From Jack the Ripper to Frankenstein, Halloween customs to Alexander McQueen collections, Fashioning Horror examines how terror is fashioned visually, symbolically, and materially through fashion and ...costume, in literature, film, and real life. With a series of case studies that range from sensationalist cinema and slasher films to true crime and nineteenth-century literature, the volume investigates the central importance of clothing to the horror genre, and broadens our understanding of both material and popular culture. Arguing that dress is fundamental to our understanding of character and setting within horror, the chapters also reveal how the grotesque and horrific is at the center of fashion itself, with its potential for instability, disguise, and carnivalesque subversion. Packed with original research, and bringing together a range of international scholars, the book is the first to thoroughly examine the aesthetics of terror and the role of fashion in the construction of horror.
Disguise devices figure in many early modern English plays and an examination of them clearly affords an important reflection on the growth of early theatre as well as on important aspects of the ...developing nation. In this study, Hyland examines various conceptual and practical issues that provide a background to theatrical disguise and goes on to consider a range of plays under three broad headings: moral issues, social issues, and aesthetic issues.
In the digital age, virtual simulation images have become an important communication form of Chinese traditional Yue Opera costumes and their culture. Focusing on the lay viewers’ aesthetic ...experience, we collected 16 subjective evaluations, including favorites of basic design elements, semantic impressions, and high-level aesthetic experience, of 257 participants on 5 virtual simulation pictures of Yue Opera costumes for different characters and used network analysis to explore the possible relationship of the variables. The inferred networks showed that the archetypal aesthetic was more relevant to the costume design elements, emotions, interests, and the sense of high level. The conspicuous clothing, understanding of creative intent, and the desire for cultural knowledge were key “bridges” in the aesthetic process. Although the aesthetic network of each costume varied partially based on character differences, it showed more similarities overall. On the basis of the findings, we discuss the possible theoretical basis of the networks and make practical suggestions for the virtual dissemination of Yue Opera costumes.
Styling Shanghai is the first book dedicated to exploring the city’s fashion cultures, examining its growing status as one of the world’s foremost fashion cities. From its origins as an international ...treaty port in the 19th century, Shanghai has emerged as a global leader in the production, mediation and consumption of fashion. This book reveals how the material and imaginative context of this thriving urban centre has produced vivid interpretations of fashion as object, image and idea. Bringing together contributions by a range of leading international fashion historians and theorists, and drawing on extensive original research, Styling Shanghai offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the mega-city’s shifting position as a fashion capital. Rooted in collaboration between leading UK, Australian and Shanghai-based institutions, it considers the impact of local and global textile manufacturing, the representation and marketing of ‘Shanghai Style’, bodies and gender in the ‘Paris of the East’, and the challenges of globalization, commercialization and digital communication in contemporary Shanghai.
Costume restoration is one of the important ways to study costume history and culture. The purpose of this paper is to show the characteristics of Chinese costumes more than 1000 years ago, through ...the research on the costume in the famous ancient Chinese painting DaoLian painting, and provide strong technical support for the research of Chinese ancient costume culture. DaoLian painting is the work of Xuan Zhang, a famous painter in Tang dynasty (618–907), China. From the perspective of clothing engineering, we analyzed the characteristics of costume style, color, and pattern and used the virtual fitting technology to realize digital restoration of the costume of 12 characters in the painting. The results show that it is a practical method to study costume from paintings. The colors, patterns, and character gestures in the paintings provide sufficient information for the archaeology and restoration of ancient costumes. The research results of this paper can provide a new idea for costume archaeology and a reference for modern fashion design and materials for the VR Museum of Ancient Costumes.
An innovative series of case studies looking at the significance, meaning and social context of costume and textiles used in dance among a variety of ancient cultures and civilisations.
Dress is at ...the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people. As such, dress transcends how it is seen visually to address what is being communicated. Nonetheless, studies in ancient dance have rarely taken clothing into consideration.
Therefore, this publication gathers articles that give new perspectives and insights on ancient dances and their ancient textiles. Comprehension of ancient dance benefits from investigations undertaken through the lens of dress. And research on ancient dress is understood through its relation to body movement and performative rituals, thus reinforcing the progressive integration of an anthropological and sociological dimension into historical analysis of ancient textiles. For the first time, the two-way transfer of knowledge between dance studies and costume studies is connected via an innovative approach. Among the issues that are specifically addressed are the movement design of dress for dance, its sensory experience, gender and identity, reenactment and reception.
The chronological range of the publication is limited to the ancient world (3rd millennium BC to 5th century AD), and the geographical definition is meant to be broad in order to promote a comparative approach and cross-cultural dialogue, as well as discourse between fields and disciplines.
Learn how to create historically accurate costumes for Elizabethan period productions with Elizabethan Costume Design and Construction! Extensive coverage of a variety of costumes for both men and ...women of all social classes will allow you to be prepared for any costuming need, and step-by-step instructions will ensure you have the know-how to design and construct your garments. Get inspired by stunning, hand-drawn renderings of costumes used in real life productions like Mary Stuart as you're led through the design process. Detailed instructions will allow you to bring your designs to life and create a meticulously constructed costume.
This volume examines the dynamic relationship between the body, clothing, and identity in sub-Saharan Africa and raises questions that have previously been directed almost exclusively to a Western ...and urban context. Unusual in its treatment of the body surface as a critical frontier in the production and authentification of identity, Clothing and Difference shows how the body and its adornment have been used to construct and contest social and individual identities in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, and other African societies during both colonial and post-colonial times.
Grounded in the insights of anthropology and history and influenced by developments in cultural studies, these essays investigate the relations between the personal and the public, and between ideas about the self and those about the family, gender, and national groups. They explore the bodily and material creation of the changing identities of women, spirits, youths, ancestors, and entrepreneurs through a consideration of topics such as fashion, spirit possession, commodity exchange, hygiene, and mourning.
By taking African societies as its focus, Clothing and Difference demonstrates that factors considered integral to Western social development—heterogeneity, migration, urbanization, transnational exchange, and media representation—have existed elsewhere in different configurations and with different outcomes. With significance for a wide range of fields, including gender studies, cultural studies, art history, performance studies, political science, semiotics, economics, folklore, and fashion and textile analysis/design, this work provides alternative views of the structures underpinning Western systems of commodification, postmodernism, and cultural differentiation.
Contributors . Misty Bastian, Timothy Burke, Hildi Hendrickson, Deborah James, Adeline Masquelier, Elisha Renne, Johanna Schoss, Brad Weiss
