Dr Shahidha BariDressed: The Philosophy of Clothes

I bought this book after hearing the author do an interview and I thought the subject was interesting. It is clearly well-researched by someone who obviously has a passion for the subject, but it is very overly long and drags on in spots. The author has a real problem with making her point and then continuing to make it over and over again. It becomes quite repetitive in spots. I think the book would have really benefited from exploring a much wider range of garments in shorter sections, or perhaps from being more heavily illustrated and less verbose, coffee-table-book style. There's really only so much you can write about the philosophical symbolism of suit jackets before you're just repeating yourself for 15 pages. The writing itself is very good and I learned some fun new words to drop into conversations, like vicissitudes and tenebrous. All in all, I would recommend it if you like philosophy and fashion, but I would warn someone that it takes a bit of patience to get through some parts.

This is the best book i have found about fashion! It felt like it was speaking to my soul most of the read. I loved how there were short stories about different types of fashion throughout culture and history, as well as touching on the philosophical principles behind these stories. And the structure of the chapters are very satisfying, organized by category of clothes.

This is a deep, complex, elitist textbook broadly on the subject of fashion. It isn't at all what I expected.As a lifelong student of self-expression through fashion and style, and the history of such expression, I was deeply disappointed in this book. It is a fairly boring read full of drudgery and lacking in visual imagery. The author obviously took a lot of time creating this carefully sourced book, but she was self indulgent and lost site of potential readers beyond herself. She seemed very keen on showing off her academic prowess and knowledge of complex literary works and their authors. She seemed far less concerned about artfully inspiring or showing readers her intended meaning through illustration.There are very few visuals. Imagine a book about architecture or interior design or any art form without illustrations or, at best, with a paltry number of small, obscure and uninteresting photos sparsely placed throughout the book as if in afterthought.The book is called Dressed. However one dresses or whatever the cultural influences may be in our choices around dressing, it is a passionate affair between ourselves and the physically visual impact we aspire to and achieve through our clothing and other adornments when we dress. It is how we communicate to the world through personal visual expression. I expected as much thought to have gone into the photographs and illustrations as those applied to the vast number of words used in this book. There were hardly any. Who wants to read about the art, culture, philosophy, psychology and history of the choices we make when dressing without any photos or illustrations? I have an English degree, I love words, but I don't want to spend hours and hours reading a wordy textbook about how people dress. I want pictures too. This book is too much work, and it fell flat.

after hearing the author on the radio talk about this book, i was expecting more insight into the human mind and why we wear what we wear. but the book disappointingly does not address this, and the bait-and-switch is an overly professorial focus on unimportant aspects

Most amazing fashion book! A must need for fashion lovers. Had a problem with the first book i recieved and the replacement was so easy to attain and arrived the next day! Love this book its wonderful and perfect to get you thinking about the contextual history behind clothing. Perfect service and book