Celebrates the new Indian designers—from ready-to-wear and haute couture to bridal and menswear—currently transforming the international fashion scene India is a rising star in the world of fashion. Drawing on an inimitable creative inheritance stretching back thousands of years, the country’s designers are rapidly securing India’s place in the future of fashion. Larger cities like Delhi and Mumbai, home to Lakmé Fashion Week and already destinations for the fashion elite, are no longer the sole players, as Pune and Bangalore grow increasingly influential. Across India, young designers are acting on the opportunities provided by the increasing influence of the nation’s fashion shows and the expanding market for boutiques and online retail. This timely first survey of Indian fashion celebrates the achievements of such young designers as Rahul Mishra, Aneeth Arora, and Ruchika Sachdeva, as well as the visually vibrant designs of established superstars including Manish Aurora, Abu Jani, Sandeep Khosla, and others. Illuminating profiles of the designers are interwoven with interviews conducted by the author especially for this book. Lush illustrations of all the hottest looks range from luxury bridal and ethnic formal wear to contemporary interpretations of the sari. Descriptions of the various techniques and materials employed reveal the skill behind each incredible garment, from traditional crafts like handloom weaving, color-resist dyed silk, intricate embroidery and appliqué, to cutting-edge fabrication and construction methods.

Fashion in India is distinctly unique, in its aesthetics, systems, designers and influences. Indian Fashion is the first study of its kind to examine the social, political, global and local elements that give shape to this multifaceted center. Spanning India's long historical contribution to global fashion to the emergence of today's vibrant local fashion scene, Sandhu provides a comprehensive overview of the Indian fashion world. From elite high-end to street style of the masses, the book explores the complex realities of Indian dress through key issues such as identity, class, youth and media. This ground-breaking book does not simply apply western fashion theory to an Indian context, but allows for a holistic understanding of how fashion is created, worn, displayed and viewed in India. Accessibly written, Indian Fashion will be a fantastic resource for students of fashion, cultural studies and anthropology.

This unique ethnographic investigation examines the role that fashion plays in the production of the contemporary Indian luxury aesthetic. Tracking luxury Indian fashion from its production in village craft workshops via upmarket design studios to fashion soirées, Kuldova investigates the Indian luxury fashion market's dependence on the production of thousands of artisans all over India, revealing a complex system of hierarchies and exploitation. In recent years, contemporary Indian design has dismissed the influence of the West and has focused on the opulent heritage luxury of the maharajas, Gulf monarchies and the Mughal Empire. Luxury Indian Fashion argues that the desire for a luxury aesthetic has become a significant force in the attempt to define contemporary Indian society. From the cultivation of erotic capital in businesswomen's dress to a discussion of masculinity and muscular neo-royals to staged designer funerals, Luxury Indian Fashion analyzes the production, consumption and aesthetics of luxury and power in India. Luxury Indian Fashion is essential reading for students of fashion history and theory, anthropology and visual culture.

In today's globally connected marketplace, a wedding sari in rural north India may become a woman's blouse or cushion cover in a Western boutique. Lucy Norris's anthropological study of the recycling of clothes in Delhi follows garments as they are gifted, worn, handed on, discarded, recycled, and sold once more. Gifts of clothing are used to make and break relationships within middle-class households, but a growing surplus of unwanted clothing now contributes to a global glut of textile waste. When old clothing is, for instance, bartered for new kitchen utensils, it enters a vast waste commodity system in which it may be resold to the poor or remade into new textiles and exported. Norris traces these local and transnational flows through homes and markets as she tells the stories of the people who work in the largely hidden world of fabric recycling.

The book is based on the brief research of the evolution of fashion from the starting period of time. It includes the details about how fashion has evolve from that time to now. How every civilization introduce their own style and dressing how fashion is now contributing to our society and what is the effect of fashion on Indian Society? How clothing has been divided in various segments in 21st century? The book is more useful for those who are indulging in the field of fashion and clothing and who is curious to know about the journey of fashion and attires of Indian society.

In her book, Patricia Anawalt describes through text and more than 350 illustrations and charts what the Indians of Middle America were wearing when Corts and his conquistadors arrived in the New World in 1519. The costumes reveal a great deal about those who wore them. To the peoples of Middle America, dress was identity; even a god had to don his proper attire. To the Aztecs and their neighbors, for example, the wearing of appropriate clothing was strictly controlled by both custom and law. An individuals attire immediately identified not only culture affiliation but rank and status as well. Since each group dressed in a distinctive and characteristic manner, a great deal of ethnographic and historical information can be gleaned from a study of what those groups wore.

Celebrating Native American design as an important force in the world of contemporary fashion, this book features beautiful, innovative, and surprising looks from Native American artists. Mainstream American fashion has always been influenced by Native American design, and that’s because Native artists have always created exquisite clothing, jewelry, and accessories of their own. But it’s only recently that Native designers themselves have started to break into the fashion industry in a big way. Current Native fashion is both wearable and beautiful and, as this volume reveals, increasingly fashion-forward. Divided into sections according to the designers’ personal styles, the book showcases the work of dozens of fashion designers, from Virgil Ortiz to Patricia Michaels to Jamie Okuma. The book even includes a few Native-influenced pieces by non-Native designers like Isaac Mizrahi and Ralph Lauren. Native Fashion Now designers have dressed presidents’ wives and been finalists on Project Runway, sold their work around the world, and seen it acquired by museums and private collectors. With examples that range from haute couture to casual streetwear, from evening gowns to beaded boots, and from skateboards to umbrellas, Native Fashion Now demonstrates the extraordinary range and talent of designers who honor important cultural traditions while creating breathtaking of-the-moment fashion.