The Culture of Fashion: A New History of Fashionable Dress (Studies in Design and Material Culture) [Hardcover]

Christopher Breward (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0719041244 | ISBN-13: 978-0719041242 | Publication Date: September 1995

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Manchester Univ Pr (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0719041244
• ISBN-13: 978-0719041242
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,542,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book I've found on this subject, August 22, 2005

By 

Alicia (Burlington, VT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Culture of Fashion. A New History of Fashionable Dress (Studies in Design) (Paperback)

If you're interested in fashion, fashion history, design history, pretty pictures of clothes, and/or how commerce and social values affect style, you must get this book.