Fashion in American Life

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An original contribution to fashion studies, Fashion in American Life challenges existing approaches to fashion in America by considering who makes fashionwhen, where, and how. Avoiding the usual emphasis on the history of fashion which perpetuates the myth of fashion designers, and New York, as the originators of American fashion, this exploration of the everyday allows us to see American fashion as a form of agency, self-identification, creative engagement, and politics. Moving away from the well-trodden accounts of fashion designers and the dominance of New York, much of the fashion uncovered has been under-represented in previous accounts. Through contemporary and historical research, authors challenge the nature of both fashion and America by addressing the many complexities of a nation whose people have diverse histories and cultures, including stories and experiences that have been forgotten, marginalized and left out of the fashion canon. Race, gender, ethnicity, and class are employed as critical lenses to shed new light on how fashion might be defined and addressed within America (as a country, but not as a series of United States), with case studies looking at First Nations, Latinx and African American dress. The intellectual framing of the volume, and the methods and case studies included, also present tactics that can be applied to other contexts, making this book about revisiting fashion more widely, not just in America. Fashion in American Life makes a unique contribution to the literature of fashion studies, fashion history, cultural studies, and beyond.

Author Bio

Hazel Clark is Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies, and currently Director of MA Fashion Studies, Parsons School of Design, New York. Her most recent books are Fashion and Everyday Life: London and New York (Bloomsbury, 2017) with Cheryl Buckley, and Fashion Curating (Bloomsbury, 2018) co-edited with Annamari Vnsk. Lauren Downing Peters is Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies and Director of the Fashion Study Collection at Columbia College Chicago. She is currently finalizing her first book manuscript, Fashion Before Plus-Size: Bodies, Beauty and the Birth of an Industry (Bloomsbury, 2023).