Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity and DeathlinessRecent experimental fashion has a dark side, a preoccupation with representations of death, trauma, alienation, and decay. This intriguing book looks closely at this strand of fashion design in the 1990s, exploring what its disturbing themes tell us about consumer culture and contemporary anxieties. Caroline Evans analyzes the work of experimental designers, the images of fashion photographers, and the spectacular fashion shows that developed in the final decade of the twentieth century to arrive at a new understanding of fashion’s dark side and what it signifies. 'Fashion at the Edge' considers a range of cutting-edge contemporary fashion in unprecedented depth and detail, including the work of such current designers as John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, and Viktor & Rolf. Contrasting images by photographers like Steven Meisel, Nick Knight, and Juergen Teller are also reviewed. Drawing on diverse perspectives from Marx to Walter Benjamin, Evans shows that fashion stands at the very center of the contemporary, and that it voices some of Western culture’s deepest concerns. |
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aesthetic Alexander McQueen alienation American Arcades Project argued artist Autumn-Winter Baroque Reason Baudelaire beauty body Buci-Glucksmann Cambridge capitalism capitalist catwalk cited clothes collection consumer consumption contemporary fashion dark death deathly decay described dialectical Dior doll dress dummies evoked facing fashion design fashion imagery fashion photography fashion show femininity femme fatale fetishised garments gender ghosts of modernity Givenchy glamour Hal Foster haunted Haute Couture human Hussein Chalayan Ibid idea images industrial instability John Galliano late twentieth late twentieth-century living London look magazine mannequins Martin Margiela Marx Mass metaphor models modernist nineteenth nineteenth-century Olivier Theyskens Paris past period Photograph Chris Moore Photograph courtesy Photograph Niall McInerney post-modern present production ragpicker Routledge runway sexuality social society spectacle Spring-Summer 1999 Spring-Summer 2001 staged style suggested themes trans trauma twentieth century uncanny University Press urban Versace Viktor & Rolf visual Walter Benjamin Walter van Beirendonck woman women York