Only the Clothes on Her Back

Only the Clothes on Her Back
Author: Laura F. Edwards
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2022
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197568572

Only the Clothes on Her Back illuminates the ways in which women, men of color, and poor people used textiles as a form of property that enabled them to gain access to the legal system and to exercise political power.

The Clothes On Their Backs

The Clothes On Their Backs
Author: Linda Grant
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2008-11-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1439150052

Orange Prize winner and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008, Linda Grant has created an enchanting portrait of a woman who, having endured unbearable loss, finds solace in the family secrets her estranged uncle reveals. In vivid and supple prose, Grant subtly constructs a powerful story of family, love, and the hold the past has on the present. Vivien Kovacs, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from the world by her timid Hungarian refugee parents, who conceal the details of their history and shy away from any encounter with the outside world. She learns how to navigate British society from an eccentric cast of neighbors -- including a fading ballerina, a cartoonist, and a sad woman who wanders the city and teaches Vivien to be beautiful. She loses herself in books and reinvents herself according to her favorite characters, but it is through clothes that she ultimately defines herself. Against her father's wishes, she forges a relationship with her uncle, a notorious criminal and slum landlord, who, in his old age, wants to share his life story. As he exposes the truth about her family's past Vivien learns how to be comfortable in her own skin and how to be alive in the world. Grant is a spectacularly humanizing writer whose morally complex characters explore the line between selfishness and self-preservation.

Ninety Percent of Everything

Ninety Percent of Everything
Author: Rose George
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2013-08-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0805092633

Revealing the workings and dangers of freight shipping, the author sails from Rotterdam to Suez to Singapore to present an eye-opening glimpse into an overlooked world filled with suspect practices, dubious operators, and pirates.

The First Book of Fashion

The First Book of Fashion
Author: Ulinka Rublack
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2021-02-11
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1474249906

This captivating book reproduces arguably the most extraordinary primary source documents in fashion history. Providing a revealing window onto the Renaissance, they chronicle how style-conscious accountant Matthäus Schwarz and his son Veit Konrad experienced life through clothes, and climbed the social ladder through fastidious management of self-image. These bourgeois dandies' agenda resonates as powerfully today as it did in the sixteenth century: one has to dress to impress, and dress to impress they did. The Schwarzes recorded their sartorial triumphs as well as failures in life in a series of portraits by illuminists over 60 years, which have been comprehensively reproduced in full color for the first time. These exquisite illustrations are accompanied by the Schwarzes' fashion-focussed yet at times deeply personal captions, which render the pair the world's first fashion bloggers and pioneers of everyday portraiture. The First Book of Fashion demonstrates how dress – seemingly both ephemeral and trivial – is a potent tool in the right hands. Beyond this, it colorfully recaptures the experience of Renaissance life and reveals the importance of clothing to the aesthetics and every day culture of the period. Historians Ulinka Rublack's and Maria Hayward's insightful commentaries create an unparalleled portrait of sixteenth-century dress that is both strikingly modern and thorough in its description of a true Renaissance fashionista's wardrobe. This first English translation also includes a bespoke pattern by TONY award-winning costume designer and dress historian Jenny Tiramani, from which readers can recreate one of Schwarz's most elaborate and politically significant outfits.

Change Your Clothes, Change Your Life

Change Your Clothes, Change Your Life
Author: George Brescia
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2014-08-19
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1476748764

Open the door to harmonious, powerful, and positive dressing with a guide that’s like The Secret—for your wardrobe. In this groundbreaking how-to book, style expert George Brescia shows you how to transform yourself from the inside out. More than a style guide, this revolutionary book by a seasoned stylist teaches a method of conscious dressing that begins with a powerful internal change. Instead of just grabbing for whatever’s on hand, you’ll learn to set your goals for the day, determining how you want to be perceived, and then dress in a way that helps manifest those intentions. Change Your Clothes, Change Your Life reveals the true power your clothing has to affect your life, showing how this second skin impacts your job prospects, your romantic life, your income, and even your deepest sense of self. Translating his styling methods into a philosophy anyone can apply on her own, Brescia also delivers tips and tricks of the trade to help convert even the most hapless dresser into a happy and educated shopper. Because the goal is to have you not only looking great, but feeling more confident, too. From major closet overhauls to a whole new philosophy on color, this is a comprehensive manual for anyone who’s ever looked at her closet in despair. Accessible, direct, honest, and thought-provoking, Change Your Clothes, Change Your Life takes an eye-opening look at the intersection between our clothing and our emotions, hopes, and dreams, showing us how improving our external appearance can have life-changing effects on how we’re perceived by others—and more importantly, on how we perceive ourselves.

Seeing Through Clothes

Seeing Through Clothes
Author: Anne Hollander
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 538
Release: 1993-03-22
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780520082311

In this generously illustrated book, Anne Hollander examines the representation of the body and clothing in Western art, from Greek sculpture and vase painting through medieval and renaissance portraits, to contemporary films and fashion photography. First published ahead of its time, this book has become a classic.

Women in Clothes

Women in Clothes
Author: Sheila Heti
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 804
Release: 2014-09-04
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0698189825

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives. It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations. Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, or function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women’s style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always thoughtful impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.

Other People's Clothes

Other People's Clothes
Author: Calla Henkel
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2022-02-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385547366

Two American ex-pats obsessed with the Amanda Knox trial find themselves at the nexus of murder and celebrity in glittering late-aughts Berlin in this “hugely entertaining” (The New York Times) debut with a wicked sense of humor. “Darkly funny, psychologically rich and utterly addictive... [a] harrowing tale of twisty female friendships, slippery identity and furtive secrets.” —Megan Abbott, best-selling author of The Turnout Hoping to escape the pain of the recent murder of her best friend, art student Zoe Beech finds herself studying abroad in the bohemian capital of Europe—Berlin. Rudderless, Zoe relies on the arrangements of fellow exchange student Hailey Mader, who idolizes Warhol and Britney Spears and wants nothing more than to be an art star. When Hailey stumbles on a posting for a high-ceilinged, prewar sublet by well-known thriller writer Beatrice Becks, the girls snap it up. They soon spend their nights twisting through Berlin’s club scene and their days hungover. But are they being watched? Convinced that Beatrice intends to use their lives as inspiration for her next novel, Hailey vows to craft main-character-worthy personas. They begin hosting a decadent weekly nightclub in the apartment, finally gaining the notoriety they’ve been craving. Everyone wants an invitation to “Beatrice’s.” As the year unravels and events spiral out of control, they begin to wonder whose story they are living—and how it will end. Other People’s Clothes brilliantly illuminates the sometimes dangerous intensity of female friendships, as well as offering an unforgettable window into millennial life and the lengths people will go to in order to eradicate emotional pain.

Worn on This Day

Worn on This Day
Author: Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell
Publisher: Running Press Adult
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-11-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0762493585

This stunning visual guide is a journey of discovery through fashion's fascinating history, one day at a time. Beginning on January 1st and ending on December 31st, Worn On This Day looks at garments worn on monumental occasions across centuries, offering capsule fashion histories of everything from space suits to wedding gowns, Olympics uniforms, and armor. It creates thought-provoking juxtapositions, like Wallis Simpson's June wedding and Queen Elizabeth's June coronation, or the battered shoes Marie-Antoinette and a World Trade Center survivor wore to escape certain death, just a few calendar days apart. In every case there is a newsworthy narrative behind the garment, whether famous and glamorous or anonymous and humble. Prominent figures like Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, and the Duchess of Cambridge are represented alongside ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Worn On This Day presents a revelatory mash-up of styles, stories, and personalities.

Dressed for Freedom

Dressed for Freedom
Author: Einav Rabinovitch-Fox
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2021-11-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0252052943

Often condemned as a form of oppression, fashion could and did allow women to express modern gender identities and promote feminist ideas. Einav Rabinovitch-Fox examines how clothes empowered women, and particularly women barred from positions of influence due to race or class. Moving from 1890s shirtwaists through the miniskirts and unisex styles of the 1970s, Rabinovitch-Fox shows how the rise of mass media culture made fashion a vehicle for women to assert claims over their bodies, femininity, and social roles. She also highlights how trends in women’s sartorial practices expressed ideas of independence and equality. As women employed new clothing styles, they expanded feminist activism beyond formal organizations and movements and reclaimed fashion as a realm of pleasure, power, and feminist consciousness. A fascinating account of clothing as an everyday feminist practice, Dressed for Freedom brings fashion into discussions of American feminism during the long twentieth century.