Political and sartorial styles : Britain and its colonies in the long nineteenth century / edited by Kevin A. Morrison.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Morrison, Kevin A., 1976- editor.

Series:

Studies in design and material culture.

Studies in design & material culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Clothing and dress--Political aspects--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Clothing and dress.

Clothing and dress--Political aspects--Great Britain--Colonies--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 312 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (black and white, and colour), digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2023.

Summary:

Starts with the premise that clothing is political and that analysing clothing can enhance understanding of political style. It offers a ground-breaking examination of the role of dress in forming political identities and in communicating social and political messages during a period in which imperial and colonial empires assumed their modern form. It also makes timely connections to present-day concerns.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

List of plates

List of figures

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Jim Crow's tuxedo

Part I: Between metaphor and materiality

Smock frock farmer or smock frock radical? Political interpretations of one garment in nineteenth-century England

A delicate balance of power: Victorian tailors and their gentlemen clients

Second-hand clothes, second-hand politics: sartorial exchange, social reform, and the work of the novel in Walter Besant's Children of Gibeon

Part II: Reading appearances

'If you want to get ahead, get a hat': manliness, power, and politics via the top hat

Dressing for disinterestedness: Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, and John Morley

Sartorial subversion and the House of Commons: political identities, meanings, and the responses to MPs' dress, c. 1850-1914

Dressing for the vote in Ford Madox Brown's Work

Part III: Global connections and entanglements

Spectacles of grandeur and fabrics for the brave: the West India Regiments' dress until 1900

'The philosophy of clothes': politics and dress in Melbourne Punch, 1860s-1870s

Gertrude Bell, femme impériale

Index

Plates.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on February 25, 2026).

ISBN:

9781526175618

1526175614

9781526153081

1526153084

OCLC:

1370528918