Books in the Dress, Body, Culture series

The study of fashion has expanded into a thriving field of inquiry, with researchers utilizing diverse methods from across subject disciplines to explore fashion and dress in wide-ranging contexts. With an emphasis on material culture and ethnographic approaches in fashion studies, this groundbreaking volume offers fascinating insights into the complex dynamics of research and fashion.Featuring unique case studies, with interdisciplinary scholars reflecting on their practical research experiences, Fashion Studies provides rich and nuanced perspectives on the use, and mixing and matching of methodological approaches - including object and image based research, the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods and the fluid bridging of theory and practice. Engaging with diverse subjects, from ethnographies of model casting and street-style blogging, wardrobe studies and a material culture analysis of global denim wearing, to Martin Margiela's design and archival methods, Fashion Studies presents complex approaches in a lively and informative manner that will appeal to students of fashion, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and related fields.

The mainstreaming of pornographic imagery into fashion and popular culture at the turn of the millennium signalled a dramatic cultural shift in construction of both femininity and masculinity. This engaging book draws from a diverse range of examples from popular tabloids to campus culture to explore expressions and meanings of porn chic.

Our dress is our identity. In dress, we live, move and have our social being. This book shows how the dressed body is central to the construction of a recognizable identity and provides accessible accounts of the particular dress "ways" associated with a considerable variety of lifestyles.

Through rich ethnographic detail and cutting-edge theory, DIY Style tells the fascinating story of an international do-it-yourself (DIY) movement through a major case study of the "indie" music and fashion scene in Indonesia.

While African American dress has long been noted as having a distinctive edge, many people may not know that debutante balls feature young men and women dressed in conventional symbols of male hegemony and female purity. This text discusses how dress is a site for the renegotiation of identity.

This text challenges the European dichotomy of space into public and private, and morality into honour and shame, and shows how these notions have mistakenly been applied to Arab women's use of the veil and, more broadly, to their position in society.

Imagine a world where the oppressive, over-feminized images of women from advertising, television, films, and magazines have re-armed themselves with army boots, body modifications, and flamboyant hair. Is this just another fairy tale, and if so, why cant it be a reality? This title unpacks the myth of model womanhood.

Prada, Gucci, Max Mara: 'alta moda' is synonymous with luxury, glamour and pleasure. Yet Italian fashion also has a dark history. The fascism of 1930's Italy dominated more than just politics - it spilled over into modes of dress. 'Fashion under Fascism' considers this link in detail.

The popularity of uniforms in Japan suggests important linkages: material culture, politico-economic projects, bodily management, and the construction of subjectivity are all connected to the wearing of uniforms. This book examines what the donning of uniforms says about cultural psychology and the expression of economic nationalism in Japan.

Goths represent one of the most arresting, distinctive and enduring subcultures. From dress and musical tastes to social habits and the use of the internet, this book details the inner workings of this intriguing group.

Drawing on primary fieldwork, this book offers a cross-cultural study of transvestism through an examination of transvestites in Britain and the Hijras of India. The author tackles the question of whether or not transvestism is motivated primarily by sex or gender, and she challenges the straightforward binary divide in Western theories of gender.

A discussion of the development of the Italian fashion industry. Drawing on a wide range of sources, notably the testimonies of key witnesses, contemporary media reports and surviving garments, the volume specifically exposes the depth of American involvement in Italian fashion.

Most people conceive of gender as an informed response to a biological imperative. But such notions are overturned by certain women in regions of Albania who elect to "become" men simply for the advantages that accrue to them as a result. This book tells the frank stories of these women.

Beginning with a look at the subcultural world of gay men in the early part of the 20th century, this work analyzes the trends in dress adopted by gay men as well as the challenge gay style has made to mainstream men's fashion. The importance of body to gay culture is also addressed.

British fashion is characterized by oppositions: punk versus pageantry, anarchy versus monarchy, Cool Britannia versus Rule Britannia. This book provides telling insights into the culture of fashion and the dilemmas of 'going global'. It argues that 'Britishness' is characterized less through a particular look than through its ambiguities.

Shows how traditional French fashion has been both disturbed and strengthened by the addition of outside forces such as Kenzo Takada, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Hanae Mori. This book provides an in-depth study of the Japanese revolution in Paris fashion and raises provocative questions for the future of the industry.

Corsets, and the corseted body, have been fetishized, mythologized, romanticized. This Victorian icon has inspired debate that is unrivalled by any other article of clothing. This book examines the role of corsetry in the minds and lives of Victorian women.

By listening to the voices of the subcultural stylists themselves, this work provides insights into issues of subjectivity and identity. It argues that they do both - a stress on postmodern hyperindividualism, fluidity and fragmentation runs alongside a modernist emphasis on authenticity and underlying essence.

Provides an interpretative overview of the idiosyncratic writings of eight theorists whose work has profoundly influenced the conceptual and theoretical basis of our contemporary understanding of clothes and the fashion system. This book also provides an historical outline of Western conceptions of clothes and fashion.

What we wear is a vehicle for the expression of politics, gender and identity, placing clothing at the root of a complex set of messages. This book shows how semiotics can provide a convincing template for understanding dress in a range of contexts and is a useful reading for anyone interested in the meaning of what we wear.