1st Edition
The Fashion History Reader Global Perspectives
'Riello and McNeil's new collection of essays represents an immense and impressive project' – Choice
'Now, the key contributions from nearly every expert in the field are assembled in one fascinating book. This kaleidoscopic and informative volume ranges impressively across conventional boundaries of chronology, geography, and discipline.' – Glenn Adamson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
'This book is indispensable for anyone interested in fashion. History has never been more alive than in the pages of this Reader.' – Patrizia Calefato, University of Bari, Italy
The Fashion History Reader is an innovative work that provides a broad introduction to the complex literature in the fields of fashion studies, and dress and fashion history. Twenty-three chapters and over forty shorter ‘Snapshot’ texts cover a wide range of topics and approaches within the history of fashion, ranging from object-based studies to theory-driven analyses. The book is divided into six parts, surveying some of the key themes in the history of fashion. Themes also move in and across time, providing a chronology to enable student learning:
- parts one to three cover the fifteenth to the eighteenth-century
- parts four and five cover the nineteenth-century to the contemporary (with particular attention given to non-European countries)
- part six provides a survey of the global setting and current globalized nature of fashion.
A comprehensive introduction by the editors contextualizes debates for students, synthesising past history and bringing them up-to-date through a discussion of globalization. Each section also includes a short, accessible introduction by the editors, placing each chapter within the wider, thematic treatment of fashion and its history, and an 'Annotated Guide to Further Reading' encourages students to enhance their learning independently.
The Fashion History Reader was awarded a prize for 'Best Edited Book' at the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand: Art Historians of Australasia, Annual General Meeting, December 2011.
List of Figures. List of Snapshot Illustrations. Acknowledgments. Preface. Introduction: The History of Fashion Reader: Global Perspectives Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil Part 1: Fashion’s ‘Origins’: The Middle Ages and Renaissance, Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil Part 2: Fashion and Social Order: The Early Modern World Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello Part 3: The Fashion Revolution: The Long Eighteenth-Century Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil Part 4: Between Luxury and Leisure: The Nineteenth-Century Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello Part 5: Westernisation and Colonialism: The Age of Empires Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil Part 6: Modern to Hyper/Ultramodern: The Twentieth-Century Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello
Biography
Giorgio Riello is Associate Professor in Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick. He has written extensively on early modern textiles, dress and fashion, and material culture in Europe and Asia. He is the author of A Foot in the Past: Consumers, Producers and Footwear in the Long Eighteenth Century (2006) and has co-edited four volumes including (with Peter McNeil), Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers (2006). Giorgio is currently writing a monograph entitled Global Cotton: Asia and the Making of Europe, 1200-1850
Peter McNeil is Professor of Design History at the University of Technology Sydney and Professor of Fashion Studies at Stockholm University. His anthology Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers (with co-editor Dr G Riello) has been acclaimed by The Observer as ‘an exceptionally beautiful and wide-ranging history of footwear.' His recent publications include Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources from the Renaissance to Today (4 volumes) and the co-edited The Men’s Fashion Reader and Fashion in Fiction.
'Now, the key contributions from nearly every expert in the field are assembled in one fascinating book. This kaleidoscopic and informative volume ranges impressively across conventional boundaries of chronology, geography, and discipline.' – Glenn Adamson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
'Breaking down barriers, in this book you will discover how fashion has always been a global phenomenon.' – Margaretha van den Bosch, Head of Design at H&M
'This book is indispensable for anyone interested in fashion. History has never been more alive than in the pages of this Reader.' – Patrizia Calefato, University of Bari, Italy
‘This new Reader is innovative in that it introduces a perhaps somewhat neglected area of study in the increasing number of books being published on fashion; it provides a scholarly investigation into fashion history and situates it in both temporal and spatial contexts.’ – Shaun Cole, London College of Fashion
‘This is an excellent volume which thoroughly earns its place both in the increasing library of fashion-related readers published over recent years and as a work which opens up the debate on fashion history. I would thoroughly recommend it to students, accomplished scholars and any readers interested in the continuing history of fashion.’ – Shaun Cole, London College of Fashion
'..Riello and McNeil prompt readers to rethink the way in which fashion can be understood - through the intersections of history and global culture. Indeed, this goal reflects a contemporary concern shared by fashion scholars and postgraduate students working within the field of Fashion Studies to extend empirical research to include and to develop theoretical models that can account for fashions that have their origins outside of Europe. As a result, whilst charting and exploring fashion history, the Fashion History Reader stands as a historical object in and of itself. That is, the book makes a timely contribution to the scholarly discussion around defining, reflecting upon and expanding the concerns of the field of Fashion Studies.' Rachel Lifter, Textile History
