Producing Fashion

Regina Lee Blaszczyk is Professor of Business History and Leadership Chair in the History of Business and Society at the University of Leeds. Her books include the award-winning Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning and Major Problems in American Business History: Documents and Essays.

Chapter 1. Rethinking Fashion -Regina Lee Blaszczyk PART I. ORGANIZING THE FASHION TRADES Chapter 2. Spreading the Word: The Development of the Russian Fashion Press -Christine Ruane Chapter 3. Accessorizing, Italian Style: Creating a Market for Milan's Fashion Merchandise -Elisabetta Merlo, Francesca Polese Chapter 4. In the Shadow of Paris? French Haute Couture and Belgian Fashion Between the Wars -Veronique Pouillard Chapter 5. Licensing Practices at Maison Christian Dior -Tomoko Okawa PART II. INVENTING FASHIONS, PROMOTING STYLES Chapter 6. The Wiener Werkstäet;tte and the Reform Impulse -Heather Hess Chapter 7. American Fashions for American Women: The Rise and Fall of Fashion Nationalism -Marlis Schweitzer Chapter 8. Coiffing Vanity: Advertising Celluloid Toilet Sets in 1920s America -Ariel Beaujot PART III. SHAPING BODIES, BUILDING BRANDS Chapter 9. California Casual: Lifestyle Marketing and Men's Leisurewear, 1930-1960 -William R. Scott Chapter 10. Marlboro Men: Outsider Masculinities and Commercial Modeling in Postwar America -Elspeth H. Brown Chapter 11. The Body and the Brand: How Lycra Shaped America -Kaori O'Connor PART IV. CUSTOMER REACTIONS, CONSUMER ADAPTATIONS Chapter 12. French Hairstyles and the Elusive Consumer -Steve Zdatny Chapter 13. Ripping Up the Uniform Approach: Hungarian Women Piece Together a New Communist Fashion -Katalin Medvedev Chapter 14. Why the Old-Fashioned Is in Fashion in American Houses -Susan J. Matt Notes List of Contributors Index Acknowledgments

"Producing Fashion takes readers on an international journey that acknowledges the preeminence of Paris haute couture but also includes stops in Russia, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, and the United States. The case studies, based on new original research, demonstrate the interplay between business enterprise and fashion." (Journal of American History) "Producing Fashion demonstrates the importance of studying fashion, very broadly defined, from the perspective of business history. Case studies from several countries and from various periods during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries show how 'fashion intermediaries' in the business world developed new products and styles that resonated with consumers. Combining historical methods with models from cultural studies and other social science disciplines, these studies provide new insights into the environments that facilitated product innovation, the dissemination of ideas in the marketplace, and factors leading to cooperation or resistance on the part of consumers." (Diana Crane, University of Pennsylvania) "At last, a collection of essays that considers fashion as both a commercial and a cultural phenomenon. Informed by recent approaches in the fields of business history, material culture studies, and the history of design, Producing Fashion offers a stimulating series of case studies that range from fashion magazines in Tzarist Russia to questions of taste in the contemporary American home. Anyone who has ever considered how and why fashionable trends emerge will find something of interest in its pages." (Christopher Breward, Victoria and Albert Museum, London)