Fashion Criticism

This is the first anthology of fashion criticism a growing field that has been too long overlooked. <i>Fashion Criticism</i> aims to redress the balance claiming a place for writing on fashion alongside other more well-established areas of criticism.<br/><br/>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 women's pages to the contemporary style sections while unearthing the work of cultural critics and writers on fashion including Susan Sontag and Eve Babitz (<i>Vogue</i>) Bebe Moore Campbell (<i>Ebony</i>) Angela Carter (<i>New Statesman</i>) and Hilton Als (<i>New Yorker)</i>.<br/><br/>Examining the gender dynamics of the field and its historical association with the feminine <i>Fashion Criticism</i>demonstrates how fashion has gained ground as a subject of critical analysis capitalizing on the centrality of dress and clothing in an increasingly visual and digital world. The book argues that fashion criticism occupied a central role in negotiating shifting gender roles as well as shifting understandings of race.<br/><br/>Bringing together two centuries of previously uncollected articles and writings from Oscar Wilde's editorials in <i>The Woman's World</i> to the ground-breaking fashion journalism of the 1980s and today's proliferation of fashion bloggers it will be an essential resource for students of fashion studies media and journalism.