Dress is one of the most significant markers of gender identity, yet is only rarely explored in depth. This volume addresses the relationship between gender and dress, opening up fascinating aspects by covering a great variety of ethnographic areas reaching from Asia, Europe and Africa to North and South America. The time span is equally wide-ranging and offers present-day material as well as studies based on historical data.

From African-American women's headwraps to beauty pageants in Swaziland, this absorbing book explores ethnicity through the frequently noticed but less often analyzed human phenomenon of dress. The authors -- ethnographers, folklorists, and textile scholars -- present case studies from around the world to illustrate their different theoretical frameworks and assumptions. In considering how the body is modified and supplemented they discuss not only garments and accessories but also hairstyles and cosmetics.

It is easy to view fashion as an entirely modern concept. Costume historians, in fact, trace the birth of fashion back to the thirteenth century and writings on fashion date back as early as the sixteenth century. This classic fashion writing has profoundly shaped our understanding of modern day dress--from the psychology of clothes to collective fashion trends. Its impact, however, has not previously been recognized.

Fashion Foundations fills this major gap in the history of the discipline. This key text reprints a collection of pioneering fashion statements. Vital yet...

Beads have been used since antiquity, not only to dress the body, but as measures of value in economic and ritual exchanges. Their popularity has never waned, and in recent years their trade has enjoyed a world-wide revival. Beads have deep and multiple meanings: in many cultures, together with garments, they reflect age, gender and social status, and are a vehicle through which people store, exchange and transmit wealth.

This absorbing book analyzes techniques and gendered aspects of the making of beads, as well as their role in trade and body adornment, in a wide range of...

The kimono is an iconic garment with a history as rich and colourful as the textiles from which it is crafted. Deeply associated with Japanese culture both past and present, it has often been thought of as a highly gendered, rigidly traditional and unchanging national costume. This book challenges that perception, revealing the nuanced meanings and messages behind the kimono from the point of view of its wearers and producers, many of whom both men and women see the garment as a vehicle for self-expression.

Taking a material culture approach, The Social Life of Kimono is the...

Street style blogging has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity over the last decade. Amateur photographers, often with no formal training in fashion, have become critical arbiters of taste and trends, influencing the representations that appear in magazines and on runways, and putting new cities on the fashion world map. This cutting-edge book documents the evolution of street style photography, from the fieldwork photos of early anthropology to the glamorized snapshots that appear on blogs today, and explores the structural shifts in the global fashion industry that street style has...

Mere clothing is transformed into desirable fashion by the way it is represented in imagery. Fashion's Double examines how meanings are projected onto garments through their representation, whether in painting, photography, cinema or online fashion film, conveying identity and status, eliciting fascination and desire.

With in-depth case studies including the work of Nick Knight and Helmut Newton, film examples such as The Hunger Games, music video Girl Panic by Duran Duran, and much more, this book analyses the interrelationship between clothing, identity,...

Mere clothing is transformed into desirable fashion by the way it is represented in imagery. Fashion's Double examines how meanings are projected onto garments through their representation, whether in painting, photography, cinema or online fashion film, conveying identity and status, eliciting fascination and desire.

With in-depth case studies including the work of Nick Knight and Helmut Newton, film examples such as The Hunger Games, music video Girl Panic by Duran Duran, and much more, this book analyses the interrelationship between clothing, identity,...