In American Fashion

The editors of Vogue, the ultimate authority on fashion, document the post-COVID changes happening across the fashion landscape in America. Celebrating creators, artisans, and visionaries across the country, the book pays tribute to the democratization of American fashion and the creativity and artisanship that is no longer confined to the runways of New York and Los Angeles. In their February 2021 issue, Vogue launched “The United States of Fashion,” a project that shines a spotlight on the creativity and craft flourishing throughout the country. Exploring the innovation and entrepreneurialism that defines American fashion, Vogue goes coast to coast from Detroit to El Paso to Indianapolis to Nashville, where the most exciting new designers are creating and designing locally. This book features a wide array of fashion voices across the nation, who share self-generated images and narratives on how they define and identify with fashion now. New, never-before-seen photographs and anecdotes, not published in the pages of Vogue, come from fashion designers Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte, Jeremy Scott, and Libertine; photographers Alex Webb and June Canedo; and craftspeople Ariana Boussard-Reifel and Ataumbi Metals. The book contains texts by esteemed writers, from Louise Erdrich’s words on Native American fashion and music editor Suzy Exposito’s account of being goth in Miami, to new ways of creating sustainable, recycled fashion. These accounts create a living biography of the evolution and democratization of fashion today. A rich tapestry of style in America, The United States of Fashion will appeal to readers interested in fashion, design, culture, and photography.

Looks at the evolution of menswear in the United States over the last century, examining uniquely American themes and styles from Levi Strauss and Zoot suits, to cowboys and the counterculture.

Americans began the twentieth century standing in Europe's sartorial shadow, yet ended by outfitting the world in blue jeans, T-shirts and sneakers. How did this come about? What changes in American culture were reflected in fashion? What role did popular culture play?This important overview of American fashion in the twentieth century considers how Americans went from imitating British and French fashion to developing their own sense of style. It examines such influences on dress as class, jazz and hip hop, war, the space race, movies, television and sports. Further, the book shows how gender, psychology, advertising, public policy, shifting family values, the American design movement and expertise in mass production profoundly influenced an American style that has been exported across the globe. From New York City's Bohemians to Hollywood's stars, Twentieth-Century American Fashion reveals the continuing importance of clothing to American identity and individual experience.

This book is the first in-depth exploration of the revolutionary designers who defined American fashion in its emerging years and helped build an industry with global impact, yet have been largely forgotten. Focusing on female designers, the authors reclaim a place in history for the women who created not only for celebrities and socialites, but for millions of fashion-conscious customers across the United States. From one of America's first couturiers, Jessie Franklin Turner, to Zelda Wynn Valdes, the book captures the lost histories of the luminaries who paved the way in the world of American fashion design. This fully illustrated collection takes us from Hollywood to Broadway, from sportswear to sustainable fashion, and explores important crossovers between film, theater, and fashion. Uncovering fascinating histories of the design pioneers we should know about, the book enlarges the prevailing narrative of fashion history and will be an important reference for fashion students, historians, costume curators, and fashion enthusiasts alike.

In American Fashion is the first scholarly analysis of the Fashion Calendar, the unique scheduling service and trade publication for the American fashion and creative industries between 1941 and 2014. Published by Ruth Finley for almost seven decades, the Calendar had an extensive impact on the development of the American fashion industry in the 20th century. Unlike European fashion capitals, the American fashion industry relied on an independent small publisher to manage the schedule of an ever-growing industry. In American Fashion shows how this independent position influenced the democratic approach reflected in the industry in the United States. Finley's unique contribution to the development of the time-system and culture of American fashion made her a key player during the ascendency of American fashion design. Natalie Nudell unveils the Fashion Calendar as a historical archive, and also looks at its development into an open-source digital humanities project (to be released in November 2023). Through historical analysis and the upcoming digitization of the Ruth Finley Collection, this study unpacks the history and impact of the publication and the women behind it.

A new glossary of American fashion explores the expressive qualities of works by pioneering designers, who established the nation’s style, and the up-and-coming designers shaping its future. In America: A Lexicon of Fashion presents a modern vocabulary of American dress that emphasizes emotions while not discounting the simple, practical, and egalitarian character that has traditionally separated American ready-to-wear from European haute couture. Stunning new photography showcases over 100 garments from the 1940s to the present that offer a timely new perspective on the diverse and multifaceted nature of American fashion. The catalogue features works that display qualities such as belonging, comfort, desire, exuberance, fellowship, joy, nostalgia, optimism, reverence, spontaneity, strength, and sweetness by well-known designers and emerging creatives, including: Gilbert Adrian Geoffrey Beene Thom Browne Bonnie Cashin Willy Chavarria Olivia Cheng Telfar Clemens Oscar de la Renta Colm Dillane Perry Ellis Tremaine Emory Tom Ford Rudi Gernreich Halston Elizabeth Hawes Carolina Herrera Conner Ives Charles James Kerby Jean-Raymond Donna Karan Calvin Klein Michael Kors Ralph Lauren Vera Maxwell Claire McCardell Norman Norell Heron Preston Christopher John Rogers Raul Solís Hillary Taymour Diane von Furstenberg Vera Wang

Throughout the twentieth century the ready-to-wear industry, fashion journalism, and mass-media advertising fueled one another’s success by identifying an ever-widening consumer class and fanning the desire to be fashionable. Through more than six hundred fashion ads that appeared in Vogue from the magazine’s debut in 1893 through the next ten decades, Hill documents not only this symbiosis but also an evolution in American fashion, society, and culture.In rich progression, the images document metamorphoses: from alabaster Victorian homemaker to painted flapper in just a generation, from conformist fifties mom to miniskirt-clad iconoclast only a decade later, from power-suited yuppie of the eighties to the techno self-stylist of the new millennium. In this long view of interactions that shaped much, much more than the fashion, Hill offers a comprehensive examination and resource for students and professionals in fashion and business history, popular culture, advertising, marketing, and women’s studies.

The 1950s was the first decade when American fashion became truly American. The United States had always relied on Europe for its style leads, but during World War II, when necessity became the mother of invention, the country had to find its own way. American designers looked to what American women needed and found new inspirations for American fashion design. Sportswear became a strength, but not at the expense of elegance. Easy-wear materials were adapted for producing more formal clothes, and versatile separates and adaptable dress and jacket suits became hallmarks of American style. This book follows the American fashion industry from New York's 7th Avenue to the beaches of California in search of the clothes that defined 1950s American fashion.

This unique four-volume encyclopedia examines the historical significance of fashion trends, revealing the social and cultural connections of clothing from the precolonial times to the present day. This sweeping overview of fashion and apparel covers several centuries of American history as seen through the lens of the clothes we wear—from the Native American moccasin to Manolo Blahnik's contribution to stiletto heels. Through four detailed volumes, this work delves into what people wore in various periods in our country's past and why—from hand-crafted family garments in the 1600s, to the rough clothing of slaves, to the sophisticated textile designs of the 21st century. More than 100 fashion experts and clothing historians pay tribute to the most notable garments, accessories, and people comprising design and fashion. The four volumes contain more than 800 alphabetical entries, with each volume representing a different era. Content includes fascinating information such as that beginning in 1619 through 1654, every man in Virginia was required to plant a number of mulberry trees to support the silk industry in England; what is known about the clothing of enslaved African Americans; and that there were regulations placed on clothing design during World War II. The set also includes color inserts that better communicate the visual impact of clothing and fashion across eras.

"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. Race, gender, ethnicity, and class are employed as critical lenses to shed new light on how fashion might be defined and addressed within America, rather than 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, making a unique contribution to fashion studies, fashion history, cultural studies, and beyond"--