Mirror, Mirror: A Social History of Fashion

ISBN: 003021016X

Author: Batterberry, Michael

Condition: New

Trends in men's and women's fashions from the beginnings of human history to the 1970s are examined against the backdrop of changing social values and sexual mores

• "Mirror, Mirror is a charmingly irreverent study of fashion from the legendary fig leaf to the great masquerade of the 1960's and the eclecticism of the present. But it is also a view of social values-prestige, sexual mores, attitudes toward money, heroes, role models, religious beliefs, and political opinions. Through revealing anecdote, and keen observation, the authors demonstrate that fashion mirrors society's illusions about itself. Beginning with the cave people and proceeding to the ancient Egyptians, the authors take us on an eye opening tour of the styles of Crete and Greece, through imperial Rome to the theatrical splendors of Byzantium. After a colorful review of fashions among the Burgundian dukes, English nobles, and Renaissance Italian princess, they consider the upheavals brought by political an industrial revolutions and the effect of the Romantic movement on clothes as self-expression. Finally we come, in the twentieth century, to truly democratized fashions from the house dress to denims. This sharp amusing analysis exposes the human foibles found in every civilization. Fascinating profiles of arbiters of fashion, the unique individuals who dared to be first to stamp a personal image upon an age, light up every chapter; Nefertiti, the Empress Theodora, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Louis XIV, Madame De Pompadour, Beau Brummell, The Empress Eugenie, the Duke of Windsor, Jacqueline Onassis, and many others. Included too are many insights into the startling significance of certain inventions, techniques, and materials.... (from the flap)