Fashion Writing and Criticism: History, Theory, Practice

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Fashion Writing and Criticism provides students with the tools to critique fashion with skill and style. Explaining the history and theory of criticism, this innovative text demonstrates how the tradition of criticism has developed and how this knowledge can be applied to fashion, enabling students to acquire the methods and proper vocabulary to be active critics themselves. Integrating history and theory, this innovative book explains the development of fashion writing, the theoretical basis on which it sits, and how it might be improved and applied. Through concise snapshot case studies, top international scholars McNeil and Miller analyse fashion excerpts in relation to philosophical ideas and situate them within historical contexts. Case studies include classic examples of fashion writing, such as Diana Vreeland at Harper's Bazaar and Richard Martin on Karl Lagerfeld, as well as contemporary examples such as Suzy Menkes and the blogger Tavi. Accessibly written, Fashion Writing and Criticism enables readers to understand, assess and make value judgments about the fascinating and changeable field of fashion. It is an invaluable text for students and researchers alike, studying fashion, journalism, history and media studies.

Reviews

What a boost for the discipline! -- Dr Richard Read, Winthrop Professor in Art History, University of Western Australia
This original volume is both timely and valuable. It provides essential background and introduction to fashion writing and criticism past and present while providing sound intellectual direction for its future. -- Hazel Clark, Parsons The New School for Design, USA
Fashion Writing and Criticism provides an introduction to two crucial words critic and fashion that are part and parcel of the way we write and think about dress. The authors have explored these keywords with an admirable degree of clarity and in such a way as to be of benefit to fashion scholars and students alike. -- Michael Carter, University of Sydney
The chronology and the evaluative discussions on the development of criticism and the snapshots on twentieth-century fashion reporting are valuable to the ways in which authors think about existing and future writing on fashion, particularly from a critical rather than purely descriptive perspective. * Costume *

Author Bio

Peter McNeil is Professor of Design History at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Sanda Miller is Senior Research Fellow at Southamtpon Solent University, UK, and Associate Lecturer at Istituto Marangoni, London, UK.