... a long-overdue course correction...on the rules, both written and unwritten, that govern what people put on their bodies and so much more ... Dress Codes focuses an even wider lens on what we wear, and on what influences those choices. Taking readers around the world from the 1200s to today, Ford embarks on an ambitious and comprehensive exploration of how fashion has been used by people both with and without money and power ... Moving closer to the present, a chapter on resistance provides an in-depth analysis of the clothes worn during the civil rights movement of the 1960s ... Ford’s writing is steeped in extensive research and makes what could be a dull history lesson about fashion a deeply informative and entertaining study of why we dress the way we do, and what that tells us about class, sexuality and power.
[A] sharp and entertaining history of the rules of fashion ... In a jam-packed, fact-filled survey, Mr. Ford skillfully examines how fashion, far from being mere frivolity, has shaped people’s lives from the 14th century to the present ... An expert on civil rights and antidiscrimination law, Mr. Ford has plenty to say when it comes to workplace regulations on hairstyles, makeup, tattoos, fingernails and jewelry.
... [a] thoughtful history of the rules and rituals of attire ... Ford...has a lawyer’s eye for the ways in which legislation and common law have helped shape attitudes about fashion, along with a fan’s sustained curiosity about fashion’s visual language ... Ford makes an elegant argument that because fashion is a living language, it has the capacity to evolve.
In Dress Codes, Richard Thompson Ford’s history of the laws of fashion, we read most of what we need to know about a society through its clothes ... Race, gender and fashion are also pivotal in Dress Codes. Ford has several chapters that chart the evolution of African-American style, and the way in which it was employed in the struggle for equality ... There is still a fertile friction in this topic.
Dress Codes traces nearly 600 years of fashion law and social norms, detailing how style and attempts to control it have shaped history. Perhaps nowhere is the boundary between the personal and the political, the individual and the state, more blurred than in the clothes that we put on our bodies. Ford argues persuasively that fashion as we know it is largely the result of the Enlightenment-era school of thought ... Changes in dress codes and fashion law tend to emerge during periods of intense social change. It makes sense, then, that these dress codes often police expressions of sexuality or attempt to create visual boundaries between racial, religious, class, and gender categories ... Ford is an apt cultural historian, and he’s at his strongest when tracing the changing winds that produced modern dress codes ... He pays deft attention to the ways marginalized people use fashion either to assimilate or to repudiate the dominant culture, touching on everything from the use of respectability politics in the civil rights movement to the reclamation of the hijab ... Dress Codes feels rushed at times; squeezing six centuries’ worth of history into one book is a massive undertaking ... Still, Dress Codes largely manages what it sets out to do.
In Dress Codes, Ford has created a thorough and well-thought-out history of fashion from a legal and societal perspective. Whether exploring cultural appropriation, praising Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s lace neckwear or cautioning social media users that 'every triumph or crime of fashion lives on in a digital archive,' the author is knowledgeable and passionate about his topic.
His engaging text provides ample historical and social context, and is sprinkled with period quotes, cartoons, photos, and advertisements. Whether addressing codpieces, Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s lace collars, dreadlocks in the workplace, or pandemic curbside cocktail party attire, Ford’s writing is fresh, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable.
The author’s discussion embraces a vast body of knowledge, from what might be called fashion anthropology to a philosophy of sartorial splendor, and he’s an assured, genial narrator. He has an acute eye for detail, too. We eagerly follow his gaze ... As a lawyer, Ford is naturally drawn to disputation, and there’s plenty to cover ... For the clotheshorse and the jeans-clad alike, a lucid, entertaining exploration of how and why we dress as we do.
[An] intriguing history of formal and informal rules governing what people wear ... Though Ford’s sprawling overview drags in some sections, he makes a convincing case that dress codes reveal much about the social order and the pursuit of individual liberty. This jam-packed history casts its subject in a new light.
