Experimental fashion has a dark side, a preoccupation with representations of death, trauma, alienation and decay. This seminal publication offers an unexpected discussion of cutting-edge fashion in the 1990s, exploring what its disturbing themes tell us about consumer culture and contemporary anxieties. Caroline Evans analyses the work of innovative designers, the images of fashion photographers and the spectacular fashion shows that developed in the final decade of the twentieth century to arrive at a new understanding of fashion’s dark side and what it signifies.

Fashion at the Edge considers a range of ground-breaking fashion in unprecedented depth and detail, including the work of such designers as John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Viktor & Rolf, and photographers such as Steven Meisel, Nick Knight and Juergen Teller.

Drawing on diverse perspectives from Marx to Walter Benjamin, Evans shows that fashion stands at the very centre of the contemporary, and that it voices some of Western culture’s deepest concerns.

About the Author:

Caroline Evans is professor emerita at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London).

A beautifully photographed insider s look at the highly influential personal style and wardrobe of Isabella Blow, one of fashion s most courageous, outrageous, and imaginative muses. Isabella Blow was said to have been a one-off of her own creation in a world of copycats.

She had a gift for spotting fashion genius - her discoveries included Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, and Sophie Dahl, all of whom became instantaneously iconic. Her eye put her at the center of the high fashion scene, yet Isabella s pedigree, intoxicating energy, wicked sense of humor, boundaries-pushing aesthetics, and her willingness to wear the outrageous made her into a fashion icon.

This elaborate volume published with Somerset House and in association with the Isabella Blow Foundation and Central Saint Martins to accompany the fall 2013 exhibition is an exhaustive survey of Isabella s personal collection.

With over 100 gorgeous full-colour and black-and-white photographs shot exclusively for this publication by Nick Knight, this volume is the first to catalogue her own famous wardrobe that includes thousands of pieces by the most important contemporary designers, including McQueen, Philip Treacy, and Manolo Blahnik.

The impact of Isabella s influence can be seen within this captivating and inspiring volume, an essential addition to libraries of the fashionable, cultured, and eclectic.

About the Author:

Alistair O’Neill is a faculty member and a Senior Research Fellow at Central Saint Martins. Nick Knight is one of the world’s most prestigious fashion photographers and has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. Caroline Evans is a professor at Central Saint Martins. Alexander Fury is an editor at Love magazine. Shonagh Marshall is an assistant curator at Somerset House, London.

An exploration of the role of the handbag in the history of culture, fashion, and material production

The history of the handbag - its design, how it has been made, used, and worn - reveals something essential about women's lives lived over the last 500 years. Perhaps the most universal item of fashionable adornment, it can also be elusive, an object of desire, secrecy and even fear. Handbags explores these rich histories and multiple meanings.

This book features specially commissioned photographs of an extraordinary, newly formed collection of fashionable handbags that dates from the 16th century to the present day. It has been acquired to exhibit in the first museum devoted to the handbag, in Seoul, South Korea. The project is a commission undertaken by experimental exhibition-maker Judith Clark, whose innovative practices are revealed in Handbags.

Essays by leading fashion historians and an acclaimed psychoanalyst investigate the history of gesture, the psychoanalysis of bags, and the museum's state-of-the-art mannequins and archive cabinets. In order to preserve the words that describe the unique qualities of each bag, a glossary of handbags has been compiled.

Published in association with the Simone Handbag Museum, Seoul

About the Author:

Judith Clark is professor of fashion and museology at the London College of Fashion.