Colors in Fashion

<p>Color speaks a powerful cultural language conveying political sexual and economic messages that throughout history have revealed how we relate to ourselves and our world. This ground-breaking compilation is the first to investigate how color in fashionable and ceremonial dress has played a significant social role indicating acceptance and exclusion convention and subversion. <p/>From the use of white in pioneering feminism to the penchant for black in post-war France and from mystical scarlet broadcloth to the horrors of arsenic-laden green fashion this publication demonstrates that color in dress is never straightforward. Divided into four parts - solidarity power innovation and desire - each section highlights the often violent emotional histories of color in dress across geographical temporal and cultural boundaries. Underlying today's relaxed attitude to color lies a chromatic complexity that speaks of wars migrations and economics. <p/>Bringing together cutting-edge chapters from leading scholars it is essential reading for students of fashion textiles design cultural studies and art history.</p>