Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion Vol-1 (A-E)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE
The Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion is the product of a new, multidisciplinary field of inquiry and an extraordinary international collaboration. The emerging field of fashion studies, sometimes known as the “new” fashion history, differs significantly from traditional dress history, which tended to focus on the stylistic analysis of elite fashions. By contrast, contemporary fashion studies asks new questions, approaches a much wider range of topics, and draws on the expertise of scholars across the disciplines. Whereas traditional fashion reference books tend to be limited to an alphabetical survey of individual designers, this encyclopedia seeks to provide critical insights into the history and contemporary experience of clothing and fashion. By identifying the world’s preeminent authorities, and by approaching the subject with a global focus and an interdisciplinary perspective, the editorial board of The Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion aims to provide the interested reader with an authoritative introduction to the wide range of issues that define the field. These issues include Eurocentrism vs. multiculturalism; gender and sexual identity; the relationship between fashion and other cultural manifestations, such as music; theories of fashion; clothing and material culture; and the fashion system, encompassing the design, manufacture, marketing, and representation of fashion. The editors of the encyclopedia, whose expertise spans a wide range of disciplines, subject matter, and geographical areas, have enlisted over 325 authors in an international survey of clothing, fashion, and related subjects from prehistoric times to the present. The Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion contains 640 essays ranging from specific topics such as “African Textiles” and “Zoot Suit” to conceptual articles such as “Globalization” and “Music and Fashion,” the latter cross-referenced to related entries such as “Hip-Hop Fashion.” Naturally, we have tried to include all of the topics that readers would expect to find, including essays on specific fashion designers: Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, Yves St. Laurent, and dozens more. But these essays are neither hagiographies of great “artists” nor potted biographies of successful businesspeople. Of the hundreds of possible candidates for inclusion, we have concentrated on those who made a lasting contribution to the arts of fashion and to fashion culture; each designer’s work is not only described in detail but also analyzed with reference to its social and cultural context. Readers interested in, say, Dior can also find related essays on topics such as the “New Look” and “Paris Fashion.” Of course, fashion is a part of most people’s lives, not only because they wear clothes, but also because they constantly consume images of fashion. This encyclopedia addresses the subject of fashion across the media, with essays on “Fashion Photography” (and on individual photographers such as Richard Avedon, Guy Bourdin, and Helmut Newton), “Caricature and Fashion,” and “Film and Fashion.” The encyclopedia also includes unexpected topics, such as “Cross-dressing,” “Footbinding,” and “Supermodels.” There is even an essay on “The Future of Fashion.” Because the production and marketing of textiles, clothing, and accessories is an integral part of the fashion system, the encyclopedia includes a wide range of essays on such topics as “Techno-textiles,” “Sweatshops,” “Fashion Magazines,” and “Department Stores.”

Typically, fashion refers to the phenomenon of a regular pattern of change in the prevailing mode of dress. Thus, for example, it could be said that miniskirts were in fashion during the 1960s. Most writers assumed that there existed a vast difference between modern Western fashion and traditional non-Western “costume.” (For detailed analyses of “fashion” and other closely related terms, and a discussion of the important distinctions among them, please refer to the individual essays on “Fashion” and on “Clothing, Costume, and Dress.”) Traditionally, most publications on fashion have focused almost exclusively on couture or designer fashions worn by elite Western women during the past 200 years. The clothing, adornment, and bodily practices of men, subcultural groups, working-class people, and non-Western and/or premodern peoples tended to be regarded as existing outside the realm of fashion; such topics were treated by scholars, if at all, as subfields of sociology, anthropology, folk arts, or decorative arts. This encyclopedia takes a very different approach. There are, for example, numerous entries on the clothing fashions of different historical periods and geographical areas. Fashion, in these pages, is not treated solely as a phenomenon of the modern Western world; full recognition is given to such fashion-oriented cultures as Tang dynasty China and Heian period Japan. (See, for example, the entries on “China, History of Dress,” “Japanese Traditional Dress and Adornment,” and “Japanese Fashion.”) Survey essays in those fields are complemented by more specific topical entries (“Kimono”; “Qipao”), just as Phyllis Tortora’s magisterial survey of “Europe and America, History of Dress (400–1900 C.E.)” sets the stage for numerous topical entries for the world of Western dress. And as Parminder Bhachu’s essay on “Salwar-Kameez” demonstrates, the categories of “Western” and “non-Western,” like those of “traditional” and “modern” dress, are highly permeable; similarly, disciplinary boundaries between history, sociology, anthropology, material culture, and other academic fields are transcended in the new field of fashion studies. It has been our explicit aim in this encyclopedia to create a work that is historical, cross-cultural, and multicultural in approach, and that will facilitate dichronic and comparative research.