All the Rage

From the popular historian and author of Among the Bohemians and How Was It For You? comes a new offering, unbuttoning the multi-layered, hundred-year-history of women's lives through fashion and beauty from 1860-1960.

'Virginia Nicholson is one of the great social historians of our time . . . No one else makes history this fun' Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

'Virginia Nicholson is the outstanding recorder of British lives in the twentieth century' Carmen Callil, author of Bad Faith

From the suffragettes casting off corsets to Christian Dior reintroducing the hourglass; from wartime uniforms to the first Miss World bikinis; from skin lightening creams to Coco Chanel's tan - the evolving world of fashion and beauty is inextricably linked to women's lived experiences. In Undressing Women, popular feminist historian Virginia Nicholson documents the history of women's lives in Great Britain through fashion trends, blending fascinating source material with analysis to outline a century of change in the way we see and feel about women's bodies.

New engaging source material tells the story of the close relationship between feminism and femininity, begging the question: 'Can we be both equal and beautiful?'