Over the past three centuries, London has established itself as one of the world’s most inventive fashion capitals. Drawing on a range of sources, including paintings, street photography, maps, tourist guides, literature, and stage and press representations, Fashioning London paints a vivid and definitive portrait of London's iconoclastic style.
Explore how particular styles of dress became emblematic of this leading international city, ultimately challenging the fashion dominance of Paris, Milan, and New York. 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.
You will come away from this text understanding that although city life and fashion have always been intertwined, nowhere has this relationship been more excitingly expressed than on the streets of London.
By:
Christopher Breward (National Galleries of Scotland UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: 2nd Revised edition
Dimensions:
Height: 232mm,
Width: 154mm,
Spine: 22mm
Weight: 645g
ISBN: 9781350400276
ISBN 10: 1350400270
Series: Foundations of Fashion Studies
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 11 June 2026
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Preface to the re-issue 1. The Dandy: London's new West End 1790-1830 2. The Immigrant: East End, West End 1840-1914 3. The Actress: Covent Garden and The Strand 1880-1914 4. The Hostess and the Housewife: From Mayfair to Edgware 1918-1939 5. The Teddy Boy: Lambeth, Soho and Belgravia 1945-1960 6. The Dolly Bird: Chelsea and Kensington 1960-1970 7. The Student: Camden Market 1970-2000 Bibliography Afterword
Christopher Breward is the 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).
Reviews for Fashioning London: Clothing and the Modern Metropolis
A love letter to a city, this is Breward's best book yet. Fashioning London breaks new ground as it weaves together disparate histories and discourses to capture the fugitive pleasure of fashion and urban space * Caroline Evans, author of Fashion at the Edge * Breward has refashioned our view of London style...A tour de force * Elizabeth Wilson, author of Adorned in Dreams * [An] intelligent and informed history of London fashion, from Beau Brummell to the rise of the Camden Market * Nicholas Coleridge, Managing Director of Conde Nast and Chairman of the British Fashion Council *
