In this generously illustrated book, Anne Hollander examines the representation of the body and clothing in Western art, from Greek sculpture and vase painting through medieval and renaissance portraits, to contemporary films and fashion photography. First published ahead of its time, this book has become a classic.

Anne Hollander, the author of Moving Pictures (1986), is an art historian with a special interest in costume history and design.

"Anne Hollander's book is about a distinctive human enterprise, observed with passionate understanding and more than passing knowledge. It is a work of great wisdom."—Richard Howard,The Nation

"Anne Hollander's Seeing Through Clothes pushes erudition to the point of originality. The thoroughness with which she examines Western art and clothes has precipitated a new subject: how painting, sculpture and photography mediate between bodily ideals and what we wear. Other writers have touched on these relationships, but only Hollander has accumulated enough in the way of evidence and commentary to elevate the clothes-art-body interchange to the status of an independent subject."—Carter Ratcliff, Art in America

"[Hollander's] extraordinary book radically alters the way we see."—Walter Clemons, Newsweek