Fashion Zeitgeist: Trends and Cycles in the Fashion System

Description

Although it is appealing to think that fashion has taken a sharp turn away from conventions established in the industry over the past century and more, is this really the case? Or are 'pioneering' designs simply part of a cyclical revival of forgotten fashions?Looking at some of the most influential designers of the twentieth century, Vinken considers the politics and philosophies that have been the driving forces directing their sense of style.Vinken describes 'Fashion Zeitgeist' as a trend characterized by representations of traces of the past. She considers the key concepts behind designers such as Yamamoto, Gaultier, and Lagerfeld. The originality of Yamamoto's multi-layered look stems from his philosophy that it is the individual sum of experience that is important, not the collective consequences of history. Martin Margiela, although he himself refuses to be photographed or appear in the public eye, brings new individuality into fashion. Chanel, under the direction of Karl Lagerfeld, is viewed as the only fashion house to have remained fresh after 100 years, yet is this success essentially proof of the self-referential qualities fashion has adopted? What inspired the fetish for labels at the end of the twentieth century?Answering these questions and many more, this concise and thought-provoking book shows how beauty, gender, sexuality, commerce and dandyism have persisted in defining the fashion system.

Barbara Vinken is affiliated to the University of Munich.

'The intellectual reach of Fashion Zeitgeist is thrilling. Unconstrained by the empiricist concerns of much Anglo-American scholarship on dress, Vinken presents a challenging new poetics of clothing which will inform subsequent readings of style in significant ways. Its translation into English should be applauded.' Christopher Breward, Victoria Albert Museum 'Barbara Vinken brilliantly combines elegance and erudition to produce a subtle and thought-provoking analysis of contemporary dress and its interaction with the past. This is essential reading not only for students of dress history, but also for all fashionistas and anyone interested in the abiding fascination that fashion exerts.' Elizabeth Wilson, author of 'Adorned in Dreams 'Barbara Vinken is a sophisticated hostess to the 21st century world of what she calls post-fashion, a dream world whose carnivalesque rhetorics of irony, quotation, of clothes turned upside down and inside out, evokes the utopia of an everyday Halloween, a world of adult's transitional objects for today's and tomorrow's transitory subjects.' Denis Hollier, New York University 'Vinken is theoretical but also entertaining and informative. She shows how individual designers reject fashion dictates and make fashion a subject of discussion by examining it against the standards of haute couture.' Die Tageszeitung 'The spectrum of international top designers whose creations reflect the Zeitgeist is shown in 13 brilliant and amusing detailed analyses.' Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 'No longer a reliable sign of either sexual or social order, fashion becomes in Vinken's hands a manipulating, subverting, revealing art that exposes our most cherished lies about ourselves. The once simple act of getting dressed will never be the same again.' Ramie Targoff, Associate Professor of English, Brandeis University