Couture Culture – A Study in Modern Art & Fashion: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion - Hardcover

Troy, Nancy J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262201402 ISBN 13: 9780262201407

Publisher: MIT Press, 2002

Synopsis

In Couture Culture, Nancy Troy offers a new model of how art and fashion were linked in the early twentieth century. Focusing on a leader of the French fashion industry, Paul Poiret, Troy uncovers a logic of fashion based on the tension between originality and reproduction that bears directly on art historical issues of the period. This tension lies at the heart of haute couture, which, although designed for the wealthy, was also intended to be adapted for sale in department stores and other clothing outlets that catered to a broader consumer market. Troy examines the relationships between elite and popular culture, the professional theatre and the fashion show, as well as the presumed polarity between classical and Orientalist sensibilities. She shows how Poiret and other designers patronised the arts and presented themselves as artists not only to sell their individual dresses to wealthy clients but also to promote the mass production of their designs. The contradictions she uncovers suggest surprising parallels with the ready-mades and fashion-related work of Marcel Duchamp, who explored the questions of originality and authenticity raised by couture culture during the 1910s and 1920s.

About this title

Review:

"A fascinating academic study of the swirling cross-currents linking the worlds of art and fashion early in the twentieth century." - W; "Couture Culture is a terrific social and cultural history showing the exchange and the parallels in fashion and art and all the roles both world play in both popular and elite culture." - Gina Vivinetto, St. Petersburg Times; "With a wealth of period photographs, trade material, and serials, Troy's book documents the strong affinities between art and fashion and provides keen insight into the lives and social practices of the French upper classes." - Library Journal"

About the Author:

Nancy J. Troy is Chair of the Art History Department at the University of Southern California.

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0262201402
• ISBN 13: 9780262201407
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 408