As a child, I spent hours marveling at my father’s collection of ties. In love with tailoring, he taught me the meaning of “sprezzatura” and the joys that come from thinking of clothes as a part of yourself. Fashion returned to me as I studied philosophy, art history, and film. It took a few years, but then it just became clear to me that I had to talk about it. So I started writing, curating, and experimenting a bit more. I always say that fashion is a verb: my work is to explore what It can do, whether by curating a show, writing articles, or perusing local boutiques in my travels.
I wrote...
A Philosophy of Fashion Through Film: On the Body, Style, and Identity
Our clothes don’t just tell us something about our personality; they help us discover it. Fashion is always more than an item with a price tag: it is a performance that accompanies us through every stage of life. We get dressed, we dress others, and we quite simply “try things on.”
This book builds a philosophy of fashion—of what it is to think about it—by looking at costumes and how they move and perform in movies. There are Hollywood blockbusters, documentaries, and independent and avant-garde films. It is an homage to the fabulous work of costume designers and an invitation to look at fashion from the perspective of the bodies that wear it day after day.
Before Instagram, we read about fashion. Well, we still do. At least, I do.
Francesca Granata has selected a series of fashion articles that are not only fun to read but are lynchpins to an understanding of the history of fashion, its quirks, and why we care so much about it.
You’ll find articles on military fashions, minis for men, and all the designers you should be curious about.
This is the first anthology of fashion criticism, a growing field that has been too long overlooked. Fashion Criticism aims to redress the balance, claiming a place for writing on fashion alongside other more well-established areas of criticism.
Exploring the history of fashion criticism in the English language, this essential work takes readers from the writing published in avant-garde modernist magazines at the beginning of the twentieth century to the fashion criticism of Robin Givhan-the first fashion critic to win a Pulitzer Prize-and of Judith Thurman, a National Book Award winner. It covers the shift in newspapers from the so-called…
I love Dorothy Arzner’s films. And if you think you can’t deal with movies from the 1930s, think twice. Arzner was the only woman director in Hollywood; she was insanely popular and outrageously cool. Mayne’s book is about her coolness.
It’s an overture into an archive of pictures, tabloids, Hollywood gossip, and some of the best costumes around. Catherine Hepburn looked great in a silver moth costume (Christopher Strong, 1933), and Joan Crawford stunned in red (The Bride Wore Red, 1937). Mayne knows a thing or two about why we need more women directors.
Dorothy Arzner was the exception in Hollywood film history-the one woman who succeeded as a director, in a career that spanned three decades. In Part One, Dorothy Arzner's film career-her work as a film editor to her directorial debut, to her departure from Hollywood in 1943-is documented, with particular attention to Arzner's roles as "star-maker" and "woman's director." In Part Two, Mayne analyzes a number of Arzner's films and discusses how feminist preoccupations shape them, from the women's communities central to Dance, Girl, Dance and The Wild Party to critiques of the heterosexual couple in Christopher Strong and Craig's Wife.…
I don’t know how many times I referred to chapters of this book in my lectures. And I don’t know how many times my students asked for more. But this is not an academia-only kind of affair.
Taylor’s book is an intelligent, curious, and meticulous investigation into all there is to love, appreciate, and discover about black aesthetics. He moves from black hair and Black Panther to questions of identity and intersectional debates. I’ll keep assigning it, and I’ll keep reading it.
Black is Beautiful identifies and explores the most significant philosophical issues that emerge from the aesthetic dimensions of black life, providing a long-overdue synthesis and the first extended philosophical treatment of this crucial subject.
The first extended philosophical treatment of an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of art
Takes an important step in assembling black aesthetics as an object of philosophical study
Unites two areas of scholarship for the first time - philosophical aesthetics and black cultural theory, dissolving the dilemma of either studying philosophy, or studying black expressive culture
Brings a…
In 2015, Shantrelle P. Lewis curated Dandy Lion at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. This book is about that exhibition, the photographs displayed, and the stories of the people photographed.
It is, for me, a gorgeous example of fashion’s relation to our individual and social identities. It is a way of touring the intimate as well as the political through images of the Black Dandy. Colors, cuts, sartorial details, and poses all come together in a book that is as informative to read as it is a pleasure to look at.
Suits that pop with loud colors and dazzling patterns, complete with a nearly ubiquitous bowtie, define the style of the new "dandy." Described as "high-styled rebels" by author Shantrelle P. Lewis, black men with a penchant for color and refined fashion, both new and vintage, have gained popular attention in recent years, influencing mainstream fashion. But black dandyism itself is not new; originating in Enlightenment England's slave culture, it has continued for generations in black cultures around the world. Now, set against the backdrop of hip-hop culture, this iteration of dandies is redefining what it means to be black, masculine,…
I have a weakness for shoes, and I am happy to admit it. Shoes is a tiny but mighty book you’ll want to gift to everyone. Bretaña traces the history of shoes from chopines to Balenciaga’s platform Crocs. It’s just impossible not to flip through the pages–and you are sure to find yourself browsing the web in search of yet another coveted pair. An aside: your toddler might ask you for a pair of Katharina Denziger’s Racing Shoes (1965)–mine did.
Christian Dior famously noted that "the real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet." From the surprisingly sexy boots hiding under Victorian crinolines to the glittering T-strap heels worn by flappers dancing the Charleston, a woman's shoe choice has long been far more than a mundane practicality. Indeed, a beautifully shaped shoe can be a statement of wealth, style, or sexuality - and often all at once.
This petite volume presents 250 eye-catching examples from the 17th century to the present, including many of today's top designers such as Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Roger Vivier, and…
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives about adoption, exposing the fallacy that adoption is always good.
In this story, I reckon with the pain and unanswered questions of my own experience and explore broader issues surrounding adoption in the United States, including changing legal policies, sterilization, and compulsory relinquishment programs, forced assimilation of babies of color and Indigenous babies adopted into white families, and other liabilities affecting women, mothers, and children. Now is the moment we must all hear these stories.
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
