Power Mode explores the role fashion plays in establishing, reinforcing and challenging power dynamics within society. The book explores men's and women's clothing from the 18th century to the present, showing how specific designs and garments have come to be culturally associated with power and how their meanings have evolved over time. Published as a companion to the Museum at FIT exhibition of the same title, the book offers a more in-depth examination of the themes and objects explored in the exhibition. The book is organized thematically into five chapters--military, suits, status, rebellion, sex--and is written by exhibition curator Emma McClendon.
The book also looks at how fashion designers have interpreted stylistic archetypes, to both convey and to subvert power. Power Mode includes an essay on the intersection of race, fashion and power by Parsons professor Kimberly Jenkins as well as object-based essays from renowned fashion scholars Valerie Steele, Christopher Breward, Jennifer Craik and Peter McNeil, as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Robin Givhan. Each short study provides a close reading of a single garment. This collection of essays offers readers a variety of perspectives and analytical techniques that will help form a theoretical and practical framework for considering the power dynamics inherent in fashion objects.