"During a time in Europe, called the Middle Ages ..., your position in life was based on birth. This position would follow you throughout your life. To make it easy for others to know your social class, rules about what you could wear or not wear, were created"--

"Everything--from societal changes to the progress (or lack thereof) of women's rights to the hidden motivations behind what we choose to wear to align ourselves with a particular social group--can be tracked through clothing. Veronique Hyland examines thought-provoking questions such as: Why has the "French girl" persisted as our most undying archetype? What does "dressing for yourself" really mean for a woman? How should a female politician dress?...

Felix likes to wear skirts, but when his classmates' merciless teasing makes him want to give up school for good, his parents come up with a way to validate Felix's expression, while also teaching the other children a lesson in acceptance.

What you choose to wear becomes part of your identity, but it doesn't affect just you. Your clothing sends a message to the world, whether you want it to or not! And often we don't know what that message really is. Can Your Outfit Change the World? looks at how and where clothes are made, how the people who make the clothes are treated and how the companies who sell the clothes affect the health of our planet. Armed with information, you can follow...

Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Merchants who dressed like princes and butchers' wives wearing gem-encrusted crowns were public enemies in medieval societies structured by social hierarchy and defined by spectacle. In Tudor England, silk, velvet, and fur were reserved for the...

"Studying dress history teaches us much about the past. In this skillfully illustrated, accessible and authoritative book, Jayne Shrimpton demonstrates how fashion and clothes represent the everyday experiences of earlier generations, illuminating the world in which they lived. As Britain evolved during the 1800s from a slow-paced agrarian society into an urban-industrial nation, dress was transformed. Traditional rural styles declined and modern...

Discusses how textiles are an integral part of the human life journey from cradle to grave in a multitude of practical, symbolic and spiritual ways. This title illustrates the many uses of textiles in our everyday lives. It outlines how textiles are a means of communication functional, political and artistic and a metaphor for transcendence.

Description from the publisher: Islam seeks to make people, when dealing with one another, free of any physical considerations. Through Hijab, Islam aims to take away the pressure on women of being slim, young, beautiful for every passer-by, giving her an opportunity to be on a more equal footing in society. Without Hijab, women may have to lay themselves open to the scrutiny and intrusive glances of anyone who would size her up and accept or reject...

Publisher's description: Using objects that Americans have saved through the centuries and stories they have passed along, as well as histories teased from documents, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich chronicles the production of cloth--and of history--in early America. Under the singular and brilliant lens that Ulrich brings to this study, ordinary household goods--Indian baskets, spinning wheels, a chimneypiece, a cupboard, a niddy-noddy, bed coverings, silk...