Description: From fascists to fashionistas, this work looks at clothing and its cultural meaning in our everyday lives. Tracing the troubling connections amongst religious orders, the military, schools and fetish clubs, it shows how uniforms control bodies and enable subversion. It shows how the uniform inspires fear and love, conformity and subversion.
Brief description: Joanne B. Eicher was Regents Professor Emerita at the University of Minnesota. Joanne was Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Dress and Fashion (Bloomsbury and OUP); Series Editor, Dress, Body, Culture (Bloomsbury) and Dress and Fashion Research (Bloomsbury); Editor, Global Trade and Cultural Authentication: The Kalabari of the Niger Delta; and Co-Author, The Visible Self (Fairchild); Dress and Gender (Berg); Dress and Ethnicity (Berg); Beads and Beadmakers (Berg); Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride (National Geographic); and a wide variety of published articles in professional journals and chapters in books.
Review Quotes:
"In an extraordinarily wide-ranging survey of the historical and contemporary construction - and constriction - of uniform, from surgeon's gowns to sportswear, from high school dress codes to Hollywood fantasies, from khaki to Kylie, Jennifer Craik parades a fascinating array. Her rigorous personal inspection presents a revealing peek under the tunic, and why it is worn. In the process she exposes the hitherto-overlooked power of institutional costume." --Philip Hoare, author of 'Wilde's Last Stand' and 'England's Lost Eden'.
"Craik's book makes a valuable contribution to our understandings of a most ubiquitous form of dress.. Her analysis takes us on a journey through the history of uniforms but the appeal of this book is that it takes the debate about uniforms beyond the obvious (military and schools) and into contemporary fashion. From disciplinary technique to sexual practice, uniforms are shown to have multiple meanings and varied connections to the body. An entertaining and well-written volume." --Joanne Entwistle, London College of Fashion "This fascinating study describes a wide range of uniforms (military, religious, occupational, sports) and intriguingly shows how uniforms serve two sides of control, overt and covert." --Choice Magazine