Description

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A panoramic social history that chronicles the quest for beauty in all its contradictions—and how it affects the female body.

"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

Who decides what is fashionable? What clothes we wear, what hairstyles we create, what color lipstick we adore, what body shape is "all the rage". The story 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.

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 television, which (for better and worse) thrust women—and female imagery—out of the private and into the public gaze.

About the Author

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Virginia Nicholson is the author of Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939; Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War; Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949; Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s; How Was It For You? Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s as well as Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Nicholson is the granddaughter of Vanessa Bell and the great-niece of Virginia Woolf, and is the President of the Charleston Trust, and a trustee of the Strachey Trust.

Praise For…

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"Bold in its scope, yet filled with intriguing details and thoughtful, original analysis." 
— Justine Picardie

"Virginia Nicholson is one of the great social historians of our time. No one else makes history this fun."
— Amanda Foreman

Praise for Virginia Nicholson
 

"Fine intelligence and irresistible brio... How Was It For You? is a kaleidoscopic tribute to the generation that put the "F" into feminism. I ripped through it with gusto and delight."
— Tina Brown

"Intimate, immersive, often moving, How Was It For You? subtly but powerfully subverts complacent male assumptions about a legendary decade."
— David Kynaston, author of The City of London

"Sparkling. There is a wonderfully diverse range of voices.  We have a long way to go, but reading this book made me grateful for how far we have come."
— Daisy Goodwin, The Sunday Times