Clothes take the ordinary human body and fashion it into something remarkable. Born to the same anatomical legacy, each generation has used garments to shape itself in the image of its own desires.

Taking different body parts in turn, The Anatomy of Fashion invites us to view ourselves as we have been in the past. Arguing that analysis needs to aspire to the proliferation and playfulness of fashion itself, Susan Vincent explores different bodily presentations and examines their wider, and often surprising, implications.

In its provocative conclusion, this authoritative text turns its attention to dress practices today. Reassembling the anatomical parts, the text places the contemporary body in the historical view and reveals the strangeness that lies at the heart of our own normality.