The Art of Dress by Aileen Ribeiro
Dress is the most fleeting of the arts, subject to the arbitrary dictates of fashion. It is also, however, the art that relates most closely to our lives, both as reflection of our self-image and, in the words of Louis XIV, as "the mirror of history". This text examines English and French fashion from 1750 to 1820 by studying the art of the period and it shows how changes in dress reflected social, political and cultural developments in the two countries. Closely analyzing a wide range of visual sources - including portraits and history painting, sculpture, drawings, caricatures and fashion plates by such artists as Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence, David and Ingres - the book describes the development of fashion during this period. The author investigates, for example, how English and French attitudes towards formality and informality were reflected in their dress; how revolution and war affected what was worn; how the concept of fashion was brought to a wider audience, partly because of technological advances in the production of textiles and partly because of a new ideology that linked dress and politics in a movement towards democratization; and why by the end of the era French styles dominated women's fashions and English tailoring dominated men's fashions. A large part of the book looks at the different ways that England and France appropriated the dress of the past for a variety of political, social and cultural reasons, not only in fashion but also in social events, in art, and in official and ceremonial costumes.
Aileen Ribeiro is professor of history of art and lectures on the history of dress at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She is the author of numerous books, including The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France, 17501820; Ingres in Fashion: Representations of Dress and Appearance in Ingres s Images of Women; and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 17151789, all published by Yale University Press.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780300062878 |
| ISBN 10 | 0300062877 |
| Title | The Art of Dress |
| Author | Aileen Ribeiro |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | Yale University Press |
| Year published | 1995-08-30 |
| Number of pages | 268 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |