The deep history of dress: fashion's evolution with human cognition and culture

"The Deep History of Dress begins with a 4,000-year-old complaint from a Babylonian scribe whose worn-out clothes spark a bold rethinking of fashion's origins. Reading this letter against the fabric of Mesopotamian society, Otto von Busch argues that fashion is far older and more central to human life than modern narratives suggest. Drawing on anthropology, sociology, and the life sciences, he presents fashion as a form of social sensing-how we register hierarchy, belonging, desire, and care. From cuneiform tablets to today, dress emerges not as vanity but as a vital, evolving force shaping civilization itself"-- Provided by publisher.