Through the wardrobe
Subtitle: women's relationships with their clothes
By: edited by Ali Guy, Eileen Green and Maura Banim
Contributors: Guy, Alison; Banim, Maura; Green, Eileen, 1947-
Series: Dress, body, culture
Publisher: Berg
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 286
Subjects: Body image; Clothing and dress -- Social aspects
Description: "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."--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-278) and indexes