Publisher's Synopsis
The importance of studying the body as a site for the deployment of discourses is well-established in a number of disciplines. By contrast, the study of dress has, until recently, suffered from a lack of critical analysis. Increasingly, however, scholars have recognized the cultural significance of self-fashioning, including not only clothing but also such body alterations as tattooing and piercing. Fashion Theory takes as its starting point a definition of fashion as the cultural construction of the embodied identity. It provides an international and interdisciplinary forum for the analysis of cultural phenomena ranging from foot binding to fashion advertising. Fashion Theory provides a vital contribution to cultural studies, art history, literary criticism, anthropology, fashion history, media studies, gender studies, folklore studies and sociology. Dorothy Ko: 'Bondage in Time: Footbinding and Fashion Theory' Irene V. Guenther: 'Nazi 'Chic'?: German Politics and Women's Fashions, 1915-1945' Barbara Vinken: 'Eternity: A Frill on the Dress' Patrizia Calefato: 'Fashion and Worldliness: Language and Imagery of the Clothed Body' Richard Martin: 'A Charismatic Art: The Balance of Ingratiation and Outrage in Contemporary Fashion' Valerie Steele: Exhibition Review: 'Two by Two', The Metropolitan Museum of Art
