Full Description
Dress as Biography looks at the way clothing and dressed appearance contribute to a deep and empathetic understanding of an individual's life.
Scholarly writing on dress and identity primarily focuses on dress as an articulation of collective social identities - gender, sexuality, subcultures, ethnicity - with relatively little in-depth attention paid to dress as an expression of the individual. Alongside analysis of social identities, this book explores how appearance can be read as an indicator of an individual's character and self-identity, while revealing many aspects of their life's circumstances.
With 10 chapters written by leading specialists in their fields, Dress as Biography takes an interdisciplinary approach, exploring the subject through art history, material culture, and literature. With topics ranging from the 16th-century Elizabethan courtier Robert Dudley to the 20th-century graphic artist and writer, Polly Binder, from the "orphaned" clothes of a 1950s anonymous Londoner to Charles and Ray Eames' fashion choices, the book considers biography through socialisation, feminism, and Black lives.
This multi-authored collection builds upon and adds new stimulus to the study of dress, biography and identity, examining how close analysis of the dressed appearance creates a fresh, innovative contribution to an understanding of the individual.
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Dress as Biography, Martin Pel (Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove, UK)
1. Death, Dress, and Memorialising in the Tomb of Robert Dudley, Martin Pel (Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove, UK)
2. Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun: Fashioning and Painting the Self, Ingrid E. Mida (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada)
3. The Londonderry Russian Topaz, Geoffrey Munn (Jewellery expert and historian, UK)
4. Reading the Damage: Biography through the Eyes of a Dress Conservator, Zenzie Tinker (Conservator, UK)
5. Creating Biographies: from Childhood Stories to Family Tales, Aude Campbell Le Guennec (Glasgow School of Art, UK)
6. Miss Augusta Roddis Dresses Up, Jane Bradbury (Dress historian, USA)
7. Pearl Binder, 1904-1990: A Biography of an Individualist Dresser, Lou Taylor (University of Brighton, UK)
8. 'All of Me': Billie Holiday, Carol Tulloch (University of the Arts, London, UK)
9. Charles and Ray Eames: their Everyday as Read through Dress, Alison Moloney (Fashion Curator, UK)
10. The Sartorial Biographer: Using Material Culture to Reveal Identities, Beatrice Behlen (Senior Curator, Fashion and Decorative Arts, Museum of London, UK)
Notes
List of Illustrations
Bibliography
Index
