Fashion

Fashion Forward: 300 Years of Fashion by Pierré Berge; Olivier Gabet; Pamela Golbin; Denis Bruna Tracing the evolution of fashion--from the opulence of the court of Louis XV to the catwalk couture of today--this stunningly illustrated volume charts three centuries of fashion trends and innovations.   This handsome volume is published to accompany a major exhibition that chronicles fashion from the seventeenth century to the present. Featuring three hundred iconic pieces, it highlights key moments in fashion history and provides new insight into the designers, patrons, and groundbreaking techniques and materials. It also explores how fashion has always been intertwined with both fine art and the decorative arts. Many of the great couturiers were known for this artistic cross-pollination, including such towering figures as Jeanne Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet, Gabrielle Chanel, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent.   Re-created here are a number of fashion  inflection points illustrating fashion's  elective affinities  with other disciplines. Eighteenth-century wood paneling, scenic wallpapers by Zuber, and Paul Iribe's drawings for Paul Poiret, among other examples, provide perfect settings for fashion's stylistic metamorphoses culminating in the effervescence and eclecticism of today's global fashion scene.

The Fashion History Reader by Peter McNeil (Editor); Giorgio Riello (Editor) 'Riello and McNeil's new collection of essays represents an immense and impressive project' - Choice 'Now, the key contributions from nearly every expert in the field are assembled in one fascinating book. This kaleidoscopic and informative volume ranges impressively across conventional boundaries of chronology, geography, and discipline.' - Glenn Adamson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK 'This book is indispensable for anyone interested in fashion. History has never been more alive than in the pages of this Reader.' - Patrizia Calefato, University of Bari, Italy The Fashion History Reader is an innovative work that provides a broad introduction to the complex literature in the fields of fashion studies, and dress and fashion history. Twenty-three chapters and over forty shorter 'Snapshot' texts cover a wide range of topics and approaches within the history of fashion, ranging from object-based studies to theory-driven analyses. The book is divided into six parts, surveying some of the key themes in the history of fashion. Themes also move in and across time, providing a chronology to enable student learning: parts one to three cover the fifteenth to the eighteenth-century parts four and five cover the nineteenth-century to the contemporary (with particular attention given to non-European countries) part six provides a survey of the global setting and current globalized nature of fashion. A comprehensive introduction by the editors contextualizes debates for students, synthesising past history and bringing them up-to-date through a discussion of globalization. Each section also includes a short, accessible introduction by the editors, placing each chapter within the wider, thematic treatment of fashion and its history, and an 'Annotated Guide to Further Reading' encourages students to enhance their learning independently. The Fashion History Reader was awarded a prize for 'Best Edited Book' at the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand: Art Historians of Australasia, Annual General Meeting, December 2011.

A Queer History of Fashion by Valerie Steele (Editor); Hal Rubinstein (Introduction by); Christopher Breward (Contribution by); Shaun Cole (Contribution by); Vicki Karaminas (Contribution by); Jonathan D. Katz; Peter McNeil (Contribution by); Elizabeth Wilson (Contribution by) An unprecedented in-depth exploration of the complex interrelationship between high fashion and queer history and culture From Christian Dior to Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen, many of the greatest fashion designers of the past century have been gay.  Fashion and style have played an important role within the LGBTQ community, as well, even as early as the 18th century.  This provocative book looks at the history of fashion through a queer lens, examining high fashion as a site of gay cultural production and exploring the aesthetic sensibilities and unconventional dress of LGBTQ people, especially since the 1950s, to demonstrate the centrality of gay culture to the creation of modern fashion.     Contributions by some of the world's most acclaimed scholars of gay history and fashion - including Christopher Breward, Shaun Cole, Vicki Karaminas, Jonathan D. Katz, Peter McNeil, and Elizabeth Wilson - investigate topics such as the context in which key designers' lives and works form part of a broader "gay" history; the "archeology" of queer attire back to the homosexual underworld of 18th-century Europe; and the influence of LGBTQ subcultural styles from the trouser suits worn by Marlene Dietrich (which inspired Yves Saint Laurent's "Le Smoking") to the iconography of leather. Sumptuous illustrations include both fashion photography and archival imagery.

Understanding Fashion History by Valerie Cumming A much needed overview of fashion history and how to understand it with clear, jargon-free text for lay readers, collectors, as well as students of fashion history.