Why are accessories so important in fashion today? Ever since Prada launched the Pocone backpack in 1987 and the classic bag brand Gucci was transformed into a luxury fashion brand by Tom Ford shortly thereafter, accessories and accessory campaigns have become staples in the collections of major fashion houses. This current theme guides this book. What significance do accessories have in relation to fashion? How do accessories reflect the culture of our time? And in what ways do they represent ot depict a cultural shift in the perception of fashion? In addition, this publication outlines a number of developments in the history of the fashion accessory and its typologies and shows that themes and form principles of movements such as surrealism, modernism, carnivalesque and postmodernism keep recurring in accessory design.