A Cultural History of Western Fashion: From Haute Couture to Virtual Couture

Description

Just as the clothes we wear can communicate our personality and how we want to be perceived, so fashion can reflect the politics and preoccupations of the society that produced it. A Cultural History of Western Fashion guides you through the relationships between haute couture and ready-to-wear designer fashions, popular culture, big business, high-tech production, as well as traditional and social media. Exploring fashion's interdisciplinary nature, English and Munroe also highlight the parallel evolution of clothing design and the other visual arts over the last 150 years. This new edition includes expanded coverage of the build up to the First World War and brings this classic text up to date. There is also a new chapter on smart textiles and technology, exploring the work of Hussein Chalayan and Iris Van Herpen among others, and expanded coverage of the role of sustainability in the contemporary fashion industry, including biosynthetic textile production and Stella McCartney's use of vegan leather.

Bonnie English was Associate Professor in Art History & Theory at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Nazanin Hedayat Munroe is Director of Textiles and Assistant Professor of Business & Technology of Fashion at the NYC College of Technology - CUNY, where she lectures on textiles, historic dress, and contemporary issues in the fashion industry. A former Educator at the Metropolitan Museum, Nazanin is also a nationally acclaimed textile artist.

This edition has been updated to include key developments in fashion consumption and production, such as the impact of digital technology, climate change, economic downturns and geo-political shifts. It provides a comprehensive overview of the cultural history and future of fashion for students and researchers alike. -- Caroline Alexander, Senior Lecturer, BA Fashion, Kingston School of Art, UK Praise for the previous edition: This book has been adopted as a textbook in fashion schools and it is easy to see why. It's a solid introduction to fashion history and to the significant social importance of fashion. The language is accessible and its coverage of relevant issues ...comprehensive. [It] is a good balance of interesting anecdotes and modern fashion theory, which means the book will appeal to both the general reader and to fashion scholars. -- TRC English has created a very respectable academic treatment of the last century of fashion... What is most notable about the content of this volume is the way English handles her broad topic; there are some powerful fashion images in this book, but this is no pretty coffee table accessory. English selects unique subjects within fashion for each chapter and zeroes in to prevent a deluge of meaningless and broad historical summaries. -- WORN Fashion Journal This new edition of Bonnie English's invaluable introduction to the cultural perspectives on fashion in the twentieth century expands upon her original text, covering and updating her investigation of both the commercial and cultural aspects of fashion. Situating fashion as both intercontextual and interdisciplinary, English provides a solid grounding of issues, concerns and debates that are essential to understand for any scholar of fashion. -- Shaun Cole, London College of Fashion, UK This edition has encompassed all the intricacies of the fashion world and refreshingly included insight into the 'business' of the industry. A valuable tool for opening up the fashion world to students, and a one-stop read that will be entertaining for 'fashionistas' who are keen to learn more about the mysteries of fashion. -- Kay McMahon, Queensland University of Technology, Australia [T]his book has a fine, thoughtful, well-researched approach to the subject of 20th- and 21st-century fashion history. I can imagine that a new student would be very inspired by this volume, having gotten a taste of the philosophy of Quentin Bell, an introduction to Yamamoto and Yves Saint Laurent, and a broad but nuanced sense of the chronology of cultural historical events and ideas. Laying a dynamic and intriguing groundwork for lifelong study, A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries would be an excellent starting point. -- Worn Through, Arianna Funk Gives a comprehensive history of fashion in the 20th and 21st centuries, including fashion trends, influential designers and much much more... A fascinating fashion history text which is also surprisingly readable. -- We Heart Vintage, Mary Micouris It's a great book to understand both the main actors and the more informal links of fashion labels in the field. -- Alexander Bretz, Mediadesign Fachhochschule, University of Applied Sciences, Germany