Overview

Ordinary clothes have extraordinary stories. In contrast to academic and curatorial focus on the spectacular and the luxurious, Everyday Fashion makes the case that your grandmother’s wardrobe is an archive as interesting and important as any museum store. From the moment we wake and get dressed in the morning until we get undressed again in the evening, fashion is a central medium through which we experience the world and negotiate our place within it. Because of this, the ways that supposedly ‘ordinary’ and ‘everyday’ fashion objects have been designed, manufactured, worn, cared for, and remembered matters deeply to our historical understanding. Beginning at 1550 – the start of an era during which the word ‘fashion’ came to mean stylistic change rather than the act of making – each chapter explores the definition of everyday fashion and how this has changed over time, demonstrating innovative methodologies for researching the everyday. The variety and significance of everyday fashion cultures are further highlighted by a series of illustrated object biographies written by Britain’s leading fashion curators, showcasing the rich diversity of everyday fashion in British museum collections. Collectively, this volume scratches below the glossy surface of fashion to expose the mechanics of fashion business, the hidden world of the workroom and the diversity and role of makers; and the experiences of consuming, wearing, and caring for ordinary clothes in the United Kingdom from the 16th century to the present day. In doing so it challenges readers to rethink how fashion systems evolve and to reassess the boundaries between fashion and dress scholarship.

Full Product Details

9781350232457

Table of Contents

Reviews

Drawing on a wonderfully rich collection of fashion stories, this thought-provoking and timely volume explores the multifarious ways we experience and understand the everyday, challenging limited and narrow notions and prompting us to adopt new perspectives on ‘history from below’. * Rachel Worth, Arts University Bournemouth, UK * This generous – and generative – volume sets a new standard for studies of everyday fashion. Bringing together intriguing insights on specific clothing artefacts with new analytical approaches to fashion history, this book encourages readers to dig through their own closets, or the rails of a local thrift shop, to reveal the many histories that clothing holds. * Marina Moskowitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA *

Author Information

Bethan Bide is Lecturer in Design and Cultural Theory at the University of Leeds. She is a design historian with a particular interest in fashion cities, the production and consumption of ready-to-wear clothing, and the role of fashion in museums. Bethan previously worked as a producer of comedy programmes for BBC Radio 4. Jade Halbert is Lecturer in Design Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. She is a historian of the fashion industry and has published on black economies, cultural economies of knitting, and the treatment of dressmakers in the 19th century. She was an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker in 2019. Liz Tregenza is a fashion and business historian. She is currently a lecturer at London College of Fashion and a Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum, UK. Liz also runs her own vintage business and has written two books on vintage fashion.

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