Sexing La Mode: Gender, Fashion and Commercial Culture in Old Regime France by Jennifer Jones

4.0 AVERAGE

lizdesole's review against another edition

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5.0

Firstly, this is probably a tough book to get through if you have no interest in the politics of fashion. But if you do, it offers a very concise argument for the reasons that women's fashions suddenly came to be considered such a feminine pursuit around the time of the French Revolution. It always baffled me that prior to the revolution, men dressed equally as lavishly as women. This disappeared and has yet to return. Why? The author really makes such a clear case for her argument that it all fell into place for me. It really is a classic case of men trying to keep women repressed. WHich seems so funny to me because I would say that now men are more repressed when it comes to fashion (though little else)One of the most eye-opening sections concerned the beginning of the debate about fine and applied arts. This exact argument is still being debated today and I thought her case about it's origins was so compelling. A very thoughtful and well researched book