A panoramic social history that chronicles the quest for beauty in all its contradictions—and how it affects the female body.
Who decides what is fashionable? What clothes we wear, what hairstyles we create, what colour lipstick we adore, what body shape is 'all the rage’. Thestory of female adornment 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.
‘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 (1954),
In this book we learn 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 western world saw the rapid introduction of new technologies like photography, film and eventually TV, which (for better and worse) thrust women – and female imagery – out of the private and into the public gaze.
“A fascinating and enjoyable investigation which, for all its focus on history, holds up a mirror to today’s realities, too. For all that we may try to persuade ourselves that progress has been achieved, we are still in thrall to the ceaseless and seductive pursuit of beauty.”
"[Nicholson's] wonderfully engaging investigation has a feminist quandary at its heart."
“Marvelously readable. Nicholson gives us an unforgettably rich and varied tapestry of the development of female beauty anxiety. Her title is a clever double-entendre, suggesting both ‘the height of fashion’ and a lot of angry women. The subtitle’s key word, ‘frontline,’ implies the female body as a battleground, which indeed it was—and is.”
"Nicholson's lively, intimate history of beauty wants us to take a more sympathetic view of the women who engage in the often-condemned and sometimes dangerous quest for gorgeousness. All the Rage sits you at the dressing table of history: a place of dreams, doubts, self-harm, and hopes. More interesting than a simple catalog of beauty's ills would have been. Here, beauty is sometimes an oppressive force, and sometimes a way for women to negotiate their way around other oppressive forces."
