All the Rage: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty: A History of Pain, Pleasure, and Power: 1860-1960

by: Virginia Nicholson (Author)

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Publication Date: 2024/8/6

Language: English

Print Length: 528 pages

ISBN-10: 1639367063

ISBN-13: 9781639367061

Book Description

A panoramic social history that chronicles the quest for beauty in all its contradictions—and how it affects the female body.”Women have been fat or slim, hyperthyroid or splenetic, sallow or pink-cheeked, slouched or erect, according to the prevalent notions of beauty.” —Cecil Beaton, The Glass of Fashion Who decides what is fashionable? What clothes we wear, what hairstyles we create, what color lipstick we adore, what body shape is “all the rage”. The story of female adoment from 1860–1960 is intriguingly unbuttoned in this glorious social history. Virginia Nicholson has long been fascinated by the way we women present ourselves—or are encouraged to present ourselves—to the world. In this book, we lea about rational dress, suffragettes’ hats, the Marcel wave, the Gibson Girls, corsets, and the banana skirt. At the centre of this story is the female body, in all its diversity—fat, thin, short, tall, brown, white, black, pink, smooth, hairy, wrinkly, youthful, crooked, or symmetrical; and—relevant as ever in this context—the vexed issues of body image and bodily autonomy. We may even find ourselves wondering, whose body is it? In the hundred years this book charts, the Weste world saw the rapid introduction of new technologies like photography, film, and eventually television, which (for better and worse) thrust women—and female imagery—out of the private and into the public gaze.

About the Author

A panoramic social history that chronicles the quest for beauty in all its contradictions—and how it affects the female body.”Women have been fat or slim, hyperthyroid or splenetic, sallow or pink-cheeked, slouched or erect, according to the prevalent notions of beauty.” —Cecil Beaton, The Glass of Fashion Who decides what is fashionable? What clothes we wear, what hairstyles we create, what color lipstick we adore, what body shape is “all the rage”. The story of female adoment from 1860–1960 is intriguingly unbuttoned in this glorious social history. Virginia Nicholson has long been fascinated by the way we women present ourselves—or are encouraged to present ourselves—to the world. In this book, we lea about rational dress, suffragettes’ hats, the Marcel wave, the Gibson Girls, corsets, and the banana skirt. At the centre of this story is the female body, in all its diversity—fat, thin, short, tall, brown, white, black, pink, smooth, hairy, wrinkly, youthful, crooked, or symmetrical; and—relevant as ever in this context—the vexed issues of body image and bodily autonomy. We may even find ourselves wondering, whose body is it? In the hundred years this book charts, the Weste world saw the rapid introduction of new technologies like photography, film, and eventually television, which (for better and worse) thrust women—and female imagery—out of the private and into the public gaze.