Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The way we wore: The story of modern fashion--from couture to mass market The 20th century saw fashion evolve from an exclusive Parisian salon business catering to a wealthy elite, into a global industry employing millions, with new trends whisked into stores before the last model has left the catwalk. Along the way, the signature feminine silhouettes of each era evolved beyond recognition: House of Worth crinolines gave way to Vionnet's bias-cut gowns, Dior's New Look to Quant's Chelsea Look, Halston's white suit to Frankie B.'s low-rise jeans. In menswear, ready-made suits signaled the demise of bespoke tailoring, long before Hawaiian shirts, skinny ties or baggy pants entered the fore.



20th Century Fashion offers a stylish retrospective of the last hundred years, via 400 fashion advertisements from the Jim Heimann Collection. Using imagery culled from a century of advertising, this book documents the unrelenting pace of fashion as it was adopted into the mass culture, decade by decade. An in-depth introduction, chapter text, and illustrated timeline detail the style-makers and trend-setters, from couture to the mass market; and how the historic events, design houses, retailers, films, magazines, and celebrities shaped the way we dressed--then and now. Text in English, French, and German

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This volume chronicles the 20th century with 400 sketched and photographed fashion pictures from the collection of design historian Heimann (executive editor, Taschen America). Chapters in English, French, and German cover decades, each with a summarizing introduction and illustrated time line. Altogether they take the viewer on a "fashion roller coaster" from turn-of-the-century elitist Edwardian styles to mass hip-hop counterculture at century's end. In between, images aim to convince consumers that to be a success one must keep up with demands of constant fashion changes. They include 1907 sun- and rainproof boaters; Arrow collars and rubberized swim bonnets in the 1910s; sophisticated spats (1920s); lightweight Palm Beach suits and cravats (1930s); Catalina swimsuits and men's boxer shorts (1940s); Hawaiian shirts and fedoras (1950s); miniskirts and jumpsuits (1960s); sexy jeans (1970s); canvas athletic shoes (1980s); and designer names (1990s). Since many ads focus on hosiery and underwear, especially on slenderizing girdles and uplift brassieres, this work could serve as a useful visual complement to Jiggle: (Re)shaping Americn Women by Wendy Burns-Ardolino (CH, Nov'08, 46-1781), which explores how and why US women's bodies have been controlled and shaped by undergarments since the 1930s--all in the effort to sell the "ideal woman's figure." Summing Up: Recommended. All collections. B. B. Chico Regis University