Keeping Up Appearances: Fashion and Class Between the Wars - Softcover

Horwood, Catherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752460501 ISBN 13: 9780752460505

Publisher: The History Press, 2011

Synopsis

The British have always been concerned about accent, appearance and class, but at no time during the twentieth century was 'keeping up appearances' more important than during the 1920s and 1930s. From the impecunious youth anxious to create a favourable impression at the local tennis club dance to female office workers advised by the Daily Mail that women in business kept 'their position partly, if not chiefly, by appearance', we peer into the intimate lives and anxieties of the middle classes as they dressed to impress. Seemingly insignificant items such as ties, braces, gloves and hats, could convey a lack of breeding if worn incorrectly. This engagingly written and illustrated book explores the social mores behind one of society's most popular activities, and reveals not only how we dressed by why.

About this title

About the Author:

Catherine Horwood is an honorary research fellow at the Bedford Centre for the History of Women at Royal Holloway, University of London. A former journalist, she has a doctorate in history on interwar dress codes and has published on the social history of sports clothes, on consumerism and women's magazines. She has contributed to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and to BBC Radio 4 programmes on shopping and social history. Her website is: http://gardeningwomen, typepad.com/catherine_horwood/

Review:

"Meticulous and engaging."  —Times Higher Education Supplement

"A rich and thoughtful book that illuminates a complex subject."  —Costume

About this edition

• Publisher: The History Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0752460501
• ISBN 13: 9780752460505
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216