Select a format
Buying pre-order items
Ebooks and Audiobook
You will receive an email with a download link for the ebook or audiobook on the publication date.
Payment
You will not be charged for pre-ordered books until they are available to be shipped. Pre-ordered ebooks will not be charged for until they are available for download.
Amending or cancelling your order
For orders that have not been shipped you can usually make changes to pre-orders up to 72 hours before the publishing date.
Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available
Description
When Adorned in Dreams was first published in 1985, Angela Carter described the book as 'the best I have read on the subject, bar none.'
From haute couture to haberdashery, and 'deviant' dress to Dior, Elizabeth Wilson traces the social and cultural history of fashion and its complex relationship to modernity. From the 'dress reform' movement to certain strands of feminism, Wilson delights in the power of fashion to mark out identity - or subvert it.
Explore topics including fashion and city life, feminism and fashion, and oppositional dress in this authoritative scholarly text on fashion's pivotal role in modern society.
Accessibility Information
Additional accessibility information
- PDF/UA-2, 1.4
- Accessibility request contact
Support for non-visual reading
Has alternative text descriptions for images
Navigation
- Page list to go to pages from the print source version
- Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
- All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
Table of Contents
1: Introduction
2: The History of Fashion
3: Explaining it Away
4: The Fashion Industry
5: Fashion and Eroticism
6: Gender and Identity
7: Fashion and City Life
8: Fashion and Popular Culture
9: Oppositional Dress
10: Utopian Dress and Dress Reform
11: Feminism and Fashion
12: Changing Times/Altered States
Afterword
References
Further reading
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 14 May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 2nd |
| Pages | 314 |
| ISBN | 9781350399761 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Visual Arts |
| Illustrations | 17 bw |
| Series | Foundations of Fashion Studies |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |

























