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. Barbie Magazine And The Aesthetic Commodification Of Girls' Bodies / Ingeborg Majer O'sickey -- This Year's Girl : A Personal/critical History Of Twiggy / Linda Benn Delibero -- A Woman's Two Bodies : Fashion Magazines, Consumerism, And Feminism / Leslie W. Rabine -- No Bumps, No Excrescences : Amelia Earhart's Failed Flight Into Fashions / Karla Jay -- Sonia Rykiel In Translation / Hélène Cixous -- From Celebration / Sonia Rykiel -- Off The (w)rack : Fashion And Pain In The Work Of Diane Arbus / Carol Shloss -- An Erotics Of Representation : Fashioning The Icon With Man Ray / Mary Ann Caws -- Seduction And Elegance : The New Woman Of Fashion In Silent Cinema / Maureen Turim -- Madonna, Fashion And Identity / Douglas Kellner -- Fragments Of A Fashionable Discourse / Kaja Silverman -- Women Recovering Our Clothes / Iris Marion Young -- Fashion And The Homospectatorial Look / Diana Fuss -- Terrorist Chic : Style And Domination In Contemporary Ireland / Cheryl Herr -- Paris Or Perish : The Plight Of The Latin American Indian In A Westernized World / Barbara Brodman -- Tribalism In Effect / Andrew Ross. Edited By Shari Benstock And Suzanne Ferriss. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 301-302) And Index.
