In this beautiful book, Aileen Ribeiro surveys the clothing worn by the middle and upper classes throughout Europe in the eighteenth century and discusses what this meant in terms of social definition and identity. Ribeiro, one of the world's premier historians of dress, also looks at such subjects as developments in retailing and distribution, etiquette, the rise of the dress designer and couturier, the evolution of ready-made clothes, fancy dress and the masquerade.

Examines European dress as it evolved in 18th-century France. The text looks at French dress first from an aesthetic point of view, describing in detail fashionable and everyday clothes. It then examines the social and economic factors affecting fashion and compares styles in major European cities.

In this beautiful book, Aileen Ribeiro surveys the clothing worn by the middle and upper classes throughout Europe in the eighteenth century and discusses what this meant in terms of social definition and identity. Ribeiro, one of the world's premier historians of dress, also looks at such subjects as developments in retailing and distribution, etiquette, the rise of the dress designer and couturier, the evolution of ready-made clothes, fancy dress and the masquerade.

Relatively few garments survive from before the eighteenth century, and the history of costume in the preceding centuries must therefore rely to a great extent on literary and visual evidence. This book, the first of its kind, examines Stuart England through the mirror of dress. It argues that both artistic and literary sources can be read and decoded for important information on dress and the way it was perceived in a period of immense political, social, and cultural change. Focusing on the rich visual culture of the seventeenth century, including portraits, engravings, fashion plates, and sculpture, and on literary sources--poetry, drama, essays, sermons--the distinguished historian of dress Aileen Ribeiro creates a fascinating account of Stuart dress and how it both reflected and influenced society. Supported by a wealth of illustrative images, she explores such varied themes as court costumes, the masque, the ways in which political and religious ideologies could be expressed in dress, and the importance of London as a fashion center. This beautiful book is an indispensable and authoritative account of what people wore and how it related to Stuart England’s cultural climate.

This book concerns itself with dress in the novels of Samuel Richardson, and how attire confirms, contributes to, or challenges the characters' fashioning of self and the self as others (characters or readers) perceive it.

Explores the changes in dress during the French Revolution and links them with the rapidly shifting political climate.

Eighteenth-century fashion was cosmopolitan and varied. Whilst the wildly extravagant and colorful elite fashions parodied in contemporary satire had significant influence on wider dress habits, more austere garments produced in darker fabrics also reflected the ascendancy of a puritan middle class as well as a more practical approach to dress. With the rise of print culture and reading publics, fashions were more quickly disseminated and debated than ever, and the appetite for fashion periodicals went hand in hand with a preoccupation with the emerging concept of taste. Richly illustrated with 100 images and drawing on pictorial, textual and object sources, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Enlightenment presents essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, and visual and literary representations to illustrate the diversity and cultural significance of dress and fashion in the period.

Covering the period from 1600 to the mid-20th century. The accessories featured include shoes, hats, bags, gloves, purses, parasols, sock, stockings, jewelry, fans, shawls, and scarves.

This is the first global history of dress regulation and its place in broader debates around how human life and societies should be visualised and materialised. Sumptuary laws were a tool on the part of states to regulate not only manufacturing systems and moral economies via the medium of expenditure and consumption of clothing but also banquets, festivities and funerals. Leading scholars on Asian, Latin American, Ottoman and European history shed new light on how and why items of dress became key aspirational goods across society, how they were lobbied for and marketed, and whether or not sumptuary laws were implemented by cities, states and empires to restrict or channel trade and consumption. Their findings reveal the significance of sumptuary laws in medieval and early modern societies as a site of contestation between individuals and states and how dress as an expression of identity developed as a modern 'human right'.