By: Gabriel Goldstein (Editor), Elizabeth Greenberg (Editor), Sylvia A. Herskowitz (Foreword by)

Hardcover

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Flip on the entertainment news, open an issue of a popular magazine, or step into any department store?and you'll appreciate the impact of the multibillion-dollar fashion industry on American culture. Yet its origins in the nineteenth-century ?rag trade" of Jewish tailors, cutters, pressers, peddlers, and shopkeepers have yet to be fully explored. In this copiously illustrated volume, twelve scholars from varied backgrounds consider the role of American Jews in creating, developing, and furthering the national garment industry from the Civil War forward. Drawn from an award-winning exhibition of the same title at the Yeshiva University Museum, A Perfect Fit provides a fascinating view of American society, culture, and industrialization. Essays address themes such as the development of the menswear industry; the early film industry and its relationship to American fashion; the relationship of the American industry to Britain and France; the acculturation of Jewish immigrants and its impact on American garment making; advertising history and popular culture; and regional centers of manufacturing. This multivalent group of essays compellingly weaves together important threads of the complex history of the American garment industry.

[A] fine contribution to both fashion and American Jewish history . . . significantly enhanced by the number and variety of the 152 color illustrations. --Publishers Weekly

ISBN: 9780896727359
ISBN-10: 0896727351
Series: Costume Society of America Series
Audience: General
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 264
Published: 31st July 2012
Dimensions (cm): 27.9 x 21.6  x 2.8
Weight (kg): 1.597