A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries: From Catwalk to Sidewalk, Second Edition PDF by Bonnie English

Contents

Preface
Yes, it is bigger and better! This book now encompasses a broad overview of 150 years of fashion and provides an excellent foundation for students of all ages. Being adopted as a textbook by the world’s leading fashion schools and institutions, this version adds a detailed and up-to-date look at fashion over the past ten years.

The four new chapters and additions of A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries: From the Catwalk to the Sidewalk look closely at the key issues facing fashion designers and the fashion industry globally since the turn of the second millennium. It provides a comprehensive overview of changes that have resulted from sociopolitical upheavals, economic downturns and a growing social consciousness of the role that industry plays in the world around us. It considers the impact of ecofashion, e-commerce, social networking and the emerging Asian markets upon business sustainability and enterprise. It reinforces the words of Coco Chanel: ‘A fashion that does not reach the streets is not a fashion.’ I hope you will enjoy this updated version.

Introduction
The history of fashion has a thousand stories to tell—stories built on myths and fairy tales; descriptive portraits of heroic men and gracious ladies; social histories locked in time. Fanciful images abound with glass slippers, cloaks shot through with threads of gold and silver, gossamer veils and pussycat bows. While fashion trends can be amusing, and seemingly light-hearted, throughout history fashion has also been forced to bow to imposing political, social and economic change. Stylistic change in both fashion and art multiplied at an ever-increasing pace, especially in the twentieth century, and the observer must seriously consider how fashion has been, and continues to be, embedded in the cultural fabric of society.

A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries discusses how fashion refl ects the essence of its society, how it can be moulded by many forces, such as art, music, politics, or advertising media. We can step back in history or step forward into the future by merely changing what we wear. We broadcast our views about our society, its politics, its environmental concerns or its social issues through dress.

The more we learn about the history of fashion, the more we realize the nature of its complexity. ‘Fashion makes the world go round’—a hackneyed cliché but, perhaps, quite true in both commercial and cultural terms. The intercontextual relationships that exist among designer fashions, popular culture, big business, high-tech production and the multimedia world of television promotion, Web site sales and electronic journalistic publications will be discussed and analysed in this study of twentiethcentury fashion. While this book can only touch upon fashion’s interdisciplinary character, it will highlight similarities that it has shared with other visual arts practice over the last 150 years. This book will attempt to unravel the com-plications and contradictions behind stylistic changes in order to chart the cultural history of modern fashion. The recognition of fashion design as a justifi able part of culture has been illustrated in recent years by the rise of the celebrity designer, the increased number of blockbuster fashion exhibitions held in key international museums and the proliferation of academic fashion texts published which underline the interdisciplinary connections between the applied arts, design, fi ne art, fi lm and the fashion industry.

By providing a sociohistorical review of major trends that have emerged since the late nineteenth century, A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries: From the Catwalk to the Sidewalk will consider the signifi cant role that both haute couture and prêt-à-porter designers have played in the interpretation of the fashions of their day.