Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Relating to clothes is a fundamental experience in the lives of most Western women. Even when choice is fraught with ambivalence, clothing matters. From considerations about dressing for success, to worries about weight, through to investing particular articles of clothing with meaning bordering on the sacred, what we wear speaks volumes about personal identity - what is revealed, what is concealed, what is created. This book fills a gap in the existing literature on the ambivalence of fashion and dress by drawing on a wide range of women's experiences with their wardrobes and providing empirical data noticeably absent from other studies of women and dress. Navigating what is clearly a contested realm in feminist scholarship, contributors provide rich case studies of the reality of women's relationships with clothing. While on the surface concerns about fashion or dress may appear to reflect gendered patterns, in fact clothing may be used to challenge ascribed meanings about femininity.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. ix)
• Notes on Contributors (p. xi)
• 1 Introduction (p. 1)
• Part 1 Consuming Images: Shopping around for Identities (p. 19)
• 2 Young Women and Their Wardrobes (p. 21)
• 3 Big Girls' Blouses: Learning to Live with Polyester (p. 39)
• 4 The Wedding Dress: from Use Value to Sacred Object (p. 53)
• 5 Choosing an Image: Exploring Women's Images through the Personal Shopper (p. 71)
• Part 2 Constructing Images: Presenting Status and Identities in Public (p. 95)
• 6 Suiting Ourselves: Women Professors Using Clothes to Signal Authority, Belonging and Personal Style (p. 97)
• 7 Minding Appearances in Female Academic Culture (p. 117)
• 8 Black Women and Self-Presentation: Appearing in (dis)guise (p. 137)
• 9 Resistances and Reconciliations: Women and Body Art (p. 151)
• Part 3 Personal Images: Revealing and Concealing Private Selves (p. 171)
• 10 'flying on One Wing' (p. 173)
• 11 Cancer, Breast Reconstruction and Clothes (p. 189)
• 12 Dis/continued Selves: Why Do Women Keep Clothes They No Longer Wear? (p. 203)
• 13 From Closet to Wardrobe? (p. 221)
• 14 Ontological, Epistemologicaland Methodological Clarifications in Fashion Research: from Critique to Empirical Suggestions (p. 237)
• Part 4 Reflectionsupon Endnotes (p. 255)
• 15 Unpicking the Seams (p. 257)
• Bibliography (p. 263)
• Subject Index (p. 279)
• Index (p. 279)
• Author Index (p. 283)