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Description
Since the dawn of western fashion in the Middle Ages, women's dress has never stopped evolving, yet menswear has seen far fewer style revolutions. At the centre of the male wardrobe is the suit: relatively unchanged since the 17th century, its cut and cloth suggest athleticism, seriousness, sexuality and strength – qualities which contrasted with the perceived superficiality and frivolity of female dress, and eventually led to the adoption of the suit into the female wardrobe where it remains to this day.
In Sex and Suits brilliant essayist and art critic Anne Hollander charts the development of men's and women's fashion from their divergence in the medieval period to their convergence through to the late 20th century. Challenging the idea that the suit's success is merely down to its practicality, this trailblazing book argues that men have been fashion's true style-setters and that as women's fashion has taken on elements of men's style through tailoring, so men have reclaimed the embellishment and colour of past eras.
First published in 1994 to great acclaim, this classic text is as fresh and provocative as ever and remains a must-read for students, scholars and anyone fascinated by the history of fashion and gender.
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
Sex and the Modern Form
What Fashion Is
II. THE WORK OF FASHION
Fashion, Non-fashion and Anti-fashion
Meaning in Fashion
Form and Sexuality
Early Fashion History
Later Changes
Female Invention
III. THE GENESIS OF THE SUIT
The Great Divide
Reason and Fantasy
Sobriety and Simplicity
Antique Natural Nudity
Heroes in Wool
Neo-classic Erotics
Ready-made Men
The Once and Future Suit
IV. MODERNITY
Worth and His Effects
Reforming Women
Stays
Redesigning Women
Modern Transformations
Recent Revolutions
V. NOWADAYS
Informalities
Sexualities
Revelations
Anxieties
Perceptions
Select Bibliography
Index
Product details

Published | Aug 25 2016 |
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Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 176 |
ISBN | 9781474250627 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
Illustrations | 45 bw illus |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Anne Hollander's Sex and Suits was, and remains, a major contribution to the study of fashion.
Valerie Steele, Director of the Museum at FIT, New York, US
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Entrancing, vivacious…[a] dazzling, whirlwind account of Western costume.
John Updike, The New Yorker
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Anne Hollander, who died in 2014, was the Ernst Gombrich of fashion history … [This is] a confident survey of the field … Her text is full of provocations, in particular the idea that women's fashion has historically always lagged behind men's.
London Review of Books
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Hollander rides her theories like a surfer, and her wittiest prose retains the note of generosity that gives human curiosity its moral weight.
Diane Middlebrook, The Los Angeles Times
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To fully appreciate the suit's aesthetic and erotic success, Hollander treats us to an unfailingly insightful, creative and provocative history of modern fashion. She maintains a rich cultural context while pondering the interplay between sex and the imagination, idealized gender roles and clothing, fashion's unreliability and irony, and the crucial roles the printing press and camera have played in Western fashion's global dominance.
Donna Seaman, Booklist
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Hollander's clear, brisk style packs every paragraph with provocative ideas. What is the T-shirt but male underwear with an imprinted motto, a provisional tattoo?
Robert Taylor, Boston Globe

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