Description
Book SynopsisIf fashion is an expression of individuality, why do we all dress alike? Can modernity be described as the experience of 'feeling modern' and, if so, what part does fashion play? Answering these intriguing questions and many more, this pioneering book shows how the concepts of fashion and modernity are intimately linked. It argues that capitalism and identity construction as social processes both have symbiotic relationships with the fashion system. Technology, the body, nationality and gender are informed and shaped by modernity, and vice versa. Drawing on key modernist texts as well as fashion theory and practice, this book seeks broadly to cover the history of fashion and modernity, a topic that has been surprisingly overlooked. Tackling themes including court masques in seventeenth-century London, Paris couturiers and forensic laboratories in twentieth-century Washington, the authors show how fashion throughout history has been a cornerstone in the construction of a modern self.
Trade Review'Fashion and Modernity offers both the conceptual framework and the kind of 'thick' historical and contemporary analyses required to move forward a number of debates in fashion studies. The contributions to this remarkable volume generate a lively, interdisciplinary exchange of perspectives, individually and collectively putting to rest any semblance of a notion of modern, western fashion history as a seamless, linear narrative.' Susan Kaiser, Professor and Chair of the Division of Textiles and Clothing, University of California at Davis.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Contributors Illustrations Introduction Christopher Breward and Caroline Evans Fashion and Modernity Elizabeth Wilson Part 1. Producing Identities 1.James Morrison (1789-1857), 'Napoleon of Shopkeepers', Millionaire Haberdasher, Modern Entrepreneur Caroline Dakers Response John Styles 2.Lee Miller and the Limits of Post-war British Modernity: Femininity, Fashion, the Problem of Biography Becky Conekin Response Carol Tulloch 3.People dress so badly nowadays: fashion and late modernity Andrew Hill Response Adam Briggs Part 2.Performing Bodies 4.Court Masques: Tableaux of Modernity in the Early 17th Century Andrea Stuart Response Susan North 5.Ambiguous Role Models : Fashion, Modernity and the Victorian Actress Christopher Breward Response Lynda Nead 6.Multiple, Movement, Model, Mode: The Mannequin Parade 1900-1929 Caroline Evans Response Andrew Bolton Part 3.Processes of Modernity 7.The Fingerprint of the Second Skin Kitty Hauser Response Esther Leslie 8.Cuttings and Pastings Alistair O'Neill Response Barry Curtis 9.entropy (fashion) and emergence (fashioning) Jamie Brassett Response Ben Highmore
