The Fashion History Reader

Description

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.

A comprehensive resource for those who wish to further their engagement with fashion as a contemporary phenomenon, the book connects a diverse range of approaches and incorporates non-Western literature within better-known studies from Europe and North America.

It identifies the history of fashion as a meeting point between the long-standing historical investigation of ‘dress’ and ‘costume’ and the more recent development of those sociological and anthropological-inspired studies that have come to be called ‘fashion theory’.

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 1-3 cover the 15^th to the 18^th century
• parts 4 and 5 cover the 19^th century to the contemporary (with particular attention given to non-European countries)
• and part 6 provides a survey of the global setting and current globalised nature of fashion.

A comprehensive introduction by the editors will contextualise debates for students, synthesising past history and bringing them up to date through a discussion of globalisation. 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.

Reviews

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

Breaking down barriers, in this book you will discover how fashion has always been a global phenomenon.

Margaretha van den Bosch, Head of Design at H&M

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

Contents

@contents: Selected Contents: List of Figures List of Snapshot Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: The History of Fashion Reader: Global Perspectives, Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil PART 1: Fashion’s ‘Origins’: The Middle Ages and Renaissance, Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil PART 2: Fashion and Social Order: The Early Modern World, Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello PART 3: The Fashion Revolution: The Long Eighteenth Century, Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil PART 4: Between Luxury and Leisure: The Nineteenth Century, Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello PART 5: Westernisation and Colonialism: The Age of Empires, Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil PART 6: Modern to Hyper/ultramodern: The Twentieth Century, Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello

Author Bio

Giorgio Riello is Associate Professor in Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick. He has written extensively on early modern textiles, dress and fashion, and material culture in Europe and Asia. He is the author of A Foot in the Past: Consumers, Producers and Footwear in the Long Eighteenth Century (2006) and has co-edited four volumes including (with Peter McNeil), Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers (2006). Giorgio is currently writing a monograph entitled Global Cotton: Asia and the Making of Europe, 1200-1850

Peter McNeil is Professor of Design History at the University of Technology Sydney and Professor of Fashion Studies at Stockholm University. His anthology Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers (with co-editor Dr G Riello) has been acclaimed by The Observer as ‘an exceptionally beautiful and wide-ranging history of footwear.' His recent publications include Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources from the Renaissance to Today (4 volumes) and the co-edited The Men’s Fashion Reader and Fashion in Fiction.

Related Subjects

1. Art & Visual Culture
2. Theatre & Performance Studies
3. Social & Cultural History
4. Cultural Studies
5. Fashion
6. Sociology of Culture