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Fashion Theory

An Introduction

By Malcolm Barnard

To Be Published January 31st 2014 by Routledge – 192 pages

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  • Paperback: $44.95
    978-0-415-49621-6
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    978-0-415-49620-9
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Description

Books that explain and analyse the nature, production and consumption of fashion are very fashionable at present. Fashion is explained in terms of the body, or fetish, or gender or culture. Slightly less fashionable, it seems, are introductory books on the theories of fashion. All explanations and analyses of fashion presupposed at least one theory (of gender, or class, for example) and all apply some theory to the material they cover, but few take the time to explain those theories.

This introduction to fashion theory surveys and contextualises the ways in which a wide range of disciplines (including sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, fashion history, gender studies and cultural history) have used different theoretical approaches to explain, and sometimes to explain away, the astonishing variety, complexity and beauty of fashion. Themes covered include individual, social and gender identity, clothes and the body, the erotic, consumption and communication.

This introduction looks at some of the most influential and important theories on fashion bringing to light the presuppositions involved in the things we think and say about fashion.

Contents

1: Introduction 2: Fashion and Fashion Theories 3: Fashion and/in History 4: What Fashion Is and Is Not 5: What Fashion and Clothing Do 6: Fashion as Communication 7: Fashion: Identity and Difference 8: Fashion, Clothes and The Body 9: Production and Consumption 10: Modern Fashion 11: Post-Modern Fashion 12: Fashion and (the) Image 13: Fashion, Fetish and The Erotic 14: Fashion Journalism

Author Bio

Malcolm Barnard is Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture at Loughborough University, where he teaches the history and theory of art and design. His background is in philosophy and sociology and his research interests lie in theories and philosophies of fashion, graphic design and more recently photography. He is the author of Fashion as Communication (Routledge 2002), Graphic Design as Communication (Routledge 2005), Approaches to Understanding Visual Culture (Palgrave 2001) and Art, Design and Visual Culture (Palgrave 1998). He is also the editor of Fashion (Routledge 2011) and Fashion Theory (Routledge 2007).

Name: Fashion Theory: An Introduction (Paperback) – Routledge 
Description: By Malcolm Barnard. Books that explain and analyse the nature, production and consumption of fashion are very fashionable at present. Fashion is explained in terms of the body, or fetish, or gender or culture. Slightly less fashionable, it seems, are introductory books on...
Categories: Cultural Studies, Fashion, Sociology of Culture