Fashion and Orientalism: Dress, Textiles and Culture from the 17th to the 21st Century

Review

Fashion and Orientalism is an important book that enhances our historical knowledge and intellectual understanding of its subject. Through detailed description and analysis, Adam Geczy contributes to the growing scholarship that seeks a more subtle understanding of the complex discourse of Orientalism and the conscious and unconscious ways that it has had an impact on Western fashion and dress. (Hazel Clark, Research Chair of Fashion, Parsons the New School for Design, New York, USA)

Geczy opens our eyes to an understanding of fashion as an exchange of values between Asia and the West for the past 500 years. This timely, patiently researched, brilliantly written book will become the standard reference for the field and a must-read for anyone interested in the intersections of cultural studies, art history and philosophy. (Melissa Chiu, Director, Asia Society Museum, New York, USA)

The breadth of Orientalism in this book gives it the ability to bring readers up with a start as they recognize elements from their own lives. (Michael Carter, author of Fashion Classics from Carlyle to Barthes)

Product Description

Orientalism is a central factor within the fashion system, both subtle and overt. In this timely and groundbreaking book, the author shows the extent of the influence that the Orient had, and continues to have, on fashion.

Our concept of Western fashion is unthinkable without it, whether in terms of the growth of the cotton industry or of garments we take for granted, such as the dressing gown. From pre-modern to contemporary times, this book demonstrates that, in the realms of fashion, the Orient is not simply a construction or a fascination of the imperial West with its eastern other. Rather, it reveals the extent of cross-pollination, exchange and multiple translation that has taken place between East and West for the last 500 years.

Exploring topics including Chinoiserie, masquerade, bohemianism, Japonisme, the "de-Orientalization" of the Orient, perfume and the birth of couture, Fashion and Orientalism is an essential read for students and scholars of fashion, cultural studies and history.

Book Description

This fascinating and wide-ranging book reveals the influence that the Orient had, and continues to have, on fashion.

About the Author

Adam Geczy is an artist and writer, and Senior Lecturer at Sydney College of the Arts, a faculty of the University of Sydney. He is co-author with Michael Carter of Reframing Art, and his Art: Histories, Theories and Exceptions (Berg 2008) won the Choice Award for Best Art Book of 2009. He has recently completed editing a major collection of essays with Vicki Karaminas on Fashion and Art (Berg, 2012).