Dress, dreams, and desire : a history of fashion and psychoanalysis / Valerie Steele.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steele, Valerie, author.

Contributor:

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fashion--Psychological aspects.

Fashion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (240 pages)

Edition:

1st edition.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2026.

Summary:

This beautifully illustrated book, written by the Director and Chief Curator of The Museum and leading fashion theorist, Valerie Steele, shows how psychoanalysis can provide important clues about the power and allure of fashion, as well as the ambivalence and hostility that fashion also attracts. Investigating how Freud's psychoanalytical theory can deepen the understanding of fashion, Dress, Dreams, and Desire provides unique insights into fashion's unconscious meanings and its emotional significance. A cultural rather than a scientific history, the book considers fashion in relation to issues such as fantasy, the body, vulnerability and power, drawing on key psychoanalytic concepts including fetishism, exhibitionism, the gaze, masquerade, and narcissism. Intimately related to the body and to sexual attraction, fashion makes us "visible" to the world but also provides a defensive shield; fashion also communicates messages, many of which are at least partly unconscious. Fashion historians have utilized psychoanalytic concepts, such as fetishism and the gaze, to interpret aspects of fashion, but few, until now, have engaged thoroughly with psychoanalysis and explored its influence on fashion in depth. With its superb selection of exciting imagery, this adventurous, inspiring and challenging book explores the role of emotions such as desire, anxiety, and envy in the way in which we clothe ourselves.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Fashion as a Deep Surface

Chapter 1: Freud and Fashion

Chapter 2: The Naked Dreamer

Chapter 3: The Masquerade

Chapter 4: The Mirror and the Fragmented Body

Chapter 5: Bitter Enemies

Chapter 6: Desire and Sexual Difference

Chapter 7: To Touch the Gaze

Chapter 8: Bodies to Wear

Notes

Bibliography

Image Credits

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-350-42821-3

9781350428201

OCLC:

1520506800