The Fashion History Reader

'Riello and McNeil's new collection of essays represents an immense and impressive project' – Choice

'Now, the key contributions from nearly every expert in the field are assembled in one fascinating book. This kaleidoscopic and informative volume ranges impressively across conventional boundaries of chronology, geography, and discipline.' – Glenn Adamson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

'This book is indispensable for anyone interested in fashion. History has never been more alive than in the pages of this Reader.' – Patrizia Calefato, University of Bari, Italy

The Fashion History Reader is an innovative work that provides a broad introduction to the complex literature in the fields of fashion studies, and dress and fashion history. Twenty-three chapters and over forty shorter ‘Snapshot’ texts cover a wide range of topics and approaches within the history of fashion, ranging from object-based studies to theory-driven analyses. The book is divided into six parts, surveying some of the key themes in the history of fashion. Themes also move in and across time, providing a chronology to enable student learning:

• parts one to three cover the fifteenth to the eighteenth-century
• parts four and five cover the nineteenth-century to the contemporary (with particular attention given to non-European countries)
• part six provides a survey of the global setting and current globalized nature of fashion.

A comprehensive introduction by the editors contextualizes debates for students, synthesising past history and bringing them up-to-date through a discussion of globalization. Each section also includes a short, accessible introduction by the editors, placing each chapter within the wider, thematic treatment of fashion and its history, and an 'Annotated Guide to Further Reading' encourages students to enhance their learning independently.

The Fashion History Reader was awarded a prize for 'Best Edited Book' at the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand: Art Historians of Australasia, Annual General Meeting, December 2011.