Author: Shari Benstock, Suzanne Ferriss
Subject: Cultural Studies/Literary Studies/Gender Studies/Womens Studies/Fashion
Paper ISBN 0-8135-2033-9
Pages: 320 pp. 63 b&w illus.
Description:
"Fashion is that by which the fantastic becomes for a moment the universal."--Oscar Wilde
"An excellent and timely collection of essays . . . an important book for feminism, for women in general, for cultural studies, and for the growing study of the semiotics of fashion and dress in relation to postmodernism and to politics."--Jane Marcus, C.U.N.Y.
Until recently, fashion was considered the "F-word" in intellectual circles, dismissed as unworthy of serious attention. Yet no area of life, no individual moment, stands outside fashion's discourses. Intuitively, we all know that clothing is a language, incessantly communicating messages about its wearer. But who speaks this language, to whom is it addressed, what does it mean, and how are its meanings established and transformed? On Fashion explores the ways our material, political, psychological, sexual, even intellectual lives are woven into fashion's fabric.
This stimulating collection of essays explores fashion's symbolic and figurative functions in photography, cinema, and video; in consumerism, postmodernism, and feminism; in political and material culture; and in self-definition and subjectivity. They demonstrate the pervasive reach of fashion and its expressions.
This collection contains over sixty photographs and illustrations and includes essays by Barbara Brodman, Mary Ann Caws, Linda Benn DeLibero, Hlne Cixous, Diana Fuss, Cheryl Herr, Karla Jay, Deborah Jenson, Douglas Kellner, Ingeborg Majer O'Sickey, Leslie W. Rabine, Andrew Ross, Sonia Rykiel, Carol Shloss, Kaja Silverman, Maureen Turim, and Iris Marion Young.
Shari Benstock is a professor of English at the University of Miami and the author of Women of the Left Bank: Paris, 1900-1940 and Textualizing the Feminine: On the Limits of Genre. Suzanne Ferriss is an assistant professor in the liberal arts department at Nova University.
