Christopher Breward – författare

This illustrated survey of 600 years of fashion investigates its cultural and social meanings from medieval Europe to 20th-century America. It provides a guide to the changes in style and taste, and challenges existing fashion histories, showing that clothes have always played a pivotal role in defining a sense of identity and society, especially when concerned with sexual and body politics. With a chronological structure, each chapter focuses on both male and female fashion of a specific period, covering its fascinating developments. It discusses: androgynous dressing; body piercing; fabrics, clothing and the rise of city life; dress, and the changing shape of the human body; controversies surrounding trousers and leg wear for both men and women; exposure of flesh; fashion and social status; and the dissemination of fashion through travel, film, magazines and catwalk shows.

The Independent Group is now the subject of global scholarly interest, and this book, a sequel to The Independent Group: Modernism and mass culture in Britain, 1945–59, explores the Anglo-American phenomenon from a new perspective. The Group included fine artists Magda Cordell, Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull; architects Alison and Peter Smithson, James Stirling and Colin St John Wilson; graphic designer Edward Wright; music producer Frank Cordell; and writers Lawrence Alloway, Reyner Banham, John McHale and Toni del Renzio. This radical collective met at the ICA in London during the early 1950s, and worked with and within the new world of both the avant-garde and popular culture. This sequel includes an in-depth discussion of the recent historiography of the Independent Group, and examines its history from an alternative perspective – that of popular culture. The themes of domestic space, Hollywood film, fashion, mass-circulation magazines, science-fiction and popular music are explored, broadening our general understanding.

Volume II surveys the history of fashion from the nineteenth-century to the present day. Covering the period beginning with mass industry and ending with calls for sustainability, this volume challenges the meaning of modernity and modernism from a global perspective and reflects on important scholarship that has changed our understanding of the relationship between fashion and colonialism. Empires shifted and new powers rose, with fashion marking and contending with this change. The volume concludes with a critical view of fashion and globalisation, and explores the deep connections between the fashion industry, the global economy, and the politics of production and wearing in the contemporary world.

Volume I surveys the long history of fashion from the ancient world to c. 1800. The volume seeks to answer fundamental questions on the origins of fashion, challenging Eurocentric explanations that the emergence of fashion was a European phenomenon and shows instead that fashion found early expressions across the globe well before the age of European colonialism and imperialism. It sheds light on how fashion was experienced in a multitude of ways depending on class, gender, and race, and despite geographical distance, fashion connected populations across the globe. Fashions flowered and were reseeded, through entanglements of empire, forced and voluntary migration, evolving racial systems, burgeoning sea travel and transcontinental systems.

Over the past three centuries, London has established itself as one of the world’s most inventive fashion capitals. Drawing on a range of sources, including paintings, street photography, maps, tourist guides, literature, and stage and press representations, Fashioning London paints a vivid and definitive portrait of London's iconoclastic style.Explore how particular styles of dress became emblematic of this leading international city, ultimately challenging the fashion dominance of Paris, Milan, and New York. Christopher Breward constructs an original history of clothing in London, through its manufacture, promotion, and cultural significance, while examining how issues of space, architecture and performance impinge on notions of fashionability.You will come away from this text understanding that although city life and fashion have always been intertwined, nowhere has this relationship been more excitingly expressed than on the streets of London.

The Suit unpicks the story of this most familiar garment, from its emergence in western Europe at the end of the seventeenth century to today. Suit-wearing figures such as the Savile Row gentleman and the Wall Street businessman have long embodied ideas of tradition, masculinity, power and respectability, but the suit has also been used to disrupt concepts of gender and conformity. Adopted and subverted by women, artists, musicians and social revolutionaries through the decades – from dandies and Sapeurs to the Zoot Suit and Le Smoking – the suit is also a device for challenging the status quo.For all those interested in the history of menswear, this beautifully illustrated book offers new perspectives on this most mundane, and poetic, product of modern culture.

The Suit unpicks the story of this most familiar garment, from its emergence in western Europe at the end of the seventeenth century to today. Suit-wearing figures such as the Savile Row gentleman and the Wall Street businessman have long embodied ideas of tradition, masculinity, power and respectability, but the suit has also been used to disrupt concepts of gender and conformity. Adopted and subverted by women, artists, musicians and social revolutionaries through the decades – from dandies and Sapeurs to the Zoot Suit and Le Smoking – the suit is also a device for challenging the status quo.For all those interested in the history of menswear, this beautifully illustrated book offers new perspectives on this most mundane, and poetic, product of modern culture.

If fashion is an expression of individuality, why do we all dress alike? Can modernity be described as the experience of 'feeling modern' and, if so, what part does fashion play? Answering these intriguing questions and many more, this pioneering book shows how the concepts of fashion and modernity are intimately linked. It argues that capitalism and identity construction as social processes both have symbiotic relationships with the fashion system. Technology, the body, nationality and gender are informed and shaped by modernity, and vice versa. Drawing on key modernist texts as well as fashion theory and practice, this book seeks broadly to cover the history of fashion and modernity, a topic that has been surprisingly overlooked. Tackling themes including court masques in seventeenth-century London, Paris couturiers and forensic laboratories in twentieth-century Washington, the authors show how fashion throughout history has been a cornerstone in the construction of a modern self.

If fashion is an expression of individuality, why do we all dress alike? Can modernity be described as the experience of 'feeling modern' and, if so, what part does fashion play? Answering these intriguing questions and many more, this pioneering book shows how the concepts of fashion and modernity are intimately linked. It argues that capitalism and identity construction as social processes both have symbiotic relationships with the fashion system. Technology, the body, nationality and gender are informed and shaped by modernity, and vice versa. Drawing on key modernist texts as well as fashion theory and practice, this book seeks broadly to cover the history of fashion and modernity, a topic that has been surprisingly overlooked. Tackling themes including court masques in seventeenth-century London, Paris couturiers and forensic laboratories in twentieth-century Washington, the authors show how fashion throughout history has been a cornerstone in the construction of a modern self.

New York, Paris, London, Milan, Tokyo. This familiar list of cities conjures up the image of high fashion. This book examines the powerful relationship between metropolitan modernity and fashion culture. The authors look at the significance of certain key sites in fashion's world order and at transformations in the connections between key cities. The status of fashion capital has now become a goal for urban boosters and planners, part of the wider promotion of the 'cultural economy' of major cities. In a rapidly changing global fashion system, new centres like Shanghai are making claims to join the ranks of Fashion's World Cities. In chapters ranging from Los Angeles to Moscow and Dakar to Mumbai, Fashion's World Cities explores the relationship between major metropolises and the production, consumption and mythologizing of fashion.

New York, Paris, London, Milan, Tokyo. This familiar list of cities conjures up the image of high fashion. This book examines the powerful relationship between metropolitan modernity and fashion culture. The authors look at the significance of certain key sites in fashion's world order and at transformations in the connections between key cities. The status of fashion capital has now become a goal for urban boosters and planners, part of the wider promotion of the 'cultural economy' of major cities. In a rapidly changing global fashion system, new centres like Shanghai are making claims to join the ranks of Fashion's World Cities. In chapters ranging from Los Angeles to Moscow and Dakar to Mumbai, Fashion's World Cities explores the relationship between major metropolises and the production, consumption and mythologizing of fashion.

This book examines the way that objects 'speak' to us through the memories that we associate with them. Instead of viewing the meaning of particular designs as fixed and given, by looking at the process of evocation it finds an open and continuing dialogue between things, their makers and their consumers. This is not, however, to diminish the role of design in shapinghuman consciousness. The contributors do not view objects as blank carriers onto which humans project prior psychic dramas, but rather, place crucial importance on the precise materials from which they are made, their social, economic and historic reasons for being, and the way that we interact with them through our senses. This book therefore studies the physical withinthe intellectual, directly testing the concept of material culture. With telling illustrations, and spanning the Renaissance to the present day, leading scholars converge across disciplines to explore the souvenir-value of jewellery, textiles, the home, the urban space, modernist design, photography, the museum and even the sunken wreck.Together they show howthe sense of the past and of history, far from being a 'radical illusion' as some post-modernists claim, has been a deeply felt reality.

This book examines the way that objects 'speak' to us through the memories that we associate with them. Instead of viewing the meaning of particular designs as fixed and given, by looking at the process of evocation it finds an open and continuing dialogue between things, their makers and their consumers. This is not, however, to diminish the role of design in shapinghuman consciousness. The contributors do not view objects as blank carriers onto which humans project prior psychic dramas, but rather, place crucial importance on the precise materials from which they are made, their social, economic and historic reasons for being, and the way that we interact with them through our senses. This book therefore studies the physical withinthe intellectual, directly testing the concept of material culture. With telling illustrations, and spanning the Renaissance to the present day, leading scholars converge across disciplines to explore the souvenir-value of jewellery, textiles, the home, the urban space, modernist design, photography, the museum and even the sunken wreck.Together they show howthe sense of the past and of history, far from being a 'radical illusion' as some post-modernists claim, has been a deeply felt reality.

Is there a peculiarly English 'look' and if so how does one define it? From the 'traditional' dress of the Victorian rural working class through to the contemporary collections of Vivienne Westwood and a younger generation of London-based designers, notions of Englishness, either real or imagined, have always been at play in considerations of English fashion and clothing. This provocative book explores how far these fraught ideals can be applied to the dress of the past and present. English expressions of taste and creativity have had a profound influence on style over the last three centuries, and the pursuit and subversion of an English 'look' have shaped conceptions of fashionability from the pastoralism of the eighteenth-century through to the eras of Twiggy, Punk and beyond. But are these simply stereotypical characterizations that relate to an imagined 'Englishness', or is there some concrete basis for them? If the former, what has led to their development? If the latter, what definitions can be employed to unravel such complicated conceptions of national identity?What role has social decorum played in developing an 'English' style, and is this preoccupation with etiquette in fact unique to England ? With chapters authored by leading scholars in the fields of costume history, social history and cultural studies, this is the first book to examine the ways in which fashion and dress might be considered in the context of national identities as they apply in England. Presenting an overview of how particular designers and consumer groups have striven to present or contest versions of Englishness through clothing from the 18th through to the 21st centuries, it will fascinate anyone interested in dress history, national and ethnic identity or English cultural history.

Is there a peculiarly English 'look' and if so how does one define it? From the 'traditional' dress of the Victorian rural working class through to the contemporary collections of Vivienne Westwood and a younger generation of London-based designers, notions of Englishness, either real or imagined, have always been at play in considerations of English fashion and clothing. This provocative book explores how far these fraught ideals can be applied to the dress of the past and present. English expressions of taste and creativity have had a profound influence on style over the last three centuries, and the pursuit and subversion of an English 'look' have shaped conceptions of fashionability from the pastoralism of the eighteenth-century through to the eras of Twiggy, Punk and beyond. But are these simply stereotypical characterizations that relate to an imagined 'Englishness', or is there some concrete basis for them? If the former, what has led to their development? If the latter, what definitions can be employed to unravel such complicated conceptions of national identity?What role has social decorum played in developing an 'English' style, and is this preoccupation with etiquette in fact unique to England ? With chapters authored by leading scholars in the fields of costume history, social history and cultural studies, this is the first book to examine the ways in which fashion and dress might be considered in the context of national identities as they apply in England. Presenting an overview of how particular designers and consumer groups have striven to present or contest versions of Englishness through clothing from the 18th through to the 21st centuries, it will fascinate anyone interested in dress history, national and ethnic identity or English cultural history.

Over the past three centuries, London has established itself as one of the worlds most inventive fashion capitals. City life and fashion have always been intertwined, but nowhere has this relationship been more excitingly expressed than on the streets of London. Fashioning London looks at the manner in which particular styles of dress became associated with this leading international city, ultimately challenging the dominance of Paris, Milan and New York.From the ballrooms and boxing rings of the eighteenth century, through Victorian extremes of poverty and conspicuous consumption, to the flamboyant explosions of subcultural taste that define the capital today, Londoners have constantly offered an idiosyncratic reading of fashionability that has profoundly influenced the nature of style elsewhere. Breward constructs an original history of clothing in London its manufacture, promotion and cultural meaning while showing how issues of space, architecture and performance impinge on notions of fashionability.It highlights the importance of such outfits as the dandy's suit, the dolly bird's mini-skirt and the second-hand ensemble of the punk in forming our understanding of the capital's distinctive character. Drawing on a range of sources, including paintings, street photography, maps, tourist guides, literature, stage and press representations, Fashioning London paints a vivid and definitive portrait of Londons iconoclastic style.

Over the past three centuries, London has established itself as one of the worlds most inventive fashion capitals. City life and fashion have always been intertwined, but nowhere has this relationship been more excitingly expressed than on the streets of London. Fashioning London looks at the manner in which particular styles of dress became associated with this leading international city, ultimately challenging the dominance of Paris, Milan and New York.From the ballrooms and boxing rings of the eighteenth century, through Victorian extremes of poverty and conspicuous consumption, to the flamboyant explosions of subcultural taste that define the capital today, Londoners have constantly offered an idiosyncratic reading of fashionability that has profoundly influenced the nature of style elsewhere. Breward constructs an original history of clothing in London its manufacture, promotion and cultural meaning while showing how issues of space, architecture and performance impinge on notions of fashionability.It highlights the importance of such outfits as the dandy's suit, the dolly bird's mini-skirt and the second-hand ensemble of the punk in forming our understanding of the capital's distinctive character. Drawing on a range of sources, including paintings, street photography, maps, tourist guides, literature, stage and press representations, Fashioning London paints a vivid and definitive portrait of Londons iconoclastic style.

In eighteenth-century Britain, greater numbers of people entered the marketplace and bought objects in ever-greater quantities. As consumers rather than producers, how did their understandings of manufacturing processes and the material world change? Material goods and moving hands combines material culture and visual culture approaches to explore the different ways in which manufacturers and retailers presented production to consumers during the eighteenth century. It shows how new relationships with production processes encouraged consumers, retailers, designers, manufacturers and workers to develop conflicting understandings of production. Objects then were not just markers of fashion and taste, they acted as important conduits through which people living in Georgian Britain could examine and discuss their material world and the processes and knowledge that rendered it.

Split across two volumes, The Cambridge Global History of Fashion provides timely critical analyses of key topics and themes in the history of fashion, dress, and clothing. It foregrounds the trajectories of material and aesthetic transformation, as well as the thematic commonalities across time and space. Featuring over forty essays from experts across the field, the volumes unveil new perspectives on cultural, social, and economic change, and how these changes were expressed through fashion practice. The first volume presents a tight but comprehensive assessment of fashion from antiquity, through the early modern global era to c. 1800, engaging with colonial and imperial themes, as well as race and gender. The second volume advances the critique of 'modernity' from the nineteenth century through the twenty-first century, providing analyses of the impact globalisation had on contemporary dress. This global perspective stands as a landmark work in the history of fashion.