Fashion At The Edge

Caroline Evans analyses the work of experimental designers, the images of fashion photographers, and the spectacular fashion shows that developed in the final decade of the twentieth century to arrive at a new understanding of fashion's dark side and what it signifies? Drawing on a variety of literary and theoretical perspectives - from Marx to Benjamin - Evans argues that fashion plays a leading role in constructing images and meanings during periods of rapid change. She shows persuasively that fashion stands at the very centre of the contemporary, where it voices some of Western culture's deepest concerns.

"Recent experimental fashion has a dark side, a preoccupation with representations of death, trauma, alientation, and decay. This ... book looks closely at this strand of fashion design in the 1990s, exploring what its disturbing themes tell us about consumer culture and contemporary anxieties ... Fashion at the Edge considers a range of cutting-edge contemporary fashion in ... depth and detail, including the works of such current designers as John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Viktor and Rolf and Martin Margiela"--Cover.

The area of recycling and upcycling is a rich and growing source of innovative design in the fashion and accessories industries. In a fast-fashion world of throw-away clothing, it is the ultimate expression of the slow-fashion movement, with each piece individually conceived and crafted from scratch, using different materials each time. ReFashioned features 46 international designers who work with recycled materials and discarded garments, reinvigorating them with new life and value. The result is beautiful and desirable clothing and accessories that also make an important statement to the fashion world about its wasteful and exploitative practices.

From insidious murder weapons to blaze-igniting crinolines, clothing has been the cause of death, disease and madness throughout history, by accident and design. Clothing is designed to protect, shield and comfort us, yet lurking amongst seemingly innocuous garments we find hats laced with mercury, frocks laden with arsenic and literally 'drop-dead gorgeous' gowns. Fabulously gory and gruesome, Fashion Victims takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the lethal history of women's, men's and children's dress, in myth and reality. Drawing upon surviving fashion objects and numerous visual and textual sources, encompassing louse-ridden military uniforms, accounts of the fiery deaths of Oscar Wilde's half-sisters and dancer Isadora Duncan's accidental strangulation by entangled scarf; the book explores how garments have tormented those who made and wore them, and harmed animals and the environment in the process. Vividly chronicling evidence from Greek mythology to the present day, Matthews David puts everyday apparel under the microscope and unpicks the dark side of fashion. Fashion Victims is lavishly illustrated with over 125 images and is a remarkable resource for everyone from scholars and students to fashion enthusiasts.

"As both curator and exhibition designer, Judith Clark addresses the relationship of contemporary fashion to history, creating a collage of visual references which offer a fascinating insight into the origins of current themes, such as alienation, trauma and phantasmagoria. Details of historic dress and images of nineteenth-century fairground architecture lead into the work of contemporary designers such as Vikto & Rolf, Maison Martin Margiela, Veronique Branquinho, Hussein Chalayan, Christian Lacroix and Shelley Fox. The ideas for the installation draw on a skeletal early industrial/metropolitan aesthetic, while the mannequins belong to the history of dolls and wax effigies, embodied in the mask-like catwalk make-up of Pat McGrath. This book includes a coda by fashion historian Caroline Evans, author of 'Fashion on the edge', from whom Clark has drawn assumptions about comtemporary dress, and an illustrated essay on the idea of the scaffold by Russian avant-garde architect Yuri Avvakumov. Also reproduced are designs commissioned by Clark for a giant shadow lantern from the celebrated New York fashion illustrator Ruben Toldeo, and sketches for customised mannequins by jeweller Naomi Filmer. The final section features photographs of the dramatic installations constructed for the exhibition." -- back cover.

What do they all mean – the lascivious ape, autophagic dragons, pot-bellied heads, harp-playing asses, arse-kissing priests and somersaulting jongleurs to be found protruding from the edges of medieval buildings and in the margins of illuminated manuscripts? Michael Camille explores that riotous realm of marginal art, so often explained away as mere decoration or zany doodles, where resistance to social constraints flourished. Medieval image-makers focused attention on the underside of society, the excluded and the ejected. Peasants, servants, prostitutes and beggars all found their place, along with knights and clerics, engaged in impudent antics in the margins of prayer-books or, as gargoyles, on the outsides of churches. Camille brings us to an understanding of how marginality functioned in medieval culture and shows us just how scandalous, subversive, and amazing the art of the time could be.

The story of how Japan adopted and ultimately revived traditional American fashion Look closely at any typically "American" article of clothing these days, and you may be surprised to see a Japanese label inside. From high-end denim to oxford button-downs, Japanese designers have taken the classic American look—known as ametora, or "American traditional"—and turned it into a huge business for companies like Uniqlo, Kamakura Shirts, Evisu, and Kapital. This phenomenon is part of a long dialogue between Japanese and American fashion; in fact, many of the basic items and traditions of the modern American wardrobe are alive and well today thanks to the stewardship of Japanese consumers and fashion cognoscenti, who ritualized and preserved these American styles during periods when they were out of vogue in their native land. In Ametora, cultural historian W. David Marx traces the Japanese assimilation of American fashion over the past hundred and fifty years, showing how Japanese trendsetters and entrepreneurs mimicked, adapted, imported, and ultimately perfected American style, dramatically reshaping not only Japan's culture but also our own in the process.

*NYTBR Paperback Row Selection * The Independent's Best Fashion Book on Sustainability* An investigation into the damage wrought by the colossal clothing industry and the grassroots, high-tech, international movement fighting to reform it What should I wear? It’s one of the fundamental questions we ask ourselves every day. More than ever, we are told it should be something new. Today, the clothing industry churns out 80 billion garments a year and employs every sixth person on Earth. Historically, the apparel trade has exploited labor, the environment, and intellectual property—and in the last three decades, with the simultaneous unfurling of fast fashion, globalization, and the tech revolution, those abuses have multiplied exponentially, primarily out of view. We are in dire need of an entirely new human-scale model. Bestselling journalist Dana Thomas has traveled the globe to discover the visionary designers and companies who are propelling the industry toward that more positive future by reclaiming traditional craft and launching cutting-edge sustainable technologies to produce better fashion. In Fashionopolis, Thomas sees renewal in a host of developments, including printing 3-D clothes, clean denim processing, smart manufacturing, hyperlocalism, fabric recycling—even lab-grown materials. From small-town makers and Silicon Valley whizzes to such household names as Stella McCartney, Levi’s, and Rent the Runway, Thomas highlights the companies big and small that are leading the crusade. We all have been casual about our clothes. It's time to get dressed with intention. Fashionopolis is the first comprehensive look at how to start.