The Color Revolution

Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-0-262-01777-0
Verlag: MIT Press Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 217 mm x 271 mm, Gewicht: 1474 g

Reihe: Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation

When the fashion industry declares that lime green is the new black, or instructs us
to "think pink!," it is not the result of a backroom deal forged by a secretive cabal of
fashion journalists, designers, manufacturers, and the editor of Vogue. It is the
latest development of a color revolution that has been unfolding for more than a century. In this
book, the award-winning historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk traces the relationship of color and
commerce, from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design, describing the often
unrecognized role of the color profession in consumer culture. Blaszczyk examines the evolution of
the color profession from 1850 to 1970, telling the stories of innovators who managed the color
cornucopia that modern artificial dyes and pigments made possible. These "color stylists,"
"color forecasters," and "color engineers" helped corporations understand the
art of illusion and the psychology of color. Blaszczyk describes the strategic burst of color that
took place in the 1920s, when General Motors introduced a bright blue sedan to compete with Ford's
all-black Model T and when housewares became available in a range of brilliant hues. She explains
the process of color forecasting--not a conspiracy to manipulate hapless consumers but a careful
reading of cultural trends and consumer taste. And she shows how color information flowed from the
fashion houses of Paris to textile mills in New Jersey. Today professional colorists are part of
design management teams at such global corporations as Hilton, Disney, and Toyota. The
Color Revolution tells the history of how colorists help industry capture the hearts and
dollars of consumers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Blaszczyk, Regina Lee

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Design Produktdesign, Industriedesign
• Geisteswissenschaften Design Design: Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Design Modedesign, Stoffe, Schmuckdesign
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

AcknowledgmentsList of PhotographsWriting on ArtArtUtopiaDreamingAbstractionStriking ColorThe Real Power of ColorHow Painting BeganCultureGlobal Art, Local KnowledgeThe Idea of the MuseumIn TranslationA White ThingImage LogicPhotojournalismGenderStolen CultureLitte Children Are SacredMum's the WordCrisis in RepresentationRace and GenderLawCommon LawFeeling for JusticeApartheidDiscoveryRadical DifferenceEmily Inc.ReferencesIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Blaszczyk, Regina Lee
Regina Lee Blaszczyk is Visiting Scholar in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and an associate editor at the Journal of Design History. Her seven books include Imagining Consumers, Producing Fashion, and American Consumer Society, 1865–2005.

Robyn Ferrell is a research fellow in the Gender and Cultural Studies Department at the University of Sydney and has taught at the University of Melbourne, Macquarie University, and the University of Tasmania. She has also held visiting research positions at the London School of Economics and the University of Western Sydney and is the author of Copula: Sexual Technologies, Reproductive Powers, Genres of Philosophy and Passion in Theory: Conceptions of Freud and Lacan.