Overview

The journey through Great War Fashion is not just about the changing clothes and fashions of the war years, but much more than that it is a journey into the lives of the women who lived under the shadow of war and were irrevocably changed by it. Imagine 'stepping into someone else's shoes'. Walking back in time a century ago, which shoes would they be? A pair of silk sensations costing thousands of pounds designed by Yantonnay of Paris or wooden clogs with metal cleats that spark on the cobbles of a factory yard? Will your shoes be heavy with mud from trudging along duckboards between the tents of a frontline hospital... or stuck with tufts of turf from a football pitch? Will you be cloaked in green and purple, brandishing a 'Votes for Women' banner or will you be the height of respectability, restricted by your thigh-length corset? Great War Fashion opens the woman's wardrobe in the years before the outbreak of war to explore the real woman behind the stiff, mono-bosomed ideal of the Edwardian Society lady draped in gossamer gowns, and closes it on a new breed of women who have donned trousers and overalls to feed the nation's guns in munitions factories and who, clad in mourning, have loved and lost a whole generation of men. The journey through Great War Fashion is not just about the changing clothes and fashions of the war years, but much more than that it is a journey into the lives of the women who lived under the shadow of war and were irrevocably changed by it. At times, laugh-out-loud funny and at others, bringing you to tears, Lucy Adlington paints a unique portrait of an inspiring generation of women, brought to life in rare and stunning images. AUTHOR: Lucy Adlington runs the delightful History Wardrobe series of costume-in-context presentations which span 200 years of women's history through fashion. She is a keen collector of antique and vintage costume, with original items from the eighteenth century onwards. She travels the length and breadth of Britain to bring history to life at venues around the country. She is also published as a children's author and has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. 100 colour, 100 b/w illustrations

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Praise for The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive: Adlington tells of the horrors of the Nazi occupation and the concentration camps from a fascinating and original angle. She introduces us to a little known aspect of the period, highlighting the role of clothes in the grimmest of societies imaginable and giving an insight into the women who stayed alive by stitching. -- Alexandra Shulman, Former Editor in Chief of British Vogue Adlington has unveiled not one but several long-hidden histories: the tale of a group of compassionate and audacious Jewish women who sewed for their lives; the story of clothes in the Holocaust; and the history of the fashion industry in World War II. Adlington has expertly interwoven these fascinating strands into an utterly absorbing, important and unique historical read. -- Judy Batalion New York Timesbestselling author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos A fresh, moving Auschwitz survival story involving a remarkable group of women. --Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Lucy Adlington runs the delightful History Wardrobe series of costume-in-context presentations, which span 250 years of history through clothes. She is author of several non-fiction titles, including Stitches in Time: The Story of the Clothes We Wear (Random House Books, 2015) and Women's Lives and Clothes in WW2: Ready for Action (Pen and Sword, 2019). Her most recent history book, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021), is a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into over twenty languages. Lucy also writes award-winning Young Adult fiction. Explore Lucy's unique approach to history further at www.historywardrobe.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@historywardrobe) or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/pages/History-Wardrobe).

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