Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul

by Tanisha C. Ford

Overview

From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s through antiapartheid activism in the 1980s and beyond, black women have used their clothing, hair, and style not simply as a fashion statement but as a powerful tool of resistance. Whether using stiletto heels as weapons to protect against police attacks or incorporating African-themed designs into everyday wear, these fashion-forward women celebrated their identities and pushed for equality.

In this thought-provoking book, Tanisha C. Ford explores how and why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, and Johannesburg incorporated style and beauty culture into their activism. Focusing on the emergence of the "soul style" movement—represented in clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and more—Liberated Threads shows that black women's fashion choices became galvanizing symbols of gender and political liberation. Drawing from an eclectic archive, Ford offers a new way of studying how black style and Soul Power moved beyond national boundaries, sparking a global fashion phenomenon. Following celebrities, models, college students, and everyday women as they moved through fashion boutiques, beauty salons, and record stores, Ford narrates the fascinating intertwining histories of Black Freedom and fashion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469636139
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	08/01/2017
Series:	Gender and American Culture
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	530,904
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Tanisha C. Ford is associate professor of Black American studies and history at the University of Delaware.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This book skillfully weaves together black women's political culture, fashion, and transnational cultural exchange, emphasizing the complexities of soul style. Ford's wonderful prose brings her sources to life. A stellar achievement.—Noliwe Rooks, Cornell University



Liberated Threads is innovative, impeccably researched, and bound to make a significant contribution to scholarly understandings of black beauty, fashion, and politics. In exploring the soul of style, Tanisha C. Ford offers a rare and much needed window into the activism and experiences of black women in the United States and abroad.—Tiffany Gill, University of Delaware

Editorial Reviews

Creates a fierce and vibrant dialog on the rarely recounted women's perspective on black style, beauty, and soul.—Library Journal, starred review



A welcome addition to historical studies of civil rights and black power.—Journal of American History



Adds important elements to the conversation on resistance. . . . Highly recommended.—Choice



The moving testimonies Ford presents of the black women who lived through soul style's heyday are proof that activist scholarship motivated by personal experience provides powerful contributions to the field of history.—Journal of Southern History



Ambitious and wide-ranging. . . . Makes a powerful and convincing case for how black women practiced the politics of civil rights, black power, and anticolonialism by crafting new, self-affirming appearances and fashions.—American Historical Review



A scholarly masterpiece that squarely situates fashion as central to the US civil rights and Black Power eras.—Winterthur Portfolio

From the Publisher

★ 10/15/2015
In this compelling examination of "soul style," Ford (Do You Remember Olive Morris?) probes the cultural history of the black Diaspora through body politics and style choices. By tracing what started as one woman's exploration into her sense of self, Ford describes soul style as having transitioned from being an individual choice to becoming a collective political statement and eventually to misdiagnosed perceptions among the media. The style politics adopted by black women in both the United States and abroad created an identity for the Diaspora that moves between being a connection through the combined vision of kinship to a symbol of pride and resistance. Black style moved from grassroots to the mainstream, giving marketing campaigns a new demographic and the media a template from which to depict young black activists. VERDICT Ford creates a fierce and vibrant dialog on the rarely recounted women's perspective on black style, beauty, and soul. Our style tells the story of us. This account is beneficial for scholars and history buffs alike.—Cicely Douglas, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

Library Journal