ways our favorite shows have significantly reflected and often shaped the way we dress. No other medium has shaped our lives as thoroughly and consistently as television. Since its advent in the 1950s, television has served as a portal for discovering culture, initiating trends, and altering shared perceptions. Yet as Hal Rubenstein contends, television has done much more; its most dramatic, lasting, and effective influence can be found in our closets. Our most popular and lasting fashion trends and hallmarks of personal style haven’t come from runways or magazines, but from what’s on TV. For decades television has served as a personal stylist, showing us how others dress and defining what we should be wearing. From Mary Tyler Moore's capri pants on The Dick van Dyke Show and Emma Peel's dominatrix jumpsuit on The Avengers to Olivia Pope's trademark white trench on Scandal and Don Drapers' grey sharkskin suits on Mad Men Dressing the Part is a rich history of popular American fashion and culture in the modern age. In this gorgeous compendium, the longtime fashion director and expert identifies the most stylish television shows of the past 70 years, highlighting the ways they have affected and often inspired ordinary Americans’ wardrobes. Combining his decades of fashion expertise and insider knowledge with lush photographs, archival sketches, fascinating interviews with over two dozen of television’s best costume designers, commentary from showrunners and co-stars, and little-known backstories, Rubenstein reveals with insight and wit how television has shaped everyday fashion, guiding and often elevating how we dress. Illustrated with over 175 gorgeous, full-color photographs, Dressing the Part is an extraordinary survey of our most beloved shows and their most enduring impact on style, shining a spotlight on the most innate human characteristics of all—how we imitate and then adapt what we enjoy seeing on others.
Fashion in Fiction examines the ways in which dress 'performs' in a wide range of contemporary and historical literary texts. Essays by North American, European and Australian scholars explore the function of clothing within fictional narratives, including those of film, television and advertising. The book provides a groundbreaking examination of the interconnected worlds of fashion and words, providing perspectives from socio-cultural, historical and theoretical readings of fashion and text-based communication.Covering a variety of genres and periods, Fashion in Fiction analyses fashion's role within a range of creative media, exploring the many ways that dress communicates, disrupts and modulates meaning across different cultures and contexts.
Project Runway, the groundbreaking reality television series, premiered in 2004. Ten seasons into its run comes the official guide behind the scenes of a television and fashion landmark. In this book, fully illustrated with hundreds of photos, fans will learn how the show began and developed over the years, relive the highlights of seasons past, and learn what their favorite designers are doing today. The book will feature commentary from Heidi Klum throughout, as well as interviews with the people behind the scenes, top designers of ten seasons, and stars of the show: workroom mentor Tim Gunn and judges Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia, and Michael Kors. This is the ultimate source for all things Project Runway.
Although Film Studies has successfully (re)turned attention to matters of style and interpretation, its sibling discipline has left the territory uncharted - until now. The question of how television operates on a stylistic level has been critically underexplored, despite being fundamental to our viewing experience. This significant new work redresses a vital gap in Television Studies by engaging with the stylistic dynamics of TV; exploring the aesthetic properties and values of both the medium and particular types of output (specific programmes); and raising important questions about the way we judge television as both cultural artifact and art form. Television Aesthetics and Style provides a unique and vital intervention in the field, raising key questions about television's artistic properties and possibilities. Through a series of case-studies by internationally renowned scholars, the collection takes a radical step forward in understanding TV's stylistic achievements.
How to be cool when you're afraid you've forgotten how . . . Sure, you can try to stay younger by exercising, coloring your hair, and wearing stylish clothes—but how do you respond when someone asks, "Do you Twitter?" How Not to Act Old gives you simple ways to come back from over the hill and to act as young as you look. Covering everything from old-people entertainment (cancel that dinner party!) to old-people communication (it's called a "voice mail," not a "message," and no one leaves or listens to them anyway), Pamela Redmond Satran decodes the behaviors, viewpoints, and cultural touchstones that separate you from the hip young person you wish you still were. This irreverent guide is essential for anyone who doesn't want to embarrass their kids—or themselves.
Costume designers don't just design costumes, they design the characters in movies and television shows. In this book, readers will enjoy learning the behind-the-scenes stories about how costumes turn ordinary-looking actors into everything from superheroes to villains, peasants to kings. They'll discover how they can channel their passion for fashion and history into work in the real world. Seeing how the craft of costuming requires not only research but also teamwork, budgeting, and attention to detail will reinforce good practices that transcend careers.
