Men's Costume History - Social and Fashion History Book Review
The Cut of His Coat by Brent Shannon
Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860-1914
Author - Brent Shannon
My website deals primarily with female costume and fashion history as that is my
main interest. However one must acknowledge that male dress does complete
the overall fashion picture!
Brent Shannon's book 'The Cut of His Coat' takes a fresh look at male
dress and with 100 years perspective suggests that Victorian and Edwardian men
were just as preoccupied with
fashion as women of that era.
The book 'The Cut of His
Coat': Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860-1914, by Brent Shannon is a Victorian Studies/Literature/Gender & Class listing
and available from OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS, Details for purchasing can
be found further below.
The book
'The Cut of His Coat' deals with consumer behaviour of men and the
sartorial changes in male dress 1860-1914. These changes set the stage for masculine consumption in the
later twentieth century. A summary of the book is below.
The Cut of His Coat:
Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860-1914
Author - Brent Shannon
The visual markers of class membership and manly behaviour underwent a radical
change in late-nineteenth-century England as the variety of material goods
available to the middle class dramatically increased.
In The Cut of His Coat: Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860-1914,
Brent Shannon examines etiquette manuals, period advertisements, and fashion
monthlies, as well as novels by authors such as George Eliot, Anthony Trollope,
Thomas Hughes, and H. G. Wells, to trace how new ideologies emerged when
mass-produced clothes, sartorial markers, and consumer culture began to change.
Although Victorian literature traditionally portrayed women as having sole
control of class representations through dress and manners, Shannon argues that
middle-class men participated vigorously in fashion. Public displays of
their newly acquired mannerisms, hairstyles, clothing, and consumer goods
redefined masculinity and class status for the Victorian era and beyond.
The Cut of His Coat probes the Victorian disavowal of men’s interest in fashion
and shopping to recover men’s significant role in the representation of class
through self-presentation and consumer practices. In an insightful epilogue,
Shannon references the latter-day metrosexual phenomenon and connects it to his
larger historical study.
Ellis Hanson, author of Decadence and Catholicism said
'The Cut of His Coat is highly readable, well-organized, and
thorough, and its insights about the fashion-consciousness of men pose a useful
and original challenge to the standard line on the subject. This book will
appeal not only to professional historians and literary critics, but also to
general reader of Victorian fiction and enthusiasts of Victoriana. It is like
one of those nifty wardrobes advertised for sale by the new department stores of
the era, a polished piece of furniture with carefully labelled chapters and
neatly hanging concepts that help us organize all that information and tuck it
away without getting it wrinkled.'
CONTENTS
of
The Cut of His Coat: Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860-1914 Author - Brent Shannon
The 'Disappearance' of Men’s Fashion and Consumption in Victorian Britain.
The Emergence of the Male Consumer and the Commodification of the Male Body
Fashion and the Birth of the Men’s Lifestyle Periodical
Competing
Masculinities and Class Aspirations
Class Performance and the Triumph of
Middle-Class Sartorial Taste; Epilogue (Metrosexuals and Modern Consumer
Masculinity).
Brent Shannon teaches English at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.
He has published articles on nineteenth-century literature and culture in
Victorian Studies and Studies in Browning and His Circle.
Book Information
The Cut of His Coat Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860-1914 By Brent Shannon Victorian Studies xii + 252 pp, illustrated, 6” x 9”
ISBN-13: 978-0-8214-1702-7, cloth, $49.95 ISBN-10: 0-8214-1702-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-8214-1703-4, paperback, $24.95 ISBN-10: 0-8214-1703-7 Published on October 2, 2006, by Ohio University Press
Ohio University Press, University of Chicago Distribution Center,
11030 South Langley Ave., Chicago, IL 60628. Call: 773-702-7000. FAX:
773-702-7212. In the U.K. and Europe: contact Eurospan Group, c/o Turpin
Distribution, Pegasus Drive, Stratton Business Park, Biddleswade, Bedfordshire
SG18 8TQ, UK; Tel: +44 (0) 1767 604972, Fax: +44 (0) 1767 601640;
Email: Orders
and customer service: eurospan@turpin-distribution.com;
All other information:
info@eurospan.co.uk or www.eurospangroup.com/bookstore
This work is a unique piece of research in areas so far neglected
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