From pre-war dresses in workman’s blue to 60s dresses and Goth trends, all the emblematic styles of the past 100 years have been brought together in this one work. It’s a lesson in style using words and photos and taught to us by Cally Blackman, who has already written previous books on the subject. In reviewing different Fashion movements of the 20th-century until the 2000s, she recalls some of our favorite icons like Marilyn Monroe, Jean Seberg, and Twiggy. It’s an entire century of design frozen in time.
None of them belong to the same era; this is what allows us to modernize our classics and fashion knowledge by placing each mythical piece in its own time. Styles that caused a scandal, or those that marked the youth of generations past: it’s all here and documented alongside the rest of last century’s Fashion. In other words, you’ll be able to peruse everything from the bikini scandal to the obsession with jeans along with Venetian dresses or the emancipation of the woman’s body.
Through her book, Cally Blackman plunges us back into the past and reinforces the intellectual aspect of Fashion with a didactic eye, evidenced by the illustrations that could each grace a billboard in their own right. What a pleasure it is to have such a book around at home, a true Fashionista’s Bible. Don’t let this work pass you by; it’s an important reminder to fashion lovers everywhere that fashion is first and foremost a matter of invention.
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