Colors in fashion / [electronic resource]
edited by Jonathan Faiers and Mary Westerman Bulgarella.
- xvii, 227 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- SECTION ONE COLOR AND SOLIDARITY -- 1. Color as Theme in the Ebony Fashion Fair -- 2. Purity and parity: the white dress of the suffrage movement in early twentieth-century britain -- 3. Birds of the Same “color” flock together: color as expression of identity and solidarity in aso-ebi cloth of the yoruba -- 4. contradictory colors: tricolor in vichy france’s fashion culture -- SECTION TWO COLOR AND POWER -- 5. Dress and color at the thai court -- 6. “gold and silver by night.” queen alexandra: a life in color -- 7. Lord boston’s court uniform: a story of color, politics, and the psychology of belonging -- 8. Yellow is the New Red, or Clothing the Recession and How the Shade of Shame Became Chic -- SECTION THREE COLOR AND INNOVATION -- 9. Color before technicolor: colorized fashion films of the silent era -- 10. Color as Concept: From international klein blue to viktor & rolf’s “bluescreen” -- 11. tainted love: oscar wilde’s toxic green carnation, queerness, and chromophobia -- 12. Starlit skies blue versus durindone blue -- SECTION FOUR COLOR AND DESIRE -- 13. Rough wolves in the sheepcote: the meanings of fashionable -- 14. “le noir étant la dominante de notre vêture …”: the many meanings of the color black in postwar paris -- 15. British scarlet broadcloth, the perfect red in eastern africa, c.1820–1885 -- 16. Lives lived: An archaeology of faded indigo -- Index.
Color speaks a powerful cultural language, conveying political, sexual, and economic messages that, throughout history, have revealed how we relate to ourselves and our world. This ground-breaking compilation is the first to investigate how color in fashionable and ceremonial dress has played a significant social role, indicating acceptance and exclusion, convention and subversion.From the use of white in pioneering feminism to the penchant for black in post-war France, and from mystical scarlet broadcloth to the horrors of arsenic-laden green fashion, this publication demonstrates that color in dress is as mutable, nuanced, and varied as color itself. Divided into four thematic parts - solidarity, power, innovation, and desire - each section highlights the often violent, emotional histories of color in dress across geographical, temporal and cultural boundaries. Underlying today's relaxed attitude to color lies a chromatic complexity that speaks of wars, migrations and economics. While acknowledging the importance that technology has played in the development of new dyes, the chapters explore color as a catalyst for technical innovation that continues to inspire designers, artists, and performers. Bringing together cutting-edge contributions from leading scholars, it is essential reading for academics of fashion, textiles, design, cultural studies and art history.