This book provides a wide-ranging and original overview of fashion and dress from an historical and sociological perspective. Where once fashion was seen as marginal, it has now entered into core economic discourse focused around ideas about 'cultural' and 'creative' work as a major driver of developed economies. This work on fashion, dress and the body, and introduces contemporary issues and debates in the area. It picks up on recent debates on fashion from the perspective of decolonising the curriculum, diversity, queer studies, sustainability, the environment, and digital fashion. The book continues to show how an understanding of fashion and dress requires analysing the meanings and practices of the dressed body in culture. Moreover, its central premise that fashion is a 'situated practice' articulated through everyday dressed bodies has become established orthodoxy within fashion studies. The book gives a clear summary of the theories surrounding the role and function of fashion in modern society, and examines how fashion plays a crucial role in the formation of modern identity through its articulation of the body, gender and sexuality. In examining fashion in relation to the body, the book offers a much needed synthesis between the literature on fashion and dress, which has tended to ignore the body, and the sociology of the body, which has tended to marginalize fashion and dress. Entwistle shows how an understanding of fashion and dress requires an understanding of the meanings acquired by the body in culture - since it is the body that fashion speaks to and which is dressed in almost all social situations and encounters. While fashion refers to a specific system of dress originating in the west, all cultures 'dress' the body in the same way, making it a crucial feature of social order. The Fashioned Body will be an invaluable resource for students and academics interested in the social role of fashion and dress in modern culture and will also be of interest to students and researchers in the areas of consumption, cultural studies, gender studies and feminist theory.
Dr. Albert Simmons is a world-renowned cultural sociologist, sartorial historian, and the visionary mind behind Fashion, Dress, and Modern Social Theory. Dr. Simmons currently serves as the Chair of the Department of Sartorial Sociology at the prestigious, fictitious Institute for Advanced Cultural Studies in Zurich, Switzerland, where his research focuses on how garments reflect, reinforce, and subvert macroeconomic hierarchies. Dr. Simmons’s academic foundation is as rigorous as it is diverse, providing him with a unique, multi-layered perspective on the global garment industry and human behavior: Ph.D. in Cultural Sociology & Macro-Theory – The Sorbonne, Paris. His groundbreaking dissertation, The Fabric of Power: Semiotics of Dress in the Post-Industrial State, won the university's distinguished outstanding monograph prize. M.A. in Material Anthropology – Oxford University. Here, he focused heavily on the historical evolution of textiles as non-verbal communication systems across pre-industrial societies. B.A. in Art History and Economics (Double Major) – Yale University. This unique cross-disciplinary start allowed him to marry quantitative economic data with qualitative visual aesthetics. Before committing fully to academia, Dr. Simmons spent a decade working as a Senior Macro-Trend Consultant for major luxury conglomerates across Paris and Milan. Frustrated by the corporate world's shallow approach to consumer behavior, he transitioned into full-time research to answer a deeper question: Why do humans use dress to negotiate their place in modern civilization? He has spent the last twenty-five years conducting immersive ethnographic fieldwork, ranging from the haute couture ateliers of Tokyo to the fast-fashion textile factories of Southeast Asia.
| Preface Chapter 1. Fashion, Dress and the Social World Defining Fashion and Dress Dress as Social Practice Material Culture and Embodiment Fashion and the Construction of Identity Power, Status, and Symbolic Communication Modernity and the Rise of Fashion Methodologies in Fashion Studies Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Dress Chapter 2. Classical Social Theory and Dress Fashion in Early Sociological Thought Thorstein Veblen and Conspicuous Consumption Georg Simmel and the Sociology of Fashion Max Weber, Status, and Social Distinction Émile Durkheim and Collective Representation Dress, Ritual, and Social Cohesion Class Structure and Aesthetic Hierarchies Legacy of Classical Theory in Fashion Studies Chapter 3. Fashion, Modernity, and Urban Life Industrialization and Mass Production Urbanization and Changing Dress Practices The Department Store and Consumer Culture Fashion, Time, and Speed The Flâneur and Visual Spectacle Media, Advertising, and Fashion Imagery Modern Subjectivity and Appearance Fashion as a Marker of Modern Life Chapter 4. Power, Discipline and the Dressed Body The Body as a Social Construct Michel Foucault and Bodily Regulation Dress, Surveillance, and Normalization Uniforms, Professional Dress, and Authority Gendered Dress Codes and Control Fashion and Resistance Subcultures and Style Politics The Politics of Appearance |
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$280.00