"Aside from the occasional nod to epaulettes or use of camouflage, war and fashion seem to be strange partners. Not so, argue the contributors to this book, who connect military industrial practices as well as military dress to textile and clothing in new ways. For instance, the book includes a series of commentaries on the impact of military dress in the airline industry, in illustrated wartime comics, and even considers today's muscled soldier's body as a new type of uniform. Elsewhere, the effects of conquest introduce a new set of postcolonial aesthetics as military and colonial regimes disrupt local textile production and garment making. In another chapter, it is argued that textiles and fashion are important because they reflect a core practice, one that bridges textile artists and designers in an expressive, creative, and deeply physical way to matters of cultural significance. And the book concludes by calling the very mode of 'military chic' into ethical question. The premier text to illustrate the impact of war on textiles, bodies, costume, art, and design, Fashion & War in Popular Culture will be warmly welcomed by scholars of fashion design and theory, historians of fashion, and those interested in theories of warfare and military science"--Publisher's website.

This work is a comparative study of the three "great" American wars of the 20th century: World War I, World War II and Vietnam. The book explores several aspects of American popular culture, like fashion, film and societal mores. While a number of books have covered fashion during individual wars, this is the first study to compare several major conflicts, drawing some conclusions regarding the lasting influences of wardrobe over an entire century. This book provides short background information for each war, briefly covering earlier conflicts that shaped the hostilities of the 20th century. Although the emphasis is on women's clothing, participation and service, men are not ignored. Their fashions not only speak to the times, but the enormity of their sacrifices.

Covering many aspects of the Vietnam War that have not been addressed before, this book supplies new perspectives from academics as well as Vietnam veterans that explore how this key conflict of the 20th century has influenced everyday life and popular culture during the war as well as for the past 50 years. How did the experience of the Vietnam War change the United States, not just in the 1950s through the 1970s, but through to today? What role do popular music and movies play in how we think of the Vietnam War? How similar are the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—and now Syria—to the Vietnam War in terms of duration, cost, success and failure rates, and veteran issues? This two-volume set addresses these questions and many more, examining how the Vietnam War has been represented in media, music, and film, and how American popular culture changed because of the war. Accessibly written and appropriate for students and general readers, this work documents how the war that occurred on the other side of the globe in the jungles of Vietnam impacted everyday life in the United States and influenced various entertainment modes. It not only covers the impact of the counterculture revolution, popular music about Vietnam recorded while the war was being fought (and after), and films made immediately following the end of the war in the 1970s, but also draws connections to more modern events and popular culture expressions, such as films made in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Attention is paid to the impact of social movements like the environmental movement and the civil rights movement and their relationships to the Vietnam War. The set will also highlight how the experiences and events of the Vietnam War are still impacting current generations through television shows such as Mad Men.

This title begins with a series of commentaries on how the military/industrial practices have changed postcolonial or post war societies. Here, the impact of conquest determines a new postcolonial aesthetics of textile and clothing. In each study, the military and/or colonial regimes are shown to disrupt local textile production and garment-making. Textile and costume are important because they reflect one of the core practices which work as a bridge to connect textile makers in an expressive, creative and deeply physical way to matters of cultural significance. Further, this title, "Fashion & War in Popular Culture," challenges the easy adoption of the military as chic.

Much of the scholarship examining British culture of the First World War focusses on the 'high' culture of a limited number of novels, memoirs, plays and works of art, and the cultural reaction to them. This collection, by focussing on the cultural forms produced by and for a much wider range of social groups, including veterans, women, museum visitors and film goers, greatly expands the debate over how the war was represented by participants and the meanings ascribed to it in cultural production. Showcasing the work of both established academics and emerging scholars of the field, this book covers aspects of British popular culture from the material cultures of food and clothing to the representational cultures of literature and film. The result is an engaging and invigorating re-examination of the First World War and its place in British culture. Contributors are: Keith Grieves, Rachel Duffett, Jane Tynan, Krisztina Robert, Lucy Noakes, Stella Moss, Carol Acton, Douglas Higbee, John Pegum, Eugene Michail, Victoria Stewart, Virginie Renard, Claudia Sternberg, Richard Espley and Stephen Badsey. Erratum Introduction, Jessica Meyer, page 11 in the first sentence of the second paragraph, for 'talke' read 'talk.'

Jeans are a type of trouser developed in 1873 and have been appropriated from work pants, typically worn by men, to the high fashion influence jeans have today. Jeggings are highly influenced by jeans, but what influenced the development from jeans to jeggings? How did the culture, political, and fashion influence decisions the designers made to develop their point of view? In this book, middle school readers will learn the answers to these questions and will be excited to understand how fashion designers use cultural and historical influences in their work. This book examines, decade by decade, how what was happening in the United Sates in culture, politics, and economics influenced fashion, specifically jeans, and vice versa throughout the post-World War II era. This high-interest book includes the history, current status and future of the art form and features rich illustrations, primary sources, and the historical and cultural context.

Popular culture in the latter half of the twentieth century precipitated a decisive change in style and body image. Postwar film, television, radio shows, pulp fiction and comics placed heroic types firmly within public consciousness. This book concentrates on these heroic male types as they have evolved from the postwar era and their relationship to fashion to the present day. As well as demonstrating the role of male icons in contemporary society, this book’s originality also lies in showing the many gender slippages that these icons help to effect or expose. It is by exploring the somewhat inviolate types accorded to contemporary masculinity that we see the very fragility of a stable or rounded male identity.