The course examines western fashion and dress from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century focusing on the development of modern urban patterns of consumption and the reception of dress as a key aspect of visual culture. It takes students through the development of the modern city from the French Second Empire to the 1960s demise of the 'couture system’, linking fashion design to urban life and the enactment of gendered identity. The relationship of dress and the body to architecture, urban and domestic space will provide a focus for the course
with an emphasis on Paris, London and New York and some attention to the post-colonial cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Toronto. Methodologies employed include: social, political and economic history, art history, urban cultural studies, media studies, gender studies, literary studies, design studies and sociology.