Designed to be as internationally relevant as the fashion it discusses, Chic Thrills extends fashion theory beyond the interpretation of style, and shows how it relates to the economic realities and motivations of those who create the clothing we buy and wear. Among the issues the contributors address are: Feminism and the politics of fashion * The relationship of non-European cultures to Western fashion * Fashion and the negotiation of identity * Recent trends in fashion photography and the media representation of fashion * Industrial conditions, production constraints and the relationship of garment workers to the clothes they make * Playing with a different sex: fashion and the lesbian couple * Fascism and fashion: Paris haute couture under Nazi occupation * Fashion and the postmodern body.

This lively survey of 150 years of fashion covers everything from Haute Couture to the High Street. From Coco Chanel to Alexander McQueen, Breward explores fashion as a cultural phenomenon. Topics include fashion in film, the world of Vogue and advertising, and the use of fashion to create identity from the Flapper to the New Look, and Dandy to Punk.

With epigrams from Genesis to Oscar Wilde, Finkelstein examines the historical, social, psychological, and economic seams of haute couture fashion as reflected in the wide-ranging index entries: anthropology, Barbie doll, cinema, feminism, globalization, Lauren (Ralph), psychoanalysis, upward mobility, and zoot suits. Originally published by Melbourne U. Press, 1996. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Can the police strip-search a woman who has been arrested for a minor traffic violation? Can a magazine publish an embarrassing photo of you without your permission? Does your boss have the right to read your email? Can a company monitor its employees' off-the-job lifestyles--and fire those who drink, smoke, or live with a partner of the same sex? Although the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution, most of us believe that we have an inalienable right to be left alone. Yet in arenas that range from the battlefield of abortion to the information highway, privacy is under siege. In this eye-opening and sometimes hair-raising book, Alderman and Kennedy survey hundreds of recent cases in which ordinary citizens have come up against the intrusions of government, businesses, the news media, and their own neighbors. At once shocking and instructive, up-to-date and rich in historical perspective, The Right to Private is an invaluable guide to one of the most charged issues of our time. "Anyone hoping to understand the sometimes precarious state of privacy in modern America should start by reading this book."--Washington Post Book World "Skillfully weaves together unfamiliar, dramatic case histories...a book with impressive breadth."--Time

Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture considers the visual languages, politics, and poetics of personal appearance. Dandyism has been most closely associated with influential caucasian Western men-about-town, epitomized by the 19th century style-setting of Oscar Wilde and by Tom Wolfe's white suits. The essays collected here, however, examine the spectacle and workings of dandyism to reveal that these were not the only dandies. On the contrary, art historians, literary and cultural historians, and anthropologists identify unrecognized dandies flourishing among early 19th century Native Americans, in Soviet Latvia, in Africa, throughout the African-American diaspora, among women, and in the art world. Moving beyond historical and fictional accounts of dandies, this volume juxtaposes theoretical models with evocative images and descriptions of clothing in order to link sartorial self-construction with artistic, social, and political self-invention. Taking into consideration the vast changes in thinking about identity in the academy, Dandies provides a compelling study of dandyism's destabilizing aesthetic enterprise. Contributors: Jennifer Blessing, Susan Fillin-Yeh, Rhonda Garelick, Joe Lucchesi, Kim Miller, Robert E. Moore, Richard J. Powell, Carter Ratcliffe, and Mark Allen Svede.

Controversial and unconventional, this collection examines Canadian identity in terms of the fashion worn and designed over the last three centuries, and the internal and external influences of those socio-cultural decisions.

Los Angeles has grown from a scattered collection of towns and villages to one of the largest megacities in the world. The editors of THE CITY have assembled a variety of essays examining the built environment and human dynamics of this extraordinary modern city, emphasizing the dramatic changes that have occurred since 1960. 58 illustrations.