How Long to Read Behind the Seams

How Long Does it Take to Read Behind the Seams?

It takes the average reader 6 hours and 22 minutes to read Behind the Seams by Susan Hiner

Assuming a reading speed of 250 words per minute. Learn more

Description

In this highly original book, Susan E. Hiner looks behind fashion's seams and focuses on the women fashion producers – both working- and middle-class – who were key to shaping the French fashion economy. Behind the Seams thus opens up the fields of both fashion and French cultural studies and explores new ways of understanding the 19th century by demonstrating that these women's complex and contradictory roles as producers of luxury items left them exploited by an oppressive fashion system even as they served as influencers within it. In 19th-century France, fashion was a powerful and lucrative network that depended on women's expert manipulation of its raw materials. The delicate finger work of seamstresses and modistes yielded frothy dresses and ethereal hats; the subtle, persuasive rhetoric of written chronicles resulted in savvy, targeted marketing campaigns of goods and lifestyles; and the stylized visual splendour of the detailed drawing, engraving, and painting of fashion plates fed an aspirational fantasy that ended in consumption. Yet this fashion system paradoxically effaced many of the women on whom it depended. Rather than repeating the familiar narrative of women as victims of fashion, Behind the Seams tells a more complicated story. Hiner's close examination reveals the productive women workers, writers, and artists who achieved agency, influence, and active careers even as their work and lives were masked by the ways in which they were mythologized in popular culture, rendered anonymous, and marginalized by institutional exclusion. Beautifully illustrated in colour throughout, Behind the Seams is a rich resource and essential reading for all those interested in fashion history, 19th-century French history and visual culture, and the social history of women.

How long is Behind the Seams?

Behind the Seams by Susan Hiner is 369 pages long, and a total of 95,571 words.

This makes it 125% the length of the average book. It also has 117% more words than the average book.

How Long Does it Take to Read Behind the Seams Aloud?

The average oral reading speed is 183 words per minute. This means it takes 8 hours and 42 minutes to read Behind the Seams aloud.

What Reading Level is Behind the Seams?

Behind the Seams is suitable for students ages 12 and up.

Note that there may be other factors that effect this rating besides length that are not factored in on this page. This may include things like complex language or sensitive topics not suitable for students of certain ages.

When deciding what to show young students always use your best judgement and consult a professional.

Where Can I Buy Behind the Seams?

Behind the Seams by Susan Hiner is sold by several retailers and bookshops. However, Read Time works with Amazon to provide an easier way to purchase books.

To buy Behind the Seams by Susan Hiner on Amazon click the button below.