Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In Seeing Through Clothes (LJ 10/1/78) and Moving Pictures (LJ 6/15/89), Hollander postulated that pictorial representations molded the aesthetic standards as to what "looks right" in Western culture. Here, she continues her sometimes controversial, but never boring, analyses focusing on the dynamics of male/female clothing-specifically, the way in which females have borrowed "male" elements since around 1400, a time when distinctive differences in mode first appeared between the sexes. She subscribes to the prevailing ideology that everything is sexually linked and that fashion is a means of personal expression-although such meaning appears more clearly in retrospect. This is shown in numerous paintings and photographs, but no contemporary written documentation is provided. A good history of the development of men's suits, this book is highly recommended for all costume history collections.-Therese Duzinkiewicz Baker, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

From medieval tunics to the modern business suit, men's clothing-combining ease of use, cohesive formal design and a reflection of underlying bodily shape and movement-has been more advanced and liberating than women's fashions, the author shows. Why has the man's suit endured as a basic fashion item? Why have women wanted ``so desperately'' to copy male tailoring? This iconoclastic, continually stimulating essay argues that women's clothes, even after 1800, slavishly echoed ancient, traditional sartorial custom; modernizing women's clothing has meant copying men's garments, directly or indirectly. Aided by paintings, old prints and society and fashion photographs, art historian Hollander (Seeing Through Clothes) deciphers the fluctuating aesthetic and sexual messages encoded in men's and women's clothing through the centuries. She invisions a postmodern future when both sexes will wear a new standard, androgynous costume, and in leisure time men and women will share equally in all the possibilities of robes, skirts, cosmetics, historic styles and adornments. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

According to Hollander, the move toward modern attire in general, and men's suits in particular, began in the late eighteenth century as part of the neoclassic preference for clean lines, pure forms, and visual continuity. What intrigues Hollander is the longevity of the appeal of the suit and its inherent authority, gracefulness, and "positive sexuality." To fully appreciate the suit's enduring aesthetic and erotic success, Hollander treats us to an unfailingly insightful, creative, and provocative history of modern fashion. Her primary interest is in the distinction between male and female attire. Why were women assigned more colorful, complex clothing, while men enjoyed more coherent designs and the convenience of tradition? Hollander maintains a rich cultural context while pondering the interplay between sex and the imagination, idealized gender roles and clothing, fashion's unreliability and irony, and the crucial roles the printing press and the camera have played in Western fashion's global dominance. She concludes with a shrewd analysis of today's tougher, action-oriented dress and a reminder that, in our highly visual world, appearance is always significant. ~--Donna Seaman

Kirkus Book Review

Art historian Hollander tries to set the record straight about the ``tyranny'' of fashion and to clear its bad name, making a reasonably strong case but offering a surprisingly lifeless account in the process. Hollander (Moving Pictures, 1989, etc.) spends most of the book establishing modern masculine sartorial superiority, setting up the contrast between the men's suit, with its brilliant design- -serious, sexy, timeless--and what, until this century, was mere ephemeral female fashion frippery. From the 1600s until the early 1900s, women's dress became increasingly theatrical and decorative, and received more attention from society (i.e., men), while men's dress set the classical standard. Obscuring female form and motion with tiny waists and voluminous skirts, women's clothing earned fashion the reputation of being manipulative and deceptive. Hollander asserts, to the contrary, that fashion is an ``imaginative art.'' Only in the early 20th century, however, did women's fashion become realistic and dignified. The introduction of short skirts after WW I gave coherence to the female form (and made exposing legs, and thus the wearing of pants, possible). It is just recently, Hollander argues, that female dress has begun to set any significant standards for Western fashion: ``Women finally took over the total male scheme of dress, modified it to suit themselves, and have handed it back to men charged with immense new possiblities.'' Sex and Suits has several major weaknesses, however. Most frustrating, given the book's historical scope (from the Greeks to the Gap), is the profusion of generalizations (``In general, people have always worn what they wanted to wear; fashion exists to keep fulfilling that desire'') and occasional preposterous pronouncements resulting from her attempt to divorce shifts in fashion from social forces. Also, her take on the relationship between gender and contemporary fashion is dated. Still, despite its un-hip feel, a coherent defense of fashion's integrity. (45 b&w photos, not seen)