An engaging look at men who helped make and break fashion history.
Following her critically acclaimed study of key women in the history of fashion, Bad Girls of Fashion (2016), Croll joins forces with illustrator Pacholska to introduce “bad boys” through the ages who have had iconoclastic effects on fashion. Instead of featuring only major designers, Croll again spotlights 30 diverse rebels who used fashion to make their renegade marks in the worlds of entertainment (Marlon Brando, David Bowie), sport (Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Andre Agassi), politics (Jawaharlal Nehru, Mao Zedong, Malcolm X), and art and design (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Waris Ahluwalia, Karl Lagerfeld). Aided by arrestingly bold illustrations and copious photographs, Croll provides a tantalizingly detailed chronicle of these dashing figures, including both florid descriptions of their sartorial choices as well as the historical context behind them so readers better appreciate how these men broke boundaries. Back in 17th-century France, for example, Louis XIV simultaneously turned courtly fashions on their ear and tightened his grip on the throne by sporting long, curly wigs and restricting red high heels to members of his court (a sidebar explains that high heels were only later adopted by women in order to appear more masculine). Readers will understand fashion’s pivotal role in shattering and challenging gender, racial, and other constraints.
With its richly accessible prose and visually captivating subjects, this will inspire and challenge readers to follow in these trendsetters’ footsteps.(references, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)