Clothing Flashcards
1
Q
Clothing Primary Literature
Summarise the key findings of Austin Reed - Suit Like This (Sunday Times 1970)
A
- Sunday Times, 1970 - according to Emily Robinson - moment of atomism came to fore.
- Austin Reed - retailer since 1900. Prestigious London brand - suiting Winston Churchill. Launched women ’s brand in 1980s.
- Image - man in suit - strong jawline, fashionable contemporary haircut. Garish pink shirt and tie. Suit is slimline. Photo is to be provocative - look at setting - not a shop, but on the street - comment.
- ‘Plan your wardrobe with an Austin Reed subscription account’ - backs Majima who suggests clothes went from durables to consumables. ‘Dedicated to the overthrow of dull clothes’ - consumerism, but militaristic language.
2
Q
Clothing Primary Literature
Summarise the key findings of Lorna Sage - Bad Blood
A
- Sage - English academic, critic and author - feminist. Born in Shropshire, Girls School. Pregnant when 15, but earned scholarship to Durham. Memoir described as ‘tragic story of childhood disappointment’ in a dysfunctional family. Won the Whitbread Biography Award. Long term breathing problems (which she died of) do not feature.
Quotes
- “What her posh accent and her breathy whispers really sought to hush up, however, was the fact that most of her stock - perhaps all - was second hand”
- “Money, as usual, was the domestic sticking point, the disputed territory between fantasy and realism - that is, between her and my father” (Echoes Forster)
- “1950s TV was brisk and serviceable, you couldn’t dream the day away on a diet of soaps and old movies”
- “Not driving became another sign of her sensitivity. Like not cleaning and not cooking, it showed (in a mysterious way) that she was meant for better things, a life that wasn’t confined to home - and that in turn was part of her impractical charm as a wife”
3
Q
Clothing Primary Literature
Summarise the key findings of Brigid Keenan
A
- NOVA, 1968. Magazine, single page - full spread of woman.
Quotes
- “The white ideal of beauty is the conventional one for them to follow - strangely sos because it’s hard for a Negro face to try to imitate successfully.”
- “The Afro cut is a symbol of pride in race - of open rejection of the white standard of beauty as the only one.”
- “Fashion, though, can make anything frivolous. In two pages called ‘Black is Beautiful’, Women’s Wear Daily, the so-called Bible of the rag trade, announced recently: ‘Suddenly it has become fashionable to be black. Now everybody wants to be a soul sister’
4
Q
Clothing Primary Literature
Summarise the key findings of Margaret Forster - Hidden Lives
A
- Memoir written in 1995 so account for distance. Primarily an account of grandmother and mother’s life. Forster from Raffles council estate in Carlisle, England. Father-> mechanic, mother -> housewife who was a clerk and secretary. Went to grammar school and won a scholarship to Oxford. First job -> teacher. Wrote Georgy Girl -> about working class woman in swinging sixties. Published 25 later novels.
Quotes
- ‘She longed for a coat but having a big item like a winter coat would have ruled out everything else, so she made her old one do.’
- ‘My mother soon felt great guilt because she’d been ‘selfish’ and spent her own money on herself and not on us, on my sister and me’
- ‘My mother still loved clothes for their own sake’
- ‘They showed the world what you were, and we were decidedly not a hard-up family living on a council estate. My God no, we were always incredibly well turned out and proud of it, especially the women’
- ‘Women like her had to delude themselves through disguising realities and clothes were one way to do it. Another lesson I didn’t want to learn’
- ‘I had always loved, all my childhood, buying her presents. It wasn’t the self-sacrifice that appealed (though in my religious phase it did) so much as the hope of delighting her by giving her something I’d heard her yearn after’.
5
Q
Clothing Primary Literature
Summarise the key findings of MO New Look
A
- Handwritten reports, austerity period.
1. Anti-US -> ‘Americans are the worst, familiar sight to see a Yank ‘fawning over’ a girl. Frigid -> ‘I wish to vomit every time I see couples kissing in public’. Thinks the New Look was a disaster - too consumptive
2. ‘I like the new look, it assist women to focus a pleasant myth about themselves. They have become gracious, benign, even cultured’
3. Indifferent to ‘love in public’ - though personally would not. Indifferent to new look, but liked lengthened skirt.
MO ambivalence to New Look emphasises degree to which penetrated society.
6
Q
Clothing Secondary Literature
Summarise the key findings of Majima, Shinobu, ‘Fashion and frequency of purchase: womenswear consumption in Britain, 1961-2001’
A
- The importance of “fashion” in clothing consumption has risen by two‐fold since the 1960s, measured by purchase probability. Clothing have transformed from durable goods to consumables. Youth, class and women’s employment are found to be significantly related to fashion consumption, controlling for the rise in income.
