Reading List

Books by Symposium Speakers

Hammen, Émilie. L' Idée de mode: Une nouvelle histoire, Vol. I. Paris: Éditions B42, 2023.

Hammen, Émilie, ed. The Crafts of Fashion, Vol. 1: Sources. Paris: Éditions B42 and Chanel, 2023.

Richards, Christopher L. Cosmopolitanism and Women's Fashion in Ghana : History, Artistry and Nationalist Inspirations. Abingdon, Oxon ; Routledge, 2022. 

Schwartz, Alexandra, Lydia Brawner, Rhonda K Garelick, Karin G Oen, and Jonathan Michael Square. Garmenting : Costume as Contemporary Art. Edited by Alexandra Schwartz. New York: Museum of Arts and Design, 2022. 

Steele, Valerie. "Fashion." In Fashion and Art, edited by Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas, 13-27, London : Berg, 2012.

Additional Reading Suggestions

Brüderlin, Markus, Annelie Lütgens, and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Art & fashion : Between Skin and Clothing. Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag, 2011.

This book was published to accompany the exhibition in 2011. It examines how the boundary between skin and clothing is fluid, similar to the line between art and fashion. These lines converge in a shared space of experimentation where materials are tested, new visual possibilities emerge, and ideas of beauty are questioned.

Cutler, E. P., and Julien Tomasello. Art + Fashion: Collaborations and Connections Between Icons. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2015.

This book features twenty-five collaborations between artists and fashion designers spanning the years 1935 to 2015. Each collaboration is brought to life through vibrant photography and reflective short essays that provide historical and creative context. With provocative pairings such as Cecil Beaton and Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Dior, and Tim Burton and Tim Walker—to name just three—the book bears witness to the powerful work that emerges from the union of creative forces. 

Dean, Cecilia, and James Kaliardos. Visionaire : Experiences in Art and Fashion. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2016.

Launched in 1991, Visionaire was an experimental magazine that put art ahead of commerce and gave contributing artists near full creative control. This book brings together nearly 450 images from sixty-five issues, along with personal reflections from contributors, capturing two decades of change in fashion and media. It offers an inside look at the New York creative scene and how Visionaire helped shape fashion culture, support new talent, and push the limits of print.

Degen, Natasha. Merchants of Style : Art and Fashion after Warhol. London: Reaktion Books, 2023.

This book examines the convergence of art and fashion by tracing the collaborations between artists, designers, and the public and commercial institutions. Natasha Degen argues that Andy Warhol more than anyone foresaw this moment. From a brief history of art and fashion's long entanglement to the legacy Warhol left behind, the book charts art's embrace of commerce and fashion's turn toward art, asking what this ever-closer relationship means for the future.

Geczy, Adam, and Vicki Karaminas. Fashion and Art. English ed. London ; Berg, 2012.

This book rethinks the entanglement of fashion and art through original contributions by leading international scholars and curators. Ranging from aesthetics and performance to masquerade and media, it traces how these fields intersect, collide, and reshape one another across time, offering a fresh perspective on their productive tensions.

Goldschmidt, Michal. The Art of Fashion. London: Tate Publishing/Abrams, 2024.

Since the rise of the seasonal fashion industry in the nineteenth century, artists have used dress to explore identity, meaning, and social change. This book traces how British artists have engaged with fashion, from the symbolic details in portraiture to moments when art itself became a form of fashion. Through close readings of over fifty artworks from the past 150 years, it reveals the evolving relationship between modern art and dress, from the Pre-Raphaelites and the founding of Liberty to Burberry's wartime visibility and the art of London's Swinging Sixties.

Hall-Duncan, Nancy. Art X Fashion: Fashion Inspired by Art. New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2022.

This book traces the rich and evolving dialogue between art and fashion, from early twentieth-century collaborations—such as Elsa Schiaparelli working alongside artists like Dalí—to Yves Saint Laurent's iconic 1965 Mondrian collection. More contemporary intersections highlight designers such as John Galliano, Guo Pei, and Iris Van Herpen. The book also documents the rise of collaborations between fashion houses and street artists.

Hollander, Anne. Seeing through Clothes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

In this classic text, Anne Hollander explores how the body and clothing have been depicted in Western art—from Greek sculpture and vase painting to medieval and Renaissance portraits, all the way to modern film and fashion photography.

Mackrell, Alice. Art and Fashion. London: Batsford, 2005.

This book looks at the influences of art on fashion and the significant relationship between the two. It covers significant art movements, beginning with Rococo and Neoclassicism, and takes the reader up to the new millennium. Mackrell, an art and costume historian, provides definitions and context for each movement by analyzing their historical background. Images of portraiture, fashion plates, sketches, and museum images support the intertwined relationship between art and fashion.

Martin, Richard, and host institution, Fashion Institute of Technology. Fashion and Surrealism. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1987.

Fashion and Surrealism was one of The Museum at FIT's most popular and influential exhibitions. Martin examines the intersection of surrealism and fashion dates back to Max Ernst's mechanistic fantasies of mannequins and René Magritte's delving into the eroticism of clothes. The catalogue is regarded as an essential text for understanding how surrealist concepts such as illusion and the uncanny are central to fashion.

Ribeiro, Aileen. Clothing Art : The Visual Culture of Fashion, 1600-1914. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017.

This richly illustrated book offers the reader a way to understand fashion history through the eyes of artists. Art historian Aileen Ribeiro explores how artists and clothing have influenced each other from the 1600s to the early 1900s. Artists didn't just record fashion, they helped shape it. Tracing moments when art and fashion grew closer, the book looks at themes like
national identity, masquerade, and the rise of haute couture. Ribeiro shows how clothing in art ranges from detailed realism to imaginative interpretation, revealing how deeply fashion and art have always been connected.

Radford, Robert. "Dangerous Liaisons: Art, Fashion and Individualism." Fashion Theory 2, no. 2 (1998): 151–63. doi:10.2752/136270498779571103.

This article explores how fashion is seen as sharing qualities with art. While fashion was once dismissed as temporary and art valued for lasting importance, the author notes that contemporary analysts now stress their similarities. He questions whether the boundary between them is being lost, outlines where they overlap, and highlights key differences. Fashion, he argues, allows more personal expression but is limited by its practical role as clothing.

Sargent, Antwaun. The New Black Vanguard : Photography between Art and Fashion. Edited by Lesley A. Martin. First edition. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2019.

In this book, curator and critic Antwaun Sargent explores major changes happening in fashion and art today. As Black models appear more often on runways and magazine covers, a deeper shift is also underway, driven by a new generation of Black photographers shaping how beauty and the body are seen. Through images, essays, and conversations, Sargent looks at how art, fashion, and culture intersect, the barriers Black photographers have faced, and how they are reimagining representation.

Kim, Sung Bok. "Is Fashion Art?" Fashion Theory 2, no. 1 (1998): 51–71. doi:10.2752/136270498779754515.

This article examines whether fashion can be considered an art form. The author notes that critics long rejected this idea and that fashion historians often ignored aesthetics. Since the 1980s, however, postmodernism has led more scholars to accept that some fashion can be seen as art. Kim reviews debates on the topic, analyzes thirty-two American art magazine articles (1985–1995) using James D. Carney's theory of art, and shows that postmodern interdisciplinarity has reopened discussion about the aesthetics of fashion.

Troy, Nancy J, Yves Saint Laurent, and Ann Marguerite Tartsinis. Mondrian's Dress : Yves Saint Laurent, Piet Mondrian, and Pop Art. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2023.

This book looks at how Piet Mondrian's abstract style was taken up by 1960s fashion, Pop art, and consumer culture. Yves Saint Laurent's famous 1965 Mondrian dresses are iconic, but their story reaches beyond fashion. In Mondrian's Dress, the authors reveal how Mondrian's look became widely marketed and commodified, placing Saint Laurent alongside Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. The book shows how mass media, branding, and photography reshaped the meaning of Mondrian's art and helped blur the lines between art, fashion, and commerce in the postwar era.

 

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