Total Living

Synopsis

Styles and lifestyles are fast becoming uniform under labels and definitions of fashion, and as an industry and a cultural form. Total living is the point of no return in a project which, step-by-step, develops strategies whose goal it is to offer an even more sophisticated and targeted lifestyle. It is a place where there are definitions for clothes, behavior modes, and even the atmoshpheres and spaces in which one moves. Assuming the contours of a landscape of the future, this scenario raises topical themes and problems connected with the overwhelming power of consumerism. Accompanying scholarly essays consider the thematic universes of fashion designers and brands; models of total living in 20th century history; references to total living in mass culture; living and eating; arty fashion and fashionable art; the world of fashion design; the languages of shopping; urban fashion districts; and advertising as a narrative. A fabulously rich and interconnected iconographic passage visually narrates the various forms and ramifications of total living today and in the recent past through a succession of utopias, life-projects, urban visions, architecture, special homes, stores, art galleries, museums, and editorial pages and ads from fashion and lifestyle magazines. Total living shows life for the show that it is -- or has become. Published in collaboration with Pitti Immagine.