Dressed
A Philosophy of Clothes
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $17.99
Publisher Description
Perfect for readers of Women in Clothes, this beautifully designed philosophical guide to fashion explores art, literature, and film to uncover the hidden meaning of a well-chosen wardrobe.
We all get dressed. But how often do we pause to think about what our clothes say? When we dress ourselves, we are presenting to the world an essence of who we are, who we want to be.
Dressed ranges freely from suits to suitcases, from Marx's coat to Madame X's gown. Through art and literature, film and philosophy, philosopher Shahidha Bari unveils the surprising personal implications of what we choose to wear. The impeccable cut of Cary Grant's suit projects masculine confidence, just as Madonna's oversized denim jacket and her armful of orange bangles loudly announces big ambition. How others dress tells us something fundamental about them -- we can better understand how people live and what they think through their garments. Clothes tell our stories.
Dressed is the thinking person's fashion book. In baring the hidden power of clothes in our culture and our daily lives, Bari reveals how our outfits not only cover our bodies but also reflect our minds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bari (Keats and Philosophy), a professor at the London College of Fashion, skillfully deconstructs the language of clothes in this philosophical examination of the items people wear. She observes that the "making and wearing of clothes is an art form" for some, including for Sylvia Plath, whose writing shows a keen awareness of "how a certain ensemble might be sympathetic to the certain person you imagined yourself to be." Bari's analysis is at times Freudian ("And who dares deny that the pliant foot mimics the penis when it enters that dark, contracted space of the shoe"?) and at others literary, as when she muses about the significance of the worn coat in Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Overcoat," or of the white cropped mess jacket in P.G. Wodehouse's novel Right Ho, Jeeves. Clothes in Hitchcock classics are also lovingly scrutinized (Cary Grant's classic example of mid-20th-century executive-wear, a gray flannel suit, in North by Northwest, or the elegant outfits of Tippi Hedren's socialite heroine in The Birds), as are the clothing shown in classic works of art (the elegant black gown in John Singer Sargent's Portrait of Madame X) or on fashion catwalks, such as those of famed minimalist Yohji Yamamoto. Devoted fashion students will eagerly eat up every word of Bari's well-researched and passionate work.
