Fashion and Costume

Los Angeles, Calif. : University of California Los Angeles, Institute for Social Science Research, [1990]

In a study crucial to our understanding of American social inequality, Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum investigate the return of sweatshops to the apparel industry, especially in Los Angeles. The "new" sweatshops, they say, need to be understood in terms of the decline in the American welfare state and its strong unions and the rise in global and flexible production. Apparel manufacturers now have the incentive to move production to wherever low-wage labor can be found, while maintaining arm's-length contractual relations that protect them from responsibility. The flight of the industry has led to a huge rise in apparel imports to the United States and to a decline in employment. Los Angeles, however, remains a puzzling exception in that its industry employment has continued to grow, to the point where L.A. is the largest center of apparel production in the nation.

California Fashion is a hip, fun book on the history of California's influence on international style and fashion from 1850 to the present. Fashion photographs, sketches, documentary pictures, and period advertisements are accompanied by anecdotes that depict the originality of California style. California's lifestyle has had a profound impact on American culture over the last 150 years. Jeans evolved from Levi Strauss's rugged wear for California miners into one of the most popular and influential pieces of clothing in the history of fashion. California's residents thrive under sunny skies, and designers of swimwear and sportwear have been especially influenced by the laid-back California lifestyle.

A stunning visual ride through L.A.'s fashion past, City of Style reveals Los Angeles's far-reaching influence on the style evolution of the world at large--and showcases the brilliant, idiosyncratic individuals who have fueled its powerful transformations. Written by Melissa Magsaysay, the West Coast's reigning style authority, City of Style is an irresistible look-book with a trove of fascinating stories and a beautiful photographs both classic and modern. Unlike any other style book available, City of Style sends the pulse of Los Angeles's fashion beat right beneath your fingertips.

The first book to document Los Angeles's remarkable explosion onto the global fashion scene New York, London, Milan, Paris ... and now, Los Angeles. Thanks to its unique blend of cultural influences and artistic industry, the City of Angels has earned its place alongside these traditional creative capitals and Fashion in LA goes beyond the red carpet to profile more than 40 designers instrumental to its success. It's a who's-who of talent, a true insider's guide to the men and women who have put twenty-first century Los Angeles on the world's fashion map.

[Los Angeles] : Asian American Studies Center, University of California at Los Angeles, [1975]

This collection of original essays examines the social and political consequences of the globalization of the apparel industry in Asia, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The contributors analyze the countries' trade policies, the apparel industry's network of capital ad labor, working conditions in garment factories, and the role of workers, especially women. Written by scholars of various nationalities and from different disciplines, this volume provides a look at the industry from the perspective of participants within each country and illustrates a general trend toward the internationalization of production and global economic restructuring. Contains an impressive array of good case studies on a variety of regions and countries, with special focus on how the United States apparel industry relates to globalization in each case.

Los Angeles is undergoing a makeover. Leaving behind its image as all freeways and suburbs, sunshine and noir, it is reinventing itself as walkable, ecologically healthy, and fashionable. This locational history of Los Angeles fashion and style allows us to understand the urban processes, desires and politics of re-imagining LA as the global, multi-ethnic city of the 21st century.

Los Angeles, CA : Economic Research and Consulting Dept., Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., 2000.

Drawn from the exhibition, which gathers more than 1,200 artworks and pieces of ephemera from many public and private collections, Made in California is an image-driven look at the past century, featuring more than 400 works in a range of media, from painting, sculpture, prints, drawings, and photographs to furniture, fashion, and film. The book also includes more than 150 cultural artifacts such as tourist brochures, posters, labor union tracts, personal letters, and government reports that convey the richness and complexity of twentieth-century California.

At the turn of the new millennium, LA is the place to be. "Hipster" is a new word on the scene. Lauren Conrad is living her Cinderella story in the "Hills" on millions of television sets across the country. Paris Hilton tells us "That's hot" from behind the biggest sunglasses imaginable, while beautiful teenagers fight and fall in love on The O.C. Into this most glittering of supposed utopias, Kate Flannery arrives with a Seven Sisters diploma in hand and a new job at an upstart clothing company called American Apparel. Kate throws herself into the work, determined to climb the corporate fashion ladder. Having a job at American Apparel also means being a part of the advertising campaigns themselves, stripping down in the name of feminism. She slowly begins to lose herself in a landscape of rowdy sex-positivity, racy photo shoots, and a cultlike devotion to the unorthodox CEO and founder of the brand. The line between sexual liberation and exploitation quickly grows hazy, leading Kate to question the company's ethics and wrestle with her own.

Before the fashion statements of hippies, punks, or hip-hop, there was the zoot suit, a striking urban look of the World War II era that captivated the imagination. Created by poor African American men and obscure tailors, the "drape shape" was embraced by Mexican American pachucos, working-class youth, entertainers, and swing dancers, yet condemned by the U.S. government as wasteful and unpatriotic in a time of war. The fashion became notorious when it appeared to trigger violence and disorder in Los Angeles in 1943--events forever known as the "zoot suit riot." In its wake, social scientists, psychiatrists, journalists, and politicians all tried to explain the riddle of the zoot suit, transforming it into a multifaceted symbol: to some, a sign of social deviance and psychological disturbance, to others, a gesture of resistance against racial prejudice and discrimination. As controversy swirled at home, young men in other places--French zazous, South African tsotsi, Trinidadian saga boys, and Russian stiliagi--made the American zoot suit their own.