El. knyga: Fashion and Everyday Life: London and New York

Before the rise of Zara and H&M, people of modest means engaged with fashion. But how did they do it and what did it mean? Beautifully written and illustrated, this book provides new and engaging fashion cross-sections of two great cities, London and New York. How did Americans become the best dressed women in the world? What underpinned the rise of ready-to-wear in both London and New York? What role did fashion play in migration and assimilation? How does fashion relate to the everyday and how did it become the very essence of everyday life? Working, walking, shopping, church-going, dancing, wedding, clubbing and blogging these and a great many other topics are examined in a work of thoughtfulness and imagination. The book sets a new benchmark in the study of dressing as an everyday but also exceptional practice, within and for lives. -- Peter McNeil, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Historically rigorous, well-written and accessible, Fashion and Everyday Life is an essential text for anyone researching, working, or studying in the field of fashion or dress design and history. Tracing the way in which ordinary people interpreted high and low trends and fashions to express marginalized identities, the book will inspire practitioners and academic students alike. Bringing together accounts of the complexity of ordinary womens lives in the urban fashion capitals of London and New York during the twentieth century, this authoritative work explores the creative use of dress across the dividing lines of age, gender, race and social class. -- Juliet Ash, Royal College of Art, London, UK