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

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.

• | Author: Geraldine Biddle-Perry
• | Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• | Publication Date: May 30, 2017
• | Number of Pages: 224 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1780766289
• | ISBN-13: 9781780766287