Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Dress and globalisation is the first work to survey dress around the world, drawing together issues of consumption, ethnicity, gender and the body, as well as anthropological accounts and studies of representation. It examines international western style dress, including jeans and business suits, headwear and hairdressing, ethnicity and so called 'ethnic chic', clothes for the tourist market, the politicisation of traditional dress, 'alternative' dressing, and T-shirts as temporary markers of identity. It also considers dress and environmental issues, touching on adventure gear, the 'green' consumer and the possible impact of 'smart' clothing. Dispelling the myth of universal 'world' attire, this book demonstrates that western-style clothing transcends geographical boundaries but along with other forms of dress, can form a montage of differing tastes, ethnic preferences and national and local imperatives. By discussing the nature of globalisation, this book shows that, if economics permit, all cultures are selective in their choice of what to wear. Dress and globalisation will be welcomed by students of dress history and cultural studies.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Frontispiece
• Acknowledgements
• List of Illustrations
• Captions
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Theorising Global Dress
• Dress and Global Sameness
• Political Dress
• Ethnic Dress or Fashionably 'Ethnic'?
• Style and Communication
• Headwear: Negotiating Meaning
• What's the Alternative?
• Clothing: Is there a Responsible Choice?
• Bibliography
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Following up Joanne Eicher (ed., Dress and Ethnicity: Change across Space and Time, 1995) and "world dress," Maynard (English, media studies, and art history, Univ. of Queensland) explores how clothing has been affected from 1968 to 2004 by global economic growth, USSR disintegration, Chinese consumer revolution, postcolonial social changes, outsourcing, multinational corporations, worldwide finance systems, media networks, and the e-revolution. Clothing historians have long known that dress communicates information locally on group identification. Maynard shows that previous assumptions should be expanded due to recent studies on distribution into Third World areas of mass-produced, classless, and nongendered Western clothing such as T-shirts, jeans, and baseball caps. While this trend seems aimed at clothing homogeneity, Maynard challenges such an interpretation, claiming that globalization and Westernization are not synonymous. This horizon-expanding study brings together new data from anthropological, material culture, and consumer studies to cover such anomalies as bicultural mix-and-match clothing of diaspora peoples; conflicts regarding nationalism and dress; tensions between tourists' search for traditional ethnic clothing and local desires for modernity; ethnic dress used as political defiance; electronic clothing; scarf-wearing conflicts due to the War on Terrorism; and other thought-provoking facets. Maynard's conclusion: "Global dress is an uneven montage of differing tastes and imperatives." ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. B. B. Chico Regis University