Fashion and Ethnicity is a book-length monograph that explores how fashion expresses and exploits ideas about race and ethnicity. Although there are some good critical evaluations of fashion and globalisation, and a multiplicity of studies of particular instances of ethnic identity and fashion, there is currently no overview that specifically addresses fashion and ethnicity as interrelated cultural constructions. This book presents a new critique of the meaning of fashion and its systems by foregrounding ethnicity. The work interrogates and challenges the tendency to construct concepts of ‘fashion’ and ‘ethnic dress’ as opposites, where fashion has been equated with western modernity, and ethnic dress with non-western tradition. It examines recent scholarly debates on alternative non-western fashion systems and presents original historical and contemporary case studies in ethnic identity and fashion to create a new critical evaluation of what fashion and ethnicity mean in relation to each other.

The sense of social belonging and individuality that fashion engenders can include ethnicity, yet often seems to transcend matters of race, nation and ethnicity through a set of cultural dynamics linked to globalisation and histories of cultural imperialism. A central concern throughout the book is to elucidate political and cultural definitions of fashion and ethnicity. Individual chapters are structured around the history of fashion and empire, issues of nationality and race (including white ethnicities), diasporic identities, and the body. Provocative questions are asked about the uses and abuses of the term ‘ethnic’ in the fashion media that have wide-reaching implications for the producers and consumers of fashion. Berg Publishers has worldwide distribution and are an internationally recognised academic publisher with a high profile in the field of fashion studies. Fashion and Ethnicity relates clearly to research themes of social responsiveness and engagement, internationalism, diversity and global citizenship. It will challenge social and ethical agendas on the representation of fashion and ethnicity, and will make an internationally important contribution to the field of fashion studies.