San Antonio College Library

"While fashions of the rich and famous have been endlessly chronicled, little attention has been paid to the meaning of clothes for everyone else. Yet between 1890 and the outbreak of World War II, as ready-to-wear came into its own, the clothes of ordinary Americans claimed the nation's attention and dominated public discussion. Newly allied with civic virtue, fashion played an increasingly important role in shaping the national character." "Jenna...

"A contemporary look at both traditional clothing and street styles from 38 countries around the world and the influence these two very different kinds of dress are having on fashion and designers today. Traditional dress from around the globe inspired the early designs of people like Coco Chanel and Christian Dior. Culture to Catwalk looks back at the roots of the industry, the backlash against brash consumerism, globalisation and 'fast-fashion'...

Tracing the evolution of each fashion item from inception to icon status, Smith reveals the history and social significance of each, from the black dress's associations with danger and death to the status implications of the classic white shirt.

"Situating an empirical case study within a wider consideration of postmodernism and cultural change, the author rejects cultural studies perspectives that attempt to 'read' subcultures as texts. Drawing on extensive interviews with people who dress in what might be deemed a stylistically unconventional manner, he seeks instead to establish whether contemporary subcultures display modern or postmodern sensibilities and forms. He argues persuasively...

Somewhere along the line clothing met fashion, and neither has been the same since. In this program, historian Valerie Steele, of the Fashion Institute of Technology, and other experts interpret the history of humankind, from the ancients to the moderns, through the intriguing context of costume. Topics include the origins of clothing; symbolism associated with clothing, such as gender and status; sexist aspects of fashion, from corsets to miniskirts;...

"An exploration of the questions we ask ourselves while getting dressed every day, and the answers from more than six hundred women"--Back cover.

"It has long been said that clothes make the man (or woman), but is it still true today? If so, how has the information clothes convey changed over the years? Using a wide range of historical and contemporary materials, Diana Crane demonstrates how the social significance of clothing has been transformed. Crane compares nineteenth-century societies-France and the United States-where social class was the most salient aspect of social identity signified...

Glamour is one of the most tantalizing and bewitching aspects of contemporary culture--but also one of the most elusive. The aura of celebrity, the style of the fashion world, the vanity of the rich and beautiful, and the publicity-driven rites of café society are all imbued with magnetism. But what exactly is glamour? Where does it come from? And can anyone quite capture its magic? From eighteenth-century Paris to Hollywood, New York, and Monte...