High Fashion

The rules of fashion have changed. The new digital era is all about being seen, liked and inspired. So how do we define ourselves through style? And why has the evolution of the Internet changed the way we buy and wear clothing? Superblogger Victoria Magrath reveals the pivotal moments that have...

'Razor-sharp and deliciously wry' COCO MELLORS 'Funny, tender, thrillingly dark' HEATHER DARWENT 'Exhilarating, beguiling, beautiful' OLIVIA PETTER An astonishing portrait of a city on the brink of a dizzying new era and a story about a young woman who will do anything to infiltrate the rarefied...

Meditating on the labyrinthine nature of sexual identity and the performance of gender, High Heel moves from film to fairytale, from foot binding to feminism, and from the golden ratio to glam rock. Summer Brennan considers this most provocative of fashion accessories as a nexus of desire and struggle, sex and society, violence and self expression, setting out to understand what it means to be a woman by walking a few hundred years in her shoes.

Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt.