Fashion Victim: Our Love-Hate Relationship with Dressing, Shopping, and the Cost of Style

US: Broadway, 2003. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. A riveting look inside the fashion world that exposes the truth about shopa holics, sweatshops, and celebrity closets. Fashion-from the $1500 Prada bag to the $30 Kate Spade knock-off sold on th e sidewalk-has been transformed from a commodity reserved for the elite to a powerful presence in mass market culture. As a society, we are obsessed w ith fashion and style, racking up credit card debt to support compulsive sh opping habits, scouring magazines for the latest trends to buy, and focusin g more on who's wearing what at the Oscars than on who's winning. In Fashio n Victim, award-winning journalist Michelle Lee blows the lid off the fashi on industry, and spotlights the fascinating-and often disturbing--ways in w hich it is morphing our culture, our economy and our values. Dishing on the lords of the label, including designers like Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Kenneth Cole, Fashion Victim reveals a world that is sometimes grotesque, sometimes glitzy, but constantly intriguing. From bear hides to the Victorian bustle, Lee traces the role of fashion through the ages, taking us from the dawn of ready-to-wear in 1865 to the modern trend cycles that incite us to clamor after leg warmers, bumster trousers, and Manolo Blahniks. She details the birth of "Speed Chic"-the hamster wheel of style that keeps us stuck in an endless cycle of consumption and has become the crack-cocaine of fashion, providing us with a temporary high until we spot the next trend and reach for our wallets. She also.