Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity
Edited by Gloria Groom

November 27, 2012
336 pages, 9 x 12
478 color illus.
ISBN: 9780300184518
Cloth
Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago
Out of Print
This volume is the first to explore fashion as a critical aspect of modernity, one that paralleled and many times converged with the development of Impressionism, starting in the 1860s and continuing through the next two decades, when fashion attracted the foremost writers and artists of the day. Although they have depicted fashionable subjects throughout history, for many artists and writers, including Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Émile Zola, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, fashion became integral to the search for new literary and visual expression. In a series of essays that examine fashion and its social, cultural, and artistic context during some of the most important years of the Impressionist era—years that also gave birth to the modern fashion industry—a group of fifteen scholars, drawn from five interdisciplinary fields, examine approximately 140 Impressionist-era artworks, including those by dedicated fashion portraitists, in light of the rise of the department store, new working methods for designing clothing, and new social and technological changes that led to the democratization of fashion and, simultaneously, its ascendance as a vehicle for modernity.
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE
Musée d'Orsay, Paris(09/25/12-01/20/13)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art(02/26/13-05/27/13)
The Art Institute of Chicago(06/26/13-09/22/13)
With contributions by Heidi Brevik-Zender, Helen Burnham, Guy Cogeval, Justine De Young, Gloria Groom, Stéphane Guégan, Birgit Haase, Elizabeth Anne McCauley, Sylvie Patry, Aileen Ribeiro, Valerie Steele, Françoise Tétart-Vittu, Philippe Thiébaut, Gary Tinterow, and David Van Zanten
‘Sumptuous [and] irresistible.’—Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times
"Engrossing."—Frank Whitford, The Sunday Times
"There is much to discover about the early days of the world of fashion as we know it today in this well-researched, fascinating book." — Suzanne Rowland, Fashionfairy.com