Ebook: Keeping Up Appearances: Fashion and Class Between the Wars

Cover; Dedication; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgements; Preface to the 2011 Edition; Introduction; 1 Shopping for Status; 2 Black Coats and White Collars; 3 Business Girls and Office Dresses; 4 In Home and Garden; 5 From Seaside to Sports Club; 6 Top Hats and Tulle; 7 Everything to Match; 8 Radicals Bohemians and Dandies; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography and Sources.;The British have always been concerned about accent, appearance and class, but at no time during the twentieth century was 'keeping up appearances' more important than during the 1920s and 1930s. From the impecunious youth anxious to create a favourable impression at the local tennis club dance to female office workers advised by the Daily Mail that women in business kept 'their position partly, if not chiefly, by appearance', we peer into the initmate lives and anxieties of the middle classes as they dressed to impress. Choices were influenced as much by the advent of mass production, ec.