Fashioning London

Over the past three centuries, London has established itself as one of the world’s most inventive fashion capitals.

City life and fashion have always been intertwined, but nowhere has this relationship been more excitingly expressed than on the streets of London. Fashioning London explores how particular styles of dress became emblematic of this leading international city, ultimately challenging the fashion dominance of Paris, Milan, and New York. From the ballrooms and boxing rings of the 18th century, through the Victorian extremes of poverty and conspicuous consumption, to the flamboyant explosions of subcultural taste that defined the late modern capital, Londoners have constantly offered an idiosyncratic reading of fashionability that has profoundly influenced the nature of style in other parts of the world.

In this book, Christopher Breward constructs an original history of clothing in London, through its manufacture, promotion, and cultural significance, while examining how issues of space, architecture and performance impinge on notions of fashionability. His writing highlights the importance of items such as the dandy’s necktie, the teddy boy’s suit and the bricolaged ensemble of the punk in shaping our understanding of the capital’s distinctive character.

Drawing on a range of sources, including paintings, street photography, maps, tourist guides, literature, stage and press representations, Fashioning London paints a vivid and definitive portrait of London’s iconoclastic style. This new re-issue also includes a new preface and afterword by the author, contextualizing the book for a new generation of readers, as well as featuring an updated further reading list.

Author Biography

Christopher Breward is Director of National Museums Scotland and has worked at London College of Fashion, the Royal College of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum London and the University of Edinburgh. A widely published author on the history and culture of fashion and design, he is also the co-editor of The Englishness of English Dress (Bloomsbury, 2002), Fashion and Modernity (Bloomsbury 2005), Fashion’s World Cities (Bloomsbury, 2006) and Styling Shanghai (Bloomsbury 2020).