FashionQuake: The Most Disruptive Moments in Fashion

by Caroline Young

Discover fashion that dared to be different, risked reputations and put careers in jeopardy. This is what happens when people take tradition and rip it up.

FashionQuake introduces 50 pivotal momentsthat shook the world and changed mainstream fashion forever, telling the fascinating stories behind each piece’s creation, reception, and legacy.

From awe-inspiring couture to protest T-shirts, bumster trousers to safety-pin dresses, this book profiles the cutting-edge of fashion, featuring enigmatic designers, risqué campaigns, surreal haute couture, and radical clothing. By tracing the history of modern fashion via the pieces that steered away from the norm, Caroline Young tells us how we got to the here and now.

This fascinating and deeply insightful book presents an alternative introduction to fashion focusing on 50 moments that consciously questioned boundaries, challenged the status quo, and made shockwaves we are still feeling today.

This book is from the Culture Quake series, which looks into iconic moments of culture which truly created paradigm shifts in their respective fields. Also available are ArtQuake, FilmQuake, and MusicQuake.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, History

210 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 20, 2022

Reviews

[Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an eARC available to download in Eidelweiss and I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this. I ended up in so many Google rabbit-holes and threads about the history of fashion, which I now realise is something that really interests me.

The writing is approachable and I didn't feel lost at any point. I liked that in keeping with page limits (I'm guessing), there wasn't too much exposition - but honestly I wouldn't have minded the author sharing more of her own thoughts considering how sharp she is with her pen.

This falls under a series of primers, so the information offered is not exhaustive, which is fine for us who aren't very invested. What I did notice was events that seemed quite important in designer or cultural history that were just referred to in passing (again, I'm assuming to keep within the page limit).

Also, the limited scope of what makes up the 'world' of fashion in this case was a bit off, especially when it came to contemporary fashion (which wasn't really paid much attention to overall) where global south designers and trends have been incorporated into design houses, e.g. Louis Vuitton and their knockoff Basotho blankets. Even the fashion of the Met, or seminal silhouettes throughout the ages could have been elaborated on a bit more.

Overall, however, I really had a good time reading this, and I look forward to checking out the other books in the series.

[G 3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some interesting parts of this book and I took a lot of notes, however, I am just not a fan of this sort of catalogue of ideas where nothing is gone into in depth and everything feels surface level. Would prefer a few ideas investigated.

[Theodora Zourkas · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting book with lots of anecdotes, but I wanted more. However, I don't think that was the purpose of this book - it was a good overview, like a directory with references to events, information etc that can be further researched. A good starting point.

[Tania · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable part of the "Culture Quake" series. I enjoy the format of these books.