Through the wardrobe : Women’s relationships with their clothes

Author

Additional Author(s)

• Guy, Ali
• Green, Eileen
• Banim, Maura

Publisher

Oxford: Berg, 2001

Language

English

ISBN

9781847888921

Series

Subject(s)

• BODY IMAGE
• CLOTHING AND DRESS--SOCIAL ASPECTS

Notes

. .

Abstract

Relating to clothes is a fundamental experience in the lives of most Western women. Even when choice is fraught with ambivalence, clothing matters. From considerations about dressing for success, to worries about weight, through to investing particular articles of clothing with meaning bordering on the sacred, what we wear speaks volumes about personal identity - what is revealed, what is concealed, what is created. This book fills a gap in the existing literature on the ambivalence of fashion and dress by drawing on a wide range of women's experiences with their wardrobes and providing empirical data noticeably absent from other studies of women and dress. Navigating what is clearly a contested realm in feminist scholarship, contributors provide rich case studies of the reality of women's relationships with clothing. While on the surface concerns about fashion or dress may appear to reflect gendered patterns, in fact clothing may be used to challenge ascribed meanings about femininity.

Physical Dimension

Number of Page(s)

1 online resource (xiv, 278 p.)

Dimension

-

Other Desc.

ill.

Summary / Review / Table of Content

Introduction / Maura Banim, Eileen Green and Ali Guy --
Young women and their wardrobes / Pamela Abbott and Francesca Sapsford --
Big girls' blouses : learning to live with polyester / Alison Adam --
The wedding dress : from use value to sacred object / Susanne Friese --
Choosing an image : exploring women's images through the personal shopper / Kate Gillen --
Suiting ourselves : women professors using clothes to signal authority, belonging and personal style / Eileen Green --
Minding appearances in female academic culture / Susan Kaiser, Joan Chandler and Tania Hammidi --
Black women and self-presentation : appearing in (dis)guise / Anita Franklin --
Resistances and reconciliations : women and body art / Sharon Cahill and Sarah Riley --
'Flying on one wing' / Jean Spence --
Cancer, breast reconstruction and clothes / Anna van Wersch --
Dis/continued selves : why do women keep clothes they no longer wear? / Maura Banim and Ali Guy --
From closet to wardrobe? / Jan Winn and Diane Nutt --
Ontological, epistemological and methodological clarifications in fashion research : from critique to empirical suggestions / Efrat Tseëlon --
Unpicking the seems / Eileen Green, Maura Banim and Ali Guy.

Exemplar(s)

#	Accession No.	Call Number	Location	Status
1.	01557/21	391.2 Thr	Online !	Available