British Fashion Design explores the tensions between fashion as art form; and the demands of a ruthlessly commercial industry. Based on interviews and research conducted over a number of years; Angela McRobbie charts the flow of art school fashion graduates into the industry; their attempts to reconcile training with practice; and their precarious position between the twin supports of the education system and the commercial sector. Stressing the social context of cultural production; McRobbie focuses on British fashion and its graduate designers as products of youth street culture; and analyses how designers from diverse backgrounds have created a labour market for themselves; remodelling `enterprise culture` to suit their own careers.
#2695455 in eBooks 2003-09-02 2003-09-02File Name: B000OI0GNO
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Some interesting ideas communicated in dry; academic proseBy S. JacobsonThis book contains a number of essays; some of which make interesting points; but many of which are so riddled by academic jargon as to be virtually unreadable. If you agree with the proposition "never use straightforward sentence structure or simple words when convoluted prose and multisyllabic jargon will do" you might enjoy this book more than i did. I completely agree with the accompanying review written by "A Customer".7 of 11 people found the following review helpful. Interesting but flawedBy A CustomerA close look at its title will reveal the kind of cultural synthesis "Shakespeare: the Movie" aims at: it is a book of essays about movie and TV adaptations of plays written by Shakespeare. Seems like a fascinating subject - after all; there is a constant cross-fertilization between movies and plays: Dustin Hoffman in "Death of a Salesman;" or "The Lion King; Broadway Musical." (Although; as one essay claims in passing; "The Lion King does have a distinct flavor of Hamlet.") And Shakespeare drew many of his plots from old folk tales - so you can toss oral tradition into the pot. What would it mean to write a review of one of these hybrids? How much importance must you place on faithfulness to the original; and how much on a successful adaptation to the new form? The set of questions suggested by those three words might be the most concise moment in the book. Because unfortunately; when I turned the page; I was faced with the most sour stew of turgid prose that academia can produce. Favorite words include "narration;" "discourse"; "cultural;" "explicitly;" and "contextualization;" for these words can usually be added to any phrase you want; so the sentence can march down the margin until its half a page long; while saying very little. Mobile phones and intercoms; writes Richard Burt; "formulate the mediating power of Los Angeles as the contemporary site where high/low distinctions are engaged in endlessly resignifying themselves." The word "gender" is frequently verbed... A couple of essays; like "Shakespeare Wallah;" offered a genuinely new take (and fresh language); but on the whole the book was all over the place and lacked coherence.4 of 14 people found the following review helpful. Awesome Criticism!By hot babeThis is a fantastic coleciton ranging across a wide variety of Shakespeare films. If you are dumb enough to think that "gender" is not a verb (as in "to gender") and a noun as well as think that "verb" is a verb and a noun (as in "to verb"); this book will probably disappoint you. But if you have a good sense of the grammar of the English language; youll love this book.