Alexandra Palmer - A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Modern Age

A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in Antiquity

A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Medieval Age

A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Renaissance

A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Enlightenment

A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Empire

A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Modern Age

CONTENTS

Fashion from the First World War to the present day is a cacophony of styles, looks, peoples, and technological wonders. It records an exponential expansion of markets and ways of manufacturing that continue centuries-old craft traditions and push new boundaries. Today, clothes are transformed into body wearables, wirelessly connected to us so that, in real time, they sense and adjust to our physical change in heart rate and body heat, and we transform into cyborgs. Fashion is mercurial. It annoys, supports, disappoints, saddens, and gladdens our lives in the day to day. The look or smell can evoke powerful memories and imaginings. Its importance is repeatedly highlighted in formal and informal social rites from birth to death. It embraces the symbols of art, taste, power, gender, and status.

A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Modern Age maps key developments in fashion that make up a plurality of fashions. It collapses and brings together rich histories by viewing the subject as through a kaleidoscope. Each view is fractured, indicating more and more views that are limitless, because fashion has an intimate relationship to the artistic, physical, psychological, sociological, political, and technological, and is so intertwined that writing a complete history is impossible. This is what makes fashion history so interesting and difficultto study.

The complexity and fickleness of fashion has inspired many to try to harness this beast through rational analysis in order to understand what makes fashion tick, how it works, shifts, and why we care and participate. Looking at, talking, and writing about fashion has never been as discussed as it is today. The Internet and social media are filled with images, discussions, and opinions of fashion given by authoritative fashion professionals, independent writers, bloggers, and social media that constantly critiques friends clothes, while dressing up and posting selfies is a form of entertainment and on-going self-fashioning.

Fashion history is now transformed from the illegitimate or ugly stepchild of university art history or history courses into fully-fledged under graduate and graduate programs. There is a burgeoning list of academic books and journals that specifically address fashion. Museums regularly mount large, attractive exhibitions that can even be profitable and are held in the main galleries.

The disciplines which fashion encompasses are wide and include art, design, economics, sociology, psychology, psychiatry and philosophy. Sarah Fee has mapped anthropologists on-gain, off-again interest in dress and fashion and also points out that their conclusions are influenced by the nationality and cultural biases of whom ever is doing the writing. The study of fashion is eminently suitable for a multidisciplinary magpie approach that offers up new ideas and understandings. This is reflected in the work by leading scholars, and the essays in this volume. Drawing upon as many disciplines as needed helps to explain fashion in new ways, making for a more nuanced study. One of the interesting aspects about this project is that it has necessitated inviting scholars who do not usually focus on fashion to apply their insights to the field. Their frequently highlight ideas that are under-represented in fashion studies. This volume with its intertwined themes is a synopsis of fashion studies now.

But with all the rationalization, examination, and historification of fashion it is easy to forget that our original interest stems from personal engagement with it. The ephemeral aspects of fashion are hard to recordthe sound, smell, and touchand explains why James Lavers book, Clothes, was part of the Pleasures of Life Series. The significance of this volume is that it is a reminder of the complexity of the subject and examines why fashion gets under our skin, in both positive and negative ways.

The modern age covers many key themes in which fashion plays an integral role in society. This includes the on-going debates about womens hemlines or whether trousers or skirts are appropriate for women or men. Along with this goes the transformation of the body and an increasing focus on athletics, youth and health that is connected to our understanding of gender, race, as well as the secularization of society at large, and the dynamics of the individual over groups. Jeans have completely transformed from their roots, as laborers working dress, to a global, unisex uniform. Jeans are an integral garment in the democratization of fashion in terms of price and access and linked to the escalation of production, not only in the numbers of units produced, but also the speed of fashion itself and its circulation, that is more complex than it has ever been. Today we are witnessing a complete transformation of the fashion system that may even not be sustainable. The top down model is obsolete as it is fact that social media can trump corporate marketing. Looking at the past may prove to be useful for the present.

Susan Wards insightful chapter on textiles reveals the gaps in the field. Astonishingly, textiles are often completely absent from many discussions of fashion (

Textiles were instrumental in Chanels extraordinary success, and it is questionable if we would know her name without the work of the textile designers and manufacturers in France, Switzerland, Italy, Scotland, and America. Her come back, when she reopened the house in 1954, was secured with the clever use of innovative fibers, including nylon and later Lurex, and new weaves that ranged from nubby tweeds to complex knits. Chanels little black dress (LBD) became a modern fashion Ford in the 1920s, and is still so today. It was named after the Model-T car that became an icon of mass production and capitalism. The same was also true of her relaxed suit with cardigan-style jacket and slim skirt. The LBD and the Chanel suit are two of the most copied fashions of the twentieth century. It can be argued that her success with these two styles was in fact because textile manufactures produced fabrics that were more modern than the actual fashion designs that were recycled again and again. It was the new weights, textures, colors, fiber, and weaving technologies and the incredible range in quality and price of the textiles, that made it possible for so many, world-wide, to profit from millions of spin-offs of Chanel styles at all price points.