Fashion Today

Fashion Today is a highly illustrated survey of modern fashion. Its informative style guides the reader through an era that begins with Christian Dior's 1947 collection. Remembered as the New Look, it is a natural starting point for a book that explains the diverse trends we wear and how contemporary fashion has developed from being a rarefied field of speciality to become a product that is accessible to all. The second half of the twentieth century has witnessed a dramatic cultural shift. For the first time in history, fashion has become central to the existence of vast numbers of people of all ages and social backgrounds. For many, especially the young, it has developed into an obsession. Theme by theme, Fashion Today examines the spirit as well as the practicalities of fashion in order to illuminate the links and correspondences between clothes and other major areas of culture: commercial, social and artistic. It looks at the way fashion has created its own media, how a major shift in the power of fashion occurred in the Sixties and informs the industry today and why designers have become as important as the clothes they make. Fashion Today explains the complexity of contemporary fashion in a way that is free from jargon, making it a book that is essential reading for all those who are interested in fashion and the role it plays in modern culture.