Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity

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Elizabeth Wilson

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2003 (revised); originally published 1985, English

Nonfiction, Fashion Design

ISBN: 9780813533322

Examines the social and cultural history of fashion in relation to modernity and identity. This edition is updated through the 1990s. According to the author, she wrote the book in the mid-1980s to argue “from a feminist perspective for the cultural importance of dress and fashion at a time when feminists were suspicious of anything to do with adornment and beautification, in a reaction against the many oppressive aspects of the fashion industry and perhaps more especially the cosmetics and beauty industry and stereotypes of women in mass culture.”

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Valerie Steele

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There is no single, perfect history of fashion, but this is one of the best books ever written on the significance of fashion.

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