An exploration of fashion industry from it's creative history to the commerce focused postmodern eraSince the beginning of the twenty-first century, fashion has undergone a paradoxical shift: it has grown creatively impoverished despite becoming more culturally relevant. Increasingly, the industry’s output feels listless, unexciting, like a pastiche of past styles, not genuine innovation. What caused this? How did fashion design get reduced to logoed merch? Why doe...

**"Subtly altered how I see the world." —Michelle Goldberg, New York Times“[Status and Culture] consistently posits theories I'd never previously considered that instantly feel obvious.” —Chuck Klosterman, author of The Nineties“Why are you the way that you are? Status and Culture explains nearly everything about the things you choose to be—and how the society we live in takes shape in the process.” —B.J. Novak, writer and actorSo...

**From the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Abundance comes a groundbreaking and entertaining investigation into what makes a hit a hit–from films and music to art and design.“Enthralling—full of 'aha' moments about why some ideas soar and others never get off the ground. This book picks up where The Tipping Point left off**." —Adam GrantNothing “goes viral.” If you think a popular movie, song, or app came out of nowhere...

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 CutIn 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,...

Whether it's sleek leather pants, a shiny new Apple computer, or a designer toaster, we make important decisions as consumers every day based on our sensory experience. Sensory appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live and work. The twenty-first century has become the age of aesthetics, and whether we realize it or not, this influence has taken over the marketplace, and much more.In this penetrating, keenly observed book, Virginia Post...

"The essay collection everyone’s talking about."—New YorkA MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024: Elle, The Millions, LitHub, Nylon, BookPage, PureWow, and moreFrom the national bestselling novelist and essayist, a groundbreaking collection of brand-new pieces about the role of cultural criticism in our ever-changing world.In her writing for Harper’s, t...

?There was something so captivating about always being on the edge, on that shaky precipice of promise — something new and something cool was just lurking around the corner and we' d arrive at it if we kick around long enough.' Peripathetic is about shit jobs. About being who you are and who you aren' t online. About knowing a language four times. About living on the interstices. About thievery. About wanting. About the hyperreal. About weirdness. Cher Tan' s essays are as non-linear as he...

How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it.Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendencethat kept me coming back. But why did they come so few a...

Fashion is a dynamic global industry that plays an important role in the economic, political, cultural, and social lives of an international audience. It spans high art and popular culture, and plays a significant role in material and visual culture. This book introduces fashion's myriad influences and manifestations. Fashion is explored as a creative force, a business, and a means of communication. From Karl Lagerfeld's creative reinventions of Chanel's iconic style to the multicultural r...

Now that we 'curate' even lunch, what happens to the role of the connoisseur in contemporary culture?‘Curate’ is now a buzzword, applied to everything from music festivals to artisanal cheese. Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows and biennials in a way that can eclipse and assimilate the contributions of individual artists. Curatorial-studies programs continue to grow, and the business world is adopting cu...

“An illuminating . . . biography and cultural history” (The New York Times) of Virgil Abloh’s iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry, which embodied a groundbreaking transformation of the relationship between who we are and what we wear.“[Robin Givhan] captures that shift with the kind of clarity and nuance that honors the late designers’ many layers. There’s never been a book like this.”—EssenceBEST BOOK O...

It is a peculiar moment for art, as it becomes both increasingly rarefied and associated with elite lifestyle culture, while simultaneously ubiquitous, with the boom of "creative" industries and the proliferation of new technologies for making art. In these important essays, Ben Davis covers everything from Instagram to artificial intelligence, eco-art to cultural appropriation. Critical, insightful, and hopeful even in the face of the apocalyptic, this is a must read for those looking to ...