Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now
This exhibition catalog accompanies respected cultural historian Steele's debut exhibit as chief curator of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). Steele (e.g., Women of Fashion, LJ 10/1/95) offers acute observations about the historic and cultural contexts of fashion trends and fads from 1947 to the present. Interwoven into the superbly written text is a valuable literature study on the subject. Chapters are aptly labeled: "Fashion After the War," "Couture and Conformity: The 1950s," "Youthquake," "Excess" (referring to the 1980s), and "Fin de Siecle" (about the accelerated 1990s). Best of all, readers are treated to over 65 photographs of some of the garments in the museum at FIT. This book should be required reading for students of 20th-century fashion, but it is so well written that lay readers will enjoy it too. Highly recommended.?Therese Duzinkiewicz Baker, Western Kentucky Univ. Lib., Bowling GreenCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.