Dress, Feminism, and New Woman Writing
Claire Allen-Johnstone
Dress, Feminism, and New Woman Writing explores the connections between dress, feminism, and New Woman writing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a focus on Britain. It reveals how dress, tied to Victorian gender norms and stereotypes, became key in feminist literary culture. Authors and publishers used dress strategically, from cross-dressing storylines and dress-based critiques to fashionable attire. Concentrating on Olive Schreiner, Sarah Grand, George Egerton, and Grant Allen while bringing in other writers including Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the book offers interdisciplinary sartorial biographies, literary interpretation, and analysis of book covers. Through dress it reexamines topics including gender views and the New Woman character, proposing a new approach to feminist writing. This book is essential for those interested in feminist literature, dress history, and gender studies.
Further topics covered by Dress, Feminism, and New Woman Writing include Artistic and Rational dress reform, bicycling, class, pseudonyms, sexuality, the working New Woman, writing style, and the impact of form on writers’ engagement with dress. (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2025)
Link: https://www.cambriapress.com/DressFeminismNewWomanWriting/
Claire Allen-Johnstone is an Assistant Curator in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Performance, Furniture, Textiles, and Fashion Department and a Trustee of the Museum of Cambridge.