num_pages: 160
description: Fashion is a gigantic global industry generating some three hundred billion dollars in revenue every year and playing a significant role in the economic political cultural and social lives of a vast international audience. Despite this and perhaps in part because of its prevalence in the media it is often denigrated as trivial and superficial as a sign of vanity and narcissism. Written by a highly regarded authority on twentieth-century fashion this Very Short Introduction offer a wide-ranging and revealing look at fashion that discusses everything from production and design to couture and retailing to the wider role of fashion in society. This lively book illuminates the structure of the fashion industry and the range of professionals involved in its creation and it provides cogent insight into its historical social and cultural contexts. It also sheds light on how fashion has developed while raising questions about its ethical and controversial aspects such as theuse of fur exploitative trading and poor working conditions for laborers.
language: English
title: Fashion: A Very Short Introduction
publisher: Oxford University Press