Author: Diana Crane
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226924831
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
It has long been said that clothes make the man (or woman), but is it still true today? If so, how has the information clothes convey changed over the years? Using a wide range of historical and contemporary materials, Diana Crane demonstrates how the social significance of clothing has been transformed. Crane compares nineteenth-century societies—France and the United States—where social class was the most salient aspect of social identity signified in clothing with late twentieth-century America, where lifestyle, gender, sexual orientation, age, and ethnicity are more meaningful to individuals in constructing their wardrobes. Today, clothes worn at work signify social class, but leisure clothes convey meanings ranging from trite to political. In today's multicode societies, clothes inhibit as well as facilitate communication between highly fragmented social groups. Crane extends her comparison by showing how nineteenth-century French designers created fashions that suited lifestyles of Paris elites but that were also widely adopted outside France. By contrast, today's designers operate in a global marketplace, shaped by television, film, and popular music. No longer confined to elites, trendsetters are drawn from many social groups, and most trends have short trajectories. To assess the impact of fashion on women, Crane uses voices of college-aged and middle-aged women who took part in focus groups. These discussions yield fascinating information about women's perceptions of female identity and sexuality in the fashion industry. An absorbing work, Fashion and Its Social Agendas stands out as a critical study of gender, fashion, and consumer culture. "Why do people dress the way they do? How does clothing contribute to a person's identity as a man or woman, as a white-collar professional or blue-collar worker, as a preppie, yuppie, or nerd? How is it that dress no longer denotes social class so much as lifestyle? . . . Intelligent and informative, [this] book proposes thoughtful answers to some of these questions."-Library Journal
Author: Katherine Appleford
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351856464
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Drawing together theoretical ideas from across the social sciences, Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class examines how the fashion-class association has developed and, using the experiences of middle-and-working class British women, demonstrates how this relationship operates today. Though increasingly academics argue that contemporary class distinctions are made through cultural practices and tastes, few have fully explored just how individual’s fashion choices mobilise class and are used in class evaluations. Yet, an individual’s everyday dress is perhaps the most immediate marker of taste, and thus an important means of class distinction. This is particularly true for women, as their performances of respectability, femininity and motherhood are embodied by fashion and shaped by class. In unpacking this fashion-class relationship, the book explores how fashion is used by British women to talk about class. It offers important insights into the ways fashion mobilises class differences in understandings of dressing up, performance and public space. It considers how class identity shapes women’s attitudes concerning fashion trends and classic styles, and it draws attention to the pivotal role mothers play in cultivating these class distinctions. The book will be of interest to students in sociology, fashion studies, cultural studies, human geography and consumer behaviour.
Author: Rachel Worth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857854941
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
In what ways do changing notions of social class correspond with key developments in the history of fashion? Focusing on examples ranging from 18th-century Britain to aspects of the global fashion industry in the early 21st century, Fashion and Class examines the meaning and evolution of the term 'class', from its Marxist origins to modern day interpretations. Did industrialisation, technological change and developments in fashion retailing bring about a degree of 'class levelling' or in fact intensify class antagonism? And to what extent does modern mass consumption and cheap labour revive some of the ethical issues faced in 19th-century British textile factories? Exploring a variety of case studies that examine the changing relationships between fashion and class in different historical contexts, from the French revolutionaries of the 1780-90s through to the changing relationships between couture, designer and high-street fashion in the mid-20th century and onwards, Fashion and Class is essential reading for those wishing to understand the ways in which the fashion system is closely connected with ideas of class.
Author: Catherine Horwood
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752495577
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
The British have always been concerned about accent, appearance and class, but at no time during the twentieth century was ' keeping up appearances' more important than during the 1920s and 1930s. From the impecunious youth anxious to create a favourable impression at the local tennis club dance to female office workers advised by the Daily Mail that women in business kept 'their position partly, if not chiefly, by appearance', we peer into the intimate lives and anxieties of the middle classes as they dressed to impress. Choices were influenced as much by the advent of mass production, economic stringency, snobbery and the influence of America, as by personal aesthetics. Seemingly insignificant items such as ties, braces, gloves and hats, could convey a lack of breeding if worn incorrectly. This engagingly written and illustrated book explores the social mores behind one of society's most popular activities, and reveals not only how we dressed but why.
Author: Denise N. Rall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781789384611
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
A critique of the politics of dress for women in power. What is the relationship between fashion, women, and power? As never before, women in positions of political power find themselves facing the maelstroms of mass media regarding both their fashion and their right to govern. In this book, contributors offer a wide set of perspectives on women and their fashions when taking up powerful positions in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States as well as emerging women leaders in Asia. This book questions the relationship between women and dress and interrogates how this conversation informs and articulates how women are viewed when taking up public office. The book critiques the interplays between politics, power, class, race, and social expectations concerning the politics of getting dressed.
Author: Nikki Crescent
Publisher: Princess Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 72
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Book Description
Pierce screwed up. He thought he had the necessary credits for college, but he was wrong: he was one class short. Now, it’s a week into summer and his college application has suddenly been declined. But he’s been given a chance: take a single summer class and the university will hold his spot. All the summer classes are full, except for one: a female fashion class. Pierce is desperate, so he signs up. But showing up and getting a bunch of Ds won’t be enough to make it through the class. The class has a dress code: each week is a themed after a different decade, which means Pierce will be wearing a lot of dresses and skirts. And that’s not all: he’ll also be required to model for the other students.
Author: Sandy Black
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472577442
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 654
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Book Description
The Handbook of Fashion Studies identifies an innovative spectrum of thematic approaches, key strands and interdisciplinary concepts that continue to push forward the boundaries of fashion studies. The book is divided into seven sections: Fashion, Identity and Difference; Spaces of Fashion; Fashion and Materiality; Fashion, Agency and Policy; Science, Technology and New fashion; Fashion and Time and, Sustainable Fashion in a Globalised world. Each section consists of approximately four essays authored by established researchers in the field from the UK, USA, Netherlands, Sweden, Canada and Australia. The essays are written by international subject specialists who each engage with their section's theme in the light of their own discipline and provide clear case-studies to further knowledge on fashion. This consistency provides clarity and permits comparative analysis. The handbook will be essential reading for students of fashion as well as professionals in the industry.
Author: Gordon Wills
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040004350
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 501
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Book Description
First published in 1973, Fashion Marketing is intended for all whose work is linked to the vagaries of fashion or who are simply fascinated by the subject. Although much of the evidence and material collected here is related to textiles and clothing in particular, businessmen are becoming increasingly aware that fashion now extends its influence beyond its traditional fields. The fickleness of fashion has previously discouraged detailed analysis of trends, and such significant contributions to the literature as have been made often occur in the most unlikely places. It was this inaccessibility which led to the preparation of the present volume, which developed out of the considerable research activity into textile markets by the editors, first at the University of Bradford, and more recently at the Cranfield School of Management to which their research work was transferred in 1972. This book will be of interest to students of business, economics, marketing and fashion.
Author: Malcolm Barnard
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415260176
Category : Clothing and dress
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
In this fully revised and updated edition, Malcolm Barnard introduces fashion and clothing as ways of communicating and challening class, gender, sexual and social identities.
Author: Scase, Richard
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335156258
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110
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Book Description
Of all the concepts used by sociologists for describing and explaining social relationships, social class is probably the most ambiguous, confusing and ill-defined. This is despite the fact that the development of sociology as an academic discipline has been intimately connected with class related issues. In this book, Richard Scase offers an introduction to the analysis of social class. Against a background of the failure of Soviet and East European state socialism he highlights the enduring importance of social class in Western capitalist society, which is characterized by relations of exploitation. He concludes that whilst Marxist categories continue to be invaluable, Marx's ideas for abolishing class must, towards the end of the 20th century, be seen to be utopian.
