Theatre and Fashion
Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes

This is the first book to explore the fascinating relationship between theatre, fashion, and society in the period from the 1890s to the Great War.

Joel H. Kaplan (Author), Sheila Stowell (Author)

9780521499507, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 July 1995

236 pages, 26 b/w illus. 1 colour illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.435 kg

'Theatre and Fashion is first-rate historical scholarship, lucid, stylish, and accessible. Its combination of winning subject and fresh approach should attract a wide, appreciative audience.' Nineteenth Century Theatre

This is the first book to explore the complex relationship between theatre, fashion and society in the late Victorian and early modern era. Examining such diverse topics as the emergence of the society playhouse, fashion journalism, the role of the couturier-costumier, department store marketing, and the establishment of 'dress codes' by militant suffragettes, Kaplan and Stowell provide a new context for assessing plays by established writers like Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Arthur Pinero and Harley Granville Barker, as well as lesser known figures, such as Edith Lyttelton, Emily Symonds and Cicely Hamilton.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The glass of fashion
2. Dressing Mrs. Pat
3. The ghost in the looking-glass
4. Millinery stages
5. The suffrage response
Notes
Works cited
Index.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]