Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A companion volume to an exhibition organized by The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco that will travel from summer 1989 through summer 1990, from San Francisco to the Portland Art Museum in Oregon to the Powerhouse Museum of Sydney, Australia. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword (p. 6)
• Acknowledgments (p. 7)
• New Look to Now (p. 9)
• The Elegant Fifties: When Fashion Was Still a Dictate (p. 13)
• Shopping for Style: Couture in America (p. 23)
• 1947-1952 The New Look: Last Gasp of the Belle Epoque (p. 29)
• 1953-1957 The Fifties: Backward or Forward? (p. 38)
• 1958-1964 New Wave (p. 46)
• 1965-1970 Plastic A-Go-Go to Hippie Cool (p. 57)
• 1971-1975 Retro: Everything Old Is New Again (p. 72)
• 1976-1987 Theatrical Extravagance (p. 81)
• Catalogue (p. 94)
• Balenciaga and Spain (p. 106)
• Biographical Notes on the Couturiers (p. 108)
• Glossary of Textile Terms (p. 116)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Booklist Review

This catalog comprises the work of exhibitions co-organized between several West Coast art museums and the Powerhouse museum in Sydney, Australia, spotlighting the art of French haute couture. Along with 105 cataloged ensembles, the focus spans from Dior's "New Look"--a term proclaimed in 1947 by then influential Harper's Bazaar editor Carmel Snow--to couture's theatrical 1980s. The majority of the exhibition's pieces examines French haute couture's post-World War II reemergence into society's elitist circles, recalling that 1950s fashions and their functions were still dictates of couture and fashion journals. The "Youth Culture" 1960s spurred couture's demise, but rejuvenation arrived with St. Laurent's mid-1970s "Ethnic" collection. Color and black-and-white photos, couturier biographical notes, and a textile glossary conclude this well-produced catalog. --Janet Lawrence