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Eighteenth-century fashion was cosmopolitan and varied. Whilst the wildly extravagant and colorful elite fashions parodied in contemporary satire had significant influence on wider dress habits, more austere garments produced in darker fabrics also reflected the ascendancy of a puritan middle class as well as a more practical approach to dress. With the rise of print culture and reading publics, fashions were more quickly disseminated and debated than ever, and the appetite for fashion periodicals went hand in hand with a preoccupation with the emerging concept of taste.
Richly illustrated with over 100 images and drawing on pictorial, textual and object sources,
A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Enlightenment presents essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, and visual and literary representations to illustrate the diversity and cultural significance of dress and fashion in the period.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Peter McNeil (University of Technology Sydney, Australia)
Chapter 1 – Textiles
Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen (National Open Air Museum of Urban History and Culture, Denmark)
Chapter 2 – Production and Distribution
Beverly Lemire (University of Alberta, Canada)
Chapter 3 – The Body
Isabelle Paresys (Université de Lille, France)
Chapter 4 – Belief
Dagmar Freist (Carl von Ossietzky-University Oldenburg, Germany)
Chapter 5 – Gender and Sexuality
Dominic Janes (University of Keele, UK)
Chapter 6 – Status
Mikkel Venborg Pedersen (National Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark)
Chapter 7 – Ethnicity
Barbara Lasic (Sotheby's Institute of Art, UK)
Chapter 8 – Visual Representations
Christian Huck (University of Kiel, Germany)
Chapter 9 – Literary Representations
Alicia Kerfoot (State University of New York, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
About the author
Peter McNeil is Distinguished Professor of Design History at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
Summary
Eighteenth-century fashion was cosmopolitan and varied. Whilst the wildly extravagant and colorful elite fashions parodied in contemporary satire had significant influence on wider dress habits, more austere garments produced in darker fabrics also reflected the ascendancy of a puritan middle class as well as a more practical approach to dress. With the rise of print culture and reading publics, fashions were more quickly disseminated and debated than ever, and the appetite for fashion periodicals went hand in hand with a preoccupation with the emerging concept of taste.
Richly illustrated with over 100 images and drawing on pictorial, textual and object sources, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Enlightenment presents essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, and visual and literary representations to illustrate the diversity and cultural significance of dress and fashion in the period.
