The Force Of Fashion In Politics And Society

Throughout history, fashion has emerged as one of the most powerful driving forces determining the political, economic and social ramifications of the production, distribution and circulation of goods. Indeed fashion, especially in relation to clothing and textiles, shapes the relationship between self and society in unique ways. In this light, the collected papers in this volume position fashion as the lens - the critical mediating force - through which to analyse and understand cultural, economic and political shifts within a broad spectrum of societies in Europe, Asia, Africa and America from the seventeenth to twenty-first centuries. Topics include a seventeenth-century failing fashion region, the material politics of marketing American abolitionist fashions, the construction of a fashionable ethos for French perfumes, and the use and meanings of clothing and textiles in the politics of Nigerian silk robes and early modern domestic décor in Europe. This volume represents an important shift in scholarship towards a more in-depth understanding of the role of fashion in early modern and modern times and will appeal to international readers interested in material culture, fashion, consumer studies and cultural anthropology, among other areas.

This book seeks to address and fill a puzzling omission in contemporary critical IR scholarship. Following on from the aesthetic turn in IR, critical and ‘postmodern’ IR has produced an impressive array of studies into movies, literature, music and art and the way these media produce, mediate, and represent international politics. By contrast, the proponents of the aesthetic turn have overlooked fashion as a source of knowledge about global politics. Yet stories about the political role of fashion abound in the news media. Margaret Thatcher used dress to define her political image, and more recently the fascination with Michelle Obama, Carla Bruni and other women in similar positions, and the discussions about the appropriateness of their wardrobes, regularly makes the news. In Sudan, a female writer and activist successfully challenged the government over her right to wear trousers in public and in Europe, the debate on women’s headscarves has politicised a garment item and turned it into a symbol of fundamentalism and oppression. In response, the contributors to this book investigate the politics of fashion from a variety of perspectives, addressing theoretical as well as empirical issues, establishing the critical study of fashion and its protagonists as a central contribution to the aesthetic turn in international politics. The politics of fashion go beyond these examples of the uses and abuses of textiles and fabrics for political purposes, extending into its very ‘grammar’ and vocabulary. This book will be a unique contribution to the field and will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, critical IR theory and popular culture and world politics.

Craft practice has a rich history and remains vibrant, sustaining communities while negotiating cultures within local or international contexts. More than two centuries of industrialization have not extinguished handmade goods; rather, the broader force of industrialization has redefined and continues to define the context of creation, deployment and use of craft objects. With object study at the core, this book brings together a collection of essays that address the past and present of craft production, its use and meaning within a range of community settings from the Huron Wendat of colonial Quebec to the Girls? Friendly Society of twentieth-century England. The making of handcrafted objects has and continues to flourish despite the powerful juggernaut of global industrialization, whether inspired by a calculated refutation of industrial sameness, an essential means to sustain a cultural community under threat, or a rejection of the imposed definitions by a dominant culture. The broader effects of urbanizing, imperial and globalizing projects shape the multiple contexts of interaction and resistance that can define craft ventures through place and time. By attending to the political histories of craft objects and their makers, over the last few centuries, these essays reveal the creative persistence of various hand mediums and the material debates they represented.

Dressing Global Bodies addresses the complex politics of dress and fashion from a global perspective spanning four centuries, tying the early global to more contemporary times, to reveal clothing practice as a key cultural phenomenon and mechanism of defining one’s identity. This collection of essays explores how garments reflect the hierarchies of value, collective and personal inclinations, religious norms and conversions. Apparel is now recognized for its seminal role in global, colonial and post-colonial engagements and for its role in personal and collective expression. Patterns of exchange and commerce are discussed by contributing authors to analyse powerful and diverse colonial and postcolonial practices. This volume rejects assumptions surrounding a purportedly all-powerful Western metropolitan fashion system and instead aims to emphasize how diverse populations seized agency through the fashioning of dress. Dressing Global Bodies contributes to a growing scholarship considering gender and race, place and politics through the close critical analysis of dress and fashion; it is an indispensable volume for students of history and especially those interested in fashion, textiles, material culture and the body across a wide time frame.

In contemporary society it would seem self-evident that people allow the market to determine the values of products and services. For everything from a loaf of bread to a work of art to a simple haircut, value is expressed in monetary terms and seen as determined primarily by the 'objective' interplay between supply and demand. Yet this 'price-mechanism' is itself embedded in conventions and frames of reference which differed according to time, place and product type. Moreover, the dominance of the conventions of utility maximising and calculative homo economicus is a relatively new phenomenon, and one which directly correlates to the steady advent of capitalism in early modern Europe. This volume brings together scholars with expertise in a variety of related fields, including economic history, the history of consumption and material culture, art history, and the history of collecting, to explore changing concepts of value from the early modern period to the nineteenth century and present a new view on the advent of modern economic practices. Jointly, they fundamentally challenge traditional historical narratives about the rise of our contemporary market economy and consumer society.

Eighteenth-century fashion was cosmopolitan and varied. Whilst the wildly extravagant and colorful elite fashions parodied in contemporary satire had significant influence on wider dress habits, more austere garments produced in darker fabrics also reflected the ascendancy of a puritan middle class as well as a more practical approach to dress. With the rise of print culture and reading publics, fashions were more quickly disseminated and debated than ever, and the appetite for fashion periodicals went hand in hand with a preoccupation with the emerging concept of taste. Richly illustrated with 100 images and drawing on pictorial, textual and object sources, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Enlightenment presents essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, and visual and literary representations to illustrate the diversity and cultural significance of dress and fashion in the period.

Following on from the ground-breaking collection Fashion Cultures, this second anthology, Fashion Cultures Revisited, contains 26 newly commissioned chapters exploring fashion culture from the start of the new millennium to the present day. The book is divided into six parts, each discussing different aspects of fashion culture: Shopping, spaces and globalisation Changing imagery, changing media Altered landscapes, new modes of production Icons and their legacies Contestation, compliance, feminisms Making masculinities Fashion Cultures Revisited explores every facet of contemporary fashion culture and the associated spheres of photography, magazines and television, and shopping .Consequently it is an ideal companion to those interested in fashion studies, cultural studies, art, film, fashion history, sociology and gender studies.

Luxury, Fashion and the Early Modern Idea of Credit addresses how social and cultural ideas about credit and trust, in the context of fashion and trade, were affected by the growth and development of the bankruptcy institution. Luxury, fashion and social standing are intimately connected to consumption on credit. Drawing on data from the fashion trade, this fascinating edited volume shows how the concepts of credit, trust and bankruptcy changed towards the end of the early modern period (1500−1800) and in the beginning of the modern period. Focusing on Sweden, with comparative material from France and other European countries, this volume draws together emerging and established scholars from across the fields of economic history and fashion. This book is an essential read for scholars in economic history, financial history, social history and European history.