Fashion, desire and anxiety : image and morality in the 20th century

This text argues that fashion and the imagery surrounding it give us a vision of Western culture that is both enticing and alienating, flaunting capitalism's euphoric emblems of glamour and success but also representing the underside of modern life. In the 1970s, photographers like Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton set models against backdrops of tarnished glamour; in the 1990s Alexander McQueen and John Galliano created decadent femmes fatales whose sexual allure was equally tempting and threatening. Rebecca Arnold exlores the complex nature of modern fashion, attempting to unravel the contradictory emotions of desire and anxiety that it provokes. "Fashion, and the glossy magazines it inhabits, allow Western culture to dream. It permits a person to fantasize and to experiment with new identities. It flaunts glamour and success. Appearance becomes something to be perfected and admired.". "These dreams and freedoms, Rebecca Arnold proposes, are contradictory. Fashion and its surrounding imagery elicit fear and anxiety in their consumers as well as pleasure. Fashion has come to incorporate the underside of modern life, with violence and decay becoming a dominant theme in clothing design and photography.". "Arnold draws on diverse written sources to explore the complex nature of modern fashion. She discusses a range of key themes: how fashion uses and abuses the power of wealth; the alienating promotion of "good" taste; the power plays of sex and display; and how identities can be blurred to disguise and confuse. In order to unravel the contradictory emotions of desire and anxiety they provoke, she never loses sight of the historical and cultural contexts in which fashion designers and photographers perform."--BOOK JACKET. This text argues that fashion and the imagery surrounding it give us a vision of Western culture that is both enticing and alienating, flaunting capitalism's euphoric emblems of glamour and success but also representing the underside of modern life. In the 1970s, photographers like Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton set models against backdrops of tarnished glamour; in the 1990s Alexander McQueen and John Galliano created decadent femmes fatales whose sexual allure was equally tempting and threatening. Rebecca Arnold explores the complex nature of modern fashion, attempting to unravel the contradict. Fashion and the imagery surrounding it give us a vision of Western culture that is both enticing and alienating. It flaunts capitalism's euphoric emblems of glamour and success but it also represents the underside of modern life, with violence and decay becoming a theme dominating clothing design and photography. In the 1970s photographers like Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton set models against backdrops of tarnished glamour; in the 1990s Alexander McQueen and John Galliano created decadent femmes fatales whose sexual allure was enticing and threatening. This provocative book sets examples from "Fashion and the imagery surrounding it give us a vision of Western culture that is both enticing and alienating. It flaunts capitalism's euphoric emblems of glamour and success but it also represents the underside of modern life, with violence and decay becoming a theme dominating clothing design and photography. This provocative book sets examples from a diverse range of designers and photographers in their cultural and historical context in order to unravel the contradictory emotions of desire and anxiety they provoke."-- Provided by publisher Annotation Fashion and the imagery surrounding it give us a vision of Western culture that is both enticing and alienating. It flaunts capitalism's euphoric emblems of glamour and success but it also represents the underside of modern life, with violence and decay becoming a theme dominating clothing design and photography. This provocative book sets examples from a diverse range of designers and photographers in their cultural and historical context in order to unravel the contradictory emotions of desire and anxiety they provoke