Ravishing: the rose in fashion

Abstract

An exploration of how the rose-the most ravishingly beautiful and symbolic of flowers-has inspired fashion over hundreds of years.The Rose in Fashion: Ravishing is a fascinating exploration of how the rose has inspired the way we look, dress, feel, and fantasize. It foregrounds innovative, refined, and challenging fashion design from elite 18th-century woven silks to the latest gender-neutral catwalk trends and Alexander McQueen rose dresses. Drawing upon fashion clothing, everyday dress, millinery, fine jewelry, perfume, and artificial and fresh roses, multiple expert contributors make reference to love, beauty, sex, sin, gendered identities, rites of passage, transgression, degradation, and death. This sumptuously illustrated book also includes a contribution and stunning images of roses by visionary photographer Nick Knight. Wild yet cultivated, savage yet delicate, this flower has remained an enduring symbol perhaps due to its versatility and the dichotomies it represents.

Contents

Foreword / Valerie Steele -- Introduction. The rose : 'flowers that are looked at' / Amy de la Haye -- Chapter I. On Roses / Amy de la Haye in conversation with Nick Knight -- Chapter II. Ravishing : the rose in context / Jonathan Faiers -- Chapter III. The eighteenth century : perennial reign / Colleen Hill -- Chapter IV. The rose : the unfading flower of jewellery / Geoffrey Munn -- Chapter V. Permanent botanicals : fashioning artificial roses / Amy de la Haye -- Chapter VI. The nineteenth century : 'I would like my roses to see you' / Amy de la Haye -- Chapter VII. The twentieth century : 'a rose is a rose is a rose' / Amy de la Haye -- Chapter VIII. Scent : 'the inward fragrance of each other's heart' / Mairi Mackenzie -- Chapter IX. The twenty-first century : roses and concrete / Amy de la Haye -- Notes -- Biographies