Everyday fashion: interpreting British clothing since 1600

Abstract

"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."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Part I: Approaches to the Study of Everyday Fashion -- 3. Whalebone and Fashion in Seventeenth Century England: Changing Consumer Culture, Trade and Innovation / Sarah Bendall -- 4. Sophie Rabin's Blouse / Lucie Whitmore -- 5. 'In Want of a Capable Woman': Rediscovering Blouse Designers in the Wholesale, Ready-Made Trade in Britain Through Material Culture (1909–1920) / Suzanne Rowland -- 6. Wartime Swimwear / Ciara Phipps -- 7. Fading From View: Using Postcard Photographs to Reveal the Market for Female Workwear During the First World War / Jenny Richardson -- 8. Rosetta Rowley's Wedding Suit, 1952 / Natalie Raw -- 9. Making Clothes for the Older Woman: Post-War Pattern Cutting and Dressmaking Home Instruction in Britain / Hannah Wroe -- 10. A Printed Summer Dress, c.1930–32 / Pauline Rushton -- 11. Oral History and Everyday Fashion / Jade Halbert -- 12. Bryan's Shoes / Beatrice Behlen -- 13. A Pocket History: Interpreting Wearer Biography in the Francis Golding Collection / Cyana Madsen -- 14. Aprons / Lou Taylor -- 15. Learning Through Wear: Experiencing the Everyday Vintage Wardrobe / Liz Tregenza -- 1. Introduction: Negotiating the Everyday / Bethan Bide, Jade Halbert and Liz Tregenza -- 2. Counterfeit Fashion: An Eighteenth-Century Printed Silk Handkerchief / John Styles -- Part II: Everyday Fashion in Practice -- 16. The Fabled Chintz: Global Entanglement and South Asian Agency in Everyday British Fashion, 1600–1800 / Aditi Khare -- 17. Henry Wardell's Flannel Waistcoat / Hilary Davidson -- 18. The Everyday in Eighteenth-Century Women's Sartorial Life-Writing / Serena Dyer -- 19. An Open Robe Gown / Vanessa Jones -- 20. Accidental Remainders: Working Men's Fashion c.1730–1880 in National Museums Scotland / Emily Taylor -- 21. A Victorian Best-Day Wedding Dress / Rebecca Quinton -- 22. 'Fustian Jackets, Unshorn Chins, Blistered Hands': Fabric and Political Feeling in the Chartist Movement, 1837–1848 / Vic Clarke -- 23. Dr Fairweather's 'Apterna' Progressive Shoes / Ruth Battersby Tooke -- 24. 'They go around the country making in the homes of the people': Travelling Tailors and Shoemakers and the Production of Everyday Clothing in Rural Ireland, c.1850–1914 / Eliza McKee -- 25. Tailor's Drawing Book, 1915 / Elen Phillips -- 26. I Am an Ordinary Man: Getting and Wearing Suits in Britain 1945–1980 / Danielle Sprecher -- 27. Two-Piece Skirt Suit; Alexon Youngset by Alannah Tandy c.1970–1973 / Shelley Tobin -- 28. À la Mode in Maesteg: The Fashion Cultures of South Wales Garment Factories, 1945–1965 / Bethan Bide -- 29. WVS Uniform Dress / Valerie Wilson -- 30. Wholesaling and Everyday Fashion in the Black Country / Jenny Gilbert -- 31. An Old Pair of Jeans / Rebecca Unsworth -- 32. To Dance in my Shoes: Music and the Psychological Influences of Style Choices in the London Caribbean Diaspora, from Lovers' Rock to Grime / Rianna Norbert-David -- 33. A Tootal Paisley Scarf / Christopher Breward -- 34. Conclusion: Common Threads / Bethan Bide, Jade Halbert and Liz Tregenza