Through the story of a portrait of a woman in a silk dress, historian Zara Anishanslin embarks on a fascinating journey, exploring and refining debates about the cultural history of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. While most scholarship on commodities focuses either on labor and production or on consumption and use, Anishanslin unifies both, examining the worlds of four identifiable people who produced, wore, and represented this object: a London weaver, one of early modern Britain’s few women silk designers, a Philadelphia merchant’s wife, and a New England painter.   Blending macro and micro history with nuanced gender analysis, Anishanslin shows how making, buying, and using goods in the British Atlantic created an object-based community that tied its inhabitants together, while also allowing for different views of the Empire. Investigating a range of subjects including self-fashioning, identity, natural history, politics, and trade, Anishanslin makes major contributions both to the study of material culture and to our ongoing conversation about how to write history.

An unprecedented in-depth exploration of the complex interrelationship between high fashion and queer history and culture From Christian Dior to Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen, many of the greatest fashion designers of the past century have been gay.  Fashion and style have played an important role within the LGBTQ community, as well, even as early as the 18th century.  This provocative book looks at the history of fashion through a queer lens, examining high fashion as a site of gay cultural production and exploring the aesthetic sensibilities and unconventional dress of LGBTQ people, especially since the 1950s, to demonstrate the centrality of gay culture to the creation of modern fashion.     Contributions by some of the world’s most acclaimed scholars of gay history and fashion – including Christopher Breward, Shaun Cole, Vicki Karaminas, Jonathan D. Katz, Peter McNeil, and Elizabeth Wilson – investigate topics such as the context in which key designers’ lives and works form part of a broader “gay” history; the “archeology” of queer attire back to the homosexual underworld of 18th-century Europe; and the influence of LGBTQ subcultural styles from ... [Read More]

When a new technology makes people ill, how high does the body count have to be before protectives steps are taken? This disturbing book tells a dark story of hazardous manufacturing, poisonous materials, environmental abuses, political machinations, and economics trumping safety concerns. It explores the century-long history of “fake silk,” or cellulose viscose, used to produce such products as rayon textiles and tires, cellophane, and everyday kitchen sponges. Paul Blanc uncovers the grim history of a product that crippled and even served a death sentence to many industry workers while also releasing toxic carbon disulfide into the environment.   Viscose, an innovative and lucrative product first introduced in the early twentieth century, quickly became a multinational corporate enterprise. Blanc investigates industry practices from the beginning through two highly profitable world wars, the midcentury export of hazardous manufacturing to developing countries, and the current “greenwashing” of viscose as an eco-friendly product. Deeply researched and boldly presented, this book brings to light an industrial hazard whose egregious history ranks with those of asbestos, lea... [Read More]

From the 1920s through the 1950s, two individuals, Joseph Urban and Norman Bel Geddes, did more, by far, to create the image of “America” and make it synonymous with modernity than any of their contemporaries. Urban and Bel Geddes were leading Broadway stage designers and directors who turned their prodigious talents to other projects, becoming mavericks first in industrial design and then in commercial design, fashion, architecture, and more. The two men gave shape to the most quintessential symbols of the modern American lifestyle, including movies, cars, department stores, and nightclubs, along with private homes, kitchens, stoves, fridges, magazines, and numerous household furnishings.Illustrated with more than 130 photographs of their influential designs, this book tells the engrossing story of Urban and Bel Geddes. Christopher Innes shows how these two men with a background in theater lent dramatic flair to everything they designed and how this theatricality gave the distinctive modernity they created such wide appeal. If the American lifestyle has been much imitated across the globe over the past fifty years, says Innes, it is due in large measure to the designs of Urban ... [Read More]

Exploring the origins and lasting significance of a dynamic, subversive, and interactive art form This is the first publication to consider art to wear, also known as wearable art, as a discrete American movement that mirrored the cultural, political, social, and spiritual concerns of a generation that came of age in the late 1960s and 1970s. Trained primarily in the fine arts, they adopted nontraditional forms, materials, and techniques to create works using the body as an armature. Collectively, these practitioners have had a significant but underrecognized impact on art making and education. Their legacy continues today among younger artists who have embraced multimedia forms of expression.     Rich archival and newly commissioned photography bring to life one-of-a-kind work by more than 75 artists, including Gaza Bowen, Jean Cacicedo, Marian Clayden, Ben Compton, Marika Contompasis, Nicki Hitz Edson, Tim Harding, Sharron Hedges, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Nina Vivian Huryn, Whitney Kent, Ina Kozel, Susanna Lewis, Janet Lipkin, K. Lee Manuel, Linda Mendelson, Norma Minkowitz, Anna VA Polesny, Debra Rapoport, Mario Rivoli, Dina Knapp, Joan Steiner, Arlene Stimmel, Jamie Summers, JoEl... [Read More]

The first comprehensive study of Knoll's innovative textile designs and the company's role within the history of interior design In 1940, Hans Knoll founded a company in New York that soon earned a reputation for its progressive line of furniture. Florence Schust joined the firm and helped establish its interior design division, the Knoll Planning Unit. In 1947, the year after their marriage, Hans and Florence Knoll added a third division, Knoll Textiles, which brought textile production in line with a modern sensibility that used color and texture as primary design elements. In the early years, the company hired leading proponents of modern design as well as young, untried designers to create textile patterns. The division thrived in the late 1940s through 1960s and, in the following decade, adopted a more international outlook as design direction shifted to Europe. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Knoll tapped fashion designers and architects to bolster its brand. The pioneering use of new materials and a commitment to innovative design have remained Knoll's hallmarks to the present day. With essays by experts, biographies of about eighty designers, and images of textiles, drawings,... [Read More]

A beautifully illustrated overview of women’s undergarments from the 18th century to the present, with a focus on history, fashion, and craftsmanship Lingerie is a subject of enduring fascination. As the final barrier to the fully nude body, it is simultaneously modest and erotic. This compelling and eye-catching publication surveys lingerie from the mid-18th century to the present, covering a broad range of foundation garments, intimate apparel, and lounging clothes—from bras and corsets to slips, peignoirs, and tea gowns. All pieces are gorgeously illustrated in color.   Stunning historical garments from well-known fashion houses such as Christian Dior are included, as is risqué contemporary lingerie by labels such as Agent Provocateur. When viewed as a whole, these pieces illustrate important developments in fashion over time, such as changes in silhouette, shifting ideals of propriety, and advancements in technology.   While a number of the pieces featured in the book were worn hundreds of years ago, the majority date from the 20th century. It was at that time that lingerie started to become as beautiful and alluring as it was functional. Authors Colleen Hill and Valerie... [Read More]

The first comprehensive history of China's most luxurious textile and its enduring influence on Chinese civilization and art Over the past fifty years, archaeological explorations in China have unearthed a wealth of textile materials, some dating as far back as five thousand years. In this magnificently researched and illustrated book, preeminent Western and Chinese scholars draw upon these spectacular discoveries to provide the most thorough account of the history of silk ever written.Encyclopedic in breadth, the volume presents a chronological history of silk from a variety of perspectives, including archaeological, technological, art historical, and aesthetic. The contributors explore the range of uses for silk, from the everyday to the sublime. By directly connecting recently found textile artifacts to specific references in China's vast historical literature, they illuminate the evolution of silk making and the driving social forces that have inspired the creation of innovative textiles through the millennia.

Trick or Treat! Let your little boy join in the fun this Halloween, with this Monsters University Sulley Monster Costume. The adorable plush jumpsuit has a detachable tail, a head cap with horns and even booties with little monster toes sticking out of them. This classic Halloween costume is made of polyester and comes in infant boys'

Trick or Treat! Let your little boy join in all the fun this Halloween with this super cute Monsters University Mike Costume. This costume is inspired by the new hit movie, Monsters University, and will be just as much of a hit at Halloween parties or trick-or-treating. This adorable plush Halloween costume has Mike's face and torso printed onto it, and the booties have little monster toes sticking out of them. It even comes with an MU hat for complete Halloween

The Monsters University Mike Deluxe Toddler/Child Costume includes jumpsuit, overlay, 3D vacuform eye and hat. Does not include shoes. This is an officially licensed Disney Pixar