"SURFERS, SOULIES, SKINHEADS AND SKATERS: Subcultural Style from the Forties to the Nineties"

The look of this volume is as eye-poppingly witty as the clothes that inspired it. Photographer Danny McGrath and book designer johnson banks, deserve as much credit as the authors in the bold, dynamic use of typefaces and other graphic elements to illustrate postwar fashion trends, from zoot suit to techno, mod to rave. De la Haye and Dingwall, curators of textiles and dress at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, propose the theory that fashion today originates not in the couture houses but on the streets, where ever-resourceful youths try to differentiate themselves from the adult masses, and their inventions then percolate up into the highest levels of fashion. Colorful and witty; only the authors' dry though informative text lacks style.