We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $82,148,463.34 | Books Available: 672,357 | Members Online: 216

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Paris Fashion: A Cultural History

Paris Fashion A Cultural History
Author: Valerie Steele

Paris has been the international capital of style for over three hundred years. In this provocative and richly illustrated volume, Valerie Steele--author of the highly acclaimed Fashion and Eroticism--offers a penetrating social and cultural analysis of fashion in Paris. More than just a history of famous designers and changing styles,... more » the book is about fashion as a cultural ideal and a social phenomenon. Steele explains why Paris was the center of fashion for so long, providing brilliant insight into the concept of "style" and the significance of fashion in modern society.

Just as Fashion and Eroticism radically revised the stereotype of "prudish" Victorian dress, so also does Paris Fashion debunk many long-standing myths about the fashion industry. Steele shows that the "great names" of fashion, from Worth to Dior, were not so much "dictators" or radical innovators as they were astute barometers of fashion trends, and that, contrary to popular belief, Coco Chanel was not the first great woman designer, but rather one of a very long line of women who influenced the world of fashion. Both the French belief in the innate national "genius" of their couturiers and the equally popular idea that American women finally smashed the "dictatorship" of Parisian men are shown to be incorrect.

While focusing primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Steele also traces the early history of fashion, from the cities of Renaissance Italy to the courts of Burgundy and Versailles, and the streets of Revolutionary Paris. She explores the "geography of fashion" in Second Empire Paris, showing how the new boulevards, cafés, and theaters vastly expanded the stage for the public display of fashion. Steele excels at revealing how fashion has been portrayed in the work of great French writers and artists, with fascinating chapters on the role of fashion in Balzac's novels--Balzac himself was usually horribly dressed--and how Proust dwelled on the "mute language of clothes." "The Black Prince of Elegance," Steele's analysis of dandyism in the life and work of Baudelaire, illuminates the changing meaning of men's dark apparel in the era of high capitalism, while her study of fashion and art provides a new way of looking at Impressionism and modernism as an artistic vision.

By focusing on a "case study" of Paris, Steele shows how the clothing we wear today continues to express the way we see the world and ourselves.

ISBN-13: 9780195044652
ISBN-10: 0195044657
Publication Date: 3/24/1988
Pages: 336
Edition: 1ST
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Arts & Photography >> Graphic Design >> Design >> Textile & Costume

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Paris Fashion: A Cultural History

Loading...