Academic : Performing Arts : Theatrical costume and costume design

Bag the bargains and glam it up--go from frumpy to fabulous style without wounding your wallet!. Everyone knows a woman who turns heads with her captivating style. Her clothes fit her body perfectly, her use of color is compelling, her shoes are to die for, and her accessories make her whole outfit pop with panache. Is she a fashion-industry insider? A millionaire? If she's smart, chances are she's a value vixen who's learned which styles best fit her figure, how to navigate the sales rack, and how to put together a look that's fashionably fabulous. With Style on a Shoestring as your guide, you willl learn how to have a great "cents of style"-without breaking the bank. This book teaches you the skills to give yourself a complete makeover, including: How to make a $5 thrift-store find look like a $500 designer deal; Getting wardrobe wreckers out of your closet and reworking the frocks you already have; Finding the right denim, bra, tops-even the dreaded bathing suit--for your body; What time, day, and month to pounce on the best bargains; Which colors minimize figure flaws and showcase the good stuff more...

Price: $16.95

Nancy MacDonell Smith explores the origins, meaning, and remarkable staying power of the ten staples of feminine fashion:. * the little black dress. * the white shirt. * the cashmere sweater. * blue jeans. * the suit. * high heels. * pearls. * lipstick. * sneakers. * the trench coat. Tracing the evolution of each item from inception to icon status, she reveals the history and social significance of each, from the black dress's associations with danger and death to the status implications of the classic white shirt. Incorporating sources from history, literature, magazines, and cinema, as well as her own witty anecdotes, Smith has created an engaging, informative guide to modern style. more...

Price: $14.00

While there is widespread interest in dress and hygiene as vehicles of cultural, moral, and political value, little scholarly attention has been paid to cross-cultural understandings of dirt and undress, despite their equally important role in the fashioning of identity and difference. The essays in this absorbing and thought-provoking collection contribute new insights into the neglected topics of bodily treatments and transgressions. In detailed ethnographic studies from around the world, the contributors recast assumptions about filth and nakedness, exploring how various forms of transgression associated with the body's surface are drawn up into relations of power and equality. more...

Price: $19.95

The Fabric of Cultures examines the impact of fashion as a manufacturing industry and as a culture industry that shapes identities of nations and cities in a cross-cultural perspective and within a global framework. more...

Price: $37.95

With so much focus on contemporary theory, it is easy to forget that the serious analysis of clothing and fashion has a long history. In fact, they have been the subject of intense cultural debate since the nineteenth century. Fashion Classics provid es an interpretative overview of the groundbreaking and often idiosyncratic writings of eight theorists whose work has profoundly influenced the conceptual and theoretical basis of our contemporary understanding of clothes and the fashion system. Car ter fully revives early fashion theorists -- some canonical and others less well known -- and examines them in light of more recent work. From Carlyles fantastical character Professor Teufelsdrockh, through the first Freudian analysis of clothes by J .C. Flugel, the pioneering work of Spencer, Veblen, Simmel, Kroeber, Laver and finally Barthes monumental work on the modern fashion system, this book explores and explains the foundations of fashion theory. Not only does it provide an historical out line of Western conceptions of clothes and fashion, but it also highlights how ideas intermix and build on one another. Carters lively narrative clearly shows that views on fashion have always been impassioned perhaps most notably Carlyles notorious attack on Dandyism and Veblens suggestion that clothes should be made out of old newspaper. This book also makes sense of complex theory and is essential reading for anyone seeking an overview of the history of fashion theory. more...

Price: $95.00