A dazzling celebration of the clothes that made America's favorite doll and the incredible woman behind them, timed to the movie release of Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and directed by Greta Gerwig. If you've ever had a Barbie doll, or you know someone who did, chances are that Barbie was dressed in one of the thousands of designs created by Carol Spencer during her unparalleled reign as a Barbie fashion designer spanning more than thirty-five years. Illustrated with more than 100 full-color photographs, including many never-before-seen images of rare and one-of-a-kind pieces from Spencer's private archive, Dressing Barbie is a treasure trove of some of the best and most iconic Barbie looks from the early 1960s until the late 1990s. Along with behind-the-scenes stories of how these designs came to be, Spencer reminisces about her thrilling time at Mattel working with legendary figures such as Ruth Handler, Barbie's creator, and Charlotte Johnson, the original Barbie designer, for a full, inside look into life with the beloved doll. Over the course of her career, Spencer won many accolades. She was the first designer to have her signature on the doll, the first to go on a signing tour, the first to design a limited-edition Barbie for collectors, and the designer of the biggest-selling Barbie of all time. Now, she is the first member of the inner circle to reveal the fashion world of the quintessential California girl as never before.
"Barbie and her creator, the sharp-elbowed gal who built the biggest toy company, have a story to tell." --Time Barbie and Ruth by Ruth Gerber is the remarkable true story of the world's most famous toy and the woman who created her. It is a fascinating account of how one visionary woman and her product changed an industry and sparked a lasting debate about women's roles. At once a business book, a colorful portrait of an extraordinary female entrepreneur, and a breathtaking look at a cultural phenomenon, Barbie and Ruth is a must read for anyone who ever owned a Barbie doll--a book Publishers Weekly calls, "a stirring biography...a fine study of success and resilience."
"With astringent understatement and wry economy, with nuance and intelligence and an enviable command of syntax and poetic line, Victoria Chang dissects the venerable practices of cultural piety and self-regard. She is a master of the thumbnail narrative. She can wield a dark eroticism. She is determined to tackle subject matter that is not readily subdued to the proportions of lyric. Her talent is conspicuous."--Linda Gregerson "Chang's voice is equal parts searing, vulnerable, and terrified."--American Poets Barbie Chang, Victoria Chang explores racial prejudice, sexual privilege, and the disillusionment of love through a reimagining of Barbie--perfect in the cultural imagination yet repeatedly falling short as she pursues the American dream. This energetic string of linked poems is full of wordplay, humor, and biting social commentary involving the quote-unquote speaker, Barbie Chang, a disillusioned Asian-American suburbanite. By turns woeful and passionate, playful and incisive, these poems reveal a voice insisting that "even silence is not silent." From "Barbie Chang Lives": Barbie Chang lives on Facebook has a house on Facebook street so she can erase herself Facebook is a country with no trees it allows her to believe people love her don't want to cover her Barbie Chang . . . Victoria Chang is the author of three previous poetry books. In 2013, she won the PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award. Chang teaches poetry at Chapman University and lives in Southern California.
Feminists have argued that the Barbie doll perpetuates unrealistic standards of feminine beauty and undermines the credibility of women - that her long, slender plastic limbs and tiny waist fetishize the female body in unnatural ways and that her mature, overtly fashionable image promotes consumerism and superficiality over and above womens liberty and intellect. Depending on the viewer, Barbie is either a malign symbol of the strategies of the capitalist system or she is a symbol of glamour, high fashion and style, a fascinating indice of cultural change and nostalgic memory. Yet both Barbies fans and detractors assume that she stands alone.In reality she is the most high profile of a series of iconic dolls that over the past century and a half have been intimately connected to notions of fashionability. The prominence of haute couture in popular culture suggests that the link between fashion marketing and dolls should be an obvious one. Yet to date this connection has not been systematically explored. Doll collecting has been viewed as an enthusiasts or curatorial preserve, while the volumes these artefacts speak about culture and identity has not been adequately interrogated. Peers original and shrewd analysis fills a major gap in cultural studies by examining in depth the dolls associations with concepts of femininity and fashionability.
Clear, detailed history of dolls' houses and how they illuminate our past. Popular in Britain since the late seventeenth century, dolls' houses are tiny slices of social history that give us a fascinating glimpse into domestic life over the last 300 years.In this beautifully-illustrated book, Nicola Lisle explores the origins and history of dolls' houses and their furnishings, from the earliest known dolls' house in sixteenth-century Bavaria to the present, and looks at how they reflect the architecture, fashions, social attitudes, innovations and craftsmanship of their day. She discusses the changing role of dolls' houses and highlights significant events and people to give historical context. She also takes a look at some of the leading dolls' house manufacturers, such as Silber & Fleming and Lines Brothers Ltd (later Triang).The book includes numerous examples of interesting dolls' houses, the stories behind them and where to see them. This includes famous models such as Queen Mary's spectacular 1920s dolls' house at Windsor Castle and the eighteenth-century baby house at Kew Palace.There is also a chapter on model towns and villages, which became popular in the twentieth century and also give us a window on the past by replicating real places or capturing scenes typical of a bygone era.There is advice for dolls' house collectors, as well as a detailed directory of places to visit, a timeline of dolls' house history and recommended further reading.One of the most comprehensive guides available on the subject, this book offers unique insights into the world of dolls' houses and is a must for anyone with an interest in the history and appeal of these miniature treasures.
A New Yorker Magazine Best Book of 2022 * An Esquire Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 * A Town & Country Must-Read Book of 2022 * A Fashionista Summer Read "Smart, funny, and impressively thorough."--The Cut In the spirit of works by Jia Tolentino and Anne Helen Peterson, a smart and incisive essay collection centered on the fashion industry--its history, its importance, why we wear what we wear, and why it matters--from Elle Magazine's fashion features director. Why does fashion hold so much power over us Most of us care about how we dress and how we present ourselves. Style offers clues about everything from class to which in-group we belong to. Bad Feminist for fashion, Dress Code takes aim at the institutions within the fashion industry while reminding us of the importance of dress and what it means for self-presentation. Everything--from societal changes to the progress (or lack thereof) of women's rights to the hidden motivations behind what we choose to wear to align ourselves with a particular social group--can be tracked through clothing. Veronique Hyland examines thought-provoking questions such as: Why has the "French girl" persisted as our most undying archetype What does "dressing for yourself" really mean for a woman How should a female politician dress Will gender-differentiated fashion go forever out of style How has social media affected and warped our sense of self-presentation, and how are we styling ourselves expressly for it Not everyone participates in painting, literature, or film. But there is no "opting out" of fashion. And yet, fashion is still seen as superficial and trivial, and only the finest of couture is considered as art. Hyland argues that fashion is a key that unlocks questions of power, sexuality, and class, taps into history, and sends signals to the world around us. Clothes means something--even if you're "just" wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
In a sparkling, beautifully illustrated social history, Skirts traces the shifting roles of women over the twentieth century through the era's most iconic and influential dresses. While the story of women's liberation has often been framed by the growing acceptance of pants over the twentieth century, the most important and influential female fashions of the era featured skirts. Suffragists and soldiers marched in skirts; the heroines of the Civil Rights Movement took a stand in skirts. Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe revolutionized modern art and Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes in skirts. When NASA put a man on the moon, "the computer wore a skirt," in the words of one of those computers, mathematician Katherine G. Johnson. As women made strides towards equality in the vote, the workforce, and the world at large, their wardrobes evolved with them. They did not need to "wear the pants" to be powerful or progressive; the dress itself became modern as designers like Mariano Fortuny, Coco Chanel, Jean Patou, and Diane von Furstenberg redefined femininity for a new era. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell's Skirts looks at the history of twentieth-century womenswear through the lens of game-changing styles like the little black dress and the Bar Suit, as well as more obscure innovations like the Taxi dress or the Pop-Over dress, which came with a matching potholder. These influential garments illuminate the times in which they were first worn--and the women who wore them--while continuing to shape contemporary fashion and even opening the door for a genderfluid future of skirts. At once an authoritative work of history and a delightfully entertaining romp through decades of fashion, Skirts charts the changing fortunes, freedoms, and aspirations of women themselves.
Made Up exposes the multibillion-dollar beauty industry that promotes unrealistic beauty standards through a market basket of advertising tricks, techniques, and technologies. Cosmetics magnate Charles Revson, a founder of Revlon, was quoted as saying, "In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the store, we sell hope." This pioneering entrepreneur, who built an empire on the foundation of nail polish, captured the unvarnished truth about the beauty business in a single metaphor: hope in a jar. Made Up: How the Beauty Industry Manipulates Consumers, Preys on Women's Insecurities, and Promotes Unattainable Beauty Standards is a thorough examination of innovative, and often controversial, advertising practices used by beauty companies to persuade consumers, mainly women, to buy discretionary goods like cosmetics and scents. These approaches are clearly working: the average American woman will spend around $300,000 on facial products alone during her lifetime. This revealing book traces the evolution of the global beauty industry, discovers what makes beauty consumers tick, explores the persistence and pervasiveness of the feminine beauty ideal, and investigates the myth-making power of beauty advertising. It also examines stereotypical portrayals of women in beauty ads, looks at celebrity beauty endorsements, and dissects the "looks industry." Made Upuncovers the reality behind an Elysian world of fantasy and romance created by beauty brands that won't tell women the truth about beauty.
Ask any woman about her favorite pair of shoes, and you're sure to get an answer that goes beyond their material design. In Our Shoes, Our Selves: 40 Women, 40 Stories, 40 Pairs of Shoes, actress Bridget Moynahan and journalist Amanda Benchley ask 40 accomplished women to recount the memories behind their most meaningful pair of shoes. This collection features stories from icons like Bobbi Brown, Danica Patrick, and Misty Copeland to intrepid reporters like Christiane Amanpour and Katie Couric to creative forces like Rupi Kaur, Maya Lin, and Gretchen Rubin. Beautifully illustrated with a portrait of each woman and her chosen shoes, the stories explore what most women already know: that what we wear can have power and significance beyond merely clothing our bodies. Our Shoes, Our Selves reveals these remarkable journeys, and the steps these inspiring women have taken to get there, with the hopes of encouraging all women to forge their own paths.
In their February 2021 issue, Vogue launched 'The United States of Fashion', a project that shines a spotlight on the creativity and craft flourishing throughout the country. Exploring the innovation and entrepreneurialism that defines American fashion, Vogue goes coast to coast from Detroit to El Paso to Indianapolis to Nashville, where the most exciting new designers are creating and designing locally. This book features a wide array of fashion voices across the nation, who share self-generated images and narratives on how they define and identify with fashion now. New, never-before-seen photographs and anecdotes, not published in the pages of Vogue, come from fashion designers Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte, Jeremy Scott, and Libertine; photographers Alex Webb and June Canedo; and craftspeople Ariana Boussard-Reifel and Ataumbi Metals. The book contains texts by esteemed writers, from Louise Erdrich's words on Native American fashion and music editor Suzy Exposito's account of being goth in Miami, to new ways of creating sustainable, recycled fashion. These accounts create a living biography of the evolution and democratisation of fashion today. A rich tapestry of style in America, The United States of Fashion will appeal to readers interested in fashion, design, culture, and photography.
A vibrant new collection of the best maximalist interiors from today's top designers. Rooms of jewel-like colour and glorious pattern. Enchanting lacquered ceilings and geometric floors. Brilliantly massed collections of furniture, objects, and art. Although maximalism has always had a place in interior design - practiced by noted decorators such as Dorothy Draper, Sister Parish, and Mario Buatta - today it is bigger than ever. Thanks to its contemporary practitioners, rooms rich with colour, pattern, and everything else have exploded onto the design scene in recent years. More Is More Is More celebrates the best of this work with page after page of lushly photographed vivid inspiration and ideas. Each of the five chapters in More Is More Is More begins with an essay on a theme - colour, pattern, surfaces, elements, and layering - followed by dozens of show-stopping rooms from acclaimed, award-winning designers, including Ken Fulk, Steven Gambrel, Kelly Behun, Mark D. Sikes, Pierce and Ward, Bunny Williams, Corey Damen Jenkins, and Redd Kaihoi. The images are enhanced by commentary from the designers describing their process for creating the room and offering insight on how to incorporate the ideas at home. With a design as lavishly maximalist as its subject, More Is More Is More is a perfect gift for design fans.
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