Couture Commerce

The 1950s were the golden years of haute couture, captured by iconic images of glamorous models wearing dramatic clothes. Yet the real women who wore these clothes adapted them to suit their own tastes, altered them to extend their life, and often could not bear to part with them long after the dresses had outlived their use. This gorgeously illustrated book demonstrates why so many of these designs are still in existence and why we are fascinated by them fifty years later. Couture and Commerce investigates how and why postwar couture fashion was important in its own day. The Paris couture houses survived due to the enthusiasm of the North American fashion press and commercial buyers. Alexandra Palmer traces the European haute couture trade with North America by following actual surviving couture dresses from the design house sketch, through the model used in New York fashion shows and as a template for copies and knock-offs, and finally to the consumer. Couture and Commerce is a remarkable mixture of accessible text, color photographs of the original garments, design house sketches and photographs, retailers’ advertisements, and society page images. Weaving together analysis of the clothes and interviews with those who traded, sold, and wore couture, Alexandra Palmer vividly recreates the 1950s fashion world.

This report is part of a broader work program on shaping a more positive narrative on regional integration in South Asia. It is a follow-up to a recent flagship report published by the South Asia Region of the World Bank, A Glass Half Full: The Promise of Regional Trade in South Asia. E-commerce is dramatically changing the way goods and services are transacted nationally, regionally, and globally. It facilitates international trade by reducing the cost of distance and remoteness and can be more inclusive of underrepresented groups such as women, small businesses, and rural entrepreneurs. Intraregional trade in South Asia is still below its potential, and the region lags behind other parts of the world in activating the potential benefits from e-commerce. Adopting a novel yet practical approach, this report explores how e-commerce can be boosted to deepen intraregional trade in South Asia. It examines the main transacting models in the digital space and the channels through which e-commerce helps reduce transactions costs for firms and consumers. It considers the regulations, as well as the regulatory gaps, affecting private sector participation in e-commerce, focusing on data privacy, consumer protection, delivery, cybersecurity, market-access regulations, and digital payments. Finally, the report presents recommendations for regulatory reforms that could enhance e-trade, especially in a regional context and as a possible platform for greater global engagement by South Asian firms. The scale of these recommendations ranges from the modest, such as allowing cross-border payments and streamlining the customs regime, to the more ambitious, such as allowing the operation of regional e-commerce platforms and liberalizing related cross-border logistics services.

“This is an original, gracefully written study of Paris fashion, one that manages to say as much about national character, in a sense, as it does about the rise and fall of hemlines. . . . I would not only recommend it to anyone interested in the psychology of clothes, but to anyone planning a sejour in France – as much required reading, say, as the Green Guides of Michelin.” ?Los Angeles Times Book Review This beautifully illustrated new edition of Paris Fashion examines the history and culture of style in the fashion capital from the 14th century through to the present day. Paris has been the international capital of fashion for more than 300 years. Even before the rise of the haute couture, Parisians were notorious for their obsession with fashion, and foreigners eagerly followed their lead. From Charles Frederick Worth to Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent, fashion history is dominated by the names of Parisian couturiers. But Valerie Steele's Paris Fashion is much more than just a history of great designers. This fascinating book demonstrates that the success of Paris ultimately rests on the strength of its fashion culture – created by a host of fashion performers and spectators, including actresses, dandies, milliners, artists, and writers. First published in 1988 to great international acclaim, this pioneering book has now been completely revised and brought up to date, encompassing the rise of fashion's multiple world cities in the 21st century. Lavishly illustrated, deeply learned, and elegantly written, Valerie Steele's masterwork explores with brilliance and flair why Paris remains the capital of fashion.

For the international cast of contributors to this volume being “in fashion” is about self-presentation; defining how fashion is presented in the visual, written, and performing arts; and about design, craft manufacturing, packaging, marketing, and archives.

divRevolutionizing the history of street photography, Unfamiliar Streets demonstrates an expanded understanding of the genre through the work of a fashion photographer, a photojournalist, a conceptual artist, and a contemporary artist. /DIV

An extraordinary look at how the style of Piet Mondrian’s abstract paintings was posthumously appropriated by 1960s fashion, Pop art, and consumer culture. Yves Saint Laurent’s 1965 Mondrian dresses are among the twentieth century’s most celebrated and recognizable fashions, but the context of their creation involves much more than meets the eye. In Mondrian’s Dress, Nancy J. Troy and Ann Marguerite Tartsinis offer a fresh approach to the coupling of Piet Mondrian’s interwar paintings with Saint Laurent’s couture designs by exposing the rampant merchandising and commodification that these works experienced in the 1960s. The authors situate the consolidation of Saint Laurent’s fashion brand alongside the work of such Pop artists as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann, and show how conventional understandings of Mondrian’s avant-garde abstractions were transformed by the mass circulation of his signature style. Beyond its attention to 1960s fashion, Pop art, and consumer culture, Mondrian’s Dress offers critical assessments of Saint Laurent’s so-called dialogue with art, the remarkable art collection that he built with his partner Pierre Berge, and the crucial role that photography plays in the marketing of couture. The first book-length study of its kind, Mondrian’s Dress is a provocative reevaluation of how art, commerce, and fashion became fundamentally intertwined in the postwar period.

In today's fashion industry, the traditional skills of forecasting, cutting, sewing and drafting are no longer enough. Students must be able to transform their two-dimensional plans into computer-generated images. From Pencil to Pen Tool: Understanding Creating the Digital Fashion Image teaches Adobe PhotoShop CS and Illustrator CS techniques applicable to both fashion students entering the field and established fashion-industry professionals seeking to stay current with technology. This book includes technical instruction about sketching and image production, as well as practical advice about creating a computer-generated portfolio and entering the fashion marketplace. Instructor's Guide available on request