Books like Clothing Art by Aileen Ribeiro

A scholarly examination of modern fashion through a queer perspective, tracing the influence of gay designers and LGBTQ subcultures on style from the 18th century to today.

"In this book, Aileen Ribeiro surveys the clothing worn by the middle and upper classes throughout Europe in the eighteenth century and discusses what this meant in terms of social definition and identity. Ribeiro, one of the world's premier historians of dress, also looks at such subjects as developments in retailing and distribution, etiquette, the rise of the dress designer and couturier, the evolution of ready-made clothes, fancy dress and the masquerade. This new edition updates the text and bibliographical material in the previous highly acclaimed volume and adds many new, full-colour illustrations."--BOOK JACKET.

Aileen Ribeiro traces English and French fashion from 1750 to 1820 through portraiture, history painting, sculpture, drawings, caricatures and fashion plates, showing how dress mirrored social, political and cultural shifts in both countries.

"It is broadly recognized that black style had a clear and profound influence on the history of dress in the twentieth century, with black culture and fashion having long been defined as 'cool'. Yet despite this high profile, in-depth explorations of the culture and history of style and dress in the African diaspora are a relatively recent area of enquiry. The Birth of Cool asserts that 'cool' is seen as an arbiter of presence, and relates how both iconic and 'ordinary' black individuals and groups have marked out their lives through the styling of their bodies. Focusing on counter- and sub-cultural contexts, this book investigates the role of dress in the creation and assertion of black identity. From the gardenia corsage worn by Billie Holiday to the work-wear of female African-Jamaican market traders, through to the home-dressmaking of black Britons in the 1960s, and the meaning of a polo-neck jumper as depicted in a 1934 self-portrait by African-American artist Malvin Gray Johnson, this study looks at the ways in which the diaspora experience is expressed through self-image. Spanning the late nineteenth century to the modern day, the book draws on ready-made and homemade fashion, photographs, paintings and films, published and unpublished biographies and letters from Britain, Jamaica, South Africa, and the United States to consider how personal style statements reflect issues of racial and cultural difference. The Birth of Cool is a powerful exploration of how style and dress both initiate and confirm change, and the ways in which they expresses identity and resistance in black culture"--

Costume, portraiture and the presentation of the individual have been intimately linked throughout the history of art. While the face of the person portrayed is often still directly accessible to us, the details and significance of their dress can be less easy to comprehend. Lavishly illustrated throughout with paintings, drawings, photographs and other works of art, this beautiful publication is centred around 190 examples from the National Portrait Gallerys Collection. Through these, the authors explore the purpose and original context of the dress in which the sitter was recorded the damasks, satins, velvets and furs of Tudor and Stuart magnificence worn by Queen Elizabeth I and Charles I, but also the revolutionary simplicity of the cottons, linens and woollen cloth adopted by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Constable and John Clare. Packed with photographs that provide additional insights into the clothes worn by sitters in their portraits, and complemented by related material including fabric designs and jewellery, this authoritative guide looks in detail at one of the most fascinating aspects of many well-known images of the last 600 years.

An engaging guide to the enduring fashion staples of women's clothing history, featuring ten iconic pieces and their significance.

"Conceived as a fundraiser for the restoration of King Louis XIV's palace, the world's elite gathered in Versailles' grand theater to view a fashion extravaganza of the best that French and American designers had to offer, while being entertained by Liza Minnelli and Josephine Baker. What they saw would forever alter the history of fashion. At the Battle of Versailles five Americans--Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston, and Stephen Burrows--faced off against the five French designers considered the best in the world--Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan of Christian Dior. Against all odds, the American energy and the domination by their fearless models (ten of whom, in a ground-breaking move, were African-American) sent the audience reeling. By the end of the evening, the Americans had transformed their place on the world stage and sowed the seeds for changing the way race, gender, sexuality, and economics would be treated in fashion for decades to come. The in-fighting between ego-inflated designers, the unforeseen obstacles in staging the show on a shoestring, the triumphant win, the vastly different fates of the designers post-show--Robin Givhan's meticulous research brings the event alive and places it firmly in the history of fashion, offering an intimate examination of a single moment that teaches us how the culture of fashion as we now know it came to be"--

fig.12 The dramatic type - an expression of dignity and strength, sophistication and formality.