Valerie Steele

Fashion, Sex & Power

Fetish

Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology Valerie Steele

A Cultural History

Paris Fashion

dark glamour

Gothic

Fashion Theory takes as its starting point a definition of 'fashion' as the cultural construction of the embodied identity. It provides an international and interdisciplinary forum for the analysis of cultural phenomena ranging from foot binding to fashion advertising. All articles have solid theoretical underpinnings and are based on original research. Fashion Theory is covered by the following abstracting/indexing services: Abstracts in Anthropology; AOI Anthropological Index Online; ARTbibliographies Modern; British Humanities Index; DAAI Design and Applied Arts Index; IBR International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences; IBSS International Bibliography of the Social Sciences; IBZ International Bibliography of Periodical Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences; ISI Arts and Humanities Citation Index; Scopus; Sociological Abstracts

The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture

Fashion Theory Volume 13 Issue 3

In a generously illustrated study, a noted historian of fashion offers a history of erotic fashion, illuminating the appeal of such clothing, its emergence into the mainstream society, and its implications for human sexual behavior. UP.

Fashion, Sex, and Power

Suzy Menkes

Fashion masterpieces: Defining designers of the 20th and 21st centuries and their most remarkable works From Azzedine Alaïa, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Coco Chanel, to Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, and Vivienne Westwood, a century's worth of fashion greats from the permanent collection of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology are celebrated in this limited-edition volume. Photographs of over 500 garments selected from the Museum's permanent collection illuminate each of the featured designers, while texts by the curators explain why each designer is important in fashion history and what is special about the individual pieces featured. In her introductory essay, director and chief curator Valerie Steele writes about the rise of the fashion museum, and the emergence of the fashion exhibition as a popular and controversial phenomenon; and both Steele and contributor Suzy Menkes provide a history of this museum's role in the world of fashion scholarship and preservation. Fashion Designers A-Z is available as a series of six Designer Editions. Each edition (a total of 11,000 copies) is bound in a fabric created by one of six designers--Akris, Etro, Stella McCartney, Missoni, Prada, and Diane von Furstenberg--and comes in a Plexiglas box. Crafted by hand at a bindery in the heart of Italy, and stamped with a unique number, every copy is an instant classic, and an addition to your fashion library that is truly one-of-a-kind. Reprinted especially for the Akris Edition of 2,000 copies, designer Albert Kriemler´s iconic "Grand Prix" digital photo print was created for his Akris Spring/Summer collection 2012. "In the spirit of the devil-may-care elegance of John Frankenheimer´s 1966 movie Grand Prix" (Kriemler), the race cars whizzing by on silk crêpe found a suitable patroness: H.S.H. Princess Charlène of Monaco wore an Akris shift dress with the "Grand Prix" print to the Formula One races in Monte Carlo. Text in English, French, and German

Fashion Designers A-Z

Marnie Fogg

This ambitious and fascinating book traces the history of fashion in every part of the world, from Greco-Roman woven-cloth clothing and the silk court dress of the Chinese Tang dynasty to contemporary sportswear designers and Japanese street culture. Organized chronologically, the book traces the evolution of fashion period by period and trend by trend, while detailed timelines provide historical and cultural context. Fashion: The Whole Story is indispensable for everyone who loves the line of a superb suit or knows the joy of wearing a great pair of shoes.

The Whole Story

Fashion

- An essential reference for students, curators and scholars of fashion, cultural studies, and the expanding range of disciplines that see fashion as imbued with meaning far beyond the material. - Over 300 in-depth entries covering designers, articles of clothing, key concepts and styles. - Edited and introduced by Valerie Steele, a scholar who has revolutionized the study of fashion, and who has been described by The Washington Post as one of "fashion's brainiest women." Derided by some as frivolous, even dangerous, and celebrated by others as art, fashion is anything but a neutral topic. Behind the hype and the glamour is an industry that affects all cultures of the world. A potent force in the global economy, fashion is also highly influential in everyday lives, even amongst those who may feel impervious. This handy volume is a one-stop reference for anyone interested in fashion - its meaning, history and theory. From Avedon to Codpiece, Dandyism to the G-String, Japanese Fashion to Subcultures, Trickle down to Zoot Suit, The Berg Companion to Fashion provides a comprehensive overview of this most fascinating of topics and will serve as the benchmark guide to the subject for many years to come.

The Berg Companion to Fashion

Colleen Hill

An astute exploration of the most outrageous shoe designs of the 21st century

Shoe Obsession

Patricia Mears

One of the most exciting fashion designers in the United States, Cuban-born Isabel Toledo has been honored with a National Design Award from the Cooper- Hewitt Museum and a Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion, given by The Museum at FIT. Yet her name and work are recognized only by fashion insiders. This ravishing book brings Toledo’s creations to a wider audience, places them within the context of contemporary fashion, and examines her creative process. Interviewing Toledo, her husband (fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo), and other colleagues, clients, and critics, Valerie Steele gives an account of Toledo’s career and explains that while she has been heralded by leading fashion magazines and featured in stores in New York and Europe, she has not had the long-term financial backing to break out of the niche market. Patricia Mears investigates the artistic and cultural influences on Toledo’s work and analyzes her unusual methods of construction, noting that she designs in three dimensions in her mind and then begins working directly with fabric. Displaying garments Toledo has created since her first show in 1985, this book is a revelatory exploration of a fashion innovator in a mass-market industry.

Fashion from the Inside Out

Isabel Toledo

If you could have only one dress, wouldn't you make it a black one? Glamorous or modest, seductive or practical, chic and versatile, elegant, powerful, modern, and never out of style, the black dress has been the foundation of a woman's wardrobe for centuries. The allure of the black dress has captured the imagination of generations of couturiers and artists and served as the signature of society's most enviably dressed women. The Black Dress is a lush visual celebration of this fashion classic. With an essay and images selected by Dr. Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, this volume features page after uniquely designed page of some of the most compelling dresses in the history of fashion. The diverse imagery includes fine art, runway shots and design sketches, stills from classic films and vintage fashion plates, and, above all, gorgeous evocations of the black dress from the world's greatest designers, illustrators, and photographers. These include paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, and John Signer Sargent; illustrations by Georges Barbier and Ruben Toledo; and iconic images of movie goddesses such as Audrey Hepburn and Rita Hayworth. The world's foremost fashion designers, from Coco Chanel to Christian Dior, Yohji Yamamoto to Boudicca, are featured in full color throughout, their designs accompanied by quotes on black from writers, artists and fashion personalities. Extended captions at the back of the book provide details one ach dress and its place in fashion history.

The Black Dress

Jennifer Park

"Popularly associated with black-clad teenagers and rock musicians, gothic fashion encompasses not only subcultural styles (from old-school goth to cyber-goth and beyond) but also high fashion by such designers as Alexander McQueen, John Galliano of Christian Dior, Rick Owens, Olivier Theyskens, and Yohji Yamamoto. Fashion photographers, such as Scan Ellis and Eugenio Recuenco, have also drawn on the visual vocabulary of the gothic to convey narratives of dark glamour. As the text and lavish illustrations in this book suggest, gothic fashion has deep cultural roots that give it an enduring potency." "Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)." -- BOOK JACKET.

Dark Glamour

Looks at the evolution of fashion, argues that Victorian clothing for women was erotic rather than prudish, and discusses the psychological aspects of fashion

Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era to the Jazz Age

Fashion and Eroticism

An unprecedented in-depth exploration of the complex interrelationship between high fashion and queer history and culture

From the Closet to the Catwalk

A Queer History of Fashion

Korsettets kulturhistorie fra renæssancen til det 20. århundrede

The Corset

This beautifully illustrated volume explores the cultural history, especially in fashion, of the color pink from the 18th century to today.

The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color

Pink

Paris, Capital of Fashion accompanies a major exhibition at The Museum at FIT, New York's only museum dedicated solely to the art of fashion. This lavishly-illustrated book is edited by MFIT's director and chief curator, Valerie Steele, also the author of the acclaimed Paris Fashion: A Cultural History. This new book opens with an important essay on how and why Paris became famous as the international “capital of fashion.” Steele traces how the mythic “aura” of Paris fashion was constructed over generations, as the splendour of the court at Versailles came to be echoed by the spectacle of the haute couture. Yet Paris has faced repeated challenges from other fashion capitals, especially London, Milan, and New York. Essays by Christopher Breward, David Gilbert, Grazia d'Annunzio, and Antonia Finnane place Paris within a broader global narrative, while Sophie Kurkdjian investigates the cultural value of the Parisian couture, and Agnès Rocomora explores the online imagery of the chic Parisienne. As The New Yorker recently put it, Paris is “the most glamorous and competitive of the world's fashion capitals.” No other city has been branded “Fashion” as Paris has. By opening the study of Paris fashion to new approaches, this book explains why Paris still retains its position as the world's undisputed fashion capital.

Paris, Capital of Fashion

Claudia Brush Kidwell

Explores the relationship between changes in fashion and ideas about masculinity and femininity. Among the subjects covered here are sports uniforms, work clothes, children's clothes. Many contemporary illustrations, a few in color. --

MEN WOMEN PB

Caroline Evans: 'Masks, Mirrors and Mannequins Elsa Schiaparelli and the Decentred Subject' Barbara Vinken: 'Transvesty - Travesty: Fashion and Gender' Fadwa El Guindi: 'Veiling Resistance' Michael Hardin: 'Mar(k)ing the Objected Body: A Reading of Contemporary Female Tattooing' Richard Martin: 'A Note: Art and Fashion, Viktor & Rolf'

Valerie Steele

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