A New Yorker Magazine Best Book of 2022 * An Esquire Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 * A Town &
Country Must-Read Book of 2022 * A Fashionista Summer Read Smart funny and impressively
thorough.-The Cut In the spirit of works by Jia Tolentino and Anne Helen Peterson a smart and
incisive essay collection centered on the fashion industry-its history its importance why we
wear what we wear and why it matters-from Elle Magazine's fashion features director. Why does
fashion hold so much power over us? Most of us care about how we dress and how we present
ourselves. Style offers clues about everything from class to which in-group we belong to. Bad
Feminist for fashion Dress Code takes aim at the institutions within the fashion industry
while reminding us of the importance of dress and what it means for self-presentation.
Everything-from societal changes to the progress (or lack thereof) of women's rights to the
hidden motivations behind what we choose to wear to align ourselves with a particular social
group-can be tracked through clothing. Veronique Hyland examines thought-provoking questions
such as: Why has the French girl persisted as our most undying archetype? What does dressing
for yourself really mean for a woman? How should a female politician dress? Will
gender-differentiated fashion go forever out of style? How has social media affected and warped
our sense of self-presentation and how are we styling ourselves expressly for it? Not everyone
participates in painting literature or film. But there is no opting out of fashion. And yet
fashion is still seen as superficial and trivial and only the finest of couture is considered
as art. Hyland argues that fashion is a key that unlocks questions of power sexuality and
class taps into history and sends signals to the world around us. Clothes means
something-even if you're just wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
