Dressing for Austerity: Aspiration, Leisure and Fashion in Post-War Britain (Dress Cultures)

by Geraldine Biddle-Perry

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Book cover for Dressing for Austerity

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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.
  • ISBN10 178672197X
  • ISBN13 9781786721976
  • Publish Date 30 April 2017 (first published 26 April 2017)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Imprint I.B. Tauris