What do you think?
Rate this book
Empires Over Skin: How We Fashioned Our World
To be human is to wake up, every morning, and to don the costume that completes your identity, for better or worse, by choice or by coercion.
The task this book undertakes requires a particular kind of author, one who can recognise and sort through the contradictions on a theoretical level, but also someone who does not abstract the topic from their position as a subject—a critical book of fashion must be written by someone who lives it, someone who is passionate enough to write in good faith, because fashion isn’t just Gucci and Sweatshops—which themselves are rightly condemned for all kinds of reasons—because fashion itself is merely the tip of what may be one of the biggest, deepest ice bergs of all—Fashion is a philosophical black hole, one which drags everything into its infinite stomach, from semiotics to psychoanalysis, to art, design and craftsmanship, to economics and production chains, to speculation and historicizing, to algebra, journalism and so on.
Yet, this isn’t a philosophy book because it is simply too down-to-earth and relatable; it is just as celebratory and excited as it is critical. M.Y.B. begins by simply looking down, and beginning to describe the shoes upon their feet—it unravels dialectically and uncovers long chains of connections that stretch back through time.
The task this book undertakes requires a particular kind of author, one who can recognise and sort through the contradictions on a theoretical level, but also someone who does not abstract the topic from their position as a subject—a critical book of fashion must be written by someone who lives it, someone who is passionate enough to write in good faith, because fashion isn’t just Gucci and Sweatshops—which themselves are rightly condemned for all kinds of reasons—because fashion itself is merely the tip of what may be one of the biggest, deepest ice bergs of all—Fashion is a philosophical black hole, one which drags everything into its infinite stomach, from semiotics to psychoanalysis, to art, design and craftsmanship, to economics and production chains, to speculation and historicizing, to algebra, journalism and so on.
Yet, this isn’t a philosophy book because it is simply too down-to-earth and relatable; it is just as celebratory and excited as it is critical. M.Y.B. begins by simply looking down, and beginning to describe the shoes upon their feet—it unravels dialectically and uncovers long chains of connections that stretch back through time.
290 pages, Paperback
Published November 5, 2025
5 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 9, 2026
Did not expect to get to genocide in Palestine through the lens of skinny jeans, that's what I call intersectionality. (also includes quotes from bible, Sabrina carpenter, Debord and a great description of postmodernism)
February 27, 2026
Un superbe essai, bien structuré et bien expliqué, avec un style d'écriture très descriptif. Une analyse de la "fashion" qui mène à une analyse du monde.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews