At the Mercy of Their Clothes: Modernism, the Middlebrow, and British Garment Culture

263 Pages·2017·25.306 MB·English

by  Celia Marshik

at the me rcy of their cl othes
modernist latitudes
Modernist Latitudes
Jessica Berman and Paul Saint-Amour, Editors
Modernist Latitudes aims to capture the energy and ferment of modernist
studies by continuing to open up the range of forms, locations, temporalities,
and theoretical approaches encompassed by the field. The series celebrates the
growing latitude (“scope for freedom of action or thought”) that this broadening
affords scholars of modernism, whether they are investigating little-known works
or revisiting canonical ones. Modernist Latitudes will pay particular attention
to the texts and contexts of those latitudes (Africa, Latin America, Australia,
Asia, Southern Europe, and even the rural United States) that have long been
misrecognized as ancillary to the canonical modernisms of the global North.
Barry McCrea, In the Company of Strangers: Family and Narrative in Dickens, Conan
Doyle, Joyce, and Proust, 2011
Jessica Berman, Modernist Commitments: Ethics, Politics, and Transnational Modernism,
2011
Jennifer Scappettone, Killing the Moonlight: Modernism in Venice, 2014
Nico Israel, Spirals: The Whirled Image in Twentieth-Century Literature and Art, 2015
Carrie Noland, Voices of Negritude in Modernist Print: Aesthetic Subjectivity, Diaspora,
and the Lyric Regime, 2015
Susan Stanford Friedman, Planetary Modernisms: Provocations on Modernity Across
Time, 2015
Steven S. Lee, The Ethnic Avant-Garde: Minority Cultures and World Revolution,
2015
Thomas S. Davis, The Extinct Scene: Late Modernism and Everyday Life, 2016
Carrie J. Preston, Learning to Kneel: Noh, Modernism, and Journeys in Teaching,
2016
Gayle Rogers, Incomparable Empires: Modernism and the Translation of Spanish and
American Literature, 2016
Donal Harris, On Company Time: American Modernism in the Big Magazines, 2016
a t t he m erc y
of t heir c lo t hes
Modernism, the Middlebrow,
and British Garment Culture
Celia Marshik
Columbia University Press New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2017 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Marshik, Celia, author.
Title: At the mercy of their clothes : modernism, the middlebrow, and British
garment culture / Celia Marshik.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2016] | Series: Modernist
latitudes | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016022756 (print) | LCCN 2016034823 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231175043 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231542968 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: English literature—20th century—History and criticism. |
Clothing and dress in literature. | Fashion—Social aspects—Great Britain—
History—20th century. | Clothing and dress—Social aspects—Great Britain—
History. | Modernism (Literature)—Great Britain. | Identity (Psychology)
in literature.
Classification: LCC PR478.C58 M37 2016 (print) | LCC PR478.C58 (ebook) |
DDC 820.9/3564—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022756
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
cover design and photograph: Jenny Carrow
In memory of Kenneth Marshik

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: At the Mercy of Their Clothes 1
1. What Do Women Want? At the Mercy
of the Evening Gown 25
2. Wearable Memorials: Into and Out
of the Trenches with the Modern Mac 66
3. Aspiration to the Extraordinary:
Materializing the Subject Through Fancy Dress 102
4. Serialized Selves: Style, Identity,
and the Problem of the Used Garment 145
Coda: Precious Clothing 178
viii———contents
Notes 185
Bibliography 221
Index 231
Illustrations
1.1. Kenneth Beauchamp, “Poor Clara” 26
1.2. The label of Mrs. Neville 31
1.3. Dressed to be threatened in Kathlyn Rhodes, “The Harvest of Folly” 38
1.4. Overexposed in “The Harvest of Folly” 39
1.5. Mourning dress made by Mrs. Neville 41
1.6. Black and gold woven metal thread and velvet evening dress, worn
by Lady Ottoline Morrell 56
1.7. “An unusual photographic study, in the Goya manner, of Lady
Ottoline Morrell” 58
2.1. Women’s mackintoshes sold through the Harrods General Catalogue 73
2.2. “A member of the Women’s Volunteer Reserve” 80
2.3. Detail of an advertisement for Phosferine 81
2.4. Advertisement for Aquascutum military and civilian coats 83
2.5. “Special Values in Weathercoats,” Harrods Weekly Price List 89
2.6. Detail of notices of men “Killed in Action” or “Died of Wounds” 91
2.7. Advertisement for “The Famous ‘Aquascutum’ Storm Coats” 96
3.1. George J. Nicholls dressed as a side of bacon 104
3.2. Cover of Fancy Dresses at Harrods 110
3.3. Lady Arthur Paget dressed as Cleopatra 112
3.4. Lady Abdy dressed as “sea mist” 113
3.5. Arthur Watts, “After the Fancy-Dress Ball” 119
3.6. Celebrants at the “Alice in Wonderland” party 129
4.1. Secondhand-clothing shop in London 150
4.2. Poster issued by the National War Savings Committee 151
4.3. A. Wallis Mills, “War Economy” 151
4.4. Bert Thomas, “The New Poor” 153