Clothing as Material Culture

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Description

This book puts the material back into clothing. In recent years, there has been a spate of books theorizing fashion. Few, however, take on board the artefactual nature of cloth. In contrast, costume historians have looked closely at garments, but have shown less concern with how clothing is informed by social structures. This book fills a major gap by combining these two 'camps' through an expressly material culture approach to clothing. In sustained case studies, Kchler and Miller argue that cloth and clothing are living, vibrant parts of culture and the body. From the recycling of cloth in Africa and India and the use of pattern in the Pacific, to the history of 'wash and wear' and why women wear the wrong clothes to restaurants in London, this book shows the considerable advantage gained by seamlessly combining material and social aspects of dress and textiles.

Reviews

'This study of mass-consumption shows how a focus on single fibre can yield so much about the fabric of social change.This book shows how clothing often lies at the intersection between individual, bodily experience and the larger forces at work in the world. The book reveals as much about academic fashion as it does about the materiality of clothing.' Crafts Magazine : Decorative Applied Arts, No.197 November/December 2005 review by Pamela Johnson 'One of the best features of this book is the quality of the data that the authors have drawn from various sources, including fieldwork, museum collections, photographs, and, in one remarkable case, the corporate archives of DuPont.' Technolgy and Culture Vol 47, October 2006

Author Bio

Dr. Susanne Kchler is a Material Culture Masters Tutor in the Department of Anthropology, University College London. Daniel Miller is a Professor of Material Culture in the Department of Anthropology, University College London, and the author of numerous books, including The Sari, with Mukulika Bannerjee.