Looking at Fashion

An outstanding guide to the elements that make up fashion, with stunning illustrations, examples from art, photographs, and more. This is a must-read for anyone interested in fashion. I loved it!

This was actually very helpful with my writing as I don't know the definitions or the proper terms for a lot of clothing items so this was really great!

Debra Mancoff's Looking at Fashion is a glossary of fashion as illustrated by art. Drawing on the Getty's collection and beyond, the author defines key terms, styles, and techniques essential to understanding fashion in both its practical and historical contexts. Specifics of construction and other technical nuances of garments are illuminated by A. E. Kieren's bespoke illustrations. This is an accessible, engaging guide that helps tell the history of fashion through art for a contemporary reader.

The book begins with an epigraph from Virginia Woolf's Orlando, which reads, in part: "clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us." Beginning with Orlando is a fitting start for this book that highlights the ways that fashion is used as an artistic tool for transformation, for pushing boundaries and conventions, for making and remaking the self. Artists such as Frida Kahlo, John Singer Sargent, Lalla Essaydi, Amy Sherald (see the book's cover image), and many more are included to exemplify their use of the sitter's fashion as a vehicle for extra-textual messages and commentary, in particular about identity, body politics, and power.

My thanks to Getty Publications for sharing an advance digital copy of this title. For fashionistas and art lovers alike, this is a book worth having in your collection.

I loved Looking at Fashion! This was a fun book but also very informative about different terms in fashion.

Really great book, I enjoyed how it describes the different terms in fashion and the illustrations are wonderful.