Timely contribution to the field and [a] valuable addition to the complicated puzzle that is the deconstruction of European fashion history's historiographical mythologies.

Journal of Design History

This carefully researched and illustrated book offers a vibrant cultural history of French ready-to-wear, and of the ways its organization, promotion and representation are intimately connected to conceptions of identity, femininity and modernity.

Agnès Rocamora, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK

This important book responds with both clarity and finesse to a lack of in-depth studies of a key period in the history of fashion: the post-war era, when everything had to be reinvented; and during which the rise of Prêt à Porter and its creative proliferation in the 1960s mirrored the upheavals taking place within society.

Géraldine-Julie Sommier, Chloé Archive director, Paris, France

Prêt-à-Porter, Paris and Women offers a compelling narrative of national reconstruction and gender identity in the ready-to-wear clothing industry of post-World War II France. Alexis Romano skillfully unpacks the relationship between fashion photography, women's magazines and the city of Paris, and by interpreting fashion's representations through the lens of political theory the author also makes an important contribution to methodology.

Francesca Berry, University of Birmingham, UK

An important work that should be an essential point of reference for anyone who is interested in the relationship between haute couture and ready-to-wear, or in developments in fashion photography and promotion in the crucial period 1945–1968.

Costume