Phyllis G. Tortora is Professor Emerita at Queens College, The City University of New York, USA.

• Chapter 1: Connecting Technology, Dress, and FashionPart I, Before the RevolutionChapter 2: Dress and The Technologies Of Prehistory (Upper Paleolithic to the Neolithic Period)Chapter 3: Technologies And Dress In Towns, Cities and Empires (Neolithic Period to C. 500 C.E.)Chapter 4: Technology And Dress Facilitate Fashion Change (Dark Ages to the Seventeenth Century in Europe)Chapter 5: Some Asian Developments in Technology, Dress and Fashion (End of the Neolithic Period until the 17th Century)Part II: The Industrial Revolution and First Steps Toward the Fashion Industry Chapter 6: Dress and Fashion Move The Industrial Revolution Forward(18th Century)Chapter 7: The Role Of Dress and Fashion in the Industrial Revolution(c. 1800 to 1860)Chapter 8: Dress, Fashion and Social Changes Follow the Industrial Revolution(Nineteenth Century)Chapter 9: Tools that Enable Fashion Change and Innovations in Dress(19th century)Part III, The Fashion Industry is BornChapter 10: Tools and Processes Expand Options for Dress and Fashion(20th and 21st centuries)Chapter 11: Transportation and its Effects(20th and 21st centuries)Chapter 12: The Effects of Sports(19th to the 21st centuries)Chapter 13: Communications Technologies that Disseminate Fashion Information (19th to the 21st centuries)Part IV, High Tech Enters Chapter 14: Technology Contributes to the Globalization of Fashion(20th and 21st centuries)Chapter 15: Environments Interact with Technologies(20th and 21st centuries)Chapter 16 New Technological Frontiers for Dress And Fashion(21st century)References Acknowledgements

Most books on the history of fashion present dress as the dependent variable, the passive beneficiary of technological change. Tortora instead makes a convincing case for fashion being the driving force that has stimulated technology and propelled it forward. This book will become a classic and essential text for teaching the history of fashion.