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9781788313681

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Dress in Auschwitz is groundbreaking in scope and sensitivity. The voices of survivors resonate alongside Sofia Pantouvaki’s forensic attention to stitching and the wear of camp clothing, revealing how dress shaped survival. By decoding acts of modification, like sewing a secret pocket or tailoring a rough hem, she uncovers in fascinating ways how inmates managed to personalize their clothing in the face of depersonalization. This book reframes clothing as a critical tool for survival and a prism through which the nuances of camp life are newly understood. -- Roslyn Sugarman, Head Curator, Sydney Jewish Museum, Australia Drawing from an abundance of rare primary sources, survivor narratives, and firsthand interviews, Pantouvaki carefully unravels the uniform and other forms of dress in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex throughout the war. In doing so, she reveals how camp clothing in its many varieties was inextricably tied to prisoners’ bodily protection and survival, ability to withstand excruciating forced labor, creative expression when all other means of individuality had been taken away, self-dignity, and memory. And, importantly, she highlights prisoners’ active participation – often secretly, sometimes more openly – in modifying the clothes they were given to aid in their physical and spiritual survival. Dress in Auschwitz is an important book not only for its numerous new contributions to Holocaust history, but also for reminding us that the universally-relatable lens of dress offers a rich, more nuanced pathway to better understanding our past and present. -- Irene Guenther, Research Professor of History, University of Houston, US Dress is not only about protecting the body, but an essential part of our being, our identity, and our emotions. This absorbing and moving book, backed by impressive research, is the story of how closely clothing was linked to prisoners’ existence and survival in the horrifying and degrading conditions of life in Auschwitz. Highly recommended. -- Aileen Ribeiro, Professor Emeritus, University of London, UK

Author Information

Dr Sofia Pantouvaki is Professor of Costume Design at Aalto University, Finland. She is an award-winning set and costume designer with over 90 credits in major European venues and curator of international projects. She is the Chair of Critical Costume, Editor of Studies in Costume and Performance and lead editor, with Peter McNeil, of Performance Costume: New Perspectives and Methods (Bloomsbury, 2021).

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