Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> A decade ago I came upon a feature entitled “Air Conditioned Clothes in a widely distributed Sunday newspaper supplement aimed at teenagers Models wearing crudely cut frayed garments were shown under a headline stating “turn stuff you’ve got into trendy…summer styles.” Girls were told to cut out most of a T-shirt to transform it into a “hipster halter” and to “slice and ice” a pair of jeans by removing the waistband and dipping the frayed top into undiluted bleach. Boys were advised to cut off the sleeves and tails of a shirt and the bottom of a pair of pants. When I asked students in a fashion history class what they could learn about contemporary clothing norms from this feature they thought about gender roles silhouettes seasonal styles and individuality. What remained invisible to them however was how cheap and expendable cloth must be in a society where young people are casually instructed to bleach and cut up their garments and throw away the parts they aren’t interested in. Even when I pointed out how they take cloth for granted most students remained unimpressed. It wasn’t until we had studied the high value of fabric in previous eras-the fact that clothing was passed on in wills for example er used in political power plays between rival rulers-that the point began (MP)