Fashion at the Frontier

Elizabeth Kutesko is Senior Lecturer in Fashion Histories and Theories at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and is the author of Fashioning Brazil: Globalization and the Representation of Brazilian Dress in National Geographic (Bloomsbury, 2018).

• AcknowledgmentsPrefaceIntroduction: Leaving the stationA late arrivalEmphases and erasuresRailroad tracksBoom to bustModernitiesThe passenger listArchival patchworkListening to clothesChapter outline1. Fashion, time, and global capitalismChronos and kairosComplicity and critiqueThe commodity frontierRailroad timeUniform timeWork timeFashion timePhotographic timeMerrill’s album2. Timekeeping and ingrained timeFashioning the frontierLaborious histories of laborColonizing time, space, and bodiesMarks of wear and tearFollowing a threadLingering, malingering3. Laundering and dirty laundryDressing for the tropicsLaundering the truthSpeed and sanitationFashioning whitenessWhiteness in material formDirty laundry4. Whitening and whitenessEntangled modernitiesDifferent shades of whiteSanitizing RioRacialized frontiersA mirage of modernityNot quite whiteWhiteness as a façade5. Women’s time: on the thresholdDomesticating the jungleThe homeThe hospitalCentering BlacknessThe steam laundryA photographic fragmentThe presence of absenceAfterword: End of the lineNotesBibliographyIndex