Valerie SteeleCritiques

Meh...

A fascinating book about the history of the color pink and its ever-changing connotations. Unfortunately, one of its contributing writers apparently ascribes to the "pink is an evil, anti-feminist color" trope. Otherwise, I would have given it five stars.½

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.

Valeric Steele, one of the world's most respected fashion historians, explores the cultural history of the corset, demolishing myths about this notorious garment and revealing new information and perspectives on its changing significance over the centuries.

A designer, editor, model, muse, and stylist, Ms. Guinness is renowned for the way she uses fashion to transform herself.Daphne Guinness explains the origins and characteristics of her style.

An unexpected and finely written book that briefly covers the changing meaning of clothing associated with the color black. The black dress worn by females is the focal point for describing how the use of black is almost never left out by modern dress designers. Bibliography is excellent. Color and B&W plates.

A very all round and useful text. Not sure I want to totally agree with conclusion which is that fetish sex is about power.

In Fetish - Fashion, Sex & Power, Steele deftly traces fetish fashion from its earliest appearances in niche markets to its counterculture appeal to its embrace in the mainstream. As fashion history's preeminent scholar, Steele navigates this history effortlessly and makes an incredibly complex topic accessible. She concisely weaves together political, social, and cultural influences in an attempt to make the abstract more tangible. While she does not shy away from the psychology or sexuality of fashion, nor does she exploit these things. This is not a study of fetish or fetishists, it is a study of the objects of fetish. The material, the garment, the textile itself is treated as a historical artifact - it is this approach that distinguishes Steele's work.

I own several of Valerie Steele's books and they never disappoint. This one is no different. Reading like a coffee table book, it provides an extensive history on Gothic literature, architecture, art, etc. and how it inspired fashion, from Victorian mourning dresses to the raw, experimental clothing of the first Gothic scene sprung out of the punk movement in the late 70's, the New Romantics, and the more recent Cybergoth and "Graver" trends. The book is filled with gorgeous photography, from street fashion shots of DIY outfits, to club kid photos, to high-fashion and couture runway and editorial shoots, featuring such designers as John Galliano, Hussein Chalayan, Rodarte, Elsa Schiaparelli, Thierry Mugler, Alexander McQueen, Comme de Garcons, and Yohji Yamamoto. There are also some beautiful drawings and paintings included. There is also a music section, entitled "Melancholy and the Macabre: Gothic Rock and Fashion" by Jennifer Park, which explores such artists as Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, The Cure, Nick Cave, The Sisters of Mercy, etc. and their fashion, both onstage and off.

I enjoyed the photographs and the descriptions of those photographs in the Steele part of the book. They made sense and flowed well. Unfortunately, the bulk of the text seriously confused me at times, despite (because of?) the fact that I am somewhat familiar with this subculture. (Like the difference between Western goths and Japanese Gothic Lolitas is because GothLolis listen to visual-kei and have more established shopping options? I'm pretty sure there's something I'm missing in this comparison.) I think this would be fabulous as an exhibit and I'm sorry I missed seeing it when it was an exhibit, but in book form I had a really hard time following the thesis; it seemed to change at will. I needed more explanatory section breaks and better flow from the words and concepts than what I got from this. That said, the photographs and overall concept were really engaging and I did learn some things.

The second part of the book, specifically about goth music and written by Jennifer Park, had much tighter writing. I enjoyed learning about how influential bands like The Velvet Underground were on glam and punk rock, which lead to the development of the goth genre (as much as bands described as goth might not like the term). I was disturbed to learn about the ties between goth culture and neo-nazism -- it was mentioned only briefly, so I'm not sure if it was just the anti-establishment use of swastikas and borrowing of other imagery that created those perceived ties or if there were actual ideological ties between the groups, but... not cool, people.

Anyway, it was an overall enjoyable exploration of the goth movement, particularly in terms of fashion and music. I have no particular desire to re-read it, so hurray for libraries, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to look through it.½

This book left a bit to be desired for me. The research really wasn't that great, there were a lot of references to particular shoes in the text but no pictures and lots of pictures of shoes with no reference in the text. I was also really annoyed that one of the chapter title pages had a typo in it. Seriously?!

Beautifully photographed mostly couture clothes from wealthy Chicagoans

3 volumes.

Lots of beautiful pictures, and various aspects of corsetwearing, historical and contemporary.

A look at fashions which become fetishes and fetish that becomes fashion. Focuses on corsets, shoes, underwear and materials, such as leather, rubber, latex, silk, satin and fur.

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