Fashion Theory: A Reader

by Malcolm Barnard

Overview

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Fashion Theory: A Reader brings together and presents a wide range of essays on fashion theory that will engage and inform both the general reader and the specialist student of fashion. From apparently simple and accessible theories concerning what fashion is to seemingly more difficult or challenging theories concerning globalisation and new media, this collection contextualises different theoretical approaches to identify, analyse and explain the remarkable diversity, complexity and beauty of what we understand and experience every day as fashion and clothing.

This second edition contains entirely new sections on fashion and sustainability, fashion and globalisation, fashion and digital/social media and fashion and the body/prosthesis. It also contains updated and revised sections on fashion, identity and difference, and on fashion and consumption and fashion as communication. More specifically, the section on identity and difference has been updated to include contemporary theoretical debates surrounding Islam and fashion, and LGBT+ communities and fashion and the section on consumption now includes theories of 'prosumption'. Each section has a specialist and dedicated Editor's Introduction which provides essential conceptual background, theoretical contextualisation and critical summaries of the readings in each section.

Bringing together the most influential and ground breaking writers on fashion and exposing the ideas and theories behind what they say, this unique collection of extracts and essays brings to light the presuppositions involved in the things we all think and say about fashion. This second edition of Fashion Theory: A Reader is a timeless and invaluable resource for both the general reader and undergraduate students across a range of disciplines including sociology, cultural studies and fashion studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138296947
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Series:	Routledge Student Readers
Edition description:	New
Pages:	846
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Malcolm Barnard is Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture at Loughborough University, UK.

Table of Contents

List of figures xii

List of tables xiv

Preface to the second edition xv

Introduction Malcolm Barnard 1

Part 1 Fashion and fashion theories

Introduction 11

1 Explaining It Away Elizabeth Wilson 17

2 The Empire of Fashion: Introduction Gilles Lipovetsky 27

3 Adorned in Zeitgeist Barbara Vinken 35

4 Haute Couture and Haute Culture Pierre Bourdieu 46

Part 2 What fashion is and is not

Introduction 53

5 Fashion Edward Sapir 59

6 Art Nancy J. Troy 66

7 Antifashion: The Vicissitudes of Negation Fred Davis 78

8 Fashion Georg Simmel 92

9 Extract from Fashion and Anti Fashion Ted Polhemus Lynn Proctor 102

Part 3 Fashion and (the) image

Introduction 113

10 Fashion Photography Roland Barthes 119

11 Going beyond 'The Fashion System': A Critique Paul Jobling 122

12 'Doing Fashion Photographs' Erica Lennard 137

13 Introduction: Aboud Sodano and Paul Smith Tamsin Blanchard 144

Part 4 Sustainable Fashion

Introduction 157

14 Consumers' Perceptions of 'Green': Why and How Consumers Use Eco-Fashion and Green Beauty Products Marie-Cécile Cervellon Lindsey Carey 161

15 Fashion, Needs and Consumption Kate Fletcher 177

16 Fashion and Sustainability: Repairing the Clothes We Wear Alison Gwilt 188

Part 5 Fashion as communication

Introduction 201

17 Social Life as a Sign System Umberto Eco 207

18 The Analysis of the Rhetorical System Roland Barthes 212

19 Do Clothes Speak? What Makes Them Fashion? Fred Davis 225

20 When the Meaning is not a Message: A Critique of the Consumption as Communication Thesis Colin Campbell 236

21 "Fashion as Communication Revisited" Malcolm Barnard 247

Part 6 Fashion: identity and difference

Introduction 259

22 Express Yourself: The Politics of Dressing Up Tim Edwards 269

23 Objectifying Gender: The Stiletto Heel Lee Wright 275

24 'Power Dressing' and the Construction of the Career Woman Joanne Entwistle 285

25 From Gay to Queer - Or, Wasn't Fashion Always Already a Very Queer Thing? Annamari Vänskä 297

26 Lesbian Style: From Mannish Women to Lipstick Dykes Adam Geczy Vicki Karaminas 307

27 Popular Fashion and Working-Class Affluence Angela Partington 328

28 Fashion: From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection Herbert Blumer 340

29 Great Aspirations: Hip Hop and Fashion Dress for Excess and Success Emil Wilbekin 355

30 Taste and Distinction: The Politics of Style Reina Lewis 361

31 Islamic Fashion Scape Emma Tarlo 374

32 You Should Understand, It's a Freedom Thing: The Stoned Cherrie-Steve Biko T-Shirt Carol Tulloch 389

Part 7 Fashion, clothes and the body

Introduction 405

33 Addressing the Body Joanne Entwistle 411

34 Deviant Bodies and Suitable Clothes Ingun Grimstad Klepp Mari Rysst 430

35 "My Leg is a Giant Stiletto Heel": Fashioning the Prosthetised Body Laini Burton Jana Melkumova-Reynolds 448

36 Fashion, Clothes and the Body Malcolm Barnard 461

Part 8 Fashion: production, consumption, prosumption

Introduction 477

37 The Crossroad between Production and Consumption Marco Pedroni 483

38 Consuming or Living with Things? Wearing It Out Tim Dant 505

39 Reconceptualising Prosumption beyond the 'Cultural Turn': Passive Fashion Prosumption in Korea and China Tommy Tse Ling Tung Tsang 517

40 Attentiveness, Materials, and their Use: The Stories of Never Washed, Perfect Piece and My Community Kate Fletcher 532

41 The Little Black Dress is the Solution, but what is the Problem? Daniel Miller 546

Part 9 Modern Fashion

Introduction 559

42 Adorned in Dreams: Introduction Elizabeth Wilson 565

43 Modernism and Fashion: A Social Psychological Interpretation Kurt W. Back 570

44 Public Roles/Personality in Public Richard Sennett 580

45 Walter Benjamin: Fashion, Modernity and the City Street Adam Geczy Vicki Karaminas 594

Part 10 Postmodern Fashion

Introduction 607

46 The Ideological Genesis of Needs/Fetishism and Ideology Jean Baudrillard 613

47 Fashion, or the Enchanting Spectacle of the Code Jean Baudrillard 624

48 A Tale of Inscription/Fashion Statements Kim Sawchuk 637

49 Deconstruction Fashion: The Making of Unfinished, Decomposing and Re-Assembled Clothes Alison Gill 651

Part 11 Digital/new media and fashion

Introduction 673

50 Narcissism, Femininity and Alienation Sandra Lee Bartky 677

51 Personal Fashion Blogsi Screens and Mirrors in Digital Self-Portraits Agnès Rocamora 692

52 Bringing Sexy Back: Reclaiming the Body Aesthetic Via Self-Shooting Katrin Tiidenberg 707

53 Mediatization and Digital Media in the Field of Fashion Agnès Rocamora 725

Part 12 Global and Transnational Fashion

Introduction 739

54 Globalization and Colonialism Malcolm Barnard 743

55 Extract From Global Fashion Local Tradition Jan Brand Jose Teunissen 757

56 Transnational Commodity Flows and the Global Phenomenon of the Brand Ian Skoggard 770

57 The Art of Dressing: Body, Gender, and Discourse on Fashion in Soviet Russia in the 1950s and 1960s Olga Gurova 782

58 Hong Kong Fashion Designers as Cultural Intermediaries: Out of Global Garment Production Lise Skov 796

Index 810

Editorial Reviews

"The clarity of Barnard's introduction, which sets out the complex agenda of his subject with an elegance that never simplifies, together with the judicious choice of extracts and articles, must surely make this collection the ideal Reader for students and scholars studying fashion from whatever perspective." – Elizabeth Wilson is currently Visiting Professor London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London.

"Fashion is about clothes, about time and about how the individual is linked to society; are they ‘with it’ or not? This collection brings together a range of views and ideas from very different perspectives about fashion in a way that will be of direct interest to students of design, cultural studies, sociology and the study of fashion itself. The book includes different styles of writing and approach, some of which are just now more fashionable than others, but all have been chosen for having something distinctive and important to say about fashion. The choice of articles will give any reader a broad overview of the theoretical and cultural significance of fashion in the twenty-first century. A ‘reader’ is something to dip into, to read different parts of at different times – in fact, if it is as well planned and put together as this one, it is a book that never goes out of fashion!

Malcolm Barnard’s ‘Fashion as Communication’ has become a standard text used on fashion courses all over the world, introducing difficult concepts and theories to students who are often most interested in designing, making and looking at things. His work on visual culture, design and fashion has made accessible to a wide audience key ideas from philosophy, sociology and social theory. Maclolm Barnard’s own writing in the introduction to ‘Fashion Theory’ is as engaging and clear as ever and he sets this collection of articles in a context that will be a continual point of reference for its readers." – Tim Dant, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of York.

From the Publisher