Aside from the occasional nod to epaulets or use of camouflage, war and fashion seem to be strange partners. Not so, argue the contributors to this book, who connect military industrial practices as well as military dress to textile and clothing in new ways. For instance, the book includes a series of commentaries on the impact of military dress in the airline industry, in illustrated wartime comics, and even considers today’s muscled soldier’s body as a new type of uniform. Elsewhere, the impacts of conquest introduce a new set of postcolonial aesthetics; this is because military and colonial regimes disrupted local textile production and garment making. In another chapter, it is argued that textiles and fashion are important because they reflect a core practice, one that bridges textile artists and designers in an expressive, creative, and deeply physical way to matters of cultural significance. And the book concludes by calling the very mode of "military chic" into ethical question.

The premier text to illustrate the impact of war on textiles, bodies, costume, art, and design, Fashion and  War in Popular Culture will be warmly welcomed by scholars of fashion design and theory, historians of fashion, and those interested in theories of warfare and military science.

Denise N. Rall is an adjunct lecturer at the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University in Australia.