Dressed: A Philosophy of Clothes

by Shahidha Bari

Overview

Perfect for readers of Women in Clothes, this beautifully designed philosophical guide to fashion explores art, literature, and film to uncover the hidden meaning of a well-chosen wardrobe.

We all get dressed. But how often do we pause to think about what our clothes say? When we dress ourselves, we are presenting to the world an essence of who we are, who we want to be.

Dressed ranges freely from suits to suitcases, from Marx's coat to Madame X's gown. Through art and literature, film and philosophy, philosopher Shahidha Bari unveils the surprising personal implications of what we choose to wear. The impeccable cut of Cary Grant's suit projects masculine confidence, just as Madonna's oversized denim jacket and her armful of orange bangles loudly announces big ambition. How others dress tells us something fundamental about them — we can better understand how people live and what they think through their garments. Clothes tell our stories.

Dressed is the thinking person's fashion book. In baring the hidden power of clothes in our culture and our daily lives, Bari reveals how our outfits not only cover our bodies but also reflect our minds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541645981
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/17/2020
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	536,939
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 5.60(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Shahidha Bari is Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at the London College of Fashion and fellow of the Forum for European Philosophy at LSE. She was one of the first ever BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers, in 2011, and won the Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism in 2015.She lives in London.

Table of Contents

Prologue ix

Introduction 1

1 Dresses 23

2 Suits, Coats, and Jackets 81

3 Shoes 137

4 Furs, Feathers, and Skins 203

5 Pockets, Purses, and Suitcases 249

Epilogue 295

Acknowledgments 301

Further Sources 303

Notes 305

Illustration Credits 319

Index 321

Editorial Reviews

01/06/2020

Bari (Keats and Philosophy), a professor at the London College of Fashion, skillfully deconstructs the language of clothes in this philosophical examination of the items people wear. She observes that the “making and wearing of clothes is an art form” for some, including for Sylvia Plath, whose writing shows a keen awareness of “how a certain ensemble might be sympathetic to the certain person you imagined yourself to be.” Bari’s analysis is at times Freudian (“And who dares deny that the pliant foot mimics the penis when it enters that dark, contracted space of the shoe”?) and at others literary, as when she muses about the significance of the worn coat in Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat,” or of the white cropped mess jacket in P.G. Wodehouse’s novel Right Ho, Jeeves. Clothes in Hitchcock classics are also lovingly scrutinized (Cary Grant’s classic example of mid-20th-century executive-wear, a gray flannel suit, in North by Northwest, or the elegant outfits of Tippi Hedren’s socialite heroine in The Birds), as are the clothing shown in classic works of art (the elegant black gown in John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X) or on fashion catwalks, such as those of famed minimalist Yohji Yamamoto. Devoted fashion students will eagerly eat up every word of Bari’s well-researched and passionate work. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Shahidha Bari's investigation in to how we construct our selves, individually and collectively, is a sensual and intellectual pleasure from start to finish."—Deborah Levy, author of The Cost of Living and The Man Who Saw Everything

"Dressed is the finest philosophy of clothes since Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus in 1834. Bari's writing is limpidly clear, informed by a rich literary knowledge, theoretically and historically informed, sensuous and deeply textured, like a piece of luxurious fabric. It is also funny. But make no mistake: this is a work of philosophy. It just happens to be about clothes."—Simon Critchley, author of Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research


"Dressed is a feast of a book, a supreme example of the new kind of essay — exploratory, reflective, full of Shahidha Bari's personal energy and her wide knowledge."—Marina Warner, author of Forms of Enchantment and The Leto Bundle


"Clever, subtle... Although [Bari's] writing is critically informed — Foucault, Deleuze, Cixous and Irigaray all rock up here to chat about schmutter — her tone is insistently personal, intimate."—Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian

"Irresistible... I put Dressed down having been dazzled by Bari's learning and insights... In the end, Dressed is an argument for taking apparently frivolous things seriously."—Lucy Moore, The Literary Review

"Bari (Keats and Philosophy), a professor at the London College of Fashion, skillfully deconstructs the language of clothes in this philosophical examination of the items people wear...Devoted fashion students will eagerly eat up every word of Bari's well-researched and passionate work."—Publishers Weekly

"Entertaining and wide-ranging... In the prologue and introduction alone, Ms. Bari segues from the cheongsams worn by the lead actress in the Hong Kong film "In the Mood for Love" to van Gogh's paintings of his battered shoes to Madonna's jackets... Throughout Dressed are sharp-eyed observations, suitable for reading aloud, and astute analyses of art high and low.... A turbocharged and delightful romp."—Wall Street Journal

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