Dressed to Impress by William J F Keenan
Our dress is our identity. In dress, we live, move and have our social being. This book shows how the dressed body is central to the construction of a recognizable identity and provides accessible accounts of the particular dress 'ways' associated with a considerable variety of lifestyles. Churchgoers, ballerinas, Muslim schoolgirls, glamour models, 'vampires', monks and country gents all fashion a social self through dress. These cultures all have characteristic forms of displaying the dressed body for social visibility - whether in religion, sex, performance, or on the street. In contrast to much of the literature on dress, which often assumes a lack of agency on the part of the wearer, contributors to this book focus on the conscious manipulation of dress to reflect an identity that is designed to look 'different'. Why do people choose to mark themselves off socially from others? What are the costs and benefits? For every dress 'identity', there is a corresponding set of entitlements and expectations as to behaviour and belief. 'Priestly' bodies inhabit a different universe of response from strippers, just as 'Gothic' bodies experience the public gaze differently from 'Methodist' ones. Where one look commands respect in one setting, in another it can incite antipathy and rejection. Contributors tackle head-on this 'paradox of dress' - its potent power to unite and divide. Evidence of the dressed body's social ambiguity as a medium of consensus, on the one hand, and conflict, on the other, provides a glimpse through dress into an elementary condition of social and cultural life that has all too rarely been part of historical and sociological discourse.
'This book should find its way not only into introductory courses in sociology or anthropology, but into the libraries of journalists, critics, and theologians who wish to find out who is living what Durkheim called 'la vie serieuse'To examine the sacred, it is always a good idea to begin with the vestments.'Journal of Contemporary Religion
William J. F. Keenan is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, The Nottingham Trent University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781859734605 |
| ISBN 10 | 185973460X |
| Title | Dressed to Impress |
| Author | William J F Keenan |
| Series | Dress Body Culture |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Year published | 2001-03-01 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |