Dressing for Austerity: Aspiration, Leisure and Fashion in Post-war Britain

by Geraldine Biddle-Perry

Overview

A new look for Austerity...The coldest winter on record, rationing, successive economic crises, bombed out towns and cities; with some justification 'Austerity Britain' in the late 1940s is coloured in the popular imagination in tones of drab. Dressing for Austerity shines a light on alternative visions of post-war optimism and aspiration. It traces how, set against the Labour government's philosophy of 'Austerity by design' in a climate of post-war idealism, the desire for affordable fashionable clothing, access to leisure, and the health, time and money to enjoy them became totemic symbols of post-war ambition that impelled new strategies of state control and consumer agency. The book examines the immediate post-war period - its politics, its fashions and its people - in new ways and on its own terms as a critical tipping point in the making of modern Britain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780766287
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/30/2017
Series:	Dress Cultures
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Geraldine Biddle-Perry is a fashion and cultural historian. She lectures in fashion and design history & theory at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vi

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: Austerity, Aspiration and Affluence 1

1 Austerity by Design: Fashioning a New Jerusalem 12

2 Austerity in Transition: Demobilisation/Remobilisalion 37

3 Austerity by Consensus: Democratising Desire 62

4 Lessons in Austerity: Styling Postwar Citizenship 84

5 Austerity and Affluence: Mother Look at the New Look 110

6 Austerity and Aspiration: A Boy, A Girl and A Bike 137

Conclusion: The Autonomy of Austerity: Postwar Affluence by Design 160

Notes 182

Bibliography 201

Index 212

Editorial Reviews

The immediate postwar period in Britain, the era of austerity, has been the subject of many books, but most focus on the social and economic changes ushered in by the war and the Labour government of 1945. This is one of the few monographs to examine the stylistic and cultural changes of the period… Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.”

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