After a Fashion: An Introduction - Softcover

Finkelstein, Joanne; Hegde, Radha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814726836 ISBN 13: 9780814726839

Publisher: New York University Press, 1998

Synopsis

From the rise of the Fashion Cafe to the phenomenon of the supermodel, from "House of Style" to "Unzipped," the world of fashion has taken center stage in contemporary culture, for better or for worse. In turn, although the idea of fashion has been in circulation since time immemorial, not until recently has its profound and variegated effects-on economic activity, on social and sexual mores, and on aesthetic and psychological formulations-been fully considered. With delicacy and wit, Fashion: An Introduction investigates the different sides of recent debates over the production, marketing, and consumption of fashion. Drawing on economics, art, psychology, commerce, history, and the everyday, Joanne Finkelstein considers fashion in its various guises-as body decoration and costume, as a language and a form of display, as an expression of sexuality and as part of the urban experience. In so doing, she has given us the perfect introduction to fashion's social, economic, and aesthetic impact on the way we think and act.

About this title

Review:

"This wide-ranging collection of essays should be of considerable interest to scholars of media, globalization and gender. It combines acute ethnographic reportage and a strong theoretical sense of the political economy of gendered images and in today's global media formations." -Arjun Appadurai, New York University

"An extraordinary collection of original approaches to familiar and unfamiliar issues about gendering and globalization. Each chapter gives us an unusual empirical study, charged with a sense of discovery. And each chapter gives us a type of theorizing that makes visible what is otherwise hidden." -Saskia Sassen, Columbia University

About the Author:

Joanne Finkelstein teaches sociology and cultural studies at Monash University. She is the author of Dining Out: A Sociology of Modern Manners, The Fashioned Self, and Slaves of Chic: An A-Z of Consumer Pleasures.

About this edition

• Publisher: New York University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0814726836
• ISBN 13: 9780814726839
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136