Fashion And Everyday Life

Taking cultural theorist Michel de Certeau's notion of 'the everyday' as a critical starting point, this book considers how fashion shapes and is shaped by everyday life. Looking historically for the imprint of fashion within everyday routines such as going to work or shopping, or in leisure activities like dancing, the book identifies the 'fashion system of the ordinary', in which clothing has a distinct role in the making of self and identity. Exploring the period from 1890 to 2010, the study is located in London and New York, cities that emerged as as socially, ethnically and culturally diverse, as well as increasingly fashionable. The book re-focuses fashion discourse away from well-trodden, power-laden dynamics, towards a re-evaluation of time, memory, and above all history, and their relationship to fashion and everyday life. The importance of place and space - and issues of gender, race and social class - provides the broader framework, revealing fashion as both routine and exceptional, and as an increasingly significant part of urban life. By focusing on key themes such as clothing the city, what is worn on the streets, the imagining and performing of multiple identities by dressing up and down, going out, and showing off, Fashion and Everyday Life makes a unique contribution to the literature of fashion studies, fashion history, cultural studies, and beyond.

Taking cultural theorist Michel de Certeau's notion of 'the everyday' as a critical starting point, this book considers how fashion shapes and is shaped by everyday life. Looking historically for the imprint of fashion within everyday routines such as going to work or shopping, or in leisure activities like dancing, the book identifies the 'fashion system of the ordinary', in which clothing has a distinct role in the making of self and identity. Exploring the period from 1890 to 2010, the study is located in London and New York, cities that emerged as as socially, ethnically and culturally diverse, as well as increasingly fashionable. The book re-focuses fashion discourse away from well-trodden, power-laden dynamics, towards a re-evaluation of time, memory, and above all history, and their relationship to fashion and everyday life. The importance of place and space - and issues of gender, race and social class - provides the broader framework, revealing fashion as both routine and exceptional, and as an increasingly significant part of urban life. By focusing on key themes such as clothing the city, what is worn on the streets, the imagining and performing of multiple identities by dressing up and down, going out, and showing off, Fashion and Everyday Life makes a unique contribution to the literature of fashion studies, fashion history, cultural studies, and beyond.

An original contribution to fashion studies, Fashion in American Life challenges existing approaches to fashion in America by considering who 'makes' fashion-when, where, and how. Avoiding the usual emphasis on the 'history of fashion' which perpetuates the myth of fashion designers, and New York, as the originators of American fashion, this exploration of the everyday allows us to see American fashion as a form of agency, self-identification, creative engagement, and politics. Moving away from the well-trodden accounts of fashion designers and the dominance of New York, much of the fashion uncovered has been under-represented in previous accounts. Through contemporary and historical research, authors challenge the nature of both 'fashion' and 'America' by addressing the many complexities of a nation whose people have diverse histories and cultures, including stories and experiences that have been forgotten, marginalized and left out of the fashion 'canon'. Race, gender, ethnicity, and class are employed as critical lenses to shed new light on how fashion might be defined and addressed within America (as a country, but not as a series of United States), with case studies looking at First Nations, Latinx and African American dress. The intellectual framing of the volume, and the methods and case studies included, also present tactics that can be applied to other contexts, making this book about revisiting 'fashion' more widely, not just in America. Fashion in American Life makes a unique contribution to the literature of fashion studies, fashion history, cultural studies, and beyond.

Getting Dressed teaches sociology through the everyday decision of what to wear. It is about the rules that shape how we dress and how and why we conform. It is about how and why we imitate others. We may think about clothing as our personal style and identity. But our personal style is not so personal; it is social, shaped and limited by countless social influences. We use clothes to rank and treat each other as better and worse. Yet we need each other to become who we are when getting dressed. This book is about what we wear, why we wear it, and why it matters.

What do things mean? What does the life of everyday objects reveal about people and their material worlds? Has the quest for 'the real thing' become so important because the high-tech world of total virtuality threatens to engulf us? This pioneering book bridges design theory and anthropology to offer a new and challenging way of understanding the changing meanings of contemporary human-object relations. The act of consumption is only the starting point of object's “lives”. Thereafter they are transformed and invested with new meanings and associations that reflect and assert who we are. Defining designed things as “things with attitude” differentiates the highly visible fashionable object from ordinary aretefacts that are too easily taken for granted. Through case studies ranging from reproduction furniture to fashion and textiles to 'clutter', the author traces the connection between objects and authenticity, ephemerality and self-identity. Beyond this, she shows the materiality of the everyday in terms of space, time and the body and suggests a transition with the passing of time from embodiment to disembodiment.

First Published in 2004. "The Face of Fashion" is a study of fashion and the body which aims to establish the relations between codes and systems of clothing and the conduct of everyday life. Jennifer Craik questions the trickle-down theory that fashion is dictated by elite designers and opinion leaders with evidence of a trickle-up effect from sub-cultures, mass consumer behaviour and everyday bricolage of fashion items. The text addresses the neglected area of men's fashion, as well as women's fashion, within a broad examination of the role of fashion in gender identity. The argument is developed through a number of key agencies and processes: consumerism and everyday fashion; the iconization of the body through fashion models and photography; the use of cosmetics to "make-up" the body; the nexus between fashion and gender; the changing fashions in underwear and swimwear as maps of the revealed body. These topics are approached from an interdisciplinary perspective that treats fashion systems as ethnographic traces of the cultural projection of the body.

′Bennett provides a well organized, very readable and interesting discussion of a number of significant everyday cultural forms and I am confident student readers will find the book very valuable′ - Barry Smart, University of Portsmouth Culture and Everyday Life provides students with a comprehensive overview of theoretical models, issues and examples of contemporary cultural practice. Bennett begins by summarising and situating - in everyday settings - the key theoretical models applied in the study of existing cultural practices. This entails a systematic study of how academic thinking about mass culture has changed, from critical accounts of early mass cultural theorists to radical postmodernist critiques of mass cultural accounts and to ′the cultural turn′, which explored how various social identities are culturally constructed. Following this are themed chapters that cover a particular aspect of late modern culture, such as media, music, fashion, tourism and counter-cultural ideologies and movements. In each case a comprehensive literature review is provided and its theoretical and empirical relevance to our understanding of the relationship between culture and everyday life in contemporary society is explained. Lucid, meticulous and illustrated with a host of examples, this is a superb text for teaching and research in the Sociology of Culture and Cultural Studies.

- An essential reference for students, curators and scholars of fashion, cultural studies, and the expanding range of disciplines that see fashion as imbued with meaning far beyond the material. - Over 300 in-depth entries covering designers, articles of clothing, key concepts and styles. - Edited and introduced by Valerie Steele, a scholar who has revolutionized the study of fashion, and who has been described by The Washington Post as one of "fashion's brainiest women." Derided by some as frivolous, even dangerous, and celebrated by others as art, fashion is anything but a neutral topic. Behind the hype and the glamour is an industry that affects all cultures of the world. A potent force in the global economy, fashion is also highly influential in everyday lives, even amongst those who may feel impervious. This handy volume is a one-stop reference for anyone interested in fashion - its meaning, history and theory. From Avedon to Codpiece, Dandyism to the G-String, Japanese Fashion to Subcultures, Trickle down to Zoot Suit, The Berg Companion to Fashion provides a comprehensive overview of this most fascinating of topics and will serve as the benchmark guide to the subject for many years to come.

When, how and why do clothes become fashion? Fashion is more than mere clothing. It is a moment of invention, a distillation of desire, a reflection of a zeitgeist. This book explores the structures and strategies which underlie fashion innovation, how fashion is perceived and the point at which clothing is accepted or rejected as fashion.