Shortlisted for the Association of Dress Historians Book of the Year Award, 2021 Libertine practices have long been associated with transgression and social deviance. This innovative book is the first to focus fully on the relationship between libertinism as a social phenomenon and as a form of fashion. Taking the reader from early modernity to the present day, Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas reveal how the connection between clothing and the taboo, the erotic, and the forbidden is at the heart of "libertine fashion". Moving from the decadent courts of Charles II and Louis XV to the catwalks of the 21st century, Libertine Fashion examines literary and sartorial figures ranging from the Marquis de Sade and Lord Byron to Oscar Wilde, Josephine Baker, Colette, and Madonna. Focusing on libertinism as a sartorial practice and identity, this book traces the genealogy of the concept through the proto feminists of the English Reformation, the hedonistic decadents of the fin de siècle, and the Flappers of the Roaring 20s. The historical arc traverses the 1970s era of punk and glam, the shapeshifting personae of David Bowie, and the “disciplinary regimes” of Jean-Paul Gaultier. Looking at libertine practices and appearances with fresh eyes, this bracing and original book affords many new insights into transgressive style, and of the relationship between sexuality and clothing. Accessible and thoroughly researched, Libertine Fashion uses a multidisciplinary approach that draws on historical literature, film, fashion, philosophy, and popular culture. Offering a historical and philosophical grounding in contemporary forms of identity and dress, it is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion, gender, sexuality, and cultural studies.

Libertine is an invitation into Johnson Hartig’s world, as the designer shares images of his eccentric and whimsical fashion designs, inspirational references, and his captivatingly eclectic interiors. Johnson Hartig is the founder and designer for the innovative fashion brand Libertine, which is renowned for breathing electric life back into vintage couture pieces by cutting them up and adding ornate crystal embellishments, rich silk-screened graphics, and embroideries to create gorgeous one-of-a-kind garments. With an uncanny ability to combine unexpected colors, patterns, and textures, Hartig has created a style that is youthful and edgy yet undeniably glamorous and sophisticated. A hopeless traditionalist yet a rule breaker, Hartig’s personal style was initially what inspired the brand, and this eclectic philosophy permeates all parts of his life. Early champions include Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, and Damien Hirst. This captivating volume takes the reader on a much-awaited tour of Hartig’s charmingly quirky home and personal style, which often garnish as much attention as his fashion brand. Hartig’s passionate and playful personality shines through in his designs for Libertine as they do in the creative and uniquely decorated interiors of his home. His energetic spirit and joie de vivre lifestyle is contagious, and this volume will be an indispensable visual arcade to be cherished by lovers of fashion, style, and interior design alike.

Thomas Shadwell, The Libertine * George Etherege, The Man of Mode * Thomas Durfey, A Fond Husband * Thomas Otway, Friendship in Fashion These four plays in the Oxford English Drama series capture the range of responses to the fashionable and daring libertine movement in the second half of the seventeenth century. A Fond Husband and Friendship in Fashion are lesser-known comic gems of the Restoration stage; The Man of Mode is Etherege's masterpiece, and The Libertine is Shadwell's experimental and dark version of the Don Juan story. The texts are freshly edited using modern spelling. There is a critical introduction, wide-ranging annotation, and an informative bibliography which together illuminate the plays' cultural context and theatrical potential for reader and performer alike. 'The series should shape the canon in a number of significant areas. A splendid and imaginative project.' Professor Anne Barton, Cambridge University

Delving into three hundred years of Chinese literature, from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth, The Libertine’s Friend uncovers the complex and fascinating history of male homosexual and homosocial relations in the late imperial era. Drawing particularly on overlooked works of pornographic fiction, Giovanni Vitiello offers a frank exploration of the importance of same-sex love and eroticism to the evolution of masculinity in China. Vitiello’s story unfolds chronologically, beginning with the earliest sources on homoeroticism in pre-imperial China and concluding with a look at developments in the twentieth century. Along the way, he identifies a number of recurring characters—for example, the libertine scholar, the chivalric hero, and the lustful monk—and sheds light on a set of key issues, including the social and legal boundaries that regulated sex between men, the rise of male prostitution, and the aesthetics of male beauty. Drawing on this trove of material, Vitiello presents a historical outline of changing notions of male homosexuality in China, revealing the integral part that same-sex desire has played in its culture.

DIVThe novel that began as a radio hoax, Theodore Sturgeon’s I, Libertine is a hilarious erotic romp through the royal boudoirs of eighteenth-century London/divDIV Inspired by a notorious radio hoax in the mid-1950s, popular radio host and prankster Jean Shepherd exhorted his faithful listeners to approach their local booksellers the next morning and request copies of the historical novel I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing—a book that had never been written, by an author who had never been alive. The hoax was so successful that I, Libertine became the talk of the town, even earning the unique distinction of being banned by the Archdiocese of Boston, despite the fact that it didn’t yet exist. Now there was nothing left to do but write the thing . . . and fantasy and science fiction legend Theodore Sturgeon was called in to work his magic./divDIV /divDIVOriginally written pseudonymously, Sturgeon’s I, Libertine is a glorious tale of close shaves, daring escapes, and wildly licentious behavior. It covers the bawdy misdeeds of Captain Lance Courtenay as he carelessly romps through the royal court and the bedchambers of London’s finest ladies. Chock-full of wicked wit and Sturgeon’s trademark twists and turns, it is a hilarious, picaresque adventure that Ewing himself would certainly have been proud to call his own, if he had existed./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Theodore Sturgeon including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the University of Kansas’s Kenneth Spencer Research Library and the author’s estate, among other sources./div

First published in 2013, Queer Style was ahead of its time. It was the first book to address the cultural, political, and material histories of clothes as signs and markers of gender and sexual identity, and remains key reading for scholars and students across fashion studies and the humanities more broadly. Now, 10 years later, the authors have revisited their classic work and updated it to examine the function of subcultural dress within queer communities and the mannerisms and messages that are used as signifiers of identity.

A delightfully illustrated literary anthology that explores the fantasies, seductions, and intrigues of the eighteenth-century French lover This sumptuous volume presents more than eighty selections from eighteenth-century French literature, each concerning some facet of the game of love as practiced by the libertine, or the freethinking aristocratic hedonist, a type that flourished—not least in literature—in the declining years of the Ancien Régime. These pieces, which include fiction, drama, verse, essays, and letters, are the work of some sixty writers, both familiar—such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and, of course, the Marquis de Sade—and lesser-known. Each selection is illustrated by well-chosen period artworks, many rarely seen, by Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, and numerous others. Racy, thought-provoking, and a treat for the eyes, The Libertine is the perfect gift for litterateurs, art lovers, roués, and coquettes.