Dressing for Austerity: Aspiration, Leisure and Fashion in Post-war Britain
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Overview
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.
Fashioning a new Jerusalem in Austerity Britain
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction Austerity, Aspiration and Affluence
Chapter 1 Austerity by Design
Fashioning a New Jerusalem
Chapter 2 Austerity in Transition
Demobilization/Remobilization
Chapter 3 Austerity by Consensus
Democratizing Desire
Chapter 4 Lessons in Austerity
Styling Ideal Citizenship
Chapter 5 Austerity and Affluence
Another Look at the New Look
Chapter 6 Austerity and Aspiration
A Boy, A Girl and A Bike
Conclusion Affluence by Design
The Autonomy of Austerity
Index
- Title: Dressing for Austerity: Aspiration, Leisure and Fashion in Post-war Britain
- Author: Geraldine Biddle-Perry
- Series: Dress Cultures
- Publisher: I.B. Tauris
- Print Publication Date: 2017
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781786721976, 178672197X
- Resource ID: LLS:9781786721976
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T13:22:07Z
Geraldine Biddle-Perry is a fashion and cultural historian. She lectures in fashion and design history & theory at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.