Men's Costumes

At the start of the 20th century, men wore clothes, not fashions. Men who made a point of dressing well, like the British king Edward VII, were wealthy exceptions to the rule. Most men's clothing, usually custom-made by tailors, was practical and built to last. Today, menswear is a major part of the fashion industry. Men's Costumes looks at how men's clothing went from the local tailor to the catwalks of Paris, Milan, and New York, and the social factors that caused changes in style and attitude, from the anti-consumerist hippies of the Sixties to the Armani-suited power dressers of Wall Street in the Eighties. We also meet some of the trendsetters who have influenced fashion through their own personal style, including President Teddy Roosevelt and his Panama hat, designers such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, and Kurt Cobain and the rise of grunge style. Book jacket.