A Quarterly of Criticism and Review i^^^^^^^^fcEjfc $15

Books in Reviewand biting in sunless pools. How starsdream like sleeping fish at the bottom,waiting to be washed into the bowl of thesky some time in the distant future whenenough myths have collected to warrantnew constellations.I plan to see this come to pass.Of the four works discussed in this review,When Fox is a Thousand comes closest toimagining the new constellations of mythsneeded to understand the past and transformthe present.A Passion For DesignColin ISIaylor, ed.Contemporary Designers. St. James US$145.00Nancy Ruhling & John Crosby FreemanThe Illustrated Encyclopedia of Victoriana.Doubleday Canada $32.95Christopher BrewardThe Culture of Fashion: a New History ofFashionable Dress. Manchester UP £40.00/14.99Reviewed by Maria Noëlle NgContemporary Designers is a hefty book whichruns to 641 pages. According to the brief"Editor's Note," the "more than 600 entrants[are] intended to reflect the best and mostprominent of contemporary designers" inthe fields of architecture, fashion, graphicsand so on. The research for the book wasdone mainly in London-based institutions(Victoria and Albert Museum, BritishLibrary, amongst others), which mightexplain the paucity of Canadian entries. Ofthe 600 plus designers included in thisbook, only 4 are Canadians: graphicdesigners Allan Fleming and Rolf Harder,environmental designer Ernst Roch, andphotographer Nelson Vigneault. An obviousomission which comes to mind wouldbe the architect Arthur Erickson.I have tried to decipher the selectionprocess of the contributors and advisorypanels, and have failed to find any discerniblepatterns. The entrants seem heavilyweighted in favour of Scandinavian andGermanic nationalities. In the field of fashion,the contributors at least include theFrench, Italians and Americans, althoughagain, the selections are highly idiosyncratic,to say the least. Why would GilAimbez, a non-factor in the world of fashiondesign, be included, while ReiKawakubo, one of the most influential andoriginal designers today, is excluded? Someof the text is more puzzling than illuminating,as for instance, the entry on KarlLagerfeld. Of Lagerfeld's designs the contributorwrites, "Lagerfeld is so good at cutthat really he does not need to strive for asensational revival every season. He couldproduce the same classics every year ..."Not only are critical remarks like thistotally irrelevant to the field of fashiondesign which is excessively market-oriented,but they tend to reflect the personal tasteof the contributor rather than the art ofthe designer.The Culture of Fashion is both a socialsurvey and a theoretical study of the historyof fashion in England from 1300 to today. Itprovides fascinating information, such asthe effect sumptuary laws exerted on theconsumption of textiles in the 16th century.It also challenges the normative acceptanceof clothing as merely a utilitarian part ofdaily life, as well as expanding the discussionof fashion beyond the confines of aestheticand ceremonial functions. ToBreward, fashion touches and changes allparts of social life, and it is in turn changedby history. Thus, speaking of "the militarisationof male dress and the rise of a moresober patrician appearance from the 1750sonwards," he sees a direct link betweenthese sartorial trends and the rise of socialphenomena such as the public schooland fox-hunting, and the reform of thearmed forces.Breward's book is a work of carefulresearch. Each chapter is separated into twoparts. The first part outlines the historical164