Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press 2008

Producing Fashion

Commerce, Culture, and Consumers

Edited by: Regina Lee Blaszczyk

In the series Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture

https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812206050

Overview
Contents

About this book

Producing Fashion looks to the past, revealing the rationale behind style choices, while explaining how the interplay of custom, invented traditions, and sales imperatives continue to drive innovation in the fashion industries.

Author / Editor information

Regina Lee Blaszczyk is Professor of Business History and Leadership Chair in the History of Business and Society at the University of Leeds. Her books include the award-winning Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning and Major Problems in American Business History: Documents and Essays.

Reviews

"Producing Fashion demonstrates the importance of studying fashion, very broadly defined, from the perspective of business history. Case studies from several countries and from various periods during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries show how 'fashion intermediaries' in the business world developed new products and styles that resonated with consumers. Combining historical methods with models from cultural studies and other social science disciplines, these studies provide new insights into the environments that facilitated product innovation, the dissemination of ideas in the marketplace, and factors leading to cooperation or resistance on the part of consumers."—Diana Crane, University of Pennsylvania

"Producing Fashion takes readers on an international journey that acknowledges the preeminence of Paris haute couture but also includes stops in Russia, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, and the United States. The case studies, based on new original research, demonstrate the interplay between business enterprise and fashion."—Journal of American History

"At last, a collection of essays that considers fashion as both a commercial and a cultural phenomenon. Informed by recent approaches in the fields of business history, material culture studies, and the history of design, Producing Fashion offers a stimulating series of case studies that range from fashion magazines in Tzarist Russia to questions of taste in the contemporary American home. Anyone who has ever considered how and why fashionable trends emerge will find something of interest in its pages."—Christopher Breward, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
CHAPTER ONE. Rethinking Fashion Regina Lee Blaszczyk Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I: Organizing the Fashion Trades
CHAPTER TWO. Spreading the Word: The Development of the Russian Fashion Press Christine Ruane Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
CHAPTER THREE. Accessorizing, Italian Style: Creating a Market for Milan's Fashion Merchandise Elisabetta Merlo and Francesca Polese Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
CHAPTER FOUR. In the Shadow of Paris? French Haute Couture and Belgian Fashion Between the Wars Veronique Pouillard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
CHAPTER FIVE. Licensing Practices at Maison Christian Dior Tomoko Okawa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
PART II: Inventing Fashions, Promoting Styles
CHAPTER SIX. The Wiener Werkstatte and the Reform Impulse Heather Hess Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
CHAPTER SEVEN. American Fashions for American Women: The Rise and Fall of Fashion Nationalism Marlis Schweitzer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	130
CHAPTER EIGHT. Coiffing Vanity: Advertising Celluloid Toilet Sets in 1920S America Ariel Beaujot Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	150
PART III. Shaping Bodies, Building Brands
CHAPTER NINE. California Casual: Lifestyle Marketing and Men's Leisurewear, 1930-1960 William R. Scott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
CHAPTER TEN. Marlboro Men: Outsider Masculinities and Commercial Modeling in Postwar America Elspeth H. Brown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Body and the Brand: How Lycra Shaped America Kaori O'Connor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
PART IV. Customer Reactions, Consumer Adaptations
CHAPTER TWELVE. French Hairstyles and the Elusive Consumer Steve Zdatny Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Ripping Up the Uniform Approach: Hungarian Women Piece Together a New Communist Fashion Katalin Medvedev Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	250
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Why the Old-Fashioned Is in Fashion in American Houses Susan J. Matt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
CONTRIBUTORS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	353
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	365

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 376
Illustrations
- Other: 30 illus.
Keywords: American History; Business; American Studies; Business; Economics

eBook

Published: October 3, 2011
ISBN: 9780812206050