Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class [1 ed.] 0415784123, 9780415784122

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Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class

Drawing together theoretical ideas from across the social sciences, Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class examines how the fashion‒class association has developed and, using the experiences of middle-and working-class British women, demonstrates how this relationship operates today. Though increasingly academics argue that contemporary class distinctions are made through cultural practices and tastes, few have fully explored just how an individual’s fashion choices mobilise class and are used in class evaluations. Yet, an individual’s everyday dress is perhaps the most immediate marker of taste, and thus an important means of class distinction. This is particularly true for women, as their performances of respectability, femininity and motherhood are embodied by fashion and shaped by class. In unpacking this fashion‒class relationship, the book explores how fashion is used by British women to talk about class. It offers important insights into the ways fashion mobilises class differences in understandings of dressing up, performance and public space. It considers how class identity shapes women’s attitudes concerning fashion trends and classic styles, and it draws attention to the pivotal role mothers play in cultivating these class distinctions. The book will be of interest to students in sociology, fashion studies, cultural studies, human geography and consumer behaviour. Katherine Appleford is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Kingston University, London.

Routledge Advances in Sociology

286  The Class Structure of Capitalist Societies Volume 1: A Space of Bounded Variety Will Atkinson 287 Studies on the Social Construction of Identity and Authenticity Edited by J. Patrick Williams and Kaylan C. Schwarz 288  Globalisation, Tourism and Simulacra A Baudrillardian Study of Tourist Space in Thailand Kunphatu Sakwit 289  Thinking Through Dilemmas Schemas, Frames, and Difficult Decisions Lawrence H. Williams 290  Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class Making Sense of Women’s Practices, Perceptions and Tastes Katherine Appleford 291  Women and Work in Ireland A Half Century of Attitude and Policy Change Margret Fine-Davis 292  Housing and Domestic Abuse Policy into Practice Yoric Irving-Clarke and Kelly Henderson 293  Mobilising Place Management Claus Lassen and Lea Holst Laursen For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Advances-in-Sociology/book-series/SE0511

Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class

Making Sense of Women’s Practices, Perceptions and Tastes

Katherine Appleford

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Katherine Appleford The right of Katherine Appleford to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Appleford, Katherine, 1981– author. Title: Classifying fashion, fashioning class : making sense of women’s practices, perceptions and tastes / Katherine Appleford. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge advances in sociology | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020019797 (print) | LCCN 2020019798 (ebook) | ISBN 9780415784122 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315228556 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Clothing and dress—Social aspects—Great Britain. | Fashion—Social aspects—Great Britain. | Women’s clothing—Social aspects—Great Britain. | Women—Great Britain—Attitudes. | Social classes—Great Britain. Classification: LCC GT525 .A66 2021 (print) | LCC GT525 (ebook) | DDC 391—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019797 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019798 ISBN: 978-0-415-78412-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-22855-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For Arrietty

Contents

Acknowledgementsviii 1 Introduction: Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class

1

2 Women Talking Dirty: Making Sense of Fashion and Class

15

3 Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion: The Relevance of Class in Contemporary Fashion Consumption

42

4 Fashioning a Performance: Respectability, Femininity and Space

68

5 Dressing Up: Performance, Perceptions and Practice

95

6 Looking Good: Fashion, (Dis)Taste and Buying Practices

131

7 Mothers and Motherhood: Nurturing the Fashion‒Class Relationship164 8 Conclusion

196

Index207

Acknowledgements

Writing this book has been extremely challenging at times, and it would not have been possible without the support of a great number of people. My family and friends – Danny, Mum, Dad, Michael and Jordan – have been extremely supportive and encouraging throughout the process. My colleagues at Kingston University too, some of whom have now moved on to other roles, have provided helpful support and guidance. Special thanks to Dr Cecilia Cappel, Dr Stephanie Eaton, Dr Emma Casey, Dr Sonya Sharma and Dr Marisa Silvestri. I also need to thank Dr Joanne Entwistle and Dr Agnes Rocamora, my Phd supervisors, who provided much-needed guidance and motivation, my reviewers and the editorial team at Routledge, particularly Emily Briggs. Finally, I must thank all the women who participated in this research, who welcomed me into their homes and gave me their time. They spoke so openly and honestly about their lives, their bodies and their relationships, and ultimately, they are the people who made this book possible.

Chapter 1

Introduction Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class

If someone wears . . . the fashion it doesn’t always look so good, whereas women who might be of a higher class, or have more money or a different way of seeing things, might just wear something which isn’t within a fashion or a trend, but she still looks good. It’s the way that they present themselves. . . . It’s class, they’re a different class, or something. [Carly, 23, University Student]

‘All in the Best Possible Taste’: Fashion, Class and British Culture In 2013 Turner prizing-winning artist Grayson Perry received a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for the Channel 4 television series, All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry. In this production Perry explores the homes and lives of people living in three British locations which are seen to represent working-, middle- and upper-class communities. Starting in Sunderland, ‘a city with a strong working-class tradition and a proud heritage of ship building and coal mining’ (Perry, 2013), Perry considers the way a sense of community once provided for by manual labour and workingclass industries is now found in forms of consumption. Indeed, Perry (2013) argues that ‘football, soap opera, body building, tattoos, hot cars, elaborate hairstyles and the rituals of dressing up for a Friday night on the town’ operate as a ‘pledge of allegiance to the locale’, their tastes functioning as a symbol of ‘loyalty to the clan’ while communicating their class identity to others. In one of the most memorable parts of this first programme, Perry joins a group of working-class women getting ready for a night out. He comments on the spectacular nature of their dress and the time and effort involved in getting ready, as these women ‘put on femininity’ for the evening (Skeggs, 1997). Though their look may be conventionally understood as ‘overdone’ or ‘hyper feminine’ (Skeggs, 1997; Lawler, 2005; Tyler, 2008), Perry stresses the fun and playfulness of the experience and the way in which it generates a real sense of belonging (Moore, 2013).

2  Introduction

In the second episode, Perry visits the Kings Hill estate in Tunbridge Wells, a town ‘synonymous with middle-class values’ (Perry, 2013). Here, Perry learns about the middle-class taste for vintage furniture and organic food, and he uncovers their anxieties around maintaining standards and ensuring appropriateness. Once again, he is invited to take part in the process of dressing up, this time for a pink champagne and cupcake party, and in doing so uncovers the ‘discreet’ rules or dress ‘code’ which operates around designer goods and labels. Here, Perry comments on the carefully contrived nature of the middleclass aesthetic, where adherence to ‘rules’ signals one’s social values and secures membership to ‘the tribe’. Middle-class tastes appear to centre closely on establishing and securing one’s respectability, and while these tastes symbolise one’s belonging to one’s class, they also differentiate one class from another, thus distancing the middle-class from their working-class counterparts. In the final episode, Perry goes to meet individuals living in the Cotswolds, a place associated with the ‘landed upper class’, demonstrated by the abundance of stately homes set amongst the picturesque scenery (Perry, 2013). Here, Perry learns more about ‘impeccable appropriateness’ and once again notes the high level of importance placed on respectability. Moreover, amongst this group he also finds an ‘understated aesthetic’, a noticeable shabbiness about individuals’ clothes and home furnishings. Though he acknowledges that the tatty nature of suit jackets and sofas is due, in part, to the ongoing financial cost of looking after a stately home, Perry argues that it is also a significant characteristic of the upper-class taste, and that this ‘understated aesthetic’ unites them on the one hand, and yet distances them from the middle and working classes on the other. Thus, once again tastes appear to operate as an important class indicator and class distinction. Notably, across these three episodes Perry considers the role that fashion tastes and fashion practices play in mobilising these class distinctions, and through his dressing up he highlights the way in which ‘common sense’ class distinctions, based on dress, form an important part of class understanding in British culture and everyday life. Despite fashionable styles or trends being more eclectic or more affordable, classed understandings of taste, femininity and public space inform individuals’ practices of dressing up and looking good, and decisions over what (not) to wear are equally motivated by class anxieties and differences in social attitudes more broadly. Perry uses his experiences across the programme, and his analysis of class and taste, to produce a collection of tapestries, entitled The Vanity of Small Differences. This work draws together his conclusions on class and reflects on the way tastes mobilise class distinctions in social values, attitudes and anxieties. Arguing that the British are ‘marinated’ in the material culture of class throughout their lifetime (Perry, 2013), Perry situates class at the heart of British culture, with The Vanity of Small Differences demonstrating the way class is woven into individuals’ everyday lives, shaping the way we perceive and understand the social world, perform social roles and identities, and how we

Introduction 3

engage or distance ourselves from each other. The continued relevance of class in British society, and the way that class distinctions are mobilised through the most mundane and ordinary practices, such as fashion, is striking, leading Perry to conclude that ‘more than any other factor, social class determines one’s taste’, and at the same time taste is ‘inextricably woven into our system of social class’ (Perry, 2013). ‘Accounting for Taste’: Fashion and Class Debates in the Academy In 2012 when Grayson Perry’s show was first aired, I had just completed my PhD at the London College of Fashion, University of Arts London. My thesis explored the relationship between fashion and class in contemporary British dress, in respect of women’s fashion practices and tastes and their class evaluations, and this work informs much of this book. Grayson Perry’s assertions chimed with many of my arguments: the working-class enthusiasm for fashion trends, glamour and sociability, and the middle-class concerns with maintaining standards, authenticity, respectability and discreet, yet expensive, forms of dress. In fact, there was some degree of astonishment as I saw my arguments relayed to me via the television screen. On reflection, however, the similarity between my work and Grayson Perry’s documentary, not to mention the way in which it was so positively received (see Dent, 2012; Walton, 2012; Mangan, 2012), served to demonstrate the continued relevance of class in British society. Indeed, the series itself, the audience response, the press coverage and the subsequent recognition from BAFTA emphasised the salience of social class in British culture and in individuals’ lives, in terms of tastes, cultural practice and social experiences. Moreover, Perry’s documentary, and the response to it, emphasised the continual and commonplace associations individuals make between fashion and class. His ‘dressing up’ highlights the critical role fashion plays in materialising individuals’ classed dispositions and orientations, and the way in which clothing is typically read as a marker of class distinction or class status in individuals’ everyday encounters. Though historically fashion’s role in mobilising class is widely recognised, today this association is one which is often overlooked in academic debates, and yet, as Perry’s work demonstrated, the fashion‒class relationship is still very much alive, and an important association is made between fashion tastes and class identity across British culture and within individuals’ daily lives. It is not just my work that Perry’s arguments resonate with either. As I discuss in Chapter 2, academics from across the disciplines of sociology, cultural studies, human geography and fashion studies have made the case for the continued relevance of class in British society and the way in which class is mobilised through cultural tastes and practices, from gardening to comedy (Taylor, 2008; Friedman, 2015). Indeed, Perry’s arguments closely align with

4  Introduction

the theoretical position of Pierre Bourdieu ([1984] 1996: 2), whose pivotal work Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste argues that ‘tastes . . . function as markers of class’. Symbolic representations of individuals’ economic, cultural and social capital and their class habitus, as I discuss further in Chapter 2, tastes convey individuals’ understandings, knowledge and experiences of the social world, serving to unite ‘all those who are the product of similar conditions while distinguishing them from all others’ ([1984] 1996: 56). Cultivated in our early years, within the context of the family, as discussed in Chapter 7, these tastes and practices, ways of being and doing, are developed throughout our lifetimes and thus become so entrenched that they have a natural feel to them and are largely unconscious. Our tastes, practices and perceptions are part of the fabric of who we are, and thus they are only truly realised or acknowledged when individuals are faced with conflicts or challenges from those with a differing class habitus, or when they have been socially mobile and thus find themselves amongst another class group. Moreover, Bourdieu argues that individuals can trade, accumulate and profit from their various forms of capital. Greater capital provides greater access and movement through the social space, and results in a hierarchy of legitimacy ([1984] 1996: 87), in which some tastes and practices are valued more than others. Those who lack the requisite capital, whether it is due to a lack of educational qualifications or knowledge of high culture, find themselves subject to ‘nonrecognition’ or ‘misrecognition’, in which their social identity and social practice is considered invisible or inferior. Indeed, as Stuart Hall (1996: 5) maintains, it is ‘only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks, to what has been called its constitutive outside that the “positive” meaning’ of any social identity can be constructed. Thus, it is through the delegitimisation and devaluing of working classes that the middle-class respectability and a middle-class identity can be made. Yet, for those with the least capital, this lack of recognition causes ‘real damage, real distortion’ and ‘real harm’, as it allows for their continual marginalisation and discrimination, and leads them to internalise their inferiority (Taylor, 1994: 25). This understanding of class has had a profound impact on academic research and class debates, and since the mid-1990s authors have been keen to explore the ways in which class is mobilised through cultural practices, focusing particularly on the misrecognition of working-class women. Indeed, as authors such as Beverley Skeggs, Stephanie Lawler, Linda McDowell, Angela McRobbie, Diane Reay and Imogen Tyler have shown, while middle-class practices are viewed as the legitimised norm, those of working classes exist as the ‘Other’ and are often viewed with disgust. Read as excessive, inauthentic, vulgar, feckless and lazy, this image is reinforced through various media representations, political commentaries, and cultural and social stereotypes which are then used to marginalise and exclude them from various social spaces (McKenzie, 2015; Jensen, 2014; Evans, 2016). Moreover, such representations serve to encourage

Introduction 5

an understanding of working classes, and particularly working-class women, as morally inferior, while they reaffirm the respectability of the middle-class. Within these debates, fashion is often identified as an important way in which class is mobilised. Certainly, research which considers working-class women’s performances of femininity and of motherhood highlights how fashion choices are read as excessive and inauthentic and used to contextualise them as a threat to moral society, dangerous and sexually deviant (Skeggs, 1997; Storr, 2003; Lawler, 2005; Tyler, 2008, 2013). Equally, research into working-class stereotypes, such as the chav, indicate how specific forms of dress are employed as working-class markers (Hayward and Yar, 2006; Nayak and Kehily, 2014; Tyler and Bennett, 2010), and within subcultural theory too, the relationship between fashion and class is well established, with key subcultural texts from Dick Hebdige ([1979] 2002), Tony Jefferson ([1975] 2000) and Paul Willis (1977) demonstrating the way male working-class youth use fashion to challenge class inequality and a sense of powerlessness and alienation. Yet, while existing research has highlighted important aspects of the fashionclass dynamic, particularly within working-class contexts, academic research which focuses attention on the ways class is mobilised through women’s ordinary and everyday fashion practices is limited, and so too is research which considers working-class and middle-class practices alongside one another. Indeed, much of what exists considers fashion in relation to the spectacular, whether it be in relation to the dressing up, or subcultural styles, and tends to emphasise the practices and experiences of the working-class, demonstrating the ways in which they are ‘Othered’. Consequently, the purpose of this book is to focus on British women’s ordinary and everyday fashion practices and tastes, to unpack the ways in which they are informed by women’s class identity and class history, and to highlight the way fashion is mobilised in discussions of class and used to make class judgements and moral evaluations. Strongly informed by Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) and employing his framework of class, which brings together economic, cultural and social capital, and habitus, and views taste as a marker of class, it examines and explores how the fashion‒class relationship operates for British women, not only in the context of the Friday night out, or the pink champagne and cupcake party, but also in the school run, the household shopping trip, at home, at work, with friends and on important social occasions. In doing so, it looks to contribute to existing debates concerning fashion, class, gender and space, but perhaps more importantly, it seeks to offer a richer understanding of the fashion‒class relationship for British women today and to add to a growing body of work which considers class as a lived experience. Throughout this book then, I consider how women’s understandings of public and private space, their performance of femininity and their anxieties over social audiences is informed by class, and the ways in which this translates into their practices of dressing up. I consider how middle-class fears over workingclass associations, and their acute need for working-class distancing, drives

6  Introduction

their desire for classic styles and tastes. I  evaluate how women’s differing understandings of what ‘looks good’ are informed by class histories and class identity, and I consider the ways class informs economies of tastes and shapes women’s consumer choices and shopping behaviour. Moreover, throughout this book, and specifically in Chapter 7, I demonstrate the critical role mothers and other maternal figures play in women’s understandings and mobilising of the fashion‒class relationship. Drawing on arguments discussed in Chapter 5 around dressing up, social identity and performance, and the arguments concerning classic styles and fashionable tastes discussed in Chapter 6, I stress the significance of motherhood in influencing women’s understanding of what (not) to wear. I demonstrate the way mothers cultivate classed practices, taste, knowledge and the evaluations of others, through direct and indirect teaching. I consider the ways in which these early learnings play out in women’s adult lives and how sharing fashion knowledge often results in mothers’ and daughters’ shared taste and shared fashion habitus.

The Research Project My starting point for this research was my experience at Durham University in the early 2000s. Located in North East England, the university is surrounded by a former coal mining area, within a predominately working-class community, although the central city is mostly populated by university students from middle-class backgrounds. Distinctions were commonly made between the local community and student population based on dress, and certainly amongst my peers, the fashion tastes of the ‘local’ men and women were often viewed as markers of class status. In fact, just as other authors have suggested (Barnard, 2002; Bourdieu, 1986; Goffman, 1956; Lurie, 1981), fashion offered an immediate means of differentiation, primarily between students and ‘locals’, but also among students themselves, as those from particular colleges and more privileged backgrounds were seen to be marked out by their pashminas, branded Wellington boots and Ruby’s shirts. Moreover, as university life involved various events, formal dinners and social gatherings, each requiring a different type of dressing up, it seemed more and more that while I struggled to know what to wear, the vast majority of my peers possessed a tacit understanding of what ‘looked good’ and what was appropriate, and how and where to shop. In fact, throughout my time in Durham and beyond my academic study, the association made between fashion and class became a routine feature of my everyday life, and yet I could find little sociological research which explained just how this relationship operated within contemporary British society. Though contemporary and classical work do consider class and fashion historically (e.g. Horwood, 2006; Veblen, [1899] 1994; Simmel, [1904] 1957) and in reference to subcultures (e.g. Hebdige, [1979] 2002; Gelder, 2005; Muggleton, 2000), at that time very little British sociological research focused on fashion specifically and considered fashion and class within a mainstream,

Introduction 7

contemporary context. Though important work considered the performance of gender and class in terms of respectable femininity (e.g. Skeggs, 1997; Lawler, 2000), its focus on working-class women meant it could not fully explain the practices or tastes of the middle-class students. Consequently, my doctoral research examined the ways in which class is mobilised through British women’s fashion discourse and their everyday fashion practices and tastes, and how fashion is mobilised in women’s class evaluations. As fashion tends to be identified as a feminine pursuit, the project focused on women, and like many academics researching class, I chose to adopt a qualitative approach using a mixture of semi-structured interviews and observations. Though it was not an ethnographic study like that of Wills (1977), Lacy (1970) or Skeggs (1997), my research still enabled me to explore women’s day-to-day lives and to understand the symbolic meanings behind their unconscious and routine behaviours. The flexibility of the interviews allowed me to explore new ideas as they arose and to reflect on the women’s discussions as the research progressed, and these discussions are referred to throughout this book. In total 53 women took part in the research. Participants were aged between 18 and 70, the average age being 38; eight were from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and 35 were identified as middle-class, 18 as working-class. All were located in the South East of England, in London and Surrey, and in nearly all cases the interviews took place at their homes. Most of the women, 34, were interviewed on a one-to-one basis, 10 were interviewed in pairs, and the remainder in groups, one of four and one of five. All the interviews took a ‘non-standardised’ or semi-structured format (Fielding, [1991] 1993: 136), and they centred on four key topics: self-image, shopping, fashion influences and class. The key objective was to make the interview as relaxed and conversational as possible in order to ‘elicit rich, detailed material’ (Lofland, 1971: 76), and questioning was kept very open-ended, allowing the participants space to discuss their opinions and practices through stories and examples (Fielding, [1991] 1993: 139–140). As most of the interviews took place in the women’s homes, participants were able to show me particular outfits or the structure of their wardrobes, their jewellery and other accessories, as examples of their fashion choices. The flexibility of the interview structure also meant that there was space to explore unexpected or unusual topics as they arose. In one interview, for example, with Liz, she had just married again, so much of the conversation focused on her wedding and the decision-making process around her wedding dress and bridesmaids. Though the project was not looking specifically at wedding dresses, this discussion offered an invaluable insight into her understanding of taste, her thoughts on ‘fashion’ and the significant intersections between gender, age and class in respect of femininity and dressing up. In many ways her discussion around the wedding and wedding dress echoed many of the thoughts and ideas raised by other women across the project. Indeed, across the discussions recurrent themes concerning dressing up, looking good and

8  Introduction

maternal influences were ‘teased out’ (Arksey and Knight, 1999: 101), while contradictions, inconsistencies or ‘sticky’ points in the women’s descriptions or explanations could be identified and explored. As I discuss further in Chapter 2, I was aware from the outset that the sensitivity of the research focus, fashion and class, posed a challenge for discussion. Qualitative research relies on the participant opening up to the researcher and providing ‘emotional’ as well as ‘physical’ access (Rubin and Rubin, 1995: 12). Therefore, I had to consider the format of the interview and the ordering of questions carefully. After reading Geoff Payne and Clare Grew’s (2005) work, as discussed in Chapter 2, I decided to adopt a delayed and indirect approach to conversations about class. This model suggests that the interviewer refrains from any direct discussion of class, even via ‘class markers’ such as income, education or housing, but rather waits to see whether participants introduce the topic themselves, either directly or indirectly through a variety of class terms. If, and when, these terms are used, the interviewer can explore them further, although it is still important ‘not to do this in a manner that could be regarded as confrontational’ (Arksey and Knight, 1999: 101), as this may cause a barrier to building rapport. The delayed and indirect method worked well in this research and, as I discuss in Chapter 2, from early in the interviews the women independently used a range of class terms, which were then further explored. Towards the latter stages of the interview, however, I did ask participants more directly about their own class position, and I recorded demographic information about their housing, occupation, education, and partners’ and/or parents’ occupations, which I used in conjunction with their discussions of fashion practices and tastes, to determine their class location. Thus, the class locations of women who are quoted throughout this book were based on their self-classification and their demographics, as these measures have traditionally been used by sociologists to assess socioeconomic status (e.g. Lawler, 2000; Skeggs et al., 2008; Walkerdine et al., 2001). Though self-classification can be problematic as it can result in participants mostly defining themselves as middle-class, this was generally not the case in my research, and there was a high level of consistency between the women’s classification and their forms of capital, especially as most identified their class on the basis of education, income and/or housing. However, as I discuss in more detail in Chapter 2, three of the participants found classifying themselves particularly difficult and instead dis-identified from being middle-class as they did not consider themselves ‘posh’ or ‘rich’, and there was also less certainty from three women who felt they had come from ‘working-class backgrounds’ (due to their parents’ occupations or housing tenure), but who now consider themselves to be middle-class, based on their occupations and home ownership. Class is, as Chapter 2 explores, a complex and fuzzy concept, which is increasingly understood in terms of cultural practices and tastes, and so as well as the important self-classification and demographic information, the

Introduction 9

women’s fashion practices, their attitudes and understandings, as this book shows, formed an important part of forming their class identity. Class and Intersectionality Though this book considers the class experiences of British women, and thus focuses on the interplay between class and gender, it is important to acknowledge the arguments concerning intersectionality too, and how experiences of race and age, as well as other forms of social identity, combine to inform the participants’ fashion practices and fashion tastes. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), intersectionality concerns the various ways in which class, gender and race intersect to shape and influence individuals’ social lives, in terms of work, social relations, and cultural and political representations. Though there are a range of intersectional approaches, some of which have added further social categories such as religion, sexuality and disability to the concept (Anthias, 2013), these theories broadly suggest that academics should consider the ways in which forms of identity overlap and interconnect to compound experiences of discrimination and exclusion (Crenshaw, 1991) or to afford greater domination and power (Collins, 2000b). In explorations of social divisions then, academics are encouraged to consider how distinctive systems of subordination work together to inform social relationships and social experiences, and to recognise that the experience of the white middle-class is not the experience of all. When recruiting participants to the project, I looked to ensure that women of colour were included, and in total eight women were from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and this included women who identified as Black Caribbean, Black African, Iranian and Turkish. These women talked to me about racial experiences in terms of make-up routines and hairstyles, and they noted the lack of Black models in fashion media. Yet, within their discussions of their own fashion choices or evaluations of others’ there did not appear to be the same emphasis on race or any fundamental racial distinctions in their fashion practices or fashion tastes. This does not mean that race did not inform their fashion tastes and practices or their evaluations of others, or that others’ evaluations of them were not informed by race, but this was not something which they explicitly discussed or which came through strongly within the interview data. In her discussion of the challenges that intersectionality brings to social research, Gill Valentine (2007: 14) argues that the ‘complexity of intersectionality . . . means that it is difficult to analyse the full range of implications and social identities at any one time’. As my research centred on class distinctions, this was the focus of my conversations and my analysis, and certainly, within the women’s discussions which inform this book, class experiences and class identity appeared to be the overriding factor. On reflection, however, there may have been ethnic and racial dimensions to these discussions that I could have

10  Introduction

further drawn out at the time. Certainly in relation to body image, as I discuss elsewhere (Appleford, 2016), I recognise that intersections between class, race and gender can play an important role in understandings and performances of femininity. Indeed, with hindsight and experience, the role that race plays in the women’s fashion practices and tastes, and the intersection between class, gender and race, is something that I could have probed further. I also recognise that my position as a white academic may also have made my participants less forthcoming with their attitudes and experiences around these issues and may have made conversations of this nature more challenging overall, as participants may have viewed me as more of an outsider (Edwards, 1990). In terms of future research then, the ways in which fashion tastes and particular forms of dress are racialised when wore on the body, and how women’s class experiences intersect with, and are informed by, race and ethnicity are areas for further consideration. Intersections in respect of class, gender and age, however, were a more obvious feature of the research data, and concerns over ageing were often openly discussed by participants. As I examine in Chapter 5 and Chapter 7, age is particularly significant for those who have recently experienced a new stage in their lifecycle, such as motherhood or menopause, and these shifts in women’s identity impact on their self-confidence and their sense of what is appropriate. Consequently, as I consider in Chapter 5, this affects their ability to publicly perform and to perform femininity in a way that they feel comfortable with. Moreover, as I note in Chapter 6, phrases used by women such as ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ highlight the important ways in which women’s understandings of class, gender, sexuality and age come together in women’s thoughts and ideas around respectability (Thomas, 2013), and how these understandings are mobilised through their own fashion tastes and their judgements of others’. Indeed, as Julia Twigg (2013) clearly argues, age is a significant aspect of the fashion system, and it plays an important role in women’s performances of femininity and respectability. Therefore, in exploring the relationship between fashion, gender and class, it is important to recognise the role that age plays within this dynamic, too.

The Structure of This Book As this chapter has already outlined, the purpose of this book is to examine the fashion‒class association in relation to British women’s fashion tastes and fashion practice, and to demonstrate that class remains a significant aspect of British culture and an important influence in British women’s everyday lives. My starting point, in the next chapter, is to define the key terms. In Chapter 2, I look to make sense of the key concepts in this research: fashion and class. The chapter considers the difficulties which exist around the definition in respect of both of these terms, the characteristics that these two concepts share and the changing status of the two concepts within academic research. Moreover, the chapter acknowledges the challenge of researching fashion and class, and using data from the project, I demonstrate the anxieties British women

Introduction 11

experience in discussing both the ‘f’ word and the ‘c’ word. One of the consequences of this anxiety, however, is that women use fashion to talk about class and use class in their discussions of fashion, highlighting again the strong and significant relationship which exists between the two topics, and providing yet another example of the way in which the concepts interlink. In Chapter 3, I look more closely at the fashion system and the complex nature of today’s fashion cycle. Though traditional theories have suggested that class is the driving force behind fashion change and fashion adoption, it is strongly felt that this model of the fashion system is far too simplistic an explanation of the fashion‒class relationship today. Yet, as I  discuss, some aspects of traditional theories still hold relevance. Imitation and authenticity, for example, key aspects of traditional theories, are still significant aspects of fashion production and consumption today. As Chapter 6 demonstrates, they also continue to play an important role in terms of class distinction. Moreover, despite the democratisation and pluralisation of fashion, class orientations in terms of understandings of dressing up and looking good, as Chapters 5 and 6 discuss, have a substantial impact on women’s fashion consumption and practice, and thus, despite the greater diversity and availability of fashion, important class distinctions in women’s everyday fashion choices and fashion tastes are still evident. In Chapter 4, I consider the role of class in orientating practice and perceptions in terms of gender and space, and the ways in which fashion mobilises class through the performance of femininity and perceptions of visibility. The chapter emphasises the important role fashion played historically in the development of the middle-class culture of respectability, and the way in which evaluations of respectability were closely linked to appearance and manner and performance of femininity in public spaces. Throughout the Victorian era, fashion operated as an important symbolic boundary between the middle and working classes, and though the fashion system has changed considerably since then, the chapter argues that women’s fashion practices and tastes continue to play a pivotal role in evaluations of respectability and class distancing. Moreover, as discussed further in Chapter 5, these class distinctions become really apparent through the intersection between fashion, class, gender and space, as class informs not only women’s practices of femininity but also their understanding and performance of public space. In Chapters 5, 6 and 7, the attitudes and experiences of participants are explored much more closely and are used to unpack the nature of the fashionclass relationship for British women today. Chapter 5 focuses on the notion of dressing up as an aspect of fashion practice which women across the social classes were keen to discuss. Though initially this was presented as a form of dress which differed from everyday, ordinary clothing, it soon became clear that it was a much more complex picture and that for middle-class women some degree of dressing up was taking place on a routine basis. Crucially, dressing up was concerned with the performance of femininity but also with public performance, and the women’s conversations suggest that important

12  Introduction

class differences exist in relation to both. In fact, as the chapter discusses, there are significant distinctions between middle- and working-class women’s perceptions of public space and social audiences, and these have critical implications for the ways in which they dress in the context of the everyday. Chapter 6 centres on the notion of ‘looking good’. Closely related to dressing up, looking good is more concerned with fashion tastes and consumer practice. Building on some of the arguments in Chapter 2 around the challenges I faced in using the ‘f’ word, this chapter draws out the class differences in women’s attitudes to fashion: the middle-class preference for classic styles and workingclass enthusiasm for fashionable trends, brands and designer labels. Here, the middle-class anxiety around respectability and class distancing is again evident, as they look to avoid any working-class markers, while for working-class women looking good involves wearing new and up-to-date fashionable styles. Consequently, these women are keen to learn about upcoming fashion styles and trends via fashion media and particular fashion catalogues, and they employ a range of strategies to allow them to consume the most up-to-date trends. In Chapter 7, the final substantive chapter, I look more closely at the role of mothering in shaping class distinctions in women’s fashion practice tastes and class evaluations. Though motherhood and mothering might not appear to be the most obvious part of the fashion‒class relationship, Chapters 4, 5 and 6 demonstrate that motherhood and mothering forms an important part of the culture of respectability, and it is a continual feature of the women’s discussions around fashion. As the previous chapters suggest, being a mother and performing motherhood have a substantial impact on women’s relationships with clothes and their fashion performance, and as the penultimate chapter explores, children’s dress is also important in terms of audiences’ class evaluations and mothers’ concerns over impression management and class distancing. This chapter draws together the various arguments concerning motherhood in respect of dressing up and looking good explored in Chapters 5 and 6, but it also considers how mothers cultivate women’s understandings of fashion and class, and shape women’s fashion practices and tastes from childhood. Crucially this chapter demonstrates how mothers can play a vital role in forming women’s fashion habitus and class dispositions, which often continue well into adulthood, resulting in a shared taste and mutual understanding of dressing up and look good, which means that mothers and daughters then often look to each other for fashion support and advice.

References Anthias, F. (2013) Intersectional What? Social Divisions, Intersectionality and Levels of Analysis, Ethnicities, 13(1): 3–19. Appleford, K. (2016) ‘This Big Bum Thing Has Taken Over the World’: Considering Black Women’s Changing Views on Body Image and the Role of Celebrity, Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 7(2): 193–214.

Introduction 13 Arkesy, H. and Knight, P. (1999) Interviewing for Social Scientists: An Introductory Resource with Examples, London: Sage. Barnard, M. (2002) Fashion as Communication, London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1986) The Forms of Capital, in J. G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, London: Greenwood Press. Collins, P. H. (2000a) Black Feminist Thought Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edition, New York: Routledge. Collins, P. H. (2000b) Gender, Black Feminism, and Black Political Economy, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 568(1): 41–53. Crenshaw, K. (1989) Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989, 8: 139–167. Crenshaw, K. (1991) Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Colour, Standford Law Review, 43(6): 1241–1299. Dent, G. (2012) Grace Dent: All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry, Channel 4, The Independent, 9 June. Edwards, R. (1990) Connecting Method and Epistemology: A White Women Interviewing Black Women, Women’s Studies International Forum, 13(5): 477–490. Evans, M. (2016) Women and the Politics of Austerity: New Forms of Respectability, British Politics, 11(4): 438–451. Fielding, N. [1991] (1993) Ethnography, in N. Gilbert (ed.) Researching the Social, London: Sage. Friedman, S. (2015) Comedy and Distinction, London: Sage. Gelder, K. (ed.) (2005) The Subcultures Reader, London: Routledge. Goffman, E. (1956) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Research Centre. Hall, S. (1996) Who Needs Identity? in S. Hall and P du Gay (eds.) Questions of Cultural Identity, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hayward, K. and Yar, M. (2006) The ‘Chav’ Phenomenon: Consumption, Media and the Construction of a New Underclass, Crime Media Culture, 2(1): 9–28. Hebdige, D. [1979] (2002) Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Routledge. Horwood, C. (2006) ‘Keeping Up Appearances’: Clothes, Class and Culture 1918– 1939, Stroud: The History Press. Jefferson, T. [1975] (2000) Cultural Response to the Teds, in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds.) Resistance Through Rituals, London: Routledge. Jensen, T. (2014) Welfare Common Sense, Poverty Porn and Doxosophy, Sociological Research Online, 19(3): 1–7. Lacy, C. (1970) Hightown Grammar: The School as a Social System, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lawler, S. (2000) Mothering the Self: Mothers, Daughters, Subjects, London and New York: Routledge. Lawler, S. (2005) Disgusted Subjects: The Making of Middle Class Identities, The Editorial Board of the Sociological Review, 2005: 429–446. Lofland, J. (1971) Analysing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis, Belmont, CA: Wordsworth. Lurie, A. (1981) The Language of Clothes, London: Heinemann. Mangan, L. (2012) TV Review: All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry, The Guardian, 19 June.

14  Introduction McKenzie, L. (2015) Getting by: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain, Bristol: The Policy Press. Moore, S. (2013) Grayson Perry’s Tapestries: Weaving Class and Taste, The Guardian, 8 June, www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/08/grayson-perry-tapestries-class-taste, accessed 10 November 2019. Muggleton, D. (2000) Inside Subculture: The Post Modern Meaning of Style, Oxford: Berg. Nayak, A. and Kehily, M. J. (2014) ‘Chavs, Chavettes and Pramface Girls’: Teenage Mothers, Marginalised Young Men and the Management of Stigma, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(10). Payne, G. and Grew, C. (2005) Unpacking Class Ambivalence, Sociology, 39(5): 893–910. Perry, G. (2013) Taste Is Woven into Our Class System, The Telegraph, 15 June. Rubin, H. J. and Rubin, I. S. (1995) Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data, London: Sage. Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Skeggs, B., Wood, H. and Thumim, N. (2008) ‘Oh Goodness, I am Watching ‘Reality’ Television’: How Methods Make Class in Audience Research, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 11(1): 5–24. Storr, M. (2003) Latex and Lingerie: Shopping for Pleasure at Ann Summers Parties, Oxford: Berg. Taylor, C. (1994) The Politics of Recognition, in A. Gutmann (ed.) Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Taylor, L. (2008) A Taste of Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices, Hampshire: Ashgate. Thomas, H. (2013) The Body and Everyday Life, London: Routledge. Twigg, J. (2013) Fashion and Age, London: Bloomsbury. Tyler, I. (2008) ‘Chav Mum, Chav Scum’: Class Disgust in Contemporary Britain, Feminist Media Studies, 8(1): 17–34. Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain, London and New York: Zed Books. Tyler, I. and Bennett, B. (2010) ‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(3): 375–393. Valentine, G. (2007) Theorizing and Researching Intersectionality: A Challenge for Feminist Geography, The Professional Geographer, 59(1): 10–21. Veblen, T. [1899] (1994) The Theory of the Leisure Class, New Yorkand London: Dover, Constable. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H. and Melody, J. (2001) Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class, London: Palgrave. Walton, J. (2012) All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry, Channel 4 Review, The Telegraph, 19 June. Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, New York: Columbia University Press.

Chapter 2

Women Talking Dirty Making Sense of Fashion and Class

Introduction As the research which informs this book sought to better understand the association between fashion and class for ordinary British women today, the first stage in the project was to define these two concepts. Yet, one of the key challenges that researchers face when undertaking work into fashion and class is the messy and complex nature of both of these terms. Though few contemporary authors have closely considered the relationship or intersection between the two concepts, separately fashion and class have been subject to extensive debate and have recently experienced renewed academic interest. Situated across a wide range of disciplines including sociology, media and cultural studies, and business and marketing, these recent discussions illustrate the complexity and fuzziness of both concepts, but they also highlight important similarities between the two phenomena, suggesting that fashion and class can both be understood in terms of production and consumption and that both are concerned with collective and individual identities, social distinction and distancing. Moreover, as fashion and class both tend to involve judgements of others, they can be equally sensitive topics to discuss and are often talked about in detached and ambivalent ways.   Moreover, within British society, fashion and class have had an important relationship and cultural history. Both academics and media commentators have suggested that class is something of a British obsession (Cannadine, [1998] 2000; Freeman, 2014; Savage, 2015), forming an important part of British culture and British sociology. While understandings of class have shifted over the years, and class practices may have become more nuanced, the ‘UK remains a class-bound society’ (Hill, 2017), but talking about class can be difficult, as it is a concept tied up with moral judgements of others, as well issues of economic inequality. As a result, individuals adopt various ‘linguistic’ strategies to enable them to discuss class in ways which are more socially acceptable, using education or housing to ‘implicitly position themselves and others within the classed hierarchy’ (Hill and Lai, 2016: 1291).

16  Women Talking Dirty

Talk about fashion, as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, is also an important way in which conversations about class take place, with particular fashion styles being used as class markers, or fashion practices and tastes operating as means for class distancing and class distinction. Moreover, within Britain’s fashion history, a relationship between fashion and class is evident too, particularly amongst working-class subcultures, who have used fashion as a means of subversion and transgression by deliberately adopting garments or styles traditionally associated with elites (Hebdige, [1979] 2002; Jefferson, [1975] 2000). The purpose of this chapter is to look at the existing arguments concerning fashion and class, to unpack what is meant by each of these terms, and to outline how they are defined within this research. In order to do this, I consider both academic and everyday understandings, and how the two concepts overlap. Starting with fashion, I explore its changing status as an area of scholarly research and consider how academics have understood fashion in the context of ordinary and everyday life. Indeed, I argue that women’s ordinary and every­day dress can be understood as fashion, as it is a form of clothing subject to change which embodies cultural and social values and is used to construct, communicate and challenge social identities. I then examine how the term fashion is perceived and understood by ordinary women, how fashion overlaps and is used interchangeably with other terms such as fad or trend, and how it is distanced and differentiated from the notion of style. Here I reflect on the negative connotations which the ‘f’ word can carry, such as frivolity and vanity, and the sensitivity which can surround its use, which poses specific challenges for social research.   Moving onto class, I argue for the continued salience of social class, acknowledging the way in which the concept has developed in recent years in response to shifts in employment and income. Here I consider the arguments for the ‘death of class’ which circulated heavily in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and more recent understandings, which centre closely on Pierre Bourdieu’s work. These more recent discussions tend to suggest that class differences are mobilised through consumption practices and tastes, and as such class remains an important aspect of social identity. Indeed, within this research I too adopt a ‘Bourdieusian’ model, which views class as determined through economic, cultural and social capital and habitus, mobilised through cultural practices and tastes. Thus, I suggest that ordinary and everyday fashion practices and tastes can operate as an important means of class evaluation. Yet, as I discuss, there are some important limitations to Bourdieu’s work, not least his suggestion that working classes tend to have a ‘taste of necessity’, which sits in contrast to a middle-class ‘taste of choice’ or ‘luxury’. As I discuss in Chapter 6, this model appears quite outdated at a time when fast fashion has made new clothing styles increasingly affordable, and in fact many working-class women seek to keep their wardrobes up to date with the latest trends. Finally, I look at some of the challenges faced when discussing social class, highlighting the way in which class is closely tied to moral judgements and notions of respectability,

Women Talking Dirty 17

and the ways in which ordinary women consequently view and talk about class, often using fashion to make class references but in subtle and implicit ways.

The ‘F’ Word  Although classical theorists often recognised the importance of fashion for social identity and class distinction, for a long time within contemporary sociology, fashion has sat on the margins of academic debate. Typically perceived as frivolous and fickle, up until the 2000s fashion generally lacked legitimacy as a field of academic enquiry. In fact, as Efrat Tseëlon (2001: 237) suggests, engaging in fashion research really meant putting ‘oneself on the fringes of academic respectability’. With the rise of ‘fashion studies’, however, there appears to have been something of a turnaround, and today authors from across the arts and social sciences are increasingly directing their attention towards the fashion industry and the important role fashion plays in constructing, communicating and challenging social identities. As Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik (2015: 1) suggest, ‘fashion offers a rich platform from which to reflect on key social and cultural issues, from practices of consumption and production through to identity politics’. Today, there are a growing number of academics whose work focuses on fashion. Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture is now well established, and recent monographs and edited collections have considered fashion in respect of a wide range of social and cultural debates including: cultural and religious identities, gender and sexuality, modelling, marketing and digital media (see, for example: Aspers, 2010; Almila, 2018; Bartlett et al., 2013; Behnke, 2017; Cole, 2012; Edwards, 2011; Entwistle, 2009; Kaiser, 2012; Lewis, 2013; Steele, 2010, 2013; Kawamura, 2012, 2016; Tarlo, 2010;  Tseëlon, 2014;  Wissinger, 2015). However, within British sociology, fashion does still tend to be considered more of a niche subject area, and though fashion is often acknowledged within works concerning subcultures, consumption, counterfeiting, sustainability and social identity, there is a tendency to situate research within other areas of interest, rather than the sociology of fashion. Perhaps this signals the continued perception of fashion as something which is of less importance than other aspects of social life, although equally it may be that fashion is viewed as something exclusive or exclusionary and thus less accessible. It may also be, of course, that because ‘fashion’ itself is such a slippery term, it is often more difficult to identify sociological research as ‘fashion’ research, or that the supposed disinterest in fashion is linked to the problem of definition. Defining the ‘F’ Word  Certainly, one of the key problems that research into fashion faces is how to define it. A  key starting point for many contemporary debates is an attempt

18  Women Talking Dirty

to unpack and understand what ‘fashion’ means. One of the major challenges that the ‘f’ word presents is its complexity, hybridity and shifting parameters (Leopold, 1992; Entwistle, 2015; Twigg, 2013). Encompassing a vast array of commercial organisations and individual agents in its production, distribution and consumption, it also embodies our cultural and social values. ‘[A]lways in evidence’ (Veblen, [1899] 1994: 103), fashion plays a key role in the construction and communication of social identities. It works to locate individuals in the social space and simultaneously works to unite and divide social groups by creating a sense of belonging and collectivity, while visually separating and differentiating one community from another.    In fact, it is arguably fashion’s function as ‘an emblem of personal distinction’ and ‘group membership’ which is central to its development (Sapir, 1949: 375) and which drives its need for constant change. Viewed as a product of industrialisation, consumption and the newly emerging cities of modern Western society (Wilson, 2003), classical works suggest that fashion operates as an important mechanism for class distinction, separating the upper classes from the masses. As soon as a fashion becomes widely appropriated, its status in this respect is undermined, and therefore it is necessary to replace it with something new, to re-establish the class boundary (Simmel, [1904] 1957). As a result, fashion is subject to ‘rapid and continual’ change (Wilson, 2003: 3), a characteristic which has become another defining feature.  Contemporary fashion, however, is not only concerned with social class. As recent works demonstrate, it plays a fundamental role in the embodiment of a host of social identities, but its significance is still found in its ability to unite and divide social groups. Laden with symbolic meaning, Fred Davis (1994) suggests that fashion operates as a ‘code’, enabling us to recognise others, affirming societal norms and naturalising social distinctions, with even small visual details, such as buttons or wedding rings operating as a symbol of stigma or status (Goffman, [1963] 1990: 59). Fashion makes ‘clear reference to who we are and wish to be taken as’ (Davis, 1994: 3–5) and as a result ‘whether we consider ourselves to be in fashion or not, the logic of fashion permeates our everyday lives’ (Back et al., 2012: 163). Indeed, Elizabeth Wilson argues that in contemporary Western societies, ‘no clothes are outside fashion’, for even the unfashionable ‘represent a reaction’ to it (2003: 5). And for those who look to challenge and subvert cultural norms, fashion provides a useful language to communicate difference and simultaneously create a sense of belonging (Hebdige, [1979] 2002). Moreover, as a commercial and creative industry, fashion has become virtually inescapable. Developments in fashion production, distribution and consumption, from the sewing machine to online retailing, fashion blogs and video tutorials, have enabled fashion to enter our private spaces and inform our everyday practices and discourse. That is not to suggest that consumer choice or individuals’ everyday clothing practices are governed by fashion, but it does mean that fashion helps to structure and mould our perceptions and practices

Women Talking Dirty 19

of the body and dress, so that our everyday clothing can be understood as the interpretation and embodiment of fashion. As Joanne Entwistle (2015: 28) argues, ‘[f]ashion is an important determinant on everyday dress but fashion becomes widely recognised only when it is translated into dress on the part of the individual’.   Positioning the ‘F’ Word  Though discussions of fashion tend to focus on clothing, as Patrik Aspers and Frédéric Godart (2013) note, it is important to recognise that fashion has a wider application than this and can be observed in various forms of consumption, and across the arts and beyond. Typically, however, fashion is considered synonymous with dress (Barnard, 2007), and as a result often becomes entangled with other concepts such as adornment, fad, trend and style. While fashion is used interchangeably with these other terms without too much thought or trouble in everyday conversations, academic debates raise questions over fashion’s position in relation to these other concepts which share some, but not all, of the ‘f’ word’s characteristics. Part of this debate emerges from fashion’s interdisciplinary status, as academics from different fields approach fashion with different agendas and employ terms which best fit the aspect of fashion which their work most focuses on. Anthropologists, for example, concerned with broad understandings of dress practices and self-enhancement (e.g. Barnard and Spencer, 2010; Polhemus, 1994), lean much more towards ‘adornment’, whereas those in marketing are more likely to talk of ‘trends’ and ‘style’ (e.g. Hines and Bruce, 2006). In their bid to define fashion sociologically, Aspers and Godart (2013) look to identify the important differences between fashion and related terms, arguing that doing so provides greater clarity as to what fashion is, and hence encourages future fashion research. Starting with fads, they suggest that fads vanish as quickly as they appear, and often develop without any warning. Adopted across social groups and classes, fads differ from fashion as they are not concerned with creating a sense of belonging or social division.   In contrast, styles are said to operate as a cultural reference point, locating individuals within a social group, space and time. Examples include the punk style or classic style, which unlike fashion, is not subject to such constant change, but is deemed to have longevity and remains the same over extended periods. This is an idea which I will return to in Chapter 6 when looking at women’s notions of classic style and the way in which ‘classic’ is often used by ordinary women in opposition to fashion. Indeed, it was described by many participants as timeless, echoing the views of Linda Welters and Abby Lillethun (2007: xix), who suggest that classic styles ‘enjoy long-term acceptance’, whereas fashion is considered much more transient and subject to fads and trends. Indeed, trend is yet another word often used in conjunction with fashion, which Welters and Lillethun (2007: xix) suggest describes ‘a

20  Women Talking Dirty

direction in which fashion may be heading’ or a pattern within fashion production and consumption. Trends tend to be discussed much more within fashion design and industry contexts, and here too fashion often overlaps with the word apparel, used to describe clothing products, as opposed to footwear or other accessories.   Finally, although discussions of fashion have traditionally sat within the literature on ‘costume history’, fashion is considered distinct from costume, a term more associated with theatrical and traditional forms of dress, such as national costumes. These clothes, unlike fashion, are ‘symbols of continuity’, fixed and unchanging. Indeed, Ted Polhemus describes these forms of dress as ‘anti-fashion’ (2010a) because they remain largely the same over long periods of time, whereas fashion is concerned with constant and continual change, a mechanism for challenging the status quo and which ‘implies a fluidity in the structure of the community’ and offers opportunities for social mobility (Flugel, [1930] 2010). Using the ‘F’ Word As we have seen then, the ‘f’ word is far from a simple or straightforward term. A practice, a process and a system, fashion is a creative industry and scheme of signs and significations which enable individuals to locate each other in time and space. Fashion is used to establish social bonds and create social distance. It is ambiguous, interdisciplinary, and it overlaps with a range of associated concepts. Importantly, however, despite the complicated nature of fashion’s definition, ordinary and everyday dress can be considered fashion, as it is a form of clothing which is subject to continual change and development, and which is used to construct, communicate and in some instances challenge cultural attitudes and values and social identities. Certainly, for the women in my research, their ordinary and everyday clothing was an important tool in crafting and communicating their social identity, and it was also a useful tool for locating and placing others within the social space. A complicated and sensitive word, however, the term fashion not only presents challenges in social research in respect of its definition, but it can create problems in gathering data, too. As Edward Sapir (1949) notes, fashion is a term which can be viewed with a ‘tone of approval or disapproval’, and thus using it in research can deter some potential participants, while encouraging others. On the one hand, using the ‘f‘ word enables individuals to validate cultural and commercial knowledge, enabling individuals to demonstrate their awareness of fashion designers, retailers, magazines and trends and to assert their own fashionableness. On the other hand, using the ‘f’ word can equally betray an individual’s cultural and commercial ignorance, and for those who understand the ‘f’ word only in relation to the spectacular and haute couture, it may appear to hold very limited significance as it is not something which they feel they engage with in their ordinary and everyday lives.  

Women Talking Dirty 21

Crucially, however, the ‘f’ word can result in conversations which concern judgements of ourselves and of others, for as Bourdieu suggests, ‘taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier’ ([1984] 1996: 6). Indeed, as I explore later in this chapter, talking about fashion can reveal how individuals go about evaluating and judging others based on aesthetics, and in doing so, the ‘f’ word also exposes their own understandings and practices of taste. Discussions of fashion, as demonstrated in Chapters 5 and 6, highlight an individual’s thoughts on good taste and bad taste, attitudes around shopping and consumption, and personal and private habits relating to clothing and dress, practices and attitudes which work to position them in the social space, as they simultaneously look to classify others. As a result, the ‘f’ word presents itself as a problematic term, not only due to its complex definition but also the complex social judgements that it brings with it.  The difficulties of using the ‘f’ word were evident in the earlier parts of my research, as several of the women who were approached to take part were reluctant to participate in a project about ‘fashion’. This was a subject they felt they ‘knew nothing about’. Certainly, they did not identify their ordinary and everyday clothing as ‘fashion’, they did not perceive themselves as ‘fashionable’, and they felt that they had little to offer, as their knowledge of fashion was very limited. This, of course, was not the case as the project centred on women’s ordinary and everyday fashion practices and discourse, and their everyday clothing operated as one example of the ‘f’ word. Nevertheless, for these women, fashion is much more closely aligned to the images in magazines, and fads and trends, and it is certainly viewed as something different from their own clothing practices and tastes.     For others, their size and their age were considered barriers to engaging with fashion, and again this meant that they felt they were not suitable participants for the project. One respondent, Sarah, commented: ‘You don’t want big ladies in a project on fashion, do you?’ and another suggested that she was ‘too old for fashion’. In Julia Twigg’s recent work (2013: 9–10), she argues that ‘the old are not considered to fall within fashion’s orbit’, as it is ‘strongly – perhaps inherently – youth orientated’. Though older women’s everyday dress is just as concerned with distinction, social change and cultural values, it is not often understood within the context of fashion, and some of the older participants were sceptical about taking part in a project which centred around the ‘f’ word.   Equally, plus-size women questioned the extent to which they engaged with fashion, or could be fashionable, due to their size. Up until recently, plus-size clothing has sat very much on the fringes of the fashion industry, although in recent years there have been some important changes in retailing, media, advertising and photography to make the ‘f’ word more inclusive in this respect. Changes in fashion discourse demonstrate a move towards ‘curvy’ collections rather than ‘plus-size’ lines, and there has been a marked increase in the number of plus-size models in high-street fashion campaigns (see, for

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example, H&M Autumn/Winter 2016; PLT Autumn/Winter 2016), enabling the ‘f’ word to be seen as more inclusive and diverse.   In the recruitment stages of the project, my attachment to the London College of Fashion also presented me with some challenges, as I was often perceived as a fashion expert with a wide knowledge of designers and fashion media. This led some women to believe that I was set to interrogate respondents’ fashion knowledge, and thus for individuals who had reservations about the adequacy of their fashion expertise, there was some anxiety as they felt they would have ‘nothing to talk about’. Equally, for those who were keen to demonstrate their understanding of fashion trends and industry, my links to the London College of Fashion afforded me some degree of status and prestige and made the project much more attractive.    In her discussion of interview techniques, Jane Jorgenson stresses the importance of understanding ‘how respondents go about fashioning an identity for the interviewer’ ([1991] 1995: 216–219) in order to create a favourable impression. This is particularly true when they perceive the researcher as an expert, because the participants can view the researcher as a source of information and as a potential critic. Mindful that some participants viewed me as an authority on fashion, I shifted my identity to the University of Arts London during the research process and was keen to stress at both the recruitment stage and interviews that I was not a fashion student per se, but a sociologist interested in ordinary and everyday ‘fashion’ and clothing practices. This enabled those who felt they were not ‘fashionable’ to feel more at ease, while those who considered themselves more knowledgeable were still able to share their fashion know-how.   The negative connotations often attached to fashion were also evident throughout the research, and again this meant that some women were quite keen to distance themselves from the ‘f’ word. Some participants, for example, would suggest that they deliberately chose to avoid fashion because they were not going to be fooled by the fashion industry and convinced to spend money unnecessarily; they would not become a slave to fashion or a fashion victim. As discussed in Chapter 6, these views were predominantly voiced by more middle-class women, who were also keen to emphasise their self-control and rationality when it came to shopping. Their ‘sensible’ approach to consumption was used as a means of distancing themselves from the perceived working classes, who they believed were manipulated by media, brands and advertising, but their aversion to fashion also worked to deflect attention away from any lack of industry and commercial knowledge and thus, any critical judgement of their fashion competence. 

The ‘C’ Word  While fashion has been largely overlooked as an area for sociological enquiry or seen as a niche area for research, class has been a continual and

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defining feature of British Sociology. Though its relevance for understanding contemporary Western societies was heavily questioned throughout the 1980s and early 1990s (Smith, 2000), in recent years it has experienced renewed academic interest. These more recent debates, however, raise important questions about the ways in which class is defined and measured, as the distinctions between manual and non-manual, skilled and unskilled labour blur, and the relationships between occupations and incomes shift. As Danny Dorling argues, ‘Class is no longer simply a vertical ranking linked to capital and a system of production in some way’ (2014: 453). Though income inequality between those at the top and those at the bottom has become more extreme (Hill, 2018), defining clear class boundaries, particularly for those in the middle, is increasingly difficult (Savage, 2015), if not impossible (Urry and Abercrombie, 1983).   For a number of academics, particular those writing in the late 1980s and 1990s, this destabilising of traditional class hierarchies, caused primarily by shifts in employment and widening access to education, effectively made class redundant. Even those who argue for the continued relevance of social class (Crompton, 2000, 2008; Savage, 2000; Skeggs, 2004; Reay, 2017) will readily admit that the steady decline in the manufacturing industry through the 1950s and 1960s, alongside a growth in service sector employment and feminisation of the labour market, severely damaged the occupational distinctions and the opportunities for class consciousness and collective action. The growing middle-class, composed of managers, supervisors and administrators, still technically workers but who have some degree of autonomy, ‘complicated and muddied the binary class model of Marxist analysis’ (O’Neill and Wayne, 2018: 2), and for authors such as Ulrich Beck (1992), Andre Gorz (1980), Jan Pakulski and Malcom Waters (1996: 26), these changes clearly signal the end of the class concept. For these post-class theorists, class is solely concerned with the ‘economic productive location’ of individuals (Pakulski and Waters, 1996: 3), ‘people participate in class as producers’ and ‘although the impact of class may extend far beyond production roles’ (1996: 2) if class is separated from its economic connotations it becomes utterly meaningless. A lack of discrete economic categories and an inability to clearly identify a proletariat and bourgeoisie leaves ‘the class paradigm intellectually and morally bankrupt’ (1996: 26), replacing class with ‘multidimensional’ status inequalities (1996: 17) such as lifestyle and value commitments, risk, and gender and race.  Others, however, have sought to revise Marxist models to accommodate the increasing ambiguities of occupations, acknowledging the challenges that the middle-class presents. Erik Olin Wright in 1976 proposed the notion of ‘contradictory class locations’, suggesting that certain occupations straddle or are torn between social classes. Nicos Poulantzas’ (1975) work makes a distinction between mental and manual labour, arguing that the growing middleclass constitutes a new petty bourgeoisie. For Harry Braverman (1974) and David Lockwood (1958), who concentrate on the emergence of the ‘affluent

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work’, ‘mechanisation of the office’ in sectorial and service sector employment has resulted in deskilling (1974: 326), reducing middle-class positions to working-class ones.   For these academics, despite the changing nature of work, class is not dead or obsolete, but remains a valuable and relevant concept: ‘What workers do, what the composition of workers are . . . what technology they work with, all change. But this change does not abolish the class relations itself’ (O’Neill and Wayne, 2018: 2). These developments do, however, require class models to adapt, but as Dave Hill notes, ‘Marx did not see class as monolithic or static’. Rather, class is a concept which is ‘constantly decomposed and reconstituted due to changes in forces of production’ (2018: 35). Although important developments in technology, industry and working conditions have challenged traditional class boundaries, this does not necessarily indicate a move ‘beyond a class society’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002: 30), but rather modern Western societies have witnessed a shift ‘from the mill owner, the factory owner to Chief Executives’ (Hill, 2018: 35).  The ‘C’ Word:  A Cultural Turn  For many contemporary sociologists, however, despite the continued relevance of class, Marxist models are still outdated, and even when they are revised, they still fail to fully explain the way class operates as they centre solely on occupation. As a result, they neglect to explore how class is a lived experience, mobilised through differences in lifestyle, taste and cultural practice. Indeed, one of the observations post-class theorists make is that contemporary society is stratified much more on lifestyle and, consequently, our preferences in food, clothing and leisure are increasingly important factors when making social evaluations.   For authors such as Ulrich Beck (1992) and Anthony Giddens (1991), this focus on lifestyle is taken as evidence of a move away from traditional class structures and growing choice and individualisation, and yet Giddens’ work also suggests that these lifestyle choices are strongly informed by occupation and income and restricted by our ‘life chances’ (1991: 83). The wealthier you are, the more lifestyle choices you have, and therefore it suggests that lifestyle is to some extent symbolic of one’s class location.   A similar argument is also apparent when looking at Beck’s (1992) notion of the risk society. Arguing that in late modern society income inequality has fallen off the political and social agenda, Beck (1992) suggests that contemporary social problems are understood in terms of risk rather than class. These risks include global dangers such as radioactivity and climate change, as well as more individualised risks such as obesity or unemployment. Risks, he claims, have a more ‘democratic’ nature than social class as they can affect the rich and powerful as well as the poor and destitute. Like ‘styles of life’, they are open or available to all of society, in the sense that they are not constrained

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by any sense of tradition. However, in the same way that lifestyle is affected by wealth, so too is the potential for risk. ‘Some people are more affected than others by the distribution and growth of risks’, and in fact risks are ‘often . . . distributed in a . . . class specific way’ as wealth ‘can purchase safety and freedom’ (1992: 35). Yet while Beck sees risk stratification as something distinct from class and as evidence of a move beyond a class society, if one adopts the view that lifestyle is representative of life chances, then lifestyle is, to some extent, indicative of class location.   In fact, according to Bourdieu ([1984] 1996, 1987), it is precisely through lifestyle and tastes that class is mobilised, as class is understood as a culmination of both our economic position, what he terms ‘condition of existence’ ([1984] 1996: 53), and our consumption habits, or ‘dispositions’ ([1984] 1996: 53). Indeed, Bourdieu ([1984] 1996, 1987) suggests that class is fundamental to our cultural knowledge and lifestyle, and is therefore apparent in the food we eat, the books we read, the music we listen to and the clothes we wear. In recent years this understanding of class has gained immense popularity, with Fiona Devine and Mike Savage (2005) suggesting that there has been something of a ‘cultural turn’ in class analysis. In recent years sociologists have sought to demonstrate the relevance of social class in relation to a whole host of cultural practices, including food, music, gardening, comedy and reading (see, for example, Atkinson and Deeming, 2015; Friedman, 2015; Taylor, 2008). For these authors Bourdieu’s concept of class, though not without its limitations, offers the most relevant model for contemporary Western societies. Conditions of Existence In Distinction ([1984] 1996), Bourdieu ‘develops a systematic theory of symbolic power and its relations to economic and political power’ (Brubaker, 1985: 747). By linking stratification by status to stratification by class, through the notion of lifestyle, he demonstrates how class-based inequalities are apparent in ‘everyday consumption practices’ (Brubaker, 1985: 749). Instead of defining class based on production, Bourdieu takes a much broader view, arguing that one’s position in the social space is dependent on ‘capital’, which can take ‘three fundamental guises’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 243). The first is economic capital, which is the traditional basis for class distinctions, and refers to income and wealth, or ownership of property. The second is cultural capital, which can either be embodied in perspectives, movements and mannerisms, objectified in the form of cultural goods, such as books and musical instruments, or institutionalised in the form of educational qualifications. Third, there is social capital, the social networks and acquaintances which bring some form of ‘credential’, either economic or cultural (Bourdieu, 1986).  Together, these various forms of capital provide the basis for ‘conditions of existence’, defined as our distance ‘from necessity’ and ‘practical urgencies’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 53). Expressed through lifestyles, Bourdieu argues

26  Women Talking Dirty

that ‘conditions of existence’ give rise to diverse practices and ‘dispositions’, such as the ‘concern for conformity’ or a desire for functionalism and practicality ([1984] 1996: 331). The ‘aesthetic disposition’, for instance, reflects an ability to fulfil necessities and practical urgencies and consequently concentrates on the ‘mode of representation’ and ‘style’, demonstrated through a ‘practice of activities which are an end in themselves, such as scholastic exercise or the contemplation of works of art’ ([1984] 1996: 54).  Not only do ‘conditions of existence’ result in differing lifestyles, but they also produce different ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1990, [1984] 1996). This is a structure which ‘generates’ internalised practices and perceptions, which operate as ‘distinctive signs’ or ‘classifiable’ acts, and simultaneously allows individuals ‘to differentiate and appreciate these practices and products (tastes)’ ([1984] 1996: 170). It therefore enables individuals to classify others through taste, while their own practices operate as a means of classification. As well as structuring individual practices, Bourdieu argues that the habitus also operates as a ‘structuring structure’ ([1984] 1996: 170), locating individuals in a social hierarchy, as the appropriation of cultural goods and knowledge demonstrates their ‘taste of freedom’, while distance from necessity brings with it ‘legitimated superiority’ ([1984] 1996: 56). As a result, their cultural practices and tastes, indeed their lifestyle, becomes what Max Weber terms ‘stylisation of life’ (1970: 191), a sign of honour and status, associated with the most socially and economically privileged, while ‘dispositions’ become a means of distinction. Consequently, ‘social class comes much closer to that of status group than does the conception of purely economic class’ (Giddens, [1973]1981: 48), and is therefore identified through differences in leisure activities, food and clothing.  Criticisms of Bourdieu  Bourdieu’s arguments on class and consumption may have been highly influential (Buroway, 2018), but they are not without criticism, and important questions have been raised over the quality of his empirical tools and analysis, and the clarity of his social classes and theoretical concepts (Bennett, 2011; Rancière, 2006; Verdès-Leroux, 2000). In suggesting that all individuals with the same ‘conditions of existence’ exhibit the same ‘dispositions’ and the same ‘habitus’, his theory is seen by some as too deterministic; they suggest that Bourdieu offers little scope for individual agency (Calhoun, 2003; Crompton, 2008; Jenkins, 1992). As Giddens (1991), Beck (1992), and Beck and BeckGernsheim (2002) all note, late modern society has experienced a high degree of de-traditionalisation and far greater choice in terms of lifestyles and taste. Although the level of choice may be restricted by ‘conditions of existence’, individuals do still retain some level of freedom and discretion. Certainly, within the literature on fashion and dress, it is often argued that there are a wide range of motives behind individuals’ fashion adoption (Blumer, [1969] 1981;

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Davis, 1994; Polhemus, 2010a; Polhemus, 2010b; Sproles, 1985), including peer group, subculture and political affiliation. Moreover, though there may be significant similarities in the practices and tastes of a class group, it is important to realise that classes are not homogenous, and that other factors such as gender, race and age have a significant impact on individuals’ consumption habits and tastes. While Bourdieu sees these other variables as integral to ‘conditions of existence’ and thus part of class (Brubaker, 1985), work from critical race theorists, Black feminists and academic discussions of intersectionality have done much to demonstrate the socially constructed and thus changeable nature of social categories, and to reveal how the form of oppression can increase where certain identities come together (Crenshaw, 1991;  Gopaldas and Fischer, 2012; Collins, 2000). As the work of Angela Davis (1981), bell hooks (1982) and Patricia Hill Collins (1998, 2000, 2016) demonstrate, gender, race, sexuality, age and so on, together play a significant role in individuals’ social and cultural practices and perceptions. As Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1986) and Candace West and Don Zimmerman (1987: 137) suggest, these factors can strongly inform the way in which individuals are ‘assessed’ by others, generating ‘preconceived notions of what members of a particular group look like’ and ‘preconceived ideas of what members of these groups are like’ (Omi and Winant, 1986: 62).  In thinking about cultural influences, it is also worth remembering that Bourdieu’s work is based on empirical research from France in 1963 and 1967–1968, and although he aims to produce a universal theory of class, his conclusions are ultimately situated within a specific historical and cultural context. Thus, what Bourdieu presents is a ‘French theory’ which sees the French system as the ‘norm’ (Archer, 1993: 227), and yet class can operate quite differently across different countries and cultures. Certainly, the way in which it is said to operate in Britain is quite distinct (Cannadine, [1998] 2000), and as already discussed, the way in which class operates has shifted considerably in the last 30 years. Though the key principles of Bourdieu’s theory might be relevant today, it undeniably requires some revision to reflect the pluralisation and democratisation of cultural tastes and practice.   Writing in the early 1990s, Richard Peterson and Roger Kern (see Peterson, 1993; Peterson and Kern, 1996) suggest that globalisation and technological advances vastly increased individuals’ access to cultural knowledge and information, and divisions between high and low culture have started to collapse. Status, they suggest, is not simply about being involved in legitimate culture, as Bourdieu argues, but about having a wide appreciation of all cultural forms and a broad range of social networks. Though it may still be true that lower down the social hierarchy cultural practices and knowledge are less diverse, there is a significant degree of ‘cultural variety’ in individual tastes (Peterson, 1993; Peterson and Kern, 1996). Certainly, within the realm of fashion, the growth of fashion media has meant that knowledge of fashionable styles is ever more democratised (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006; Crane, 2000). As discussed

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in Chapter 3, contemporary fashion is increasingly polycentric, appropriated from a wide range of sources (Davis, 1994; Crane, 1999). The internet has had a dramatic effect on fashion consumption and the democratisation of fashion styles (Crew, 2017), and the notion that fashion innovation bubbles up, trickles down and trickles across has never been more apparent (Polhemus, 2010a). Today’s rich and famous are applauded and encouraged for bringing together designer fashion and high-street labels, (Barrett and Enright, 2011) and many iconic fashion looks, such as the Bronx leather jacket, have emerged from street styles. Unsurprisingly then, Bourdieu’s concept of ‘distance from necessity’, which suggests that working-class tastes are limited to those concerned with practical urgencies and what is useful, is also subject to criticism. Arguing that working-class families are restricted to the ‘choice of the necessary’ due to their ‘conditions of existence’, Bourdieu argues that this leads to a ‘taste of necessity’ ([1984] 1996: 340), suggesting that there is little scope for any aesthetic considerations in working-class consumption and that they like what they can afford (Bennett, 2011; Rocamora, 2002). In contrast, middle classes are seen to have a taste of luxury, as they are afforded the freedom to choose due to their greater level of economic capital.   There is no doubt that income inequality exists, and in recent years many academics have argued that it has dramatically increased across the UK (Devine, 1997; Brewer et al., 2009; Dorling, 2014). The rise in food banks clearly highlights the growth in those who are faced with a ‘choice of necessity’, and research into cultural practices does suggest that necessity plays an important role in a wide variety of consumption choices amongst the working classes, including food and clothing (Deeming, 2014). But, within the field of fashion, several authors have questioned the degree to which workingclass consumption is governed only by a taste of necessity (Mizrahi, 2011; Rocamora, 2002), pointing to examples where working-class men and women have taken great effort to dress in creative and stylish ways (Partington, 1992; Weight, 2013). Indeed, work on fashion subcultures, which so often focuses on workingclass men, clearly demonstrates that fashion consumption is informed by much more than a ‘taste of necessity’. While economic capital does have a bearing on consumption choice, in relation to specific items such as trainers and jeans, ‘there is no longer any “taste of necessity” perhaps’, for these items ‘are not worn because they are more affordable than other garments’ but because of the image that they convey (Auty and Elliot, 1998: 109). As Chapter 6 argues, for the working-class women who took part in this research there is a keen desire to follow fashion, and as others have suggested (e.g. Skeggs, 1997; Partington, 1992;  Rocamora, 2002), the increase in mass production, outsourcing of fashion manufacture, has made fashion much more affordable. ‘[W]ell made apparel is available for everyone’ (Solomon and Rabolt, [2004] 2009: 263), and though working-class consumption may be limited by income, the

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availability of fashion means that they are much more able to engage with, and consume, new and up-to-date goods and clothing. Despite these points of criticism, Bourdieu’s model of the class and its corresponding argument that class is mobilised through consumption practices and tastes remains popular. Like these other contemporary sociologists (e.g. Crompton, 2008; Bull, 2019; Devine and Savage, 2005; Friedman, 2015; McKenzie, 2015; Skeggs, 1997), I too have adopted a Bourdieuian understanding in the research which informs this book. Though Bourdieu’s work does not consider fashion specifically, and in fact very little is said about clothing in Distinction, in comparison with other cultural practices and tastes such as food or music, Bourdieu’s framework provides the most appropriate theory for analysing the relationship between fashion and class in respect of contemporary British woman’s ordinary and everyday practice. As Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, his argument that taste operates as a marker of class, as it reflects economic, cultural and social capital, and that an individual’s habitus orientates their schemes of perception and cultural practice, are key to understanding how class is mobilised through women’s fashion tastes, their fashion consumption and their evaluation of other women’s dress. Moreover, his arguments concerning habitus offer an important insight into the critical role maternal figures play in cultivating women’s fashion tastes and class judgements, and mother and daughter’s shared notions of what ‘looks good’. In fact, broadly across sociology Bourdieu’s model of class is viewed as one of the most useful for understanding today’s cultural and social boundaries. In 2011, for example, the Great British Class Survey, led by Mike Savage and Fiona Devine, employed Bourdieu’s model in a bid to better understand the cultural and social boundaries of British classes. Suggesting a move away from the UK’s National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) based on occupation, and using latent class analysis, the Great British Class Survey identified seven social classes, derived on the basis of economic, cultural and social capital, comprising an elite, an established middle-class, technical experts, new affluent workers, a traditional working-class, a ‘precariat’ characterised by very low levels of capital, and a group of emergent service workers (Savage et al., 2013). Arguing that the new seven-class model ‘recognises both social polarisation in British society and class fragmentation in its middle layers’ (2013: 202), the scheme has been met with mixed reviews (see, for example, Bradley, 2014; Mills, 2014; Payne, 2013) but has nevertheless re-energised the class debate and demonstrated the continued popularity of the Bourdieuian approach.   The ‘C’ Word as Difference and Distancing   It is not only Bourdieu’s focus on consumption practice and taste which has made his understanding of class popular in recent years, or which makes Bourdieu’s work so relevant for the analysis of fashion and class, however.

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Bourdieu’s work is also particularly relevant because he suggests that class is ‘asserted through difference’ ([1984] 1996: 172). Arguing that tastes ‘are perhaps first and foremost distastes’, he suggests that ‘aversion to different lifestyles is perhaps one of the strongest barriers between the classes’ ([1984] 1996: 56). This is because our habitus not only structures our actions, but ‘perception of the social world’ and thus provides the ‘capacity to differentiate and appreciate’ differences in taste. Consequently, class is not only about the ‘intrinsic properties’ of a group but ‘the relational properties, which it derives from its position in the system of class conditions’ ([1984] 1996: 170) and is therefore largely concerned with the evaluation of others and defining difference.  Many social theorists who support the cultural turn in class analysis agree that class is less concerned with class identity and much more focused on identifying difference and distancing. According to Devine and Savage, class ‘is not based on recognising oneself as belonging to a given position, but as differentiating oneself from others in a field’ (2005: 14), and although Britons still understand and acknowledge class, they are ‘reluctant to place themselves “within” classes’ (Bottero, 2004: 987). Rather, individuals display a sense of ‘classed identity’ (Bottero, 2004), with individuals mobilising class as a ‘benchmark’ for others (Savage, 2000: 11), using it as a mechanism to create notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Southerton, 2002), and preferring to think of themselves (and their friends and family) as ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ (Savage et al., 2001).   One of the advantages of focusing on consumption practices and tastes as a mechanism for mobilising class is that it provides an immediate visual tool for identifying difference and social distancing. As already discussed, fashion is characterised by its ability to classify and segregate individuals, and as Chapter 3 further explores, fashion has arguably been used as a means of identifying class difference and distancing since the eighteenth century (McKendrick et al., 1982; Veblen, [1899] 1994). Within subcultural texts, fashion’s role as a mechanism for creating a sense of union and segregation is also well documented (Hebdige, [1979] 2002;  Polhemus, 2010b), and here again, the link between fashion and class is also evident, as these works often centre on working-class subcultures and thus demonstrate the way fashion is used to infer class identity. Moreover, much more recent work into the ‘chav’ phenomenon highlights the ways in which fashion and consumption continue to feature heavily in class distinctions and social distancing, with much of Chav culture centring on ‘excessive participation in forms of . . . consumption’ and particularly by their dress (Hayward and Yar, 2006: 14). According to Antoinette Renouf (2007), ‘chav’ was originally a Romany term for a young child, which first emerged in English texts in the 1990s, but in 2004 the term was revised and used by the press to refer to a ‘British person of low education, having insufficient means to live away from home, though sufficient to indulge in the purchase and wearing of hitherto socially prestigious clothing, such as Burberry Caps’ (2007: 75). Recognised through their

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preference for ‘branded or designer casual wear and sportswear’, excessive makeup and jewellery, including ‘chunky gold rings and chains’ (Hayward and Yar, 2006: 14) and ‘hoop earrings’ (Tyler, 2008: 26), Chavs are typically perceived as working-class, and as discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, are often cited as a point of distinction for middle-class women who are eager to distance themselves from any working-class connotations. Yet, it is not only in relation to cultural stereotypes or subcultures that dress or consumption practice is used as a means of classification or differentiation, for as this book argues, even within mainstream society taste and consumption practices are important markers of class identity, and as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, fashion plays a vital role in the evaluation of others.   Using the ‘C’ Word Though class may be a form of identity that individuals mobilise, in relation to others even if not in relation to themselves, using the ‘c’ word in ordinary conversations can still be challenging. Class, as we have already seen, is hugely complex, and even within the academy there is significant debate about how class should be measured or understood. So, it is unsurprising that within ordinary and everyday contexts, class is something of a taboo subject, despite there being ‘plenty to talk about’ (Payne and Grew, 2005: 897).   In fact, the sensitivity around class which emanates from its comparative nature is also a fundamental aspect of the class debate. If class is about distance and distancing, then it is about judging others, and as well as thinking about economic positions, consumption habits or tastes, class is also about ‘moral communities’ (Goffman, 1951: 295) and judgements of respectability and social worth (Skeggs, 1997; Lawler, 2005a). In fact, Beverley Skeggs suggests that since its emergence in the eighteenth century, respectability has operated as ‘marker and a burden of class’ (1997: 3), and while the middle-class are understood as ‘ordinary’ or taken as ‘the norm’, the working-class is ‘othered’ and presented as ‘lacking’ respectability and self-control. ‘Constructed as too loud, too noisy, too careless of the future, “welfare dependent” or “feckless” ’ (McDowell, 2013: 90), the working-class is described in ways that pathologize them, that is, in ways that differentiate and distance them from the norm, and contextualising them as diseased and diseasing (Lawler, 2005a; Skeggs, 1997, 2005). Although class may still be salient, it is unlikely to be discussed ‘by those who do not want to be reminded of their social positioning in relation to it’ (Skeggs, 1997: 77), as openly talking about class has the potential to expose individuals to social scrutiny and judgements about their own relative social worth (Sayer, 2002). Equally for those who feel less anxious about their class location, class can still be a difficult topic to openly discuss because it is concerned with making moral judgements and acknowledging social advantage. For both working classes and middle classes then, there are significant social

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barriers to using the ‘c’ word. Though many still recognise that a class structure operates within British society, ‘overt reference to one’s class (especially if one belongs to the upper strata of society) has become unacceptable’ (Hill and Lai, 2016: 1301). It is much easier to talk about class without using the ‘c’ word, and instead to talk about money, housing, education and lifestyle and to use words such as ‘cheap’, ‘tacky’ and ‘posh’. It is more comfortable talking about class without ever mentioning the word. So much so in fact, that as Geoff Payne and Clare Grew suggest, individuals might be talking about class without ‘even recognizing what they are doing’ (2005: 904). But when talking about class openly, the pain and discomfort of class is more evident, moderated and mediated by phrases such as ‘I suppose’, as individuals attempt to dilute the harshness of their ­judgements and try to unravel what class means to them or how they m ­ obilise it. In my research, participants used a range of ‘class’ terms such as ‘chav’, ‘cheap’, ‘hooker’, ‘pikey’, ‘posh’, ‘rich’, ‘slag’, ‘sloaney’, ‘slut’, ‘snob’, ‘stuck up’, ‘well to do, ‘well-off’, ‘tacky’ and ‘tarty’. They use these terms to talk about class in a more relaxed, indirect way, without using the ‘c’ word, although the subtext is clear, and often these terms were linked to clothing. As discussed in Chapter 5, middle-class women in particular commonly cite tracksuits, trainers and gold hoop earrings as chavy, tacky or cheap, and indicative of working classness, as Lisa McKenzie (2015), Keith Hayward and Majid Yar (2006), and Imogen Tyler (2008, 2013) suggest.   Generally, class terms are much more readily employed by middle-class participants, and there is almost an absence of the ‘c’ word in the working-class women’s interviews, except for a few references to ‘posh’ or ‘rich’ women. In Elizabeth Frazer’s (1989), Beverley Skeggs’ (1997) and Lisa McKenzie’s (2015) work, they also found that working-class individuals display an ‘unusual reluctance to speak’ about class. For these women, class can be more uncomfortable or more confusing than it is for middle classes who are ‘well practiced’ in the subject. But a small number of working-class women do make class references in relation to their own dress, and though their laughter perhaps indicates their uneasiness in discussing class, their discussion nevertheless highlights their awareness of class evaluations being made on the basis of dress.   JOY:  

Oh yeah, I think I was a bit of a pikey. Serious orange spray tan, big long talons. . . [laughs]. [Aged 19, Fast-Food Restaurant Worker (PT)]  RUTH:   I like tarty clothes sometimes, short, low and very tight! [laughs] [Aged 45, PA]   Though middle-class participants talked much more openly about class, in indirect ways, there was still some degree of uneasiness with the subject, as these women were aware that their remarks are often quite derogatory, and they expressed their concerns over being ‘snobby’ or unkind. Embarrassed by

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their comments, towards the end of their interview they often offered some qualifications or amendments to their earlier statements, in a bid to contextualise or justify their attitudes and judgements. Grace, for example, offered a caveat to her impending remarks, noting that her judgements were stereotypical, and that she was probably subject to class evaluations herself.  It’s so fraught with stereotypes isn’t it, but I have to admit that when we drive to work, we pass a group of women, and it seems to be a uniform of pale grey sweatshirt-y tops and bottoms and tops are riding up, and there is usually a tattoo of something on their back, with their tits hanging out . . . it is where we are going through a particularly deprived area. I wouldn’t like to say a certain social class, but I think it’s to do with certain economic reasons. . . . I mean they probably think that I look stuck up or something. [Aged 56, University Services Manager] 

GRACE: 

Though there were signs of embarrassment or awkwardness, statements made by all the women were at times very frank. Though a significant amount of class literature talks of participants being vague or ambiguous, several participants spoke quite candidly about the class judgements that they make or how they felt positioned by class. Moreover, when asked to identify their own class position, like Kerry Griffiths (2015), most of the middle-class participants’ answers were unambiguous, drawing on education experiences, home ownership and occupation as the basis for their class location, as well as using their taste and fashion practice as a means of class distancing.   KA:   If you had to put yourself in a class, which would JULIA:   Oh, middle-class.  KA:   Why do you say that?  JULIA:   Possibly aspirations, . . . wanting a child to go

it be? 

to university or having the kind of job or money that I’m earning puts me more in that bracket, . . . the house, having been to university. [Aged 35, Business Analyst] 

Although the majority of working-class participants were able to classify themselves on the basis of their education, income or housing, for Yvonne, Lisa and Trisha it was more difficult to articulate a specific class identity, but they were able to position themselves in relation to others, in a similar way to McKenzie’s participants (2015), ‘at the bottom’ or as at the opposite end of rich or posh.   KELLY:  People

like me, we live on council estates, with loads of kids and families.  KA:   So if I asked you what class you were, what would you say?  KELLY:   Working-class. I think, yeah. . . . We’re not poor, we’re just, the money we have we live on it. We’re alright, I can go out at weekends, my mum

34  Women Talking Dirty

can go out, we can all do stuff but not every day. I do think that, some people who have loads of money and are quite posh . . . when they see people like myself they turn their nose up a bit because they think we don’t have much money. [Aged 18, Unemployed]  There was also less certainty in the responses of those who felt they had been socially mobile. For instance, Diane, Liz and Patricia all felt that they had come from ‘working-class backgrounds’, referring to their parents’ occupations or housing, but they now considered themselves to be middle-class because they had moved into professional occupations or because they owned their own home. Viviana felt that because she was at university, she was now middleclass, even though her father was a lorry driver and her mother a dinner lady.  LIZ: 

I grew up in a very working-class background. I then went to grammar school, so . . . I mixed with a lot of middle-class, what people would describe as middle-class people who owned their own homes, and I used to babysit for people and then I worked for a family that had their own business, so my background became very middle-class. Now I own my own house, I always owned my own properties, we have our own business . . . I’m middle-class. [Aged 41, Book-keeper] 

Again, these comments highlight the fuzzy or imprecise nature of social class and the ambiguity which arises with social mobility. For these women there had been significant changes in their economic capital, which signalled to them an important shift in their class location, a move up the social hierarchy. Yet, as I discuss in Chapters 5, 6 and 7, there is also a sense from their discussion that they do not feel they fully inhabit their new class position. They considered themselves middle-class but ‘from a working-class background’, and that background was still very important in terms of their fashion practices and tastes, their cultural knowledge and understandings. Although their consumption practices and their clothing preferences had altered with their new economic and social capital, their dispositions and orientations, their workingclass habitus was still at play. Class then, is a very familiar concept, but it is one which is complex, challenging and changing. For both the academy and for my participants, it is an important aspect of identity mobilised through cultural practices and tastes. Indeed, fashion is an important medium through which class is mobilised. Fashion practices highlight the ways in which class encourages and cultivates differences in attitudes to fashion and understandings of taste, colour, fabrics and fit. Conversations about fashion emphasised the implicit and nuanced ways in which we discuss class, they exposed ways we experience class, they demonstrate the ways in which class is an ongoing process (Biressi and Nunn, 2013), and they revealed the ambiguity that exists around class boundaries.

Women Talking Dirty 35

Conclusion Though the relationship between fashion and class has rarely been fully considered in contemporary sociology within mainstream ordinary and everyday contexts, recent research which looks at fashion and class independently of each other reveals some stark similarities between the two phenomena. Obscure and imprecise, they are terms which are difficult to define and whose meaning can shift and change. They are both concerned with production, consumption, social identity and social values, and there is an anxiety which surrounds both terms as they are typically concerned with judgements of taste, respectability and with cultural knowledge and practice. Yet despite the uneasiness which surrounds the ‘f’ word and the ‘c’ word, both are very much part of British culture and form an important part of our ordinary and everyday lives. ‘In social and cultural terms there is perhaps no single issue that dominates the modern psyche as much as fashion and consumption’ (O’Cass and McEwen, 2004: 26), and equally social class appears to be one of the few sociological concepts which remains a persistent characteristic of British society. A typical feature of popular discourse, in British media, British politics and ordinary and everyday conversations, class operates as a convenient catch-all descriptor (Biressi and Nunn, 2013). Class labels convey an expectation in terms of an individual’s social practices and tastes, situating them in the social hierarchy, with fashion practice and tastes often functioning as the shorthand for these class judgements. An immediate and yet implicit vehicle for conversations of class, the clothes we wear, our attitudes and understanding of fashion and our consumer practices work to place us in relation to others, thereby classifying individuals while classifying ourselves. Yet, the important and routine role that fashion plays in ordinary and everyday class evaluations, and the way in which British women’s fashion tastes and practices are informed by class, is not something which academic research has fully considered yet. This book, therefore, looks to offer a greater insight into how the fashion‒class association operates daily for British women today, for as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, women’s ordinary, routine dress is an important way in which class evaluations and class distancing are mobilised while women’s own fashion choices are equally informed by their class identity and class history. As Chapters 5, 6 and 7 also demonstrate, however, the ways in which class influences and informs fashion practice is not straightforward, and the ways in which class is mobilised through dress is complex. Class identity, as this chapter has explained, is messy, and it intersects with other aspects of social life. As Chapters 5 and 7 demonstrate, it informs women’s perceptions of space, notions of femininity and understandings of motherhood, which in turn shape women’s everyday fashion practices, purchases and performance, and as Chapter 6 highlights, class also impacts on women’s consumer behaviour, not only in respect of what women can afford, but also the ways in which they consume fashion, and how and where they shop.

36  Women Talking Dirty

Moreover, as the following chapter discusses, the continually shifting nature of fashion does present some further challenges for understanding the class‒ fashion dynamic. Though class has been a key feature in traditional models of the fashion cycle, the rapid growth and pace of today’s fashion production and consumption, not to mention the expansion of the internet, has significantly changed fashion media and the ways in which fashion is bought and sold. Today, inspiration for fashionable styles, and notions of appropriate dress are plural and polycentric, and there can be countless trends operating at any one time. Yet, within this mix of fashion trends, fads and styles, patterns of consumption still operate, informed by different levels of capital, enabling class distinctions to still be made.

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Women Talking Dirty 37 Blumer, H. [1969] (1981) Fashion: From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection, in G. Sproles (ed.) Perspectives of Fashion, Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing Company. Bottero, W. (2004) Class Identities and the Identity of Class, Sociology, 38(5): 985–1003. Bourdieu, P. [1984] (1996) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bourdieu, P. (1986) The Forms of Capital, in J. G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, London: Greenwood Press. Bourdieu, P. (1987) What Makes Social Class? Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 22: 1–18. Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice, Cambridge: Polity. Bradley, H. (2014) Class Descriptors or Class Relations? Thoughts Towards a Critique of Savage et al., Sociology, 48(3): 429–436. Braverman, H. (1974) Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Derogation of Work in the Twentieth Century, New York and London: Monthly Review Press. Brewer, M., Muriel, A., Phillips, D. and Sibieta, L. (2009) Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2009, London: The Institute for Fiscal Studies. Brubaker, R. (1985) Rethinking Classical Theory, Theory and Society, 14(6): 745–775. Bull, A. (2019) Class, Control and Classical Music, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buroway, M. (2018) The Poverty of Philosophy: Marx Meets Bourdieu, in T. Medvetz and J. J. Sallaz (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Pierre Bourdieu, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Calhoun, C. (2003) Pierre Bourdieu, in G. Ritzer (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Major Contemporary Social Theorists, Oxford: Blackwell. Cannadine, D. [1998] (2000) Class in Britain, London: Penguin. Cole, S. (2012) [Temptis] The Story of Men’s Underwear, New York: Parkstone International. Collins, P. H. (1998) Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press. Collins, P. H. (2000) Black Feminist Thought Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edition, New York: Routledge. Collins, P. H. (2016) Intersectionality, Cambridge: Polity Press. Crane, D. (1999) Diffusion Models and Fashion: A Reassessment. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 566(1): 13–24. Crane, D. (2000) Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Crenshaw, K. (1991) Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, Stanford Law Review, 43(6): 1241–1299. Crewe, L. (2017) The Geographies of Fashion: Consumption, Space and Value, London: Bloomsbury, Academic. Crompton, R. (2000) Renewing Class Analysis, Oxford: Blackwell. Crompton, R. (2008) Class and Stratification, 3rd edition, Cambridge: Polity. Davis, A. (1981) Women, Race and Class, New York: Random House. Davis, F. (1994) Fashion, Culture, and Identity, London and Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Deeming, C. (2014) The Choice of the Necessary: Class, Tastes and Lifestyles, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 34(7): 438–454.

38  Women Talking Dirty Devine, F. (1997) Towards a Classless Society, in H. Jones (ed.) Towards a Classless Society, London: Routledge. Devine, F. and Savage, M. (2005) The Cultural Turn, Sociology and Class Analysis, in F. Devine, M. Savage, J. Scott and R. Crompton (eds.) Rethinking Class: Culture, Identities and Lifestyles, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dorling, D. (2014) Thinking About Class, Sociology, 48(3): 452–462. Edwards, T. (2011) Fashion in Focus: Concepts, Practices and Politics, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge. Entwistle, J. (2009) The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion: Markets and Value in Clothing and Modelling, 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Entwistle, J. (2015) The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Polity Press. Flugel, J. [1930] (2010) The Psychology of Clothes, in D. L. Purdy (ed.) The Rise of Fashion: A Reader, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press. Frazer, N. (1989) Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Freeman, H. (2014) Come on, Britain – It’s the 21st Century: Stop This Obsession with Social Class, The Guardian, Wednesday 26 November. Friedman, S. (2015) Comedy and Distinction, London: Sage. Giddens, A. [1973] (1981) The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies, London: Hutchinson. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity. Goffman, E. (1951) Symbols of Class Status, The British Journal of Sociology, 2(4): 294–304. Goffman, E. [1963] (1990) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gopaldas, A. and Fischer, E. (2012) Beyond Gender: Intersectionality, Culture, and Consumer Behavior, in C. Otnes and L. T. Zayer (eds.) Gender, Culture and Consumer Behaviour, New York and London: Routledge. Gorz, A. (1980) Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post-Industrial Socialism, London: Pluto. Griffiths, K. (2015) Femininity, Feminism and Recreational Pole Dancing, Abingdon: Routledge. Hayward, K. and Yar, M. (2006) The ‘Chav’ Phenomenon: Consumption, Media and the Construction of a New Underclass, Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 2(1): 9–28. Hebdige, D. [1979] (2002) Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Routledge. Hill, B. (2017) So How Do We Talk About Social Class? Language, Identity and the Expression of Class Judgements in British Culture, Paper presented at iMean Conference 2017. Hill, B. and Lai, A. L. (2016) Class Talk: Habitus and Class in Parental Narratives of School Choice, Journal of Marketing Management, 32(13–14): 1284–1307. Hill, D. (2018) Social Class and Education, in D. O’Neill and M. Wayne (eds.) Considering Class: Theory, Culture and the Media in the 21st Century, Leiden and Boston: Brill. Hines, T. and Bruce, M. (2006) Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, 2nd edition, Amsterdam and Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Women Talking Dirty 39 Hollander, A. (1980) Seeing Through Clothes, New York: Avon. hooks, b. (1982) Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Femininism, London: Pluto. Jefferson, T. [1975] (2000) Cultural Response to the Teds, in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds.) Resistance Through Rituals, London: Routledge. Jenkins, R. (1992) Pierre Bourdieu, London: Routledge. Jorgenson, J. [1991] (1995) Research Experience to Reflective Method, in F. Steiner (ed.) Research and Reflexivity, London: Sage. Kaiser, S. B. (2012) Fashion and Cultural Studies, London: Berg. Kawamura, Y. (2012) Fashioning Japanese Subcultures, London and New York: Berg. Kawamura, Y. (2016) Sneakers: Fashion, Gender, and Subculture, London and New York: Bloomsbury, Academic. Lawler, S. (2005a) Disgusted Subjects: The Making of Middle Class Identities, The Editorial Board of the Sociological Review, 2005: 429–446. Leopold, E. (1992) The Manufacture of the Fashion System, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds.) Chic Thrills, London: Pandora Press, pp. 101–117. Lewis, R. (2013) Modest Fashion: Styling Bodies, Mediating Faith, London: I.B. Tauris. Lockwood, D. (1958) The Blackcoated Worker: A Study in Class Consciousness, London: Allen & Unwin. McDowell, L. (2013) Social Class: Position, Place, Culture and Meaning, in N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein and J. Winders (eds.) The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. McKendrick, N., Brewer, J. and Plumb, J. H. (1982) The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of the Eighteenth Century, London: Europa Publications. McKenzie, L. (2015) Getting by: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain, Bristol: The Policy Press. Mills, C. (2014) The Great British Class Fiasco: A Comment on Savage et al., Sociology, 48(3): 437–444. Mizrahi, M. (2011) ‘Brazilian Jeans’: Materiality, Body and Seduction at a Rio de Janeiro Funk Ball, in D. Miller and Sophie Woodward (eds.) Global Denim, Oxford: Berg. O’Cass, A. and McEwen, H. (2004) Exploring Consumer Status and Conspicuous Consumption, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 4(1): 25–39. Omi, M. and Winant, H. (1986) Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s, New York: Routledge, and Kegan Paul. O’Neill, D. and Wayne, M. (2018) Considering Class: Theory, Culture and the Media in the 21st Century, Leiden: Brill. Pakulski, J. and Walters, M. (1996) The Death of Class, London: Sage. Partington, A. (1992) Popular Fashion and Working Class Affluence, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds.) Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: HarperCollins. Payne, G. (2013) Models of Contemporary Social Class: The Great British Class Survey, Methodological Innovations, 8(1): 3–17. Payne, G. and Grew, C. (2005) Unpacking ‘Class Ambivalence’: Some Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Accessing Class Cultures, Sociology, 39(5): 893–910. Peterson, R. A. (1993) Understanding Audience Segmentation: From Elite and Mass to Omnivore and Univore, Poetics, 21(1): 243–258. Peterson, R. A. and Kern, R. M. (1996) Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore, American Sociological Review, 61(5): 900–907.

40  Women Talking Dirty Polhemus, T. (1994) Streetstyle: from Sidewalk to Catwalk, London: Thames & Hudson. Polhemus, T. (2010a) Fashion and Anti-Fashion: Exploring Adornment and Dress from an Anthropological Perspective, Hastings: T. Polhemus. Polhemus, T. (2010b) Streetstyle, new edition, London: PYMCA. Poulantzas, N. (1975) Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, London: Verso. Rancière, J. (2006) The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, pbk. edition, London and New York: Continuum. Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes, Bristol: Policy Press. Renouf, A. (2007) Tracing Lexical Productivity and Creativity in the British Media: ‘The Chav and the Chav-Nots,’ in J. Munat (ed.) Lexical Creativity, Text and Context, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamin Publishing Co. Rocamora, A. (2002) Fields of Fashion: Critical Insights into Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture, Journal of Consumer Culture, 2(3): 341–362. Rocamora, A. and Smelik, A. (2015) Thinking Through Fashion: An Introduction, in A. Rocamora and A. Smelik (eds.) Thinking Through Fashion, London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Sapir, E. (1949) Culture, Language and Personality: Selected Essays, Berkeley: University of California Press. Savage, M. (2000) Class Analysis and Social Transformation, Buckingham: Open University Press. Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century, London: Pelican. Savage, M., Bagnall, G. and Longhurst, B. (2001) Ordinary, Ambivalent and Defensive, Sociology, 35(4): 875–892. Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Taylor, M., Li, Y., Hjellbrekke, J., Le Roux, B., Friedman, S. and Miles, A. (2013) A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment, Sociology, 47(2): 219–250. Sayer, A. (2002) ‘What Are You Worth?’ Why Class Is an Embarrassing Subject, Sociology Research Online, 7(3), www.socresonline.org.uk/7/3/sayer.html. Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Skeggs, B. (2004) Class, Self, Culture, London: Routledge. Skeggs, B. (2005) The Making of Class and Gender Through Visualizing Moral Subject Formation, Sociology, 39(5): 965–982. Smith, N. (2000) What Happened to Class? Environment and Planning A, 32: 1011–1032. Solomon, M. and Rabolt, N. R. [2004] (2009) Consumer Behaviour in Fashion, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pearson, Prentice Hall. Southerton, D. (2002) Boundaries of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, Sociology, 36(1): 171–190. Sproles, G. (1985) Behavioural Science Theories of Fashion, in M. R. Solomon (ed.) The Psychology of Fashion, Lexington, MA and Toronto: Lexington Books. Steele, V. (2010) The Berg Companion to Fashion, Oxford: Berg. Steele, V. (ed.) (2013) A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk, New York: Yale University Press. Tarlo, E. (2010) Visibly Muslim, London: Berg. Taylor, L. (2008) A Taste of Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices, Hampshire: Ashgate.

Women Talking Dirty 41 Tseëlon, E. (2001) Ontological, Epistemological and Methodological Clarifications in Fashion Research: From Critique to Empirical Suggestions, in A. Guy, E. Green and M. Banim (eds.) Through the Wardrobe, Oxford: Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Tseëlon, E. (2014) Fashion and Ethics, Bristol: Intellect. Twigg, J. (2013) Fashion and Age, London: Bloomsbury. Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance, London: Zed Books. Tyler, I. (2008) ‘Chav Mum, Chav Scum’: Class Disgust in Contemporary Britain, Feminist Media Studies, 8(1): 17–34. Urry, J. and Abercrombie, N. (1983) Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes, London: Allen & Unwin. Veblen, T. [1899] (1994) The Theory of the Leisure Class, New York and London: Dover, Constable. Verdès-Leroux, J. (2000) Deconstructing Pierre Bourdieu: Against Sociological Terrorism from the Left, New York: Algora Publishing. Weber, M. (1970) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Translated, edited with an introduction by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, London and Boston: Routledge and K. Paul. Weight, R. (2013) MOD: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Moment, London: The Bodley Head. Welters, L. and Lillethun, A. (2007) The Fashion Reader, English edition, Oxford: Berg. West, C. and Zimmerman, D. H. (1987) Doing Gender, Gender and Society, 1(2): 125–151. Wilson, E. (2003) Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London: I. B. Tauris. Wissinger, E. (2015) This Year’s Model: Fashion, Media, and the Making of Glamour, New York: New York University Press. Wright, E. O. (1976) Class Boundaries in Advanced Capitalist Societies, New Left Review, 98: 3–41.

Chapter 3

Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion The Relevance of Class in Contemporary Fashion Consumption

Introduction For classical theorists, class is central to understanding fashion. Georg Simmel argues that ‘fashion is a product of class distinction’ (Simmel, [1904] 1957: 544), and like Herbert Spencer ([1896] 2004), Ferdinand Tönnies ([1909] 2004) and Thorstein Veblen ([1899] 1994), Simmel maintains that the fashion cycle is fuelled by a desire for social mobility on the one hand and class distinction on the other.   Just as soon as lower classes begin to copy their style, thereby crossing the line of demarcation the upper classes have drawn and destroying the uniformity of their coherence, the upper classes turn away from this style and adopt a new one, which in turn differentiates them from the masses; and thus the game goes merrily on. (Simmel, [1904] 1957: 545)  Today the production and consumption of fashion is much more complex than this, however, and to suggest that fashion solely emanates from the upper classes or elites, or that fashion adoption is driven by social emulation, is far too simplistic an explanation. ‘Highly fragmented’, ‘diverse’ and ‘volatile’ (Leopold, 1992: 101), the contemporary fashion system encompasses an everextending web of individuals and organisations (Crane, 1999: 13, 2000; Braham, [1997] 2003; Davis, 1994; Entwistle, 2009, 2015; Twigg, 2013), resulting in fashion which takes inspiration from cultural practices, social experiences and political events across the global and social hierarchy. Plural and polycentric, fashion today emanates from a ‘multiplicity of sources’ (Crane, 2000: 135), and can bubble up from the street as easily as it can trickle down from elites (Polhemus, 1994). Moreover, the sudden explosion of the internet has made this system even more complex. Fashion blogs, social media and video streaming have opened up the fashion system by increasing opportunities for individuals to engage with fashion, fads, trends and styles, allowing the everyday consumer to

Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion 43

co-produce fashion media, by posting comments and uploading images. Fashion bloggers and vloggers have enabled ordinary individuals to become important mediators and cultural intermediaries (McQuarrie et al., 2012) alongside fashion editors, buyers, television personalities, celebrities and stars, offering opportunities for a greater representation of those women who do not fit the standardised beauty ideals. In recent years, the fashion industry has responded to this change with an increased diversity across fashion media, in terms of age, race, gender and disability, although there is still space for greater representation within the industry. Fashion advertising has become much more dynamic too, using films and multimedia platforms to communicate and engage with a global audience (Rees-Roberts, 2018).   Equally the globalisation of fashion production, and technological developments in manufacturing, have vastly accelerated the pace of fashion production and consumption (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006; Brooks, 2015; Crewe, 2017), with high-street retailers such as H&M, Zara and New Look able to produce up to 17 new ranges over the course of one year (Jackson and Shaw, 2008). Falling production costs and rising incomes have also meant that fashion has become more affordable and much more disposable, with clothes increasingly viewed as a throwaway item (Majima, 2008: 512), while advancements in online retailing, alongside the expansion of value-clothing retailers, supermarket collections and out-of-town shopping malls have served to further this democratisation, making fashion accessible to all.    These dramatic changes in both fashion production and consumption have significantly challenged traditional theories of fashion and class, and for some authors fashion consumption and tastes have become much more concerned with other forms of social identity, such as youth or gender (Crane, 2000). Yet, within the UK, associations between fashion and class are still evident in fashion press (Ellison, 2016; Hanson, 2015; Lewis, 2016), celebrity commentaries (Pearlman, 2006; Tyler and Bennett, 2010; Woods, 2014), make-over shows (McRobbie, 2004; Taylor, 2016), topical news articles (Beckett, 2009; Gold, 2018; Smyth, 2019) and academic literature. Although there is an acknowledgement across this literature that fashion styles have become more diverse and eclectic and that class has also become much more nuanced and complex, fashion is still an important and influential aspect of class evaluations, and still very much linked to notions of respectability (Griffiths, 2015;  Skeggs, 1997; Storr, 2003).    In this chapter I review traditional theories of fashion and evaluate their relevance for understanding fashion and class today. Noting the ways in which the fashion system and the fashion cycle have changed, the chapter considers how the fashion‒class relationship can continue to operate within this new pluralised and polycentric system. I start the chapter by considering the emergence of fashion and usefulness in differentiating social groups. This is a characteristic which has become a defining feature, as discussed in Chapter 2, and which is clearly demonstrated by the work on subcultures (Hebdige, [1979]

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2002; Kawamura, 2012). Moreover, it is a primary argument within many of the classical theories of fashion and class, which, as I discuss, view the fashion cycle as largely motivated by aspiration and a need for class distinction. As the following sections demonstrate, much has changed since the writing of the 1900s and, particularly in the last 20 years, the fashion world has been revolutionised by technological advances. These changes pose a significant challenge to classical works, but as I argue in the final sections of the chapter, this does not mean that the fashion‒class association is obsolete. Rather, it seems that within British society, fashion and class maintain an important symbiotic relationship, in which individuals’ fashion performances, attitudes and tastes are informed by class, while class is mobilised through fashion practice and discourse. The chapter is divided two key sections. In the first part, I explore the way in which fashion historically has operated as a mode of distinction, and the links made between fashion and class by classical theorists such as Georg Simmel ([1904] 1957) and Thorstein Veblen ([1899] 1994). For these theorists, class was the main driver of the fashion cycle, with the fashions of the elite subject to emulation by lower classes. Though these models of fashion consumption are too simplistic an explanation of the fashion system today, and perhaps even for the fashion cycle of the time, the idea that imitation, if not emulation, plays an important role in fashion is still relevant. This is evident, as I discuss, in collaborations between high-street retailers and luxury fashion designers and in the sale of counterfeit goods. The second part of the chapter considers how the fashion industry has changed and developed, resulting in a much more pluralistic, polycentric, democratised fashion system in the new digital age. The diversity in fashion styles and fashion media poses challenges to the traditional understandings of fashion class as it suggests that individuals across the social hierarchy are able to engage with fashion, and that their tastes and practices are increasingly eclectic, and raises questions as to how class distinctions can continue to operate. Yet as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, class continues to shape and inform women’s understandings of social space, femininity and motherhood, and as a result, there are important differences in their fashion practice and perceptions of taste. Anxieties about class identity and a desire for class distancing means that particular fashion tastes or styles are perceived as class markers.

Fashion: A Means of Distinction As discussed in Chapter 2, defining fashion is difficult. A complex and messy concept, fashion is synonymous with clothing but also relates to many other forms of consumption. One of its defining features is its ability to unite and divide social groups. Fashion creates a sense of group identity and belonging, and simultaneously establishes a visual boundary, separating one community from another. This ability to unite and divide has been an essential

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characteristic from fashion’s beginning and is one of the key reasons it has historically been linked to class distinction.   According to Gilles Lipovetsky, although fashion ‘as we understand it today’ did not emerge ‘until the latter half of the nineteenth century’ (1994: 55), some form of fashionable consumption is evident from as early as the Middle Ages. Cloth trading can be traced back to the thirteenth century (Mukerji, 1983), and evidence suggests that from the fourteenth century fashionable consumption was certainly taking place within European Courts, first in Italy, France and Spain, and later England, under Henry VIII and more noticeably Elizabeth I (Brenninkmeyer, 1963; Breward, 1995; Lipovetsky, 1994). At this time fashion became ‘an indicator of class status and . . . Court privilege’ (Kawamura, 2005: 5), and was ‘restricted to a small group of elite men and women who had the resources to invest in heavy, ornate garments made from costly silks and gold and silver brocade’ (Jones, 1996: 30). In comparison, members of the poorest classes wore the cheapest materials such as bluett, russet and blanket cloth (Wilson, 2003: 22). Thus, from its inception, fashion operated as a mark of distinction, used to differentiate the aristocracy and the elite from the masses. Any possible emulation posed a threat to the Courts’ exclusivity, and consequently Sumptuary Laws, enacted across Europe from the 1300s, served to regulate what people outside the Court could, and could not, wear. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that fashion’s ability to mark out status and communicate social identity really came into its own. Between 1760 and 1840 Britain experienced an Industrial Revolution, as developments in trade and industry, alongside improvements in transport and communications, propelled the country into a modern and capitalist era. Increased commerce and competition between trading companies meant that there was a far wider variety of goods available to a growing population, and ‘new production and marketing techniques’ alongside an ‘eruption of new prosperity’ meant large sections of society were now able to participate in various forms of consumption (McKendrick et al., 1982: 9). Indeed, some authors suggest that this growth in consumption was so significant, it amounted to a ‘consumer revolution’, as enthusiasm for fashion and commodities intensified across all sectors of society (Agnew, 1993; Breward, 1995; Campbell, [1987] 2005; McKendrick et al., 1982; Vickery, 1993; Weatherill, 1993; Wilson, 2003). With advancements in mechanisation, such as mechanical looms, this increased demand could be met easily, and with the development of the railways in the late 1700s and the mass circulation of newspapers and magazines, the growing demand for fashion was fuelled still further. Trading cards, newspapers, magazines and fashion dolls were keenly disseminated amongst the ‘previously fashion-starved’ classes (McKendrick et al., 1982: 71), and demand for fashionable trends, cuts and styles intensified amongst a far wider audience (Agnew, 1993; Bell, [1947] 1976; Breward, 1995). This growth in consumerism was not simply the result of a greater availability of goods, mass media or higher wages. Indeed, Eric Jones (1973 cited

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in Shammas, 1993) argues that when people experience an increase in income, they are much more likely to save rather than to spend and some groups, such as Yeoman, had been in a position to engage in consumption for some time, yet only now felt obliged to do so (Campbell, [1987] 2005). Consequently, authors suggest that some form of cultural or social change brought about a ‘new moral attitude to consumer spending’ (Thrisk, 1978: 23), and for Neil McKendrick et al. (1982), this social change was the development of a new class structure and an emerging middle-class, keen to achieve greater social status and differentiate themselves from lower-class groups.  For this social group, fashion was a useful tool for displaying wealth and social status, as ‘our apparel is always in evidence and affords an indication of our pecuniary standing to all observers at first glance’ (Veblen, [1899] 1994: 103). Wearing fashionable items and buying consumer goods was a way of gaining status and upward social mobility, and as a result, ‘nearly everyone was prepared to spend a large part of [their income] “keeping up with the Joneses” ’ (Perkins, 1968: 96–97). Public displays of wealth and status through commodities such as pottery and silverware, as well as personal items such as gloves and watches, became much more frequent and as family incomes rose, so too did their social expectations. Middle classes were increasingly engaged in forms of ‘social imitation, social emulation and emulative spending’ (McKendrick et al., 1982: 53), forcing the elite to move to subtleties of cut and detail in order to maintain a distinction (Corrigan, 1997: 164; Kuchta, 1996: 62).    As mass production revolutionised, with the introduction of steam-powered machinery for both weaving and spinning, the growth in consumerism accelerated and fashion experienced its very own ‘metamorphosis’ (Wilson, 2003: 27). By 1830 Britain and France were producing ready-to-wear clothing for the average British worker, and by 1840 watches and shoes were also being mass produced (Sennett, [1986] 2002: 162). The introduction of the sewing machine and cutting machine, in the following decade, further increased the speed and level of production, and by 1890 there had been a dramatic expansion in the number of clothing factories across the UK (Craik, [1993] 1998: 206; Wilson, 2003: 75). Alongside increased mass production there was also increased demand for bespoke tailoring and fine needlework, and in France the first modern dress designer, Charles Fredrick Worth, was establishing himself within the court of Napoleon III and the socially mobile society of the Second Empire (Wilson, 2003: 32). Aware that their clothing at social gatherings and events would have to withstand the closest scrutiny, Worth’s customers were particularly concerned about the style and technical detail of the garments, conscious that social success depended on their look and personality. In Britain, clothing amongst the middle and upper classes was also increasingly used to convey an individual’s pursuits and character, with morning gowns, tea gowns and dinner gowns, travelling dresses, walking dresses and dresses for the country,

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reflecting the variety of bourgeois life (Bell, [1947] 1976; Crane, 2000: 87; Wilson, 2003, 1990). This style was most clearly articulated by the Dandy, who used his dress to communicate an ‘aristocratic superiority of mind’ (Baudelaire, [1863] 2004: 194). Sober in colour and style, his understated appearance suggested a blasé attitude toward luxury, and yet simultaneously expressed a level of wealth and class, demonstrated by his participation in various forms of ‘conspicuous leisure’ (Veblen, [1899] 1994). But as new machinery allowed dressmakers of the middle classes to copy couturiers’ designs (Craik, [1993] 1998: 206; Sennett, [1986] 2002: 162), differences between upper-class and middle-class dress were becoming much more slight, and subtle differences, such as decorative lace frills or the cleanliness of items, became crucial markers of class status (Laver, 1969; Sennett, [1986] 2002: 162–166).   Fashion Adoption: Class Distinction, Emulation and Imitation With fashion history, up until the twentieth century at least, so much related to class distinction, it is unsurprising that class has played a central role in traditional fashion theories. Typically arguing that fashion emanates from the upper classes, classic theorists Simmel ([1904] 1957) and Veblen ([1899] 1994) suggest that fashion works to unite this group and simultaneously differentiate them from all others. When fashion is subject to emulation by those lower down the social hierarchy, who ‘look and strive’ towards them (Simmel [1904] 1957: 545), this class distinction is compromised, and as a result the ‘higher set throw aside a fashion the moment a lower set adopts it’ (556). Appropriating a new fashion in order to re-establish a class boundary means that the upper class then cause the cycle to begin once again, with both fashion change and fashion adoption being continually driven by class dynamics.   In contemporary publications this model of fashion adoption is often referred to as the ‘trickle down theory’, a phrase borrowed from an economic principle which implies that wealth accumulated at the top filters down the social system. First applied to fashion by Harper’s Bazaar in 1949 (Barber and Lobel, 1952), this metaphor is somewhat misleading, as classical works actually suggest that the fashion cycle is actively driven by the lower social classes’ desire for social mobility, rather than upper-class fashions permeating down. Indeed, Grant McCracken proposes the metaphor ‘flight and chase’ as a more fitting alternative, better capturing the way in which lower social classes ‘hunt’ upperclass styles and the ‘upward movement . . . that drives this system of diffusion onward’ ([1988]1990: 94).    For Veblen it is not only the fashion of the upper class which operates as a means of class distinction, however. Dressing fashionably also demonstrates the elite’s ability to ‘consume freely and uneconomically’ ([1899] 1994: 103), wearing clothes which go far beyond any basic needs, and disposing of clothing

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and adopting new fashions without any concerns over the cost. ‘Conspicuously wasteful’ and ‘conspicuously up-to-date’ fashionable dress, he suggests, allows the ‘leisure class’ to ‘make plain to all observers that the wearer is not involved in any forms of productive labour’ ([1899] 1994: 103), and this is further communicated through the restrictive and inconvenient nature of fashionable styles which render any physical work almost impossible. Indeed, he suggests that part of the charm and elegance of fashionable clothing comes from its ability to communicate an individual’s freedom to consume and not produce, and thus any indication that the wearer is involved in manual labour, such as dirt or wear on their clothing, damages and destroys the status of the individual.    Moreover, though imitations of fashionable goods may provide individuals with the latest fashionable styles, Veblen ([1899] 1994) and Werner Sombart ([1902] 2004: 315) argue that class superiority is further established through the authenticity of these goods, as genuine items will typically cost much more. Authenticity conveys wealth, and even though imitations may not differ in colour or cut and can even ‘defy the closest scrutiny’, it is ‘with few and inconsequential exceptions’ that imitations are viewed with some disdain once they have been detected (Veblen, [1899] 1994: 104). That said, Veblen does suggest that the rate at which the counterfeit is devalued will reflect its relative cost, and although all imitations are less honorific than the original article, some imitations are better than others.   Fashion Imitation: Counterfeiting and Copying Though much about these emulation theories has been discredited in recent years, with many authors questioning the somewhat crude understanding of fashion cycles and the heavy emphasis on social class, there does still appear to be some relevance in Veblen’s observations concerning conspicuous consumption, authenticity and imitation. Certainly, academic research focused on the consumption of luxury and counterfeit goods has suggested that in a global context high-cost designer fashions operate as a form of conspicuous consumption and are used by individuals to convey wealth, success and status (Barnes and Lea Greenwood, 2018; O’Cass and McEwen, 2004). Though the purchase of imitations may be motivated by a range of factors, individuals may be inclined to consumer counterfeits because designer labels bring a level of prestige (Wee, et al. 1995), and it seems no coincidence that the brands most likely to be counterfeited are also some of the most expensive, including Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry, Tiffany, Prada, Hermes, Chanel, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Cartier (Crewe, 2017). At the very least, these goods generate a higher level of esteem amongst an individual’s peers but without carrying such a high price tag. Although these items are still often relatively expensive in comparison with high-street labels, they allow individuals greater opportunities to participate in fashion, trends and styles (Large, 2011). As Veblen suggests, however, there is still a much greater desire and preference for the

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genuine article and thus, the closer the imitation is to the authentic item, the more value and prestige it has.   The problem of counterfeiting is just one way in which imitation is still evident within the fashion system, and across the fashion industry the copying of celebrity styles and catwalk designs is commonplace (Church Gibson, 2012; Kim and Karpova, 2010; Large, 2018). Writing about fashion acceptance, Jennifer Yurchisin and Kim Johnson (2010: 3) argue that imitation is a fundamental aspect of the fashion system, as individuals look to other members of a social group and decide whether to accept and adopt their ways of dressing or behaving. This is perpetuated still further by fashion magazines, bloggers, vloggers and other forms of social media, which offer advice on how to recreate celebrity style and fashion trends, and further encouraged by fashion houses who rely on high-street stores imitating their designs in order to popularise their styles and label.     As Diane Crane (1999, 2000) notes, women learn about fashion through fashion magazines, catalogues and watching other women, and they often copy what they see. Indeed in this research, as discussed in Chapter 6, there is evidence of imitation in many elements of women’s fashion practice, particularly amongst working-class participants, as they look to replicate the styles they have seen in fashion magazines, catalogues and high-street stores, keen to keep up with the latest fashion trends. For these women the buying of counterfeit designer items is also seen as a way of engaging with fashion and wearing something which communicates a level of exclusivity and thus affords them a level of status and prestige. Viewed by their peers as indicative of fashion knowledge and good taste, wearing designer fashions, even if imitations, gives these women a sense of value in the way that Lisa McKenzie (2015: 110) suggests amongst their contemporaries, bolstering their self-esteem and self-worth in a society which continually pathologises them. Unsurprisingly however, amongst the more middle-class women, there is greater evidence of resisting fashion trends in a bid to distance and differentiate themselves from other social groups, and for these women counterfeit items are viewed with much greater disdain and often linked to discussions of ‘chavs’. Associated with working classness and described as ‘tacky’ and ‘cheap’, ‘fake’ goods are set in opposition to ‘genuine’, ‘real’ and ‘natural’ styles, which are favoured by middle-class women in their quest for quality, authenticity and respectability.    While imitation may be evident across the fashion system, however, this does not mean that the fashion cycle is driven solely by class or by social emulation. For authors like Colin Campbell, one of the key criticisms of traditional works is that they focus too heavily on conspicuous consumption and invidious comparison as the primary motivators for individuals’ consumption. Social emulation may involve imitation, but it also suggests that individuals copy fashion styles because they seek to equal or surpass the status and prestige of another. For Campbell this keen focus on social status means that classical theorists fail to understand the ‘full complexity’ of consumption, as they overlook the ways

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in which consumption practice is used to create and secure social relationships and similarly neglect the range of symbolic meanings which objects may carry (1993: 50). Fashion and other commodities are not just concerned with class, they are used to construct and communicate a whole range of self-and-social identities, including gender, race, religion, age and lifestyle (Davis, 1994; Paterson, 2005), and these attributes can shift and change across time and space, informing and influencing the ways in which we consume. Added to this, our consumption also operates on a social level. Imbued with symbolic meaning, commodities help individuals form social relationships (Douglas and Isherwood, [1979] 1996), for it is through ‘acquiring, using and exchanging things that individuals come to have social lives’ (Lury, 2011: 14). While some items may be consumed because they are conspicuously expensive and because they confer wealth and status (Lewis and Moital, 2016), some may simply be desired ‘for their own sake, rather than for any prestige which may be attached to them’ (Campbell, [1987] 2005: 40).    The complex and nuanced nature of the fashion‒class relationship is evident then, even from its inception, and when it comes to understanding contemporary production and consumption then, these traditional theories certainly fall short. In fact, even in the context of the consumer revolution, serious questions have been raised over the extent to which class distinction or social emulation was ever really evident. Using probate inventories dating back to the eighteenth century, Lorna Weatherill (1993, 1996) claims that although consumption increased at this time, particularly amongst the middle-class, evidence does not wholly support a theory of emulation. At this point, the new middle-class was made up of various social groups, including gentry, yeoman, tradesmen, shopkeepers and merchants, and although it did not have a definite hierarchy, it was generally agreed that gentry and yeoman had the greatest esteem. Had fashion adoption operated in the way that traditional theories suggest, these two groups would have demonstrated the highest degree of conspicuous consumption, keen to assert their class status. Yet, decorative goods and luxuries are actually highest amongst the tradesmen and craftsmen. Pictures, mirrors, ornaments and saucepans are regularly featured in tradesmen’s inventories, and though yeomen appear to own a greater amount of china, the number of items for public display are far less than those in lower-status groups (1996: 196). Moreover, with respect to the gentry, evidence would suggest that rather than emulating upper classes, this group looked to adopt several working-class fashion, including the frock coat, in their quest for sober clothing (Fine and Leopold, 1993; Cunnington and Cunnington, 1972).    Ben Fine and Ellen Leopold (1993) also firmly deny that there was a ‘progressive broadening’ of purchasing power across all class groups, and suggest that it seems highly unlikely that domestic servants or housemaids could have afforded to have even a single dress made, let alone continually update their wardrobes. Low incomes meant that ‘they could not have possibly contributed to any growth in the effective demand for new fashion goods’ (Fine and

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Leopold, 1993: 125), and even if the lower classes had experienced greater prosperity, it seems far more likely that they would have saved this additional income or spent it on leisure activities (Perkins, 1968). ‘Emulative spending emanating from below stairs appears highly improbable’ (Fine and Leopold, 1993: 125), and instances of maids emulating their mistresses are far more likely to be examples of vicarious consumption or livery (Hecht, 1956).    Indeed, Fine and Leopold note that servants’ clothes were often selected and purchased by their employers and were frequently subject to their mistresses’ approval (1993: 125). The more a servant was exposed to public life, the more likely it would be that her dress would have been chosen by the household, and many servants received cast-offs or were bequeathed dresses previously owned by their employers (282). The dress of these individuals then, often reflected the preferences and practices of the household that they worked for, rather than their own personal tastes (125), and while the thriving second-hand market of the eighteenth century does ‘lend weight’ to the ideas of emulation, this can equally be understood in terms of gaining value for money, with many ‘almostnew’ goods being sold at very low prices.   For Campbell (1993: 43), the notion that fashions were consumed in order to construct and convey a ‘specific character ideal’ in the form of either the sensible, the aristocratic or the romantic is a much more compelling idea. The sensible ideal was a person susceptible to emotions with a moral basis, who indicated his position by appreciating all things ‘beautiful’. Failure to do so would be indicative of ‘bad taste’ and thus ‘bad morals’, and consequently those who saw themselves within this character ideal were keen to consume all items that were advertised as in good taste (1993: 49). Conversely the aristocratic ideal was proud, independent, accomplished and increasingly hedonistic, participating in heavy drinking, gambling and womanising. Examples included Dandies, who were a small and exclusive group of men who often borrowed money in order to go drinking or to the theatre. Their dress was perfect yet understated, symbolising their preference for subtleties of taste and refinement, and exclusive or elitist qualities. Finally, the romantics enjoyed the novel and strange. They were interested in poetry and music, but like the Dandies, they did not necessarily have the money to maintain an extravagant lifestyle, and so borrowed money in order to buy books, art, music and clothes. In each case, then, their consumption was not motivated by emulation or a desire for social advancement, but by the desire to adopt a particular identity or character. This is an argument which can extended still further, when exploring the consumption practices of today. However, Campbell’s model does suggest that fashion still operated as a means of distinction, as different characters had differing tastes and fashion styles. As Chapter 6 reveals, there appear to be crucial differences in women’s attitudes to fashion, fashion tastes and fashion buying that operate along class lines. Moreover, the suggestion that fashion is read as indicative of an individual’s moral character is also an important aspect of the fashion‒class dynamic, for, as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5, fashion is

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an important tool in establishing respectability, as individual’s outward appearances are read as indicative of their true nature. Contemporary Fashion Systems: Pluralist, Polycentric and Personal When the ‘trickle down’ model is applied to contemporary fashion production and consumption, however, it faces strong criticisms, due largely to the growing complexity of today’s fashion system. While there may have been some support for the top-down model in Western societies up until as recently as the 1960s (Crane, 1999: 15), the contemporary fashion industry has expanded significantly and is now an extensive global community. Made up of fashion students, designers, design houses, tailors, seamstresses, models, photographers, editors, journalists, advertising agencies, distributors, fashion buyers, forecasters, shops and consumers (Entwistle, 2015), today’s fashion industry supports 880,000 jobs in the UK alone (British Fashion Council, 2017), and contributes £28 billion to the UK economy (British Fashion Council, 2017). Worldwide, an estimated 60 million people are employed in textiles and clothing, and 6% of all world consumption is spent on apparel (Godart, 2012).   Developments in technology since the 1990s have had a marked impact on the fashion industry. The rise of the internet and the outsourcing of manufacturing to countries with cheap labour, mostly in Asia, have revolutionised fashion production and consumption. Online newspapers, magazines, catalogues, fashion houses and retail stores allow consumers to learn about new trends quickly and easily, and to share their fashion knowledge across the globe. Advances in production, distribution and communications technologies have enabled fastfashion retailers to respond to this growing consumer demand, producing new fashions at an accelerated pace and at affordable prices (Kim et al., 2011). In fact, the growth of ‘value’ fast-fashion stores such as Primark, H&M and Zara, since the mid-1990s, has potentially been one of the most remarkable features of the new fashion landscape (Crewe, 2017). Though it has always been true that the ‘essence of fashion’ lies in its endless need to change and update (Bell, [1947] 1976; Simmel, [1904] 1957), the speed at which today’s fashion can change means ‘a new fashion may well have difficulty in surviving for a season, let alone for several seasons’ (Braham, [1997] 2003: 131). Indeed, with new trends moving from the design stage to the shop floor within a matter of weeks, Liz Barnes and Gaynor Lea-Greenwood (2006) suggest there can be up to 20 ‘seasons’ a year. In such a fast-moving system, Charles W. King ([1963] 1981: 33) suggests the ‘lag time for vertical flow of fashion adoption at the consumer level is almost non-existent’, and given how fast fashion changes now, this is true even more of the fashion cycle today. Moreover, the globalised nature of fashion means that there is even greater opportunity for fashion diversity, shaped by world events, social movements, and cultural and political change (Kim et al., 2011). Although the sector may

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still be dominated by four traditional fashion capitals: Paris, London, New York and Milan (Mendes and Rees-Robert, 2013), newly emerging fashion cities such as Los Angeles, São Paulo, Tokyo, Antwerp, Beijing and Mumbai are gradually exercising their stylistic influence on the rest of the world (Godart, 2012). And with so many different countries and continents producing new designs, ‘there is often little consensus’ over the direction in which fashion is heading (Crane, 2000: 161). Today, there are over 150 Fashion Weeks worldwide (Godart, 2012; Parcerisa, 2018), and while only a few receive global media interest, a much greater number are asserting their influence at a local level and providing inspiration and ideas for global brands.   For brands and retailers to be successful in this competitive and expanding market then, their fashions need to first capture the developing tastes of a global population, typically circulating in popular music, television and film, and then use this same popular culture to mobilise and democratise their own fashion designs. Programmes such as Sex and the City, for example, have played a fundamental role in publicising brands such as Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik, while simultaneously influencing the production of new fashions (König, 2007: 301). Equally, magazines such as Grazia, Look and Glamour, and makeover shows such as What Not to Wear, How to Look Good Naked and Gok’s Fashion Fix have significantly increased consumer knowledge of fashionable styles and catwalk trends. The overall effect has been a growth in demand, as women have looked to regularly update their wardrobes, often imitating celebrity styles (Church Gibson, 2012), sparking the creation of online retailers such as ASOS, which was initially devised to produce fashions ‘As Seen On Screen’.   Twenty years on and the internet has transformed fashion consumption in ways which are unprecedented, creating a portable, virtual fashion space, which enables consumers to engage much more closely with fashion events and fashion discourse, and even provides opportunities for consumers to co-design fashionable goods (Crewe, 2017: 129). Alongside traditional media formats, brand campaigns and advertising, fashion trends are increasingly transmitted by ‘word of mouse’ (Marciniak and Bruce, [2001] 2007: 303) via social media, notice boards, blogs and online stores. Fashion imaging has expanded to include ‘podcasts, websites, sound works, online magazines’, with fashion shows regularly supported by online experiences and streaming via YouTube, Facebook and specialist websites. And all of this is now available on the move, via mobile phones, tablets and apps (Shinkle, 2013: 175). Search engines and databases have enabled individuals to hunt for detailed information on fashion trends and events, and to consume fashion styles quickly and easily, while online retailing has expanded the market far beyond any physical geographic boundaries, while largely concealing its global production and complex supply chain in the process (Crewe, 2017).   In fact, ‘fashion e-tailing’ is becoming more and more popular, and despite ‘continued speculation over the ability to sell clothes online, the volume of

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sales of clothing and footwear sold via the internet has grown steadily’ (Marciniak and Bruce, 2007: 259). In 2017, British consumers spent £16.2 billion on online sales of clothing, fashion accessories and footwear, and since 2012 the online fashion market has doubled in value, with online fashion sales increasing to 24% of the total fashion spend for 2017 (Capecchi, 2017). All of this puts mounting pressure on high-street stores, who are forced to adapt as they struggle to compete with online retailers, the UK having witnessed the closure of several fashion chains, such as BHS, in recent years (Butler, 2018).   Even the luxury fashion market has had to adjust to this new fashion hinterland, creating new shopping experiences or ‘brandscapes’ within their flagship stores, launching new apps and finding new ways to retain their exclusivity while catering for a wider social audience (Cecilio, 2015). From the wealthy aristocracy to the avant-garde, celebrities to mainstream consumers, luxury fashion brands are having to diversify and produce an array of designs, which on the one hand are highly conformist and on the other hand are ‘so highly coded that they are not easily understood by the general public’ (Crane, 1999, 2000: 162). This diversity means that luxury fashion no longer simply represents the styles worn by the upper classes, and although an elite may influence how trends or tastes develop, rarely is it expected that these fashions will be adopted by the mass public.    In fact, rather than widespread mass adoption, it is much more likely that ‘some designers develop cult followings among very specific segments of the upper and upper middle-class’ (Crane, 1999: 20), and others may be appropriated by working-class subcultures, such as the chav’s adoption of Burberry tartan (De La Haye and Dingwall, 1996; Martin, 2009). Equally, some designers may develop subtle tendencies within more mainstream industrial fashion production and high-street clothing. In fact, Peter Braham ([1997] 2003) argues that couture fashion houses are still an important influence on ready-to-wear collections, and for those owned by multimillion-dollar corporations, it is even more important that their designs are ‘popular and simple enough to be easily translated into mass produced high-street designs’ (Entwistle, 2015: 199). In recent years several luxury designers have looked to produce collaborative range with high-street stores, such as Jimmy Choo and H&M, or to co-brand, as is the case with Jasper Conran at Debenhams, blurring the lines between luxury and mainstream fashion and high and low culture still further.   Although some fashion trends or tendencies may still emerge out of luxury fashion designs at the top of the status hierarchy, contemporary fashion innovators can equally be found at the lower end of the social scale. The ‘bubble up’ model suggests that widely accepted fashions can be generated out of lower socio-economic groups, particularly youth-and-music subcultures (Blumer, [1969] 1981; Davis, 1994; Polhemus, 1994). The process starts with a genuine street-style innovation (Polhemus, 1994), either started by middleclass strata such as homosexual and artistic groups (Crane, 1999: 15) or more typically created by adolescents or young adults within a subculture. Through

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media coverage such as music videos and magazine articles, or more commonly now, fashion blogs and social media, these fashion innovations are picked up by others in different cities and countries around the world. As their popularity flourishes, they are adopted by increasing sections of the population, and eventually they work their way into the collections of top fashion designers. As a result, ‘styles which start life on the street corner have a way of ending up on the backs of top models on the world’s most prestigious fashion catwalks’ (Polhemus, 1994: 8), and items which were once subcultural emblems, such as the Bronx leather jacket, become mainstream fashionable alternatives for all (11–12). Though evidence of bubble-up fashion can be found through the midtwentieth century and even in the nineteenth century, the expansion of the internet and fashion blogging has certainly increased the opportunities for street styles to bubble up and become mainstream. As already discussed, fashion blogs, vlogs and other forms of user-generated content contribute significantly to contemporary fashion media and discourse, enabling ordinary and everyday individuals to rise up and join the fashion elite. Susie Lau aka Susie Bubble, Zoe Sugg aka Zoella and Bryan Yambao aka Bryanboy, for instance, have all managed to carve out successful careers in fashion blogging, joining the likes of Anna Wintour on the front row of exclusive fashion shows (Crewe, 2013; Luvaas, 2016). Through online media these individuals are able to challenge the authority of fashion producers and well-established fashion intermediaries, offering new interpretations and representations of fashion which subvert and resist advertising campaigns and brand messages.   Together, all of these developments pose a significant challenge to traditional fashion theories, and particularly the top-down element of these classic models. In today’s dynamic and diverse fashion industry the idea that all fashion emanates from one small elitist group and becomes mainstream via a process of emulation seems largely unworkable. Today’s fashion is much more pluralised and polycentric than the trickle-down model would suggest (Braham, [1997] 2003; Davis, 1994). Fashion innovation does not simply exist within upper classes, or even couture fashion houses, and it is no longer centrally located, or controlled, and then diffused out to the periphery or down the social hierarchy (Polhemus and Procter, 1978: 16). Contemporary fashion is global, local and technological, fashion leaders sit across all sections of society, and there are ‘multiple fashion systems in which fashion moves up, down and along from a variety of starting positions and in several directions’ (Braham, [1997] 2003: 145).   Moreover, with the expansion of the fashion industry, these fashion innovations are increasingly mediated by a great variety of organisations and departments – from fashion designers to fashion editors, buyers and advertisers (Braham, [1997] 2003: 134; Blumer, [1969] 1981; Entwistle and Rocamora, 2006). Fashion ‘selection’ then, is not simply a reflection of upper-class tastes but a ‘collective selection’. It involves a holistic approach across the fashion

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world to select styles which marry with social and cultural attitudes and developing tastes within a locality (Blumer, [1969] 1981: 52). Fashion styles need to complement the ‘incipient taste of the fashion consuming public’ (Blumer, [1969] 1981: 52), but ultimately fashions at any one time are diverse and heterogenous, and ‘consumers can select from a wide range of current and classic designs and still be entirely “in fashion” regardless of the particular selection’ they make (King, [1963] 1981: 118). Fashion is adopted because it is considered fashionable (Blumer, [1969] 1981: 52), and its appropriation is a matter of ‘personal choice’ (Polhemus and Procter, 1978: 16).  Today’s fashion then, is concerned not only with class; it is about age, sex, race, religion, sexuality, political affiliation and many other aspects of social identity, personality and one’s own sense of self (Crane, 1999: 18; Davis, 1994; Woodward, 2007). As Sophie Woodward (2007) argues, clothing enables women to construct social identities and enact certain personality traits. A woman’s sense of who she is and her place in the world is ‘enacted through the routine and everyday act of getting dressed’ (2007: 153), and women use fashion to extend their sense of self and ‘bring out’ particular aspects of their character. Clothing helps women to perform different social roles, for different audiences, and it can bring about behavioural and physical changes in the posture, stance and manner. Wearing make-up or a business suit, for example, can help ‘create a powerful, confident and in-control woman’ (2007: 21, 96), and fashion is therefore concerned with constructing a personality and social identity, which is concerned with much more than just class position.   Similarly, within subcultural work, it is evident that fashion can be used to create a spectacle and communicate a political message, and because it is so fast-paced, fashion is able to capture a political or cultural atmosphere and respond quickly. Whether it be the distinctive ‘tribal’ hair and make-up of Punks, the black velvet, lace and tightly laced corsets of Goths (Polhemus, 1994), or the bootlace ties and velvet-collared drape jackets of the Teddy Boys (Hebdige, [1979] 2002: 96), fashion is used to generate a sense of collective identity, and at the same time differentiation, just as Simmel ([1904] 1957) suggests. But these fashions also communicate a political attitude and mobilise a challenge to dominant values. The style of the Mods in the 1960s and 1970s, for example, was said to emanate from a desire to escape working-class life, their cool exterior exemplifying their blasé attitude to their immediate situation of low-paid work and poor social housing (Hebdige, [1979] 2002). The Punks of the 1970s arguably formed as a reaction against the ‘back to nature aesthetic and lovey-dovey principles of the Leftover Hippies’ (Polhemus, 1994: 90), their black leather, safety pins, metal studs and cut-ups and bondage representing the angry antithesis to the optimistic peace movement. And much more recently, academics have demonstrated the ways in which fashion is used by young Muslim women to challenge societal norms, parental cultures and a hostile political rhetoric, and to establish a religious, as opposed to an ethnic, identity (see Lewis, 2015; Tarlo, 2010).  

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Class and Fashion in Contemporary Contexts Although traditional theories of fashion and class may be outdated, and although contemporary fashion may be increasingly diverse and democratised, this does not mean that a relationship between fashion and class does not exist. Nor does it mean that these classical theories are totally obsolete. Recent research on social class indicates that class continues to inform our cultural practices and our perceptions of others, and clothing remains an important part of class judgements and class stereotypes (see, for example, Archer et al., 2007; McKenzie, 2015; Savage, 2015; Nayak and Kehily, 2014). Writing about class in the twenty-first century, Mike Savage (2015: 121–123) suggests that while people in ‘high class positions’ are often likely to distance themselves from notions of cultural snobbery, they still often judge others’ moral and social worth on the basis of lifestyle choices and tastes, and fashion is one of the ways in which the middle-class draw these distinctions. Sighting very overt logos and brand labels as ‘bad taste’, gaudy and naff, Savage’s work suggests that middle classes see those with a preference for branded clothing as ‘cultural dupes’, whose consumption is driven by media and advertising and who lack the skills and intelligence to make informed choices or fully appreciate more ‘highbrow’ culture.  As I discuss in Chapter 6, this cultural snobbery and class distancing in respect of fashion trends, designer labels and brand logos is also apparent in this research, with middle-class participants commonly classifying excessively branded clothing and accessories as ‘chavy’ and working-class. Eager to emphasise the autonomous, conscious and considered nature of their own purchases, these women were keen to distance themselves from clothing which they felt implied they were a ‘fashion victim’ or ‘fashion slave’, and generally considered themselves much less swayed by advertising or media than their working-class counterparts.   While fashion may be more democratised then, and more pluralised, these important distinctions in women’s fashion tastes and understandings of fashion operate as significant points of class difference and are used by women to classify others. That is not to say that class fashions are homogenous. Even Simmel acknowledges that within a social class there may be many different styles circulating, and he equally admits that fashion tastes are informed by individual character and personality as much as by social identity ([1904] 1957: 549). But nevertheless, individuals’ fashion practices and fashion choices are used in class evaluations, and class also informs women’s own fashion attitudes, perceptions and practices.  To a large extent this is the argument that Pierre Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) makes when he suggests that ‘taste is a marker of class’ ([1984] 1996: 2). Orientated by our conditions of existence, our social origin and habitus, he suggests that taste communicates to others how we understand the social world and what characteristics we value or look to emphasise. So, while middle classes may embody a habitus of order for example, which Bourdieu suggests emphasises formality and restraint, working classes may be

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more concerned with value for money, owing to their overriding need to fulfil basic needs. Moreover, the habitus not only informs fashion tastes and practices, but it also informs the ways in which bodies themselves are fashioned. Bodies, Bourdieu suggests, are a manifestation of the habitus, and so not only may there be differences in women’s orientations towards fashion, and thus their notions of appropriate dress or looking good, as I discuss in Chapters 5 and 6, but even the way in which fashions look or are worn on the body may also operate as important class distinctions (Shilling, 2012). As a result, despite diversity within the market, class distinctions remain, as those within different social classes are drawn to differing styles which reflect their underlying priorities and cultural understandings. In fact, Bourdieu suggests that producers deliberately look to ‘meet the different cultural interests which the consumers owe to their class conditions and positions’ ([1984] 1996: 231). Although there may be a range of styles or trends circulating at any one time then, some fashions are much more likely to be adopted by one class over another.   Added to this, an individual’s class orientation may also mean that they are drawn towards particular fashion leaders who share similar tastes and understandings, and there may also be distinct class patterns to individuals’ shopping behaviour which result in them consuming different fashion knowledge and clothing items. In their discussion of tourist information-seeking, for example, Vanessa Gowreesunkar and Saurabh Kumar Dixit (2017: 63) argue that ‘socio-economic factors’, such as available time, education, familiarity and affordability, influence the ways in which consumers go about searching for and purchasing goods online. Although there may be an increase in online fashion consumption and fashion media then, there may still be important differences in consumers’ patterns of exposition, including the sites they tend to visit and the key terms they use. It is also worth acknowledging that while fashion has become more affordable, economic capital does still have some impact on what individuals can afford to wear on a regular, daily basis and to some extent where they also tend to shop. Though it is clear, as demonstrated by the work of Angela Partington (1992), Agnes Rocamora (2002), Mylene Mizrahi (2011) and the research presented in this book, that working-class taste is not ‘bound’ by necessity as Bourdieu suggests ([1984] 1996), or that tastes are determined solely by economic restraints, income does still have some bearing on consumption practices and priorities. As a result, some fashion trends may still operate along class lines, and even when the same style is adopted across the social classes, it may still articulate class identities as individuals look to a ‘deliberately different appropriation’, giving the fashion style a new meaning in the process (Partington, 1992: 146). This does not mean that fashion is only concerned with social class – as numerous authors have demonstrated, fashion is concerned with many aspects of identity, personality and character – but it does suggest that class is still evident as part of an individual’s social identity. In fact, even within Campbell’s ([1987] 2005) work where he argues for the notion of ‘character ideals’ as driving

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consumption, references to social class are still apparent. So, for example, he describes the ‘sensibility ideal’ as having a propensity to consume, like middleclass tradesmen or craftsmen. The aristocratic ideal is described as being elitist, exclusive, in many ways considered upper class, and he also argues that the romantics were perceived to have upper-class values. Across subcultural texts too, social class is an important feature, with Mods and Rockers, Skinheads and Teddy Boys, all described as working-class groups (Hall and Jefferson, [1975] 2002; Hebdige, [1979] 2002; Polhemus, 1994; Polhemus and Procter, 1978), and as Stephanie Lawler (2005a), Beverley Skeggs (1997) and Merl Storr (2003) suggest, notions of femininity are similarly created and performed within classed contexts. In fact, as I discuss further in the next chapter and explore in Chapters 5, 6 and 7, fashion operates as a significant means of class difference, particularly for women, because it plays such a fundamental role in the performance of femininity and respectability. Arguably, one of the reasons that fashion has been so overlooked as an area for academic research, until relatively recently, is its close association with women. Used to construct and perform gender, fashion works to visually reinforce the gender binary and to embody gender expectations, and since the mid-Victorian era it has played a key role in the performance of femininity and establishment of respectability, two concepts which closely interlink with class. As the work of Skeggs (1997, 2000), Lawler (2005a, 2005b), McKenzie (2015), Tyler (2008), Evans (2016) and several others show, and as I discuss in Chapter 4, legitimate performances of femininity are situated within a middle-class context, and these performances are deemed respectable. Thus, it is due to the relationship between fashion and gender that fashion mobilises class. Moreover, as I have discussed elsewhere (Appleford, 2014) and as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5, women’s perceptions of space and social audiences are also significantly influenced by class location and, as Bourdieu’s work suggests, these perceptions of space have implications for cultural and social practices. Arguing that the middle classes are highly aware of the judgements made by others, Bourdieu claims that this group have a ‘disposition towards the bluff’, keen to present an image which will carry favour. Indeed, he maintains that the middle-class look to imitate or ‘usurp’ the social identity of higher social classes in order to give a ‘self-representation normally associated with those in a higher position’ (253). Arguing that the middle classes imitate the ‘symbolic goods’ of those with ‘distinction’, thereby ‘forcing the possessor of distinctive properties . . . to engage in an endless pursuit of new properties through which to assert their rarity’ ([1984] 1996: 251–252), his argument is very similar to classical authors’, Simmel ([1904] 1957) and Veblen ([1899] 1994), theory of emulation and as such falls victim to similar criticisms. However, the notion of emulation aside, his arguments highlight how class differences in perceptions of social audiences lead to differences in practice, and as Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate, this argument is highly relevant in terms of fashion and class today.

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Working-class and middle-class women clearly have different attitudes in relation to fashion media, fashion buying and social spaces, and this has important consequences for their fashion practice. Finally, the fact that fashion is often used by women to talk about class should not be overlooked either. Discussions of tracksuit bottoms and trainers, the notion of dressing ‘chavy’ or phrases such as ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ are used as an indication for working classness, while references to ‘classic’ or ‘yummy mummy’ are often used as euphemisms for middle-class respectability, and even the wearing of specific fashion brands are used as class markers (Smith, 2016). Fashion is a fundamental aspect of class evaluations. The number of sociologists to note the relationship between fashion and class is testament to this, not to mention the press articles (Greene, 2011; Walden, 2011), television programmes (e.g. ITV 2’s The Only Way is Essex or Channel Four’s Made in Chelsea) or public social events (e.g. the Class Show at the Barbican 2006–2007) which emphasise the link between fashion and class, too. Though news media and public events often simplify fashion and class associations, and exaggerate fashion stereotypes, there is perhaps, as with many stereotypes, some small element of truth within these representations. Certainly, Britain is still very much a society which mobilises social class, and fashion is a significant part of these class distinctions and class debate.

Conclusion Though traditional theories of fashion place considerable emphasis on class as a driver for the fashion change and fashion adoption, contemporary authors have tended to focus their attention on the relationships between fashion and subcultures, gender, race and age rather than class. This may be because of the fuzzy nature of class, and the ‘retreat’ from class analysis in the 1980s and 1990s as discussed in Chapter 2, but it may also be because of the increasingly complex nature of the fashion system and the growth of the fashion industry. As this chapter has demonstrated, the increase in designers, buyers, marketing and advertising agents, and mass media coverage (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006; Blumer, [1969] 1981; Crane, 1999; Davis, 1994; King, [1963] 1981), not to mention globalisation and the dramatic increase in the speed of production (Braham, [2003] 1997; Crane, 1999, 2000), has made fashion more diverse and accessible to a much wider audience. Pluralised and polycentric, today’s fashion innovations ‘bubble up’ and ‘trickle across’, just as much as they ‘trickle down’, and thus traditional theories which view emulation and class distinction as the main motivations for fashion adoption and fashion change appear outdated and overly simplistic. Yet, within these classical works, some elements still hold some relevance for fashion today. Certainly, imitation within the fashion system is still evident, and in fact it forms an important part of fashion design, fashion media and fashion consumption (Yurchisin and Johnson, 2010). Equally Veblen’s arguments

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concerning authenticity appear to have some application in a contemporary context in respect of counterfeit goods or branded items, and as Chapter 6 demonstrates, authenticity remains an important part of middle-class women’s fashion buying and their evaluations of others’ tastes. Indeed, as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 discuss, the authenticity of goods and the quality of items is often read as symbolic of a person’s moral character, with middle classes reading fake goods as a sign of not only bad taste, but bad morals. Indeed, as I discuss in the next chapter, fashion continues to play a fundamental role in the construction of respectability, used to judge an individual’s social status, trustworthiness and decency, and as Simmel’s ([1904] 1957) work suggests, fashion continues to operate as a means of union and of segregation, used by women to distance themselves from particular class evaluations and to locate others in the social space. As Chapters 5, 6 and 7 examine, particular fashion styles are continually linked with class identities, with middle-class women avoiding certain garments such as tracksuits in order to distance themselves from working-class connotations. Just as subcultures employ fashion to unite their members and differentiate them from the mainstream (Hebdige, [1979] 2002), contemporary women’s everyday fashion practices also create a simultaneous sense of belonging and differentiation. Moreover, as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 explore, not only are specific types of dress, or garments, read as important class markers, but women’s class identity and their class histories also play a significant role in shaping their understandings of social spaces, social audiences, femininity and motherhood, which in turn inform and influence their everyday fashion practices. As Bourdieu ([1984] 1996: 2) argues, our tastes and our dispositions, whether in food, fashion or furniture, are informed by ‘conditions of existence’ and social origins, and they therefore reflect differences in our attitudes, cultural knowledge and understandings. Consequently, while women’s knowledge and access to fashion might be much greater than it has been in the past, a woman’s habitus means that her fashion tastes and fashion practices are still informed by class, and thus class continues to be mobilised through her everyday fashion performance. In fact, as Chapter 6 demonstrates, though British women may have increasing access to a wide range of fashionable styles and fashion media, class differences exist in terms of the types of fashion media women engage with, how and where they buy their clothes, and their perception of what looks good. That does not mean that women’s fashion practices or fashion tastes are governed by class, or that fashion practices or tastes are only concerned with class identity, but it does mean that class plays an important role. Indeed, within the British press and across academic disciplines, authors often note that class distinctions are mobilised through fashion (see, for example, Barnard, [1996] 2002; Lurie [1981] 1992; Mills, 2009; Gold, 2011). As I argue in Chapters 5, 6 and 7, though it is a relationship which is complicated by the development of the fashion industry and the availability of fast fashion, it is nevertheless a relationship which is still salient, made evident through its intersections with

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women’s understandings and performance of respectability, femininity and public space.

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Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion 63 Campbell, C. (1993) Understanding Traditional and Modern Patterns of Consumption in Eighteenth Century England: A Character-Action Approach, in J. Brewer (ed.) Consumption and the World of Goods, London and New York: Routledge. Capecchi, S. (2017) UK Online Sales of Clothing Fashion Accessories and Footwear Grow by 17% in 2017, Mintel Report, www.mintel.com/press-centre/fashion/ uk-online-sales-of-clothing-fashion-accessories-and-footwear-grow-by-17-in-2017. Cecilio, D. (2015) E-Commerce Is Changing the Fashion Industry: It’s Time to Catch Up, The Guardian, 6 February. Church Gibson, P. (2012) Fashion and Celebrity Culture, London and New York: Bloomsbury. Corrigan, P. (1997) The Sociology of Consumption: An Introduction, London: Sage. Craik, J. [1993] (1998) The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion, London: Routledge. Crane, D. (1999) Diffusion Models and Fashion: A Reassessment, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 566(1): 13–24. Crane, D. (2000) Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Crewe, L. (2013) When Virtual and Material Worlds Collide: Democratic Fashion in the Digital Age, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 45(4): 760–780. doi: 10.1068/a4546. Crewe, L. (2017) The Geographies of Fashion: Consumption, Space and Value, London: Bloomsbury, Academic. Cunnington, C. W. and Cunnington, P. (1972) The History of English Costume in the Eighteenth Century, Boston: Plays inc. Davis, F. (1994) Fashion, Culture, and Identity, London and Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. De La Haye, A. and Dingwall, C. (1996) Surfers, Soulies, Skinheads and Skaters: Subcultural Style from the Forties to the Nineties, New York: Overlook Press. Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. [1979] (1996) The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption, rev. edition, with a New Introduction, London: Routledge. Ellison, J. (2016) What it’s cool to look Middle Class: The Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Financial Times, 26 October. Entwistle, J. (2009) The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion: Markets and Value in Clothing and Modelling, Oxford and New York: Berg. Entwistle, J. (2015) The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Polity Press. Entwistle, J. and Rocamora, A. (2006) The Field of Fashion Materialized: A Study of London Fashion Week, Sociology, 40(4): 735–751. doi: 10.1177/0038038506065158. Evans, M. (2016) Women and the Politics of Austerity: New Forms of Respectability, British Politics, 11(4): 438–451. Fine, B. and Leopold, E. (1993) The World of Consumption, London and New York: Routledge. Godart, F. (2012) Unveiling Fashion: Business Culture, Identity in the Most Glamorous Industry, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Gold, T. (2011) Is Anyone Safe from World War Twee?, The Telegraph, 24 June. Gold, T. (2018) They’re Woke, Glossy and Active on Twitter: Is This the New Posh? The Guardian, 19 May.

64  Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion Gowreesunker, G. and Dixit, S. K. (2017) Consumer Information – Seeking Behaviour, in S. K. Dixit (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Consumer Behaviour in Hospitality and Tourism, Oxon: Routledge. Greene, L. (2011) Pretty, Posh and Profitable, The Financial Times, Style 14 May. Griffiths, K. (2015) Femininity, Feminism and Recreational Pole Dancing, Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, S. and Jefferson, T. (eds.) [1975] (2002) Resistance Through Rituals, London: Routledge. Hanson, W. (2015) Could You Pass as Upper Class? Etiquette Expert Willan Hanson Says How Your Outfit Reveals if You’re of ‘Good Stock’ or NQCD (that’s, Not Quite Our Class Darling), The Mail, 18 August. Hebdige, D. [1979] (2002) Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Routledge. Hecht, J. (1956) The Domestic Servant Class in Eighteenth Century England, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Jackson, T. and Shaw, D. (2008) Mastering Fashion Marketing, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jones, J. (1996) Coquettes and Grisettes: Women Buying and Selling in Acien Regime Paris, in V. de Grazia and E. Furlough (eds.) The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective, London and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kawamura, Y. (2005) Fashion-ology, Oxford and New York: Berg. Kawamura, Y. (2012) Fashioning Japanese Subcultures, London and New York: Berg. Kim, E., Fiore, A. M. and Kim, H. (2011) Fashion Trends: Analysis and Forecasting, Oxford: Berg. Kim, H. and Karpova, E. (2010) Consumer Attitudes Toward Fashion Counterfeits: Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 28(2): 79–94. King, C. W. [1963] (1981) A Rebuttal to the Trickle-Down Theory, in G. Sproles (ed.) Perspectives of Fashion, Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing Company. König, A. (2007) Sex and the City: A Fashion Editor’s Dream, in L. Welters and A. Lillethun (eds.) The Fashion Reader, Oxford: Berg. Kutchta, D. (1996) The Making of the Self-Made Man: Class, Clothing and English Masculinity, 1688–1832, in V. de Grazia and E. Furlough (eds.) The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective, London and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Large, J. (2011) Criminality, Consumption and the Counterfeiting of Fashion Goods, PhD Thesis, Leeds University. Large, J. (2018) The Consumption of Counterfeit Fashion, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Laver, J. (1969) Modesty in Dress, London: William Heinemann Ltd. Lawler, S. (2005a) Disgusted Subjects: The Making of Middle Class Identities, The Editorial Board of the Sociological Review, 2005: 429–446. Lawler, S. (2005b) Introduction: Class Culture and Identity, Sociology, 39(1): 797–806. Leopold, E. (1992) The Manufacture of the Fashion System, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds.) Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: Pandora Press. Lewis, A. and Moital, M. (2016) Young Professionals’ Conspicuous Consumption of Clothing, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 20(2): 138–156.

Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion 65 Lewis, J. (2016) The Prejudice Against Brown Shoes Is a Classic Case of Class Snobbery, The Telegraph, 2 September. Lewis, R. (2015) Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures, Durham: Duke University Press. Lipovetsky, G. (1994) The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lurie, A. [1981] 1992 The Language of Clothes, New York: Random House. Lury, C. (2011) Consumer Culture, Cambridge: Polity. Luvaas, B. (2016) Street Style: An Ethnography of Fashion Blogging, London and New York: Bloomsbury. Majima, S. (2008) Fashion and Frequency of Purchase: Womenswear Consumption in Britain, 1961–2001, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 12(4): 502–517. Marciniak, R. and Bruce, M. [2001] (2007) Fashion E-Tailing, in T. Hines and M. Bruce (eds.) Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Martin, G. (2009) Subculture, Style, Chavs and Consumer Capitalism: Towards a Critical Cultural Criminology of Youth, Crime Media Culture, 5(2): 123–145. McCracken, G. D. [1988] (1990) Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. McKendrick, N., Brewer, J. and Plumb, J. H. (1982) The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of the Eighteenth Century, London: Hutchinson. McKenzie, L. (2015) Getting by: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain, Bristol: The Policy Press. McQuarrie, E. F., Miller, J. and Phillips, B. J. (2012) The Megaphone Effect: Taste and Audience in Fashion Blogging, Journal of Consumer Research, 40(1): 136–158. McRobbie, A. (2004) Notes on ‘What Not to Wear’ and Post-Feminist Symbolic Violence, Sociological Review, 52(2_suppl): 99–109. Mendes, S. and Rees-Robert, N. (2013) Branding Brazilian Fashion: Global Visibility and Intercultural Perspectives, in S. Bruzzi and P. Church Gibson (eds.) Fashion Cultures Revisited: Theories Explorations and Analysis, Oxford: Routledge. Mills, S. (2009) How the Posh Hoodie Came of Age, The Guardian, 7 January. Mizrahi, M. (2011) ‘Brazilian Jeans’: Materiality, Body and Seduction at a Rio de Janeiro Funk Ball, in D. Miller and Sophie Woodward (eds.) Global Denim, Oxford: Berg. Mukerji, C. (1983) From Graven Images: Patterns of Modern Materialism, New York: Columbia University Press. Nayak, A. and Kehily, M. J. (2014) ‘Chavs, Chavettes and Pramface Girls’: Teenage Mothers, Marginalised Young Men and the Management of Stigma, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(10): 1330–1345. O’Cass, A. and McEwen, H. (2004) Exploring Consumer Status and Conspicuous Consumption, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 4(1): 25–39. Parcerisa, C. (2018) The Impact of Fashion Week: Beyond the Runways, Fashion United. com, 23 August, https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/the-impact-of-fashion-weekbeyond-the-runways/2018082338448. Partington, A. (1992) Popular Fashion and Working Class Affluence, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds.) Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: HarperCollins.

66  Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion Paterson, M. (2005) Consumption and Everyday Life, Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Pearlman, N. (2006) The Chav Rich List Pearlman, The Mail, 6 October. Perkins, H. (1968) Origins of English Society, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Polhemus, T. (1994) Streetstyle: From Sidewalk to Catwalk, London: Thames & Hudson. Polhemus, T. and Procter, L. (1978) Fashion and Anti-Fashion: Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment, London: Thames & Hudson. Rees-Roberts, N. (2018) Fashion Film: Art and Advertising in the Digital Age, London: Bloomsbury. Rocamora, A. (2002) Fields of Fashion: Critical Insights into Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture, Journal of Consumer Culture, 2(3): 341–362. Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century, London: Pelican. Sennett, R. [1986] (2002) The Fall of Public Man, London: Penguin. Shammas, C. (1993) Changes in English and Anglo-American Consumption from 1550–1800, in J. Brewer (ed.) Consumption and the World of Goods, London: Routledge. Shilling, C. (2012) The Body and Social Theory, London; Thousand Oaks, CA; and New Delhi: Sage. Shinkle, E. (2013) Fashion’s Digital Body: Seeing and Feeling in Fashion Interactives, in D. Barlett, S. Cole and A. Rocamora (eds.) Fashion Media, London: Bloomsbury. Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Skeggs, B. (2001) The Toilet Paper: Femininity, Class and Mis-Recognition, Women’s Studies International Forum, 24(3–4): 295–307. Smith, D. (2016) Elites, Race and Nationhood: The Branded Gentry, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Smyth, D. (2019) How Photographs of British Homes Reveal Culture, Class and Suburbia, The Financial Times, 28 June. Sombart, W. [1902] (2004) Economy and Fashion: A Theoretical Contribution on the Formations of Modern Consumer Demand, in D. L. Purdy (ed.) The Rise of Fashion: A Reader, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Spencer, H. [1896] (2004) ‘Fashion’ from the Principles of Sociology, in D. L. Purdy (ed.) The Rise of Fashion: A Reader, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Storr, M. (2003) Latex and Lingerie: Shopping for Pleasure at Ann Summers Parties, Oxford: Berg. Tarlo, E. (2010) Visibly Muslim, London: Berg. Taylor, A. (2016) The (Unsuccessful) Reality Television Make Under: Class, Illegitimate Femininities and Resistance in Snog, Marry Avoid, Outskirts, 35: 1–20. Thirsk, J. (1978) Economic Policy and Projects: The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tönnies, F. [1909] (2004) Customs: An Essay on Social Codes, in D. L. Purdy (ed.) The Rise of Fashion: A Reader, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Twigg, J. (2013) Fashion and Age, London: Bloomsbury. Tyler, I. (2008) Chav Mum Chav Scum: Class Disgust in Contemporary Britain, Feminist Media Studies, 8(1): 17–34.

Class Fashion or Consumer Fashion 67 Tyler, I. and Bennett, B. (2010) ‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(3): 375–393. Veblen, T. [1899] (1994) Theory of the Leisure Class, London: Dove Publications. Vickery, A. (1993) Women and the World of Goods: A Lancashire Consumer and Her Possessions 1751–81, in J. Brewer and R. Porter (eds.) Consumption and the World of Goods, London and New York: Routledge. Walden, C. (2011) Memo to Sam: Does This Suit Make Me Look Too Posh? The Telegraph, 21 April. Weatherill, L. (1993) The Meaning of Consumer Behaviour in Late Seventeenth-Early Eighteenth Century England, in J. Brewer and R. Porter (eds.) Consumption and the World of Goods, London and New York: Routledge. Weatherill, L. (1996) Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain 1660–1760, 2nd edition, London and New York: Routledge. Wee, C., Tan, S. and Cheok, K. (1995) Non-Price Determinants of Intention to Purchase Counterfeit Goods. An Exploratory Study, International Marketing Review, 12(6): 19–46. Wilson, E. (1990) The New Component of the Spectacle: Fashion and Postmodernism, In R. Boyne and A. Rattansi (eds.) Postmodernism and Society, Hampshire and London: Macmillan. Wilson, E. (2003) Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London: I. B. Tauris. Woods, F. (2014) Classed Femininity, Performativity, and Camp in British Structured Reality Programming, Television & New Media, 15(3): 197–214. Woodward, S. (2007) Why Women Wear What They Wear, Oxford: Berg. Yurchisin, J. and Johnston, K. K. P. (2010) Fashion and the Consumer, Oxford: Berg.

Chapter 4

Fashioning a Performance Respectability, Femininity and Space

Introduction The eighteenth century was an important point in history for the relationship between fashion and class. The Industrial Revolution (1760–1820) heralded developments in trade and industry and brought about  significant  transformations in Britain’s transportation and communication systems, retail and consumption (Gunn, 2000). These shifts also generated important changes in Britain’s cultural and spatial landscape. Moving work outside of the home into factories, where goods could be mass produced, created new distinctions between the public world of work and private domestic spaces (Franscella and Frost, 1977; Valentine, 2001; McDowell, 1999), and this spatial division was accompanied by a corresponding gender divide, which saw men associated with ‘public life’ and women located primarily within the home and domestic space. Significantly, these new developments had important links to fashion. Industrialisation changed the nature and speed of fashion production and consumption, and fashion was used to reaffirm these new gender and spatial divisions. Indeed, it was an important tool in the performance of femininity and defining of public space, and thus fashion helped to create and mobilise notions of respectability, securing a relationship with social class in the process. My aim in this chapter is to explore the fashion and class relationship by looking at fashion’s role in the performance of gender and space. Focusing on the practice and performances of women, I consider how fashion mobilises class through performances of femininity and public display and thus, how fashion makes class distinctions in understandings of respectability, femininity and space visible. I start my analysis by exploring the culture of respectability, exploring the ways in which fashion practices and tastes were historically used to infer the authenticity of a person’s character and thus to establish whether or not they had good or bad morals. I consider the importance of respectability in providing a sense of cohesion amongst the new emerging middle-class, and the ways in which this culture worked to legitimise middle-class practices, while labelling the working classes as dangerous and deviant. I consider the emphasis placed on appearance and manner, and the focus on the practices and

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expectations of women, and I explore the important role fashion played in conveying notions of respectability, authenticity and social standing. Moreover, as respectability is also concerned with public performance, I consider how public space developed within a middle-class context as an opportunity to convey wealth and social superiority, and fashion’s role in differentiating public and private space. I demonstrate how these understandings of public space and public performance inform fashion practice, and how fashion therefore makes class apparent through its relationship with space. And I consider how space is segregated along class lines, and thus how fashion is used to locate individuals in the geographical space and to infer social class.

Developing Class Culture: Being Respectable Industrialisation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries generated significant shifts in the British social hierarchy. Growth in the manufacturing industry, in coal, iron, steel, cotton and wool, gave rise to a ‘new breed of self-made industrialist’, which subsequently formed the core of a new ‘authentic British “middle-class” ’ (Gunn, 2000: 10). Made up of a diverse range of occupations, including factory owners and professionals, yeomen, tradesmen, property owners, shopkeepers, bankers and merchants (Weatherill, 1993), this class spanned significant differences in wealth and income, religious identity and political affiliation, but the group was nevertheless united through property ownership and a newly developing class culture. Operating as a ‘sphere of consensus and reconciliation’ (Gunn, 2000: 24), uniting this otherwise disparate group, this new middle-class culture centred on the notion of respectability which, emphasising moral superiority and intellect, intended to draw a distinction from both the ‘dissolute and irresponsible aristocracy’ and ‘the urban poor, deemed feckless and atheistic’ (Gunn, 2000: 15; Skeggs, 1997). Respectability was concerned with establishing and regulating the boundaries of moral behaviours and sexuality, legitimising the social practices and public displays of the white middle classes, and condemning the working classes as dangerous, deviant and undeserving. Centred on domestic ideals, it was epitomised in the phrase ‘cleanliness was next to Godliness’, framing the middle-class as socially superior by using cleanliness and hygiene as evidence of their restraint, self-control and moral authority. The working-class, in contrast, were conceptualised as the ‘Great Unwashed’ who, largely living in urban slums, were viewed as filthy, diseased, dangerous and polluting (Finch, 1993). Wild and irresponsible, they needed to be ‘civilised’ as they posed a significant threat of ‘infection to respectable society’ (Walkowitz, 1992: 22). Significantly, as notions of respectability centred primarily on private domestic space and family values, women found themselves at the centre of judgements, with emphasis placed on their appearance, attitudes and behaviours. Judgements of respectability rested upon one’s ‘appearance and manner’ (Finch, 1993; Nead, 1998;  Skeggs, 1997), and required the display of

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appropriate and acceptable behaviour, language and presentation in public spaces. Fashion therefore played a significant role, as clothing was used to ‘convey a moral quality’ (1997: 85). Immediately visible, it operated as an obvious symbol or ‘sign vehicle’ (Goffman, 1956: 15) of an individual’s wealth and social superiority. The cleanliness of garments, such as a gentleman’s neckband, became an important indicator of social standing (Laver, 1969: 17; Sennett, [1986] 2002: 166), and through its relationship with the body worked to convey restraint and propriety, as it controlled bodily expression and any form of excessive display (Holland, 2004; Twigg, 2013). Throughout the Victorian era, women’s fashion became increasingly concerned with controlling and policing women’s bodies, as respectability became increasingly concerned with self-regulation, discipline and restraint. Today, the concept of respectability is still a fundamental aspect of class culture and class evaluations (Attfield, 2016; Morris and Munt, 2019; Pitcan et al., 2018). In fact, Skeggs (1997: 2) argues that it is one of the ‘most ubiquitous signifiers of class’, which continues to legitimise the practices, attitudes and behaviours of the white middle-class. Presented as a ‘standard to which to aspire’, it operates as a cultural resource and a source of capital for the white middle classes, providing them with a level of social advantage and social value which working classes and those from Black and minority ethnic groups ‘have to work extremely hard’ to achieve (Archer et al., 2007; Bauer, 2018; McKenzie, 2015: 69; Skeggs, 1997). Still largely centred on women’s performances of gender and sexuality (Evans, 2016; Pitcan et al., 2018), as Sandra Lee Bartky (1990: 117) notes, it is ‘sobering to consider the extent to which the Victorian ideal of women as “angel in the house” has survived’, with fashion continuing to form an important part of these evaluations used to perform the right type of control, discipline and display of women’s bodies. As Sarah Attfield (2016: 45) outlines, respectability involves women ‘being polite, speaking in turn, remaining calm and dressing appropriately’, actions which demonstrate to others that she is worthy and should be ‘taken seriously’. It is in this way that respectability inscribes social class onto women’s bodies and onto the person, emphasising the morality or immorality, conscientious or laissez-faire attitude of the individual, while continually overlooking the structural inequalities that disadvantage particular social groups (Morris and Munt, 2019; Skeggs, 1997, 2005). Indeed, Mary Evans (2016) argues that in recent years the portrayal of poverty, and particularly the poverty of women, has shifted from one which acknowledges social inequality and societal disadvantage to one focused on the individual. No longer seen as the ‘innocent victim of circumstance’, helpless and vulnerable, and desperately trying to make ends meet, today’s povertystricken women are contextualised as ‘benefits scroungers’, regarded as greedy, lazy and feckless. Typically identified through their relaxed or excessive clothing and behaviour, they are characterised as chavs (Jones, 2011), presented as overweight, unkempt, oversexualised, vulgar and offensive, attributes which

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are further exaggerated in media representations such as Channel 4’s Benefits Street’s White Dee (2014) or Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard (2003–2006). Assumed to be entirely responsible for their own situation, these women are demonised and pathologized by society and tend to be viewed as a burden on the state (Casey, 2016; McKenzie, 2015; Tyler, 2013). Respectable Femininity As the contemporary stereotypes of working classness demonstrate, the notion of respectability remains a fundamental aspect of class politics and is closely related to performances of gender and public appearance. Concerned with family, parenting, clothing and language, it places  significant emphasis on women’s position as wives and mothers and their performance of femininity (Finch, 1993: 13; Nead, 1998; Walkowitz, 1992). Indeed, this relationship between respectability and femininity is evident from its inception. Having drawn work outside of the home and into factories, industrialisation generated a division between public and private space, and while men were considered inherently more practical and rational and thus better suited to ‘public life’, women were deemed to be ‘naturally’ more caring and nurturing due to their association with childbirth, and thus were considered instinctively more suited to the domestic sphere: ‘Consigning a woman to the home became a sign of middle-class status. Gender therefore played a key role in the process of class formation’ (Murdoch, 2013: xxiv). In this new middle-class culture, domestic duties became a ‘moral undertaking’, and the ways in which women managed their house and family inferred social superiority. ‘Flower pots, closed doors, lace curtains, scrubbed doorsteps, hanging birdcages, almost empty streets’ were trademarks of respectable neighbourhoods (Walkowitz, 1992: 35) and ‘having a non-working wife at home became the hallmark of respectability’ (Valentine, 2001: 66). Children playing outside, ‘women gossiping in the streets, broken windows’, violence and intimidation, by contrast, became the symbols of the working-class slums (Walkowitz, 1992: 34–35), where working-class mother were regarded as failing to effectively manage their husbands and children. Moreover, as practices attributed to the private sphere became the responsibility of women, so too did the acquisition of commodities, which were used to assess the social status and respectability of the family (de Grazia, 1996; Wilson, 2003). It became the role of middle-class women ‘to consume vicariously for the head of the household’ (Veblen, [1899] 1994: 110), and ‘[s]hopping sprees’ and ‘domestic display’ were now considered chiefly feminine pastimes (de Grazia, 1996: 1; Miller, 1998: 93; Nava, 1996: 46; Storr, 2003). Indeed, much of the negativity which surrounds fashion and consumption resulted from this gender relationship (Miller, 1998), as women and their interests were deemed irrational, emotional and largely unimportant. Moreover, fashion not only became a feminine pursuit, but it also became an important tool in the

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marking out of gender, as the clothing of men and women became increasingly different in relation to fabric and trim (Wilson, 2003). While men’s dress was no less ‘complex, demanding or uncomfortable’, it had ‘tended to be more subdued and abstract’ than that of women (Hollander, 1980: 360) as men ‘abandoned [their] claim to be beautiful’ (Fugel, [1930] 2004: 104). Throughout the nineteenth century this gender distinction became even more ‘rigid’ and exaggerated (Vinken, 2005: 11), and by the end of the nineteenth century fashion had become strongly associated with women. Masculine fashions became increasingly sober and ‘drab’ (Sennett, [1986] 2002: 163), and while men ‘carried this “uniform” on into the evening . . . their womenfolk were brilliantly attired’ (Wilson, 2003: 33–34). In fact, by the mid-Victorian era, fashion was concerned with communicating wealth, respectability and femininity, characteristics which all further operated as indicators of class identity. As discussed in Chapter 3, middle-class fashions became ever-more impractical, in order to communicate an individual’s ‘abstinence from productive employment’ (Veblen, [1899] 1994: 105), thereby indicating the wearer’s wealth and affluence. Bonnets, corsets, high heels and wide skirts restricted women’s movement, making physical work for middle-class women almost impossible, and vastly contrasted with the simple and practical dress of working-class women employed in factories and cotton mills or the trousers, aprons and waistcoats worn by women working in some mining communities (Crane, 2000). Status for middle-class women was achieved through the ‘aesthetic production of her appearance which she did through the uniform of fashion’ (Boardman, 1998: 98), and fashion magazines, fashion plates and fashion dolls increasingly encouraged a ‘female narcissism’, in which women were the ‘object of the gaze’ (Berger, 1972). Knowing that they would be subject to constant surveillance in public spaces, and subjecting others too to the same degree of scrutiny, middle-class women became ever-more aware of the need to dress to please others and increasingly engaged in various forms of beauty work as they subjected themselves to closer surveillance, too. Moreover, the restrictive nature of women’s dress was also part of this surveillance and control over women’s bodies, with fashion ‘imposing oppressive forms of gender identity, embodying practices designed to objectify and limit women, locking them into defensive and inauthentic forms of presentation’ (Twigg, 2013: 17). High heels, corsets and changing fashions not only prevented middle-class women from engaging in work, but they rendered women ‘unable to act effectively in the world’ (2013: 17), encouraging the idea that women were superficial, irrational and unpredictable and that their bodies were in need of constant surveillance and control (Bordo, 1993; Bartky, 1990). Dressing respectably then, was read as evidence of women’s self-discipline and self-management, in respect of their physical bodies, and their actions and attitudes more generally. Today this relationship between fashion, gender, respectability and class persists. Indeed, Diane Crane argues that fashion’s ‘principal messages are

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about the way in which women and men perceive their gender roles or are expected to perceive them’ (2000: 16). The notion that women wear dresses and skirts for example has stayed fairly constant, and although there are examples of cross dressing, drag or gender-neutral or androgynous fashion, these fashions have tended to operate as trends and have not been widely adopted into mainstream culture. Despite greater discussions around gender fluidity and instances of androgyny on the catwalk or concern over gender-neutral clothing in children’s wear, the gender binary and its link to heteronormativity prevails. As Joanne Finkelstein argues, ‘difference in appearance between men and women are still clear and well-illustrated’ (1996: 31), and though fashion offers the opportunity to play with gender, ordinary and everyday clothing typically embodies conventional understandings of what it is to be a man or a woman. While women may wear oversized or male-cut clothing or garments traditionally associated with men such as the suit, the intention is rarely to look masculine, but rather to wear these masculine clothes in a feminine way (Carter and Steiner, 2003; Crepax, 2016). And similarly, though today’s young men may look to engage with florals and lace (Givhan, 2015), these are typically offset by other displays of hypermasculinity and are still contextualised as feminine styles (Duffy, 2013). As a result, garments which present as potentially disrupting the gender divide tend still to reinforce traditional gender roles and performances of masculinity and femininity. That is not to say that there have not been any shifts in the representations of gender within fashion. As Lynch and Strauss (2007) note, fashion plays a fundamental role in the cultural construction of gender, embodying conventional understandings of masculinity and femininity, and as the positions of men and women have changed,  fashion  has reflected this shift. The power dressing of women in the 1980s, for example, alongside the feminisation of the labour market (Entwistle, 1997), or the rise of the metrosexual in the mid1990s (Anderson, 2008; Edwards, 2016; Simpson, 1994), illustrate the ways in which fashion responds to changes in gender expectations. As a language or code, fashion is fluid and malleable, able to reflect the shifts in social and cultural understandings. But while fashion catwalk shows tend to purposefully and playfully disrupt normal gender expectations, challenging their audience to consider the fixedness of gender, within ordinary and everyday practice, fashion has continued to embody a largely conformist presentation of gender and continues to reinforce a gender binary. The association between women, consumption and domestic space and display has also remained fairly constant, with fashion still typically contextualised as a feminine pursuit (Entwistle, 2015; Duffy,  2013). The notion that women should dress up and become objects of the gaze is still in evidence, and women’s bodies remain subject to surveillance and control through fashion and fashion media (Bordo, 1993; Elias and Gill, 2017). Indeed, recent authors (Elias and Gill, 2018; Rocamora, 2015; Wissenger, 2015) have argued that with the rise of the digital space, women’s bodies are under constant and

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intense scrutiny, with fashion bloggers and vloggers, magazines and advertising encouraging women to engage in more and more beauty work and ‘glamour labour’, as beauty ideals become more unrealistic and more demanding and women watch each other and themselves more closely. Moreover, in terms of production, advertising and consumption, ‘fashion is almost wholly feminised’ (McRobbie, 1999: 14), and this reflects the broader picture in terms of consumption and domesticity, which continue to be primarily associated with women (McDowell, 1999; Casey and Martens, 2007). In fact, despite the feminisation of the labour market, recent figures from the Office of National Statistics demonstrate that women share the burden of unpaid domestic tasks, such as childcare, cooking, housework and laundry; within the workplace they are much more likely to be in caring, administrative and sectorial roles and part-time employment (ONS, 2016, 2017). As Simon de Beauvoir argues in The Second Sex ([1949] 2006), shifts in the economy are necessary for gender equality, but changes in the workplace alone are not enough. Like many aspects of the social world, ‘jobs are not gender neutral, rather they are created as appropriate for either men or women’ (Craik, [1993] 1998: 72). Consequently, although attitudes towards traditional gender roles may be shifting, in terms of work and the home, the gender division is still very apparent. The Importance of Authenticity Fashion then, as Evans suggests, is the ‘deep thread which runs through decades of the making of female respectability’ (2016: 447), and as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, these notions of respectability are still highly evident today. The dress of middle-class women embodied the delicacy and fragility synonymous with respectable femininity. Neat, simple, elegant and modest, it symbolised their perceived discipline, thrift, honesty and sexual morality. It stood in stark contrast to the dangerous and deviant sexualised femininity commonly attributed to working-class women, and throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries became increasingly politicised and equally policed. Women’s bodies were sites ‘on which feminine cultural ideas could be literally manufactured’ (Betterton, 1987: 8), and in public spaces they became both the surveyor and surveyed (Berger, 1972). Their clothes were subject to the closest scrutiny, as small but significant details or ‘miniatures’ such as hats, gloves, fans and parasols, buttons and ribbons formed the hallmarks of social standing and wealth (Beaujot, 2013; Evans, 2016; Sennett, [1986] 2002). This increased focus on women’s public performances of femininity was further reflected in the substantial growth in beauty products and commodities aimed at producing the right type of feminine performance, and the newspapers and magazines in which these products were advertised (MacDonald, [1995] 2004: 73). Articles on how to realise one’s femininity, along with advertisements for corsets, hair dyes and cosmetics, became frequent features of magazines such as Tatler (1830) and The Lady (1885) (Finch, 1993). Books

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on social etiquette, fertility and domestic management emphasised women’s ‘duty’ to look and ‘be’ feminine, reflecting the growing middle-class anxiety over social morality and public decency. In a bid again to gain even greater distinction, the ‘fetish of femininity’ placed emphasis on ‘types of beauty’ (Gunn, 2000: 69), with authentic or natural beauty having much greater social value over artificial forms (Lynch and Strauss, 2007: 107). Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 3, authenticity was a key feature of consumer goods, used to evaluate the validity of an individual’s wealth and social status. But it was also significant in terms of class  through its relationship to respectability, as the authenticity of garments or accessories was read as a reflection of the individual’s true nature and genuine moral character (Finkelstein, 1991; Sennett, [1986] 2002). Born out of the culture of Romanticism (1790–1830) and the growing scientific discourse of physiognomy, both of which stressed a relationship between a person’s physical appearance and their interior essence, the idea that a person’s outer appearance was symptomatic and symbolic of a person’s virtuousness became widely established. Garments and accessories made from genuine materials assumed reputability, whereas fake products raised questions over a person’s reliability and trustworthiness (Beaujot, 2013; Entwistle, 2015). Over time, caricatures of various ‘types’ of individuals developed centred around these principles, emphasising the importance of physical characteristics and visual appearance, and articles written by ‘street philosophers’ on how to spot a ‘swell’, ‘masher’, ‘lady’ or ‘streetwalker’ became regular features in newspapers such as the Owl (1879) in Birmingham and the Yorkshire Busy Bee (1882) (Gunn, 2000). The ‘streetwalker’ or prostitute offers an important example of the way in which authenticity, respectability, femininity and class were linked. Considered to be on the very fringes of morality, and the periphery of society, the Victorian prostitute was the subject of an ‘aggressive gaze’ (Nord, 1995; Walkowitz, 1992) due to her perceived hypersexualised, deviant and dangerous character. Viewed as the ‘embodiment of the corporeal smells and animal passions that the rational bourgeois male had repudiated and that the virtuous woman . . . had suppressed’ (Walkowitz, 1992: 21), she was set in stark contrast to the natural and effortless grace of the respectable woman. Viewed as an ‘inauthentic try hard’ (Gange, 2016: 22), whose performances of femininity were artificial and inappropriate, she was regarded as an example of excess, in terms of both her appearance and her manner. Described by flâneurs, social commentators and street philosophers as the ‘painted lady’, due to her heavy rouge and eye paint, her clothes were considered ‘gaudy’ and ‘seedy’, and her long loose hair was read as a sign of her sexual availability and immorality. Feared and reviled by middle-class society, the prostitute was considered a threat not only to respectability but also to the health and security of the nation. Characterised as ‘the conduit of infection . . . a “plague spot”, pestilence, a sore’ that needed to be cleansed from the city and society at large (Walkowitz, 1992: 22), by the 1850s she had been identified as the ‘Great Social Evil’

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of Victorian Britain (Walkowitz, [1980] 1982: 32) and ‘the great sin of great cities’ (Gange, 2016: 22). This characterisation of the prostitute had important implications for the working classes too, as the very poor became almost indistinguishable from the ‘criminal’ or ‘dangerous’. Similarly pathologized as a threat to society, the ‘undeserving poor’ were represented as sexually permissive, deviant and depraved, and very much in need of regulation, containment and control (Barret-Ducrocq, 1991). Within modern society, this portrayal of working classes, and particularly the poorest in society, as threatening, dangerous and thus in need of surveillance and control is still very evident, and clearly demonstrated in the rise of ‘poverty porn’ and ‘factual welfare television’ (Jensen, 2014; De Benedictis et al., 2017). This is a genre of television programmes, such as Channel 4’s Benefits Street or Channel 5’s On Benefits and Proud, which encourage television audiences to scrutinise the daily lives of the poorest in society, to assess how deserving they are. Often presenting benefit claimants as suspicious and lazy, the programmes work to ‘repeat imagined connections between welfare recipients and moral laxity, greed and even criminality’ (Jensen, 2014: 1.1), encouraging a wider cultural common sense or hegemonic understanding of working classes as welfare dependent, irresponsible, hypersexualised, aggressive and lacking in self-control. Moreover, within these programmes the focus is often placed on a central female character, such as ‘White Dee’, who ‘mobilised by the right-wing journalists and politicians as evidence of ‘Broken Britain’, has been portrayed within the mainstream media as a ‘welfare queen’ reliant upon the state to support herself and her children’ (Allen et al., 2014: 2.7). As discussed in Chapters 5 and 7, this understanding of working-class women is evident amongst participants, and while they are conscious of the stereotypical nature of these types of representations, they nevertheless associate particular forms of dress with these characterisations. New Femininities Today the focus on women and women’s appearances remains a fundamental aspect of class formation (Nicholls, 2019; Skeggs, 1997, 2005; Tyler, 2009). As Emily Nicholls argues, ‘pervasive classed norms around femininity, respectability and taste continue to impact upon young women’s identities’, and while femininity may be considered much more fluid and diverse in today’s multicultural, post-modern society, to a great extent even ‘new femininities’ ‘continue to exclude particular classed practices, bodies and identities’ from what is considered respectable and appropriate (Nicholls, 2019: 16). Since the 1990s the notion of ‘new femininities’ has been popular, with academic literature suggesting that there are many different ways in which femininity can be understood and performed. Rather than defining femininity as passive, fragile, weak and disciplined or restrained, as it traditionally has been, these authors argue that today’s femininity is ‘constantly being

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tested, challenged and reworked both in imagination and encounters in daily life’ (Davidoff and Hall, 1987: 405). As a result, what we mean by femininity or a feminine performance is much more nuanced, and significantly, at different times and in different spaces, what is considered appropriate or ‘normal’ can shift. The fluid nature of contemporary femininity can be perceived as beneficial to women, offering greater opportunities for agency, diversity and inclusion, and providing space for ‘new femininities’ to develop. Indeed, throughout the 1990s, academics suggested that feminisation of education and work resulted in girls having much greater opportunity to engage in all aspects of social and political life. No longer tied to the family and domestic space, within popular culture young women were portrayed as transgressing traditional boundaries, taking ownership of their sexuality and presenting an image of power and strength. Indeed, writing in 1993, Angela McRobbie argued that youth culture demonstrated an ‘unfixing’ and ‘unhinging’ of traditional femininity, creating some degree of ‘uncertainty’ about what it was to be a woman. Magazines, such as Just Seventeen, shifted away from traditional depictions of young women as passive ‘victims’ of romance or ‘slaves to love’ and moved towards more autonomous representations, where teenage girls were in control of their own identity and wellbeing. Pop icons and adverting offered hypersexual representations in which women took ownership of their bodies, and presented young women as bold, confident and sexual. Femininity appeared to be in a state of flux, offering women a ‘new horizon of possibilities in the field of sexual and social relationships’ (McRobbie, 1993: 23). And yet while femininity appeared to be more fluid, the ‘pressure to adhere to the perfect body image as a prerequisite for the success in love, which is equated with happiness’ was still very much alive (1993: 22). To some extent the conversation around ‘new femininities’ paralleled the discussions concerning class, cultural practices and lifestyle. As discussed in Chapter 2, the 1990s saw a shift in class debates, with authors such as Anthony Giddens (1991) and Ulrich Beck (1992) arguing that increased access to education and employment had resulted in a shift away from traditional class boundaries and instead offered individuals much greater choice and agency over their work and cultural activities. However, as these authors acknowledge, an individual’s level of choice is largely linked to their economic position. Though there may appear to have been a move away from class constraints, in favour of individual agency, to a great extent class was still evident. Similarly, though a greater range of possibilities in terms of femininity were presented, significant boundaries in terms of respectability remained and legitimised performances were still structured predominantly within a white, middle-class framework. Indeed, in McRobbie’s later work she comments on her ‘mis-judgement’ (2008: 4) when writing about teenage magazines, due to a ‘hopefulness’ around the changing position of women and the advancement of feminism, in an era which saw the establishment of the New Labour

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government. In retrospect she suggests that what appears as cultural shift in gender representations is better understood as a move towards ‘aggressive individualism’, a ‘hedonistic female  phallicism  in the field of sexuality and an obsession with consumer culture’. Collectively these shifts did much to mask the continuing of gender regulation. Indeed, citing Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992), she makes the comparison between class and feminist debates, suggesting that while young women were encouraged to ‘choose the kind of life they want to live’ (2008: 19), there was a veiling of the continuing social and cultural inequalities, discrimination and regulation around gender performance. ‘Choice is surely, within lifestyle culture, a modality of constraint. The individual is compelled to be the kind of subject who can make the right choices’ (McRobbie, 2008: 19), and all too often the ‘right’ choices are situated within a middle-class framework. Though there might be a multiplicity of femininities and masculinities operating at any one time, some are still more legitimate than others, and the conceptualising of working-class lifestyles as pathological is still evident. Certainly, McKenzie (2015), Lawler (1999, 2005), Skeggs (1997, 2004a, 2011), Jensen (2014), and Tyler (2008), to name just a few, note the continual portrayal of working-class women in negative and abject terms, often stereo­ typically depicted with big hair, short skirts and heavy make-up. Indeed, the role fashion and appearance play in forming social distinctions, creating social distance and judging the morality of others has not waivered (Nicholls, 2015, 2019; Skeggs, 1997, 2005). As discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, fashion is an important tool in establishing and identifying difference, and as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, women use fashion to differentiate themselves from others. In fact, women often talk about their own fashion practice in relation to other women, establishing their taste, as Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) suggests, through conversations of distaste. This is particularly true of middleclass women, who look to actively distance themselves from working-class stereotypes and perceived working-class practices. Articulating their understandings and judgements of class and respectability through notions of difference, as Wendy Bottero (2004) and Dale Southerton (2002) suggest, these women consider their own performances of femininity as ‘normal’, appropriate and respectable, and situate working-class practices as something ‘other’, typically framing working-class performances as hypersexual, inauthentic and, thus, morally inferior.

Legitimation of Middle-Class Practice: Habitus and Performativity In trying to understand how and why middle-class performances of femininity are contextualised as ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’, and how and why workingclass performances are situated as ‘other’, we can again turn to Bourdieu’s work and particularly his concept of habitus. As discussed in Chapter 2,

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Bourdieu suggests that our understanding and perception of the social world, what he terms ‘our habitus’, is informed and influenced by our class location or ‘conditions of existence’ and gives us an ‘orientation’ on cultural and social practices. What ‘the worker eats and especially the way he eats it, the sport he practices and the way he practices’ (Bourdieu, 1998: 8) are actions informed by his habitus, and it follows that women’s perceptions of femininity – what they wear, how they wear it and where they wear it – are also informed in this way. For Bourdieu, habitus is not only important in terms of individuals’ practice. A ‘structuring structure’ ([1984] 1996: 170), it produces ‘common schemes of perception, conception and action’, and collective understandings of the social world. This scheme allows society to be divided up into different social classes and produces a hierarchy of social practices and perceptions in which some are legitimised and others are not. The middle-class’s wealth provides them greater power to legitimise their practices and at the same time establish working-class practice and orientations as a ‘foil’ or ‘negative reference point’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 57). As we will see in Chapter 6, for many middle-class women the way of establishing their own practice is to set it in contrast to what they perceive as working-class traits. Describing working-class women as ‘slags’, ‘tarts’ and ‘chavs’, they contextualise their own practice as that which is ‘correct’ or ‘normal’. Moreover, the tendency to view our own practice as that which is normal or expected, Bourdieu claims, is also a consequence of our habitus. A product of our history and our social experiences, he suggests that the habitus operates as an ‘internal law’ guiding our understandings and subsequent behaviours and providing a continuity to our practice, to the point where our tastes and preferences, our perceptions and actions become second nature. Deeply rooted within us, our habitus makes our dispositions appear necessary and even natural, to the point that our actions are automatic or go unquestioned. The notion that perceptions and actions can become normalised and naturalised through repetition and ritualisation, and that white middle-class practices are those that tend to be legitimised, is also echoed in a range of feminist work (e.g. Coward, 1984; Oakley, [1972] 1985; Ortner and Whitehead, 1989). This work similarly suggests that often the ‘doing’ of gender and understandings of masculinity and femininity are largely unconscious and internalised due to their continued repetition. Indeed, this is what Judith Butler suggests when she claims that gender is performative. Arguing that gender is not the product of an interior essence, but an ‘act’ or ‘constructed identity’ which men and women perform ([1990] 2006: 191–192), she suggests that gender is a set of repeated, culturally sustained acts or expectations. Re-enacted and re-experienced, gender is a performance of socially established, everyday ritualised actions, which become legitimated through their constant repetition. As a result, ‘being a woman is not something self-consciously engaged with’, rather it ‘becomes part of everyday practice’ (Woodward, 2007: 140). Manufactured through a constant set of acts, femininity becomes a

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‘performative accomplishment’ (Butler, [1990] 2006: xv), which social audiences come to ‘believe’ and which therefore ‘ends up producing the very phenomenon that it anticipates’ ([1990] 2006: 192). However, the constructionist nature of gender also means that neither the performance nor the social expectation of femininity is fixed. Thus, women’s understandings and practices of femininity can be shaped by structural constraints and other aspects of identity such as race (Crenshaw, 1991), and are informed by our social origins, past experiences, and cultural understandings and perceptions. The performances women give, therefore, are informed by and reflect their social class. In fact, Skeggs challenges the notion that gender is purely performative or unconscious for this very reason, arguing that time and again research (Lawler, 2000; Reay, 1998; Walkerdine and Lucey, 1989) has shown that performances of femininity and motherhood are ‘not an unconscious pre-reflexive gendered experience based on mis-recognition, but a specifically classed-gendered experience, one of which they [white working-class women] were highly critical and highly attuned; they strongly refused the perspectives of the powerful’ (Skeggs, 2004b: 35). As Chapters 5 and 6 demonstrate, in many ways the women who participated in my research are also conscious of their performance of femininity and of the classed aspect of these performances. Certainly, middle-class participants tend to discuss the ways in which they look to ensure their performance of femininity is not understood as working-class and, in some instances, this means carefully balancing a need for desirability against the constraints of legitimised femininity. In this respect, there is a consciousness around the performed and constructed nature of gender, although at the same time the social expectation placed upon women to ‘dress up’ or ‘look good’ is largely unchallenged. Moreover, amongst women of similar class status, there is also a general acceptance over the way in which femininity is understood and performed, and perhaps more importantly, there is a strong sense that their understanding and performance of femininity is the right one. As a result, making a different performance of femininity, or wearing or buying clothing suggested or chosen by someone of a different class, is often quite uncomfortable, as I discuss in Chapter 7, as these clothes tended not to ‘fit’ with the women’s cultural viewpoint. Again, the idea that one’s own view is the right one is something also considered within Bourdieu’s concept for habitus, as he (1990: 61) argues that the habitus tends to operate ‘avoidance strategies’ in order to ‘protect itself from crisis and critical challenges’ and looks therefore to locate itself within a familiar ‘relatively constant’ environment in which dispositions are reinforced. These avoidance strategies, he suggests, can result through conditions of existence. Here challenges simply do not arise because individuals’ limited capital means that they are surrounded by others like themselves, and therefore there are less likely to be conflicts of opinion. But Bourdieu also suggests that avoidance may operate at a ‘non-conscious’ level. Here, individuals orientate

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themselves towards those with a similar habitus intentionally, deliberately moving themselves away from those who have differing views, in order to limit the opportunities for challenges towards their scheme of perception. As discussed in Chapter 6, individuals’ conditions of existence do have a bearing on who they interact with on a day-to-day basis, and living on an estate appears to have an important impact on women’s perceptions of public space and practice of dressing up. Equally, as Chapter 7 demonstrates, this ‘non-conscious’ avoidance is apparent in women’s discussions of shopping, where they express their preference to shop or take advice from close family members rather than friends. In fact, as Chapter 7 explains, participants in my research commonly cite their mothers or daughters as their best shopping partners, because they share the same taste and have a shared understanding of what looks good. Though friends are viewed as good companions in terms of the recreation of shopping, friends often have significantly different views on what looks good and challenge their typical shopping habits, encouraging them to spend more or shop in different stores, and therefore are not deemed to be suitable shopping partners when looking for clothes for important occasions. In fact, in terms of understanding the importance of the relationship between mothers and daughters to fashion practice, Bourdieu’s notion of ‘nonconsciousness’ is particularly useful, as the notion of a ‘shared habitus’ and ‘non-conscious avoidance’ helps to explain why mothers and daughters seem to share tastes, a practice which is evident not only in this research but from several others too (see Clarke and Miller, 2002; Woodward, 2007). Moreover, the notion of ‘non-conscious’ practice and protection from ‘critical challenges’ is also relevant in terms of femininity, for while it is not a practice which is unconscious, it is perhaps one in which women are unquestioning, in part because it is one which is shared by the majority of those around them.

Fashioning the City: Perceptions and Performances of Public Space In order to fully understand women’s fashion practices and perceptions of femininity and respectability, however, one also needs to consider the significance of public space and the way in which this space is made. Judgements of respectability and femininity require visibility, women need to be seen, and therefore their performances need to occur in ‘public’ spaces. Indeed, Kim Hetherington (1998) defines public space as that which is concerned with judgement and performance of identity, and therefore it is space in which notions of class are mobilised. The notion of public and private space, and its relationship with identity and performance, can again be linked to industrialisation and the rise of the middle-class and their culture of respectability – and crucially the emergence of the city. Between 1801 and 1851, there was almost a doubling of the population in England and Wales, due largely to improvements in public health,

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and as international trade and industry expanded, people migrated from rural areas into industrial towns and cities for work (Thrift, 1986; Sennett, [1986] 2002). These new city spaces brought together a wide mix of people, including aristocracy, new middle classes and working classes (Carr et al., 1993), who were not connected through kin or kith but polity and engaged in various forms of contract and exchange (McDowell, 1999). Characterised by constant flux and encounters with strangers (Madanipour, 2003; Nava, 1996), the city was a space in which people could carry out their activity anonymously, in ‘silent isolation’ (Gunn, 2000: 13), while it operated as a space for performance and theatre, subjecting the individual to a continual gaze from the crowd. In this new urban space, fashion played a crucial role, operating as a ‘mask’ or ‘armour’ shielding the individual from the constant gaze of the crowd and allowing individuals to cope with the pace and turmoil of city life. A form of ‘self-preservation’, it enabled the individual to adopt a ‘blasé attitude’ (Simmel, [1903] 1971) towards the intensity of the metropolis, protecting him/her from the constant observation of strangers. At the same time, fashion became the primary mechanism for evaluating and placing others, enabling individuals to act as if they ‘knew who you were’ despite the increasing fluidity of the environment (Valentine, 2001: 68). It became essential to read character and proclivity from details that were immediately perceived, for in the metropolis, everyone was in disguise, incognito and yet at the same time an individual was more and more what he wore. (Wilson, 2003: 137) As Erving Goffman suggests, fashion enabled individuals to cultivate a particular impression amongst their social audience, and was employed by audiences to help define their expectations of an individual and situation. Clothes, Goffman  argues, ‘tell us of the performer’s social status’ (1956: 34). They provide clues as to a person’s conduct and they enable the ‘unacquainted’ to predict behaviour, on the basis of past experiences or stereotypes (1956: 1). Moreover, because ‘in our society, the character one performs and one’s self are somewhat equated’ (1956: 244), it is often perceived that the clothes that people wear are representative of their ‘true’ being, and thus their authenticity. Clothing is used not only to ‘glean clues’ in relation to an individual’s social class, but ‘his conception of self, his competence, [and] his trustworthiness’ (1956: 1), and this is particularly true in the instance of strangers, for ‘where no prior information is possessed, it may be expected that the information gleaned during the interaction will be relatively crucial’; therefore, it is likely that individuals will be eager to strictly maintain their social front ‘when among persons new to them’ (1956: 216). As Richard Sennett ([1986] 2002: 20) suggests, however, fashion also provided the opportunity for deception and impersonation, and as factory

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production and the second-hand market expanded, ‘[m]any diverse segments of the cosmopolitan public began to take on a similar appearance’. There was a growing level of uncertainty over the genuineness of people’s image and their class location, and consequently, as already discussed, details such as buttons or the cut or finish of a garment provided important clues as to the authenticity of the article and the wearer’s moral ‘character’ (Sennett, [1986] 2002: 72; Finkelstein, 1991). The idea that public space was a ‘stage’ or theatre for social performances and exhibitions of respectability and wealth had significant implications for the city’s design and architecture. In the West End, inhabited by a growing middle-class, public spaces were created with the aim of providing opportunities for social spectacle, and leisure pursuits were increasingly centred on outdoor activities and forms of public consumption (Walkowitz, 1992: 17). Here the street became a place of performance, where individuals acted out social characters. Wide pavements provided room for middle-class women to display their impractical yet fashionable attire, and ‘straight wide boulevards gave a pattern of regularity to the central area and a sense of grandeur, enabling building and monuments to be visible from a distance’ (Gunn, 2000: 47). Parks and promenades provided large open spaces for events and exhibitions, and the ‘West end of Mayfair and St. James’ were filled with ‘shops, department stores and museums, . . . music halls and restaurants’ (Walkowitz, 1992: 24). For the middle-class, the public perception of both individual and collective displays was of paramount importance, as their social position was produced and reproduced through culture. Restaurants, social clubs, libraries, museum and concert halls (Gunn, 2000; Savage and Miles, 1994) offered opportunities for communicating an image of wealth, authority and respectability, and while clothing worn in the private space of the home was practical and simple (Sennett, [1986] 2002: 97), public attire, particularly that of women, was purposefully conspicuous. Possibly the most significant spaces for middle-class women were the department stores (Nava, 1996; Rappaport, 2001; Walkowitz, 1992) and arcades (Parker, 2003). The first British department store was opened in Manchester in 1836, and they soon became a more prominent feature of industrialised cities across the country by the early twentieth century (Gunn, 2000: 29), with Harrods opening in 1849 and Selfridges in 1909. Monopolised by women in terms of both consumers and staff (Hollows, 2000; Rappaport, 2001), they provided a space that women could visit unaccompanied (Nava, 1996: 53), and therefore encouraged the idea that shopping was a form of entertainment and a recreational activity, and consumption and fashion was the occupation of women. Indeed, the department store further encouraged women’s association with fashion, providing a space for them to engage in fashion consumptions and offering middle-class women a new recreational pursuit which they could carry out at least once a week (Rappaport, 2001). In doing so, these spaces helped establish middle-class women as the arbiters of taste, as it was

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these women who ‘first encountered new fashions and domestic novelties and decided whether they were worth adopting’ (Nava, 1996: 48). The space was also used to demonstrate the authority and social status of the middle-class. The glass skylights, balconies and grand doorknobs created a visual and imposing spectacle (Parker, 2003: 359), and the enclosed environment offered a sanctuary from the ‘nuisances of the street’ (Gunn, 2000: 49). Inside, elaborate interiors and lighting embodied all the aspects of middle-class respectability, and goods were openly displayed to the public, providing an opportunity for middle-class women to candidly demonstrate their wealth and consumption. ‘Central to the iconography of consumer culture, it exemplified the ubiquity of the visual in the new “scopic regime” ’ (Nava, 1996: 46). Large single-pane windows drew individuals’ attention to the shopping activity, and this was further enhanced by electric lighting from 1870 onwards. The public spaces also helped reinforce class distinction through segregation. Culture was a commodity, and although these spaces were public, they were generally only accessible to the middle-class. The department store, the railway and the theatre retained social exclusivity by excluding working classes, as their entrance fees were too high for working classes to generally engage with. Where there were examples of working-class women entering these spaces, such as factory workers and prostitutes or those assisting ladies in their shopping, they were there in a working capacity. Even when working classes could afford to enter such spaces such as the concert hall or art gallery, they often still found themselves excluded as they lacked the right social etiquette (Gunn, 2000). Today, Savage et al. (1992: 108) argue that these class divisions still exist in terms of cultural practices and public spaces. Those working in ‘education, health, and welfare’ are much more likely to attend theatres and museums, to go to classical concerts, and to spend their free time climbing, skating, playing tennis and/or polo, camping, rambling and practising yoga, rather than fishing, playing snooker or bowl, or attending rock concerts (Hughson et al., 2005), and their children are more likely to be engaged in extracurricular activities, such as altar serving, playing music instruments and sport (Freie, 2007). In contrast, the lifestyle ‘choices’ of the working-class are ‘extremely restricted’ (Bondi and Christie, 2000: 338), and there is mounting pressure on all aspects of expenditure. ‘Money for clothes, pocket money for children, trips out’ is frequently all but non-existent, and this works to ‘exclude household members from everyday social activities’ such as playing sport, visiting family and friends, or eating out (2000: 358). This has a significant impact on the workingclass’s use of space. Broadly restricted to the home, their use of public space is economically and temporally limited to places which can be afforded and visited on ‘Friday nights’ or weekends (339). This has important implications for fashion consumption and taste, too. As Chapters 5 and 6 discuss, women’s dress is informed by the social context; the time, place and  the  audience all affect the performance given and

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the anticipated need for a ‘personal front’ (Goffman, 1956). But if access or exposure to social spaces is restricted, this can impact on an individual’s understanding or expectation of that space, and as a result, they can interpret the level, or need, for a performance differently. Space, like gender, is ‘a doing’ (Gillian, 1999: 248), meaning that the boundaries and judgements of public or private space are not fixed or stable, but are made through a process of social interaction (Madanipour, 2003; Valentine, 2001). As the process of interaction changes, so too can the nature of space; the simple ‘entry of a stranger may change a private area into a public’ one (Ardener, 1997: 2), but equally the way in which we make sense of a space will influence the type of social performance we expect to give and witness there. How visible a space is depends on how it relates or compares to other social spaces (Löw, 2006) and the extent to which an individual feels it necessary to manage their impression amongst the audience (Goffman, 1956). The more significant the social audience, the more the individual feels scrutinised by others, the greater the need to make a performance (Tseëlon, 1995), but the level of concern or anxiety an individual has over others’ judgement can vary across time and space, social role and identity, and Bourdieu’s work also strongly suggests that it differs with social class. Arguing for a middle-class ‘disposition’ towards ‘pretension’ or ‘bluff’, adopted in an effort to possess distinction, Bourdieu maintains that the middle classes have far greater ‘uncertainty and anxiety about belonging’ ([1984] 1996: 253). ‘Haunted’ by the appearance that they offer to others and the judgements that are made of it (253), he suggests that ‘everything predisposes him [the middle-class man] to perceive the social world in terms of appearance’ (254), and he is overly concerned with ‘seeming’ ‘for others’ (253) and providing the right type of impression. This, he argues, starkly contrasts with the working classes, whose ‘conditions of existence’ cause them to be focused on practical urgencies and functionality. Rather than creating and presenting an image for the benefit of others, they are much more concerned with ‘being’ and, in a sense, just getting by. As discussed in Chapter 2, Bourdieu does somewhat exaggerate the degree to which working-class people are driven solely by a ‘taste of necessity’ (Rocamora, 2002). Fashion today is much more available to working-class women, and as Diane Crane (2000), Angela Partington (1992) and Beverley Skeggs (1997) all note, working-class women do engage in fashionable consumption. In fact, as I discuss in Chapter 6, my research found that knowledge of fashion and buying is an important part of many working-class women’s lives. Nevertheless, Bourdieu’s assertion has some interesting implications for the perceptions of public space and class differences in women’s fashion practice. Firstly, it implies that middle-class women will be far more anxious than their working-class counterparts with regard to judgements made by others, and as a result they are much more aware of maintaining some degree of impression management with any audience they might encounter. Secondly, it suggests that middle-class women are much more likely to perceive any space

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with an audience as a public one, whereas working-class women are more likely to understand spaces with local audiences as closer to private. If we consider these ideas alongside Goffman’s (1956) notion of personal front, and the importance of fashion in individuals’ public performance, Bourdieu’s argument suggests that differences in anxiety about social audiences, and perceptions of space, are made evident through fashion choices. Therefore, fashion operates as a means of class distinction, not only through its embodiment of respectability and femininity, but also through its ability to mobilise perceptions of public space. As Chapters 5 and 6 demonstrate, this relationship between understandings of public space, the need for a personal front, does indeed play a fundamental role in class evaluations and women’s fashion practice. As Efrat Tseëlon (1995), Sophie Woodward (2007) and Barbara Vinken (2005) suggest, when used as ‘mask’ or ‘costume’, fashion enables women to create a particular personae or idealised self, conscious that the clothes they wear will be read by audiences as indicative of their social character and true self. For the performer who is ‘dramaturgically prudent’ (Goffman, 1956), or as Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) suggests, concerned with ‘seeming’, decisions over what to wear are crucial in order to ‘fabricate’ or cultivate the desired image ‘front stage’ amongst the social audience, and simultaneously suppress those aspects which ‘might otherwise discredit the fostered impression’ (114). Crucially, however, if the way in which audiences are conceived differs significantly with social class, then what is considered to be appropriate or necessary for any particular audience also differs, and as a result women’s public performance can work to locate them not only in the social space but also in a social hierarchy. As Chapter 5 shows, these differences in audience perception and the perception of public space are often key to class distinctions, and what is considered appropriate or an acceptable ‘standard’ for one group is not necessarily the same for others. Moreover, despite fashion’s democratisation, British women still use clothing as a measure of moral character. They evaluate and place strangers who they see and meet in the course of their daily lives on the basis of what they are wearing, and they assume actions, values and attitudes of others on the basis of their attire. Subtle features of dress such as colour, cut, detailing and quality continue to be employed by women as indicators of class position and as a measure of respectability, while these same aspects of their own dress also work to evaluate and place them. Moreover, as well as locating women in the social space and a class hierarchy, fashion is also used to locate individuals in the geographical, residential space, which can also be understood as operating along class lines. In fact, since industrialisation important class distinctions have existed in relation to residential space, with cities often geographically dividing rich and poor. London’s West End, for example, seen as the home of middle-class leisure and consumption, was chiefly seen as a space of spectacle and entertainment rather than a residential space, as improvements in transport had meant that the middle classes could move out to the suburbs, commuting to work via the railway

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(Rappaport, 2001: 4). By contrast the East End, which was the home of shipbuilding and industry, was populated by the poverty-stricken working-class (Gunn, 2000; Nord, 1995; Walkowitz, 1992), who were immobile and unable to move away from the city. Overcrowded and unsanitary, the East End slums were viewed as a dark, dangerous and threatening places, synonymous with the identity of the workingclass (Skeggs, 1997) and the perceived qualities of middle-class women, which as already discussed, were read through their dress. Equally when middle-class philanthropists entered the East End slums, their dress distinguished them keenly as not living in that location (Walkowitz, 1992), while on Friday and Saturday nights, working classes in the city centres were marked out by their ‘disgraceful’ drunken scenes played out in the ‘heart of the town’ (Jayne et al., 2006: 62). Today social classes are still geographically split. As Bourdieu notes, ‘people who are close together in social space tend to find themselves, by choice or by necessity, close to one another in geographic space’ (1989: 16), while those who are distant from each other in social space tend to interact only briefly and intermittently. Flows of population and affluence into gentrified neighbourhoods, often adjacent to areas of great poverty, have produced a landscape of privilege and wealth, demarcated from poorer areas by walls and gates which sharpen the distinction between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ (Bondi and Christie, 2000: 329). Used as a strategy for power, these spatial divides are concerned with maintaining hierarchical positions (Foucault, 1986; Gillian, 1999). Due to their distance from necessity, the middle-class have the ‘power to control space’ and exclude ‘others’ who they deem to be ‘threateningly different’ (Sibley, 1999: 120–127). In the ‘built environment’, suburbs have ‘provided a refuge for the middle-class from the dirt and the disorder of industrial cities, and their working-class inhabitants’ (Valentine, 2001: 179; Sibley, 1991), and within these areas, ‘white middle-class residents have established “norms” or appropriate ways of behaving towards each other, and have little contact with “other” groups who are regarded as unpredictable and threatening’ (Valentine, 2001: 179). Consequently, while the ‘common folk’ have learnt to ‘keep their common place’, others have learnt to ‘keep their distance’, not only through social practices but geographical structures as well (Bourdieu, 1989: 17). Fashion is used to underpin these distinctions. It provides a way of geographically locating people and thus conferring class status, and as Southerton’s work (2002) suggests, it is used to judge others’ residential locations and to subsequently make class distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Conclusion Historically one of fashion’s strengths is its ability to unite a social group and to reflect a collective identity, and at the same time, to differentiate that group

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from all others. Fashion, as Simmel ([1904] 1957) suggests, is concerned with union and segregation, and certainly for middle classes it has historically been a very important tool for establishing their culture of respectability. Indeed, the legacy of the Victorian era is the way in which everyday fashions are used to embody notions of decency, modest and restraint, as well as wealth and affluence. A crucial aspect of one’s personal front, as Goffman (1956) suggests, individual’s everyday dress is read by social audiences as an immediate visual clue as to their social role, their attitudes and values, and their social character. As part of the performance of respectability then, everyday fashion choices assert the authenticity and legitimacy of the person, as thus they form an essential part of class formations. Indeed, as the comments from participants in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 show, women use others’ dress as a means of evaluation, and for middle-class women in particular, fashion practices and fashion tastes operate as an important mechanism for class distancing, used to establish their own respectability and to distance themselves from working-class connotations. A ‘symbolic boundary’ (Skeggs, 2011), middle-class women’s dress is read as indicative of their modesty, decency, self-control and restraint, while the dress of their workingclass counterparts is seen to reflect their sexual promiscuity, lack of morality, lack of restraint and deviant behaviour. Moreover, there is an important intersection between class and gender, as fashion is not just about the construction and communication of class but the performance of femininity. Cultivated within a white, middle-class, heteronormative context, however, appropriate femininity encapsulates all the aspects of middle-class respectability, legitimising the performances and practices of middle-class women and ‘othering’ those who sit outside of this framework. While an individual’s performances of gender may appear natural and normal, right and correct, due to the ritualisation and routinisation of practices, they are in fact classed performances, shaped by a woman’s habitus and conditions of existence, and used to locate her within the social hierarchy. For these performances to be evaluated, however, they need to be visible, and thus they need to take place within the public space. Indeed, it is fashion’s role in the performance of gender and public space which is key to its relationship with class. Yet, as the following chapters explore, what is considered public space is also subject to class distinctions, and while middle-class women are much more likely to perceive any social space with an audience as a public space, requiring a performance, working-class women have much less anxiety over the judgements made in those spaces which are local and familiar, and thus see less of a requirement for dressing up. Indeed, just as class informs women’s understandings and performances of femininity, it also shapes women’s concern for social audiences, their perception of social space and their priorities in terms of mothering, and these cultural and social orientations in turn impact on women’s fashion practice. As a result, it is not simply that class is mobilised through fashion via particular class markers or styles, although some

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fashions do carry class connotations, but more importantly it is how and where fashions are worn on the body which enables judgement of respectability and thus social class to be made.

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92  Fashioning a Performance McDowell, L. (1999) Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. McKenzie, L. (2015) Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain, Bristol: The Policy Press. McRobbie, A. (1993) Shut Up and Dance: Youth Culture and Changing Modes of Femininity, Young, 1(2): 13–31. McRobbie, A. (1999) In the Culture Society: Art, Fashion and Popular Music, Oxon: Routledge. McRobbie, A. (2008) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, London, Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi and Singapore: Sage. Miller, D. (1998) A Theory of Shopping, Cambridge: Polity. Morris, C. and Munt, S. (2019) Classed Formations of Shame in White, British Single Mothers, Feminism & Psychology, 29(2): 231–249. Murdoch, L. (2013) Daily Life of Victorian Women, Santa Barbara, CA, Denver, CO and Oxford: Greenwood Press. Nava, M. (1996) Modernity’s Disavowal: Women, the City and the Department Store, in M. Nava and A. O’Shea (eds.) Modern Times: Reflections on a Century of English Modernity, London: Routledge. Nead, L. (1998) Myths of Sexuality: Representation of Women in Victorian Britain, Oxford: Blackwell. Nicholls, E. (2105) ‘Never, Ever Go Down the Bigg Market’: Classed and Spatialised Processes of Othering on the ‘Girls’ Night Out, in T. Thurnell-Read (ed.) Drinking Dilemmas: Space, Culture and Identity, London: Routledge, pp. 114–131. Nicholls, E. (2019) Negotiating Femininities in the Neoliberal Night-Time Economy, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Nord, D. E. (1995) Walking the Victorian Streets: Women, Representation and the City, New York: Cornell University Press. Oakley, A. [1972] (1985) Sex, Gender and Society, London: Temple Smith. ONS. (2016) Women Shoulder the Responsibility of ‘Unpaid Work’, 10 November, www. ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/ articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10. ONS. (2017) How Do the Jobs Men and Women Do Affect the Gender Pay Gap? 6 October, www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsand workinghours/articles/howdothejobsmenandwomendoaffectthegenderpaygap/ 2017-10-06. Ortner, S. B. and Whitehead, H. [1981] (1989) Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, K. W. (2003) Sign Consumption in the 19th-Century Department Store: An Examination of Visual Merchandising in the Grand Emporiums, Journal of Sociology, 39(4): 353–371. Partington, A. (1992) Popular Fashion and Working Class Affluence, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds.) Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: HarperCollins. Pitcan, M., Marwick, A. E. and Boyd, D. (2018) Performing a Vanilla Self: Respectability Politics, Social Class, and the Digital World, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 23(3): 163–179. Rappaport, E. (2001) Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End, Woodstock: Princeton University Press.

Fashioning a Performance 93 Reay, D. (1998) Class Work: Mothers’ Involvement in their Children’s Primary Schooling, London: University College London. Rocamora, A. (2002) Fields of Fashion: Critical Insights into Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture, Journal of Consumer Culture, 2(3): 341–362. Rocamora, A. (2011) Personal Fashion Blogs: Screens and Mirrors in Digital SelfPortraits, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture, 15(4): 407–424. Savage, M., Barlow, J., Dickens, P. and Fielding, T. (1992) Property, Bureaucracy and Culture: Middle Class Formation in Contemporary Britain, London: Routledge. Savage, M. and Miles, A. (1994) The Remaking of the British Working Class, 1840– 1940, London: Routledge. Sennett, R. [1986] (2002) The Fall of Public Man, London: Penguin. Sibley, D. (1999) Creating Geographies of Difference, in D. Massey, J. Allen and P. Sarre (eds.) Human Geography Today, Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press. Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Simmel, G. [1903] (1971) The Metropolis and Mental Life, in D. Levine (ed.) On Individuality and Social Forms, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Simpson, M. (1994) Here Come the Mirror Men, The Independent, 15 November. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Skeggs, B. (2004a) Class, Self and Culture, London: Routledge. Skeggs, B. (2004b) Context and Background: Pierre Bourdieu’s Analysis of Class, Gender and Sexuality, Sociological Review, 52(s2): 19–33. Skeggs, B. (2005) The Making of Class and Gender Through Visualizing Moral Subject Formation, Sociology, 39(5): 965–982. Skeggs, B. (2011) Imagining Person Differently: Person Value and Autonomist WorkingClass Value Practices, Sociological Review, 59(3): 496–513. Southerton, D. (2002) Boundaries of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, Sociology, 36(1): 171–190. Storr, M. (2003) Latex and Lingerie: Shopping for Pleasure at Ann Summers Parties, Oxford: Berg. Thrift, N. (1986) Introduction: The Geography of the Nineteenth Century, in N. Thrift and P. Williams (eds.) Class and Space: The Making of Urban Society, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Tseëlon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life, London: Sage. Twigg, J. (2013) Fashion and Age, London: Bloomsbury. Tyler, I. (2008) Chav Mum Chav Scum: Class Disgust in Contemporary Britain, Feminist Media Studies, 8(1): 17–34. Tyler, I. (2009) Against Abjection, Feminist Theory, 10(1): 77–98. Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain, London and New York: Zed Books. Valentine, G. (2001) Social Geographies: Space and Society, Essex: Pearson Education Ltd. Veblen, T. [1899] (1994) Theory of the Leisure Class, London: Dove Publications. Vinken, B. (2005) Fashion Zeitgeist: Trends and Cycles in the Fashion System, Oxford and New York: Berg. Walkerdine, V. and Lucey, H. (1989) Democracy in the Kitchen: Regulating Mothers and Socialising Daughters, London: Virago.

94  Fashioning a Performance Walkowitz, J. R. [1980] (1982) Prostitutes and Victorian Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walkowitz, J. R. (1992) City of Dreadful Delights: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, London: Virago. Weatherill, L. (1993) The Meaning of Consumer Behaviour in Late Seventeenth-Early Eighteenth Century England, in J. Brewer and R. Porter (eds.) Consumption and the World of Goods, London and New York: Routledge. Wilson, E. (2003) Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London: I. B. Tauris. Wissinger, E. (2015) This Year’s Model: Fashion, Media, and the Making of Glamour, New York: New York University Press. Woodward, S. (2007) Why Women Wear What They Wear, Oxford: Berg.

Chapter 5

Dressing Up Performance, Perceptions and Practice

Introduction In this chapter I want to focus more closely on the discussions I had with women about their own fashion practice, their evaluation of others’ dress and their thoughts on the relationship between fashion and class. As I discussed in Chapter 2, fashion is a slippery term, difficult to define,  and  one which encompasses a wide range of clothing, from haute couture to high-street fashion and ordinary individuals’ everyday dress. Fashion operates as a scheme or system of signification, as cultural references are embedded and communicated through the clothing that we wear, and it is also understood as a system of production and consumption, which itself has many differing strands including fashion design, fashion media, fashion marketing and retail. Even in ordinary and everyday conversations the fuzziness of fashion is evident. Used interchangeably or alongside other words like clothing, trend or style, it is sometimes considered distinct or different from these same terms, and it can be a word which generates mixed emotions. For some, the ‘f’ word brings a sense of excitement and admiration. For others, it creates a feeling of anxiety or disdain. As a result, engaging with the ‘f’ word can be challenging, for while it can be used to convey an impression of good taste and cultural competency, using the ‘f’ word equally risks demonstrating a lack of expertise or cultural knowledge, and can conjure up notions of vanity and superficiality. Despite the sensitivity surrounding the ‘f’ word, however, the women I interviewed find ways to talk about it. As I discuss later and in Chapter 6, they talk about their anxieties over what to wear, how to judge what is appropriate or what looks good, and as I consider more closely in Chapter 7, they discuss how they share tastes with their mothers and their daughters. Throughout the interviews, the women disclose some quite strong and uncomfortable thoughts about the associations they make between other women’s fashion choices and class status, and they talk about the ways in which their own dress might be judged. Notably, however, many of the women start their discussions with an emphasis on dressing up, and thus I have chosen to discuss this concept first. Indeed, the purpose of this chapter is to explore the notion of dressing up and

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to demonstrate how understandings and practices of dressing up reveal other important aspects of the fashion‒class relationship. Dressing up is something which all the women seem keen to talk about; they see it as a key part of my project and as a practice which is closely related to fashion. Indeed, dressing up is a fundamental aspect of the wider discussion around fashion and class, and conversations about dressing up expose important distinctions in the women’s understandings of performance, social space and femininity. Moreover, these conversations highlight concerns around selfconfidence and social anxieties and, for some, it is a subject which offers a way into discussions around much more personal feelings, about their identity and appearance, and the ways in which motherhood, ageing and body image have affected their relationship to clothes. I start the chapter then, by examining what dressing up means, how it is collectively understood and, perhaps more importantly, using the work of Erving Goffman (1956), I consider how dressing up relates to public performance, self-confidence and understandings of social space and audiences. As we have already seen in Chapter 4, both public performances and performances of femininity are informed by class, and for many of the women in my research, class is a significant factor in their dressing-up practice because it is something so closely linked to perceptions of public spaces, respectability and femininity. In the latter part of the chapter, I consider this relationship between dressing up and femininity more closely, and the ways in which dressing up mobilises the differing emphasis women place on desirability. Moreover, throughout the chapter I consider how we can use Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus to better understand how dressing up is a cultural practice, structured by class. As a practice which is used to classify women and locate them in the social hierarchy, and one which also ‘classifies the classifier’ ([1984] 1996: 6), as it is through the process of judging others’ dress that women also communicate their own orientations and perceptions, and reveal their own social anxieties.

Dressing Up and Going Public Generally, the opening comments about dressing up are quite similar. Participants tend to begin their conversations with a focus on dressing up for social gatherings and celebrations, such as birthday parties, christenings, weddings and, as Emily Nicholls (2019) suggests, ‘the girls’ night out’. These are social events where participants feel that their choices over what to wear are more thoughtful, they require more time, and they often involve some degree of help or advice. The clothes worn for these occasions are also considered significantly different from the clothes worn every day or in more ordinary contexts. They are more decorative, more detailed and generally much more conspicuous. The women describe them as ‘sparkly’, ‘fancy’ and ‘elegant’. But as the conversations progress, dressing up clothes are also described as ‘smart’, ‘fitted’ and ‘less comfortable’, and it becomes increasingly clear that

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not all dressing-up clothes are the same. Instead, the complex and nuanced nature of dressing up is more and more apparent, and though there seems to be some consensus over what dressing up means, it was a practice which operates on a wide spectrum. Some occasions or spaces require more dressing up than others, and dressing up can take slightly different forms with a greater emphasis on being formal or smart or feminine and pretty. Moreover, it appears that social class plays an important role in informing distinctions in the women’s attitudes towards the type and degree of dressing up which is required for different spaces. It is noticeable, for example, that amongst middle-class women dressing up is not only talked of in relation to celebrations and occasions, but is also discussed in the context of work, the school run, shopping trips and the sports club. In fact, for middle-class women some degree of dressing up is taking place across almost all social contexts, many of which are quite routine. Yet, for working-class women dressing up has clear spatial and temporal boundaries, and rather than being something they engage with daily, it is limited to evening, weekends and special social events. Crucially, dressing up takes place in spaces in which the women feel visible, and thus in spaces which they perceive as being public. Indeed, according to Efrat Tseëlon (1995), dressing up is closely linked to visibility and whether one feels scrutinised, observed and judged by an audience, and this is much more likely in unfamiliar or public spaces, or in spaces where judgements by the social audiences have consequences for the individual. As Ali Madanipour (2003) argues, public spaces are those which are interpersonal or impersonal, operating ‘beyond the personal realm of individuals and their intimate circle of friends and family’ (2003: 11). These are spaces concerned with social interaction and sociability, in which individuals encounter and engage with acquaintances, colleagues and strangers and thus, they are spaces in which individuals feel they are on show and scrutinised or judged by others. These may be spaces outside of the home, such as the bars, restaurants and nightclubs, many of the spaces that the women talk about, but they can equally be spaces inside the home with the presence of a stranger or visitor (Ardener, 1997). Space, as discussed in Chapter 4, is something which is made, and therefore its status as public or private is fluid and depends on the actors and actions taking place there and how the audience is perceived by the actor, and the role s/he chooses to play. Moreover, also as discussed in Chapter 4, public spaces require some degree of performance as individuals communicate their social role, status and respectability to those they encounter through their appearance and manner. Thus, within these spaces, fashion plays a pivotal role, cultivating an impression amongst a social audience as to the individual’s character and social status. As Goffman argues, appearance, and within this he includes clothing, is a fundamental aspect of an individual’s presentation of self. ‘Impression management’ forms an important part of one’s personal front, and clothing in particular operates as an important ‘sign vehicle’, communicating to an audience

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an individual’s social status, the role they are playing and the activity they are engaged in, whether it be work or recreation (1956: 9–15). On special occasions and in situations where individuals are keen to create the ‘right’ impression, such as at an interview, they may be more acutely aware of the ways in which they ‘put on show for the benefit of other people’ (Goffman, 1956: 10), but even in ordinary and everyday contexts, Madanipour (2003) suggests that we use fashion and routine practices, such as putting on make-up, brushing our hair or changing our clothes, to construct a mask and to foster a ‘natural appearance’ or an ‘idealised self’. For several of the women I spoke to, they are more aware of the ways in which they used clothing to construct and present a particular image in the context of work, special occasions or when meeting new people. As Penny, Julia and Shelly explain, ‘clothes are good for you to hide behind’, they help an individual ‘play the part’  and they are a ‘powerful tool’ in influencing others’ behaviour. PENNY:   At

work, you can wear whatever you want, but I decided to go in a bit smarter . . . so that they might think I’ve got more money, or that I am better at my work . . . you’ve got to dress the part, so if I dress like an Art Director then I might get a job as an Art Director. [Aged 31, Art Director, Advertising] JULIA:   I’ll probably think more about what I’m going to wear when I first meet somebody . . . possibly some of it is confidence, the reason I comment on that is because . . . I’ve just gone back to work, after having a baby. I’ve been off for a year and I kind of probably thought, ‘What impression do I want to give?’ [Aged 35, Business Analyst] SHELLY:   I have dressed this way today because I have got to go and face five or six engineers in their arsey meeting and want to convey an image of femininity and but actually strength as well. So, I do actually use my dress, I’ve learnt to use my dress . . . to have a presence. And I’ve realised just how important dress is. I’ve realised how my dress can influence behaviour. It’s quite a powerful tool, and I don’t think we realise how powerful it is. [Aged 44, University Sponsorship Manager] These three women are consciously aware of the importance of clothing in creating the ‘right’ impression, and they recognise the part clothes play in the performance of their role. Moreover, the fact that they focus on performances in the context of work is not insignificant either. As Joanne Entwistle argues, dress is an ‘important aspect in the management and discipline of bodies within the workplace’ (1997: 316) and particularly for women, as they have traditionally been associated with the private and domestic space. Indeed, women are often consciously anticipating and evaluating their self-presentation in order to present a look which is in tune with the expected lifestyle of an executive and professional.

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Moreover, since the 1970s, with the feminisation of the labour market, there has been increased focus on the type of clothing and certainly ‘business dress’ worn by women, with magazines, books and other media encouraging women to dress in ways which legitimise their authority and which effectively convey credibility, intelligence, motivation and personality. In the work environment, clothes operate as a powerful symbol of the values and beliefs of a company, and the advice given to women has strongly suggested that they could ‘lose hard won authority’ (Marcketti and Farrell-Beck, 2008: 21) if they fail to wear clothing which communicates an appropriate image in this space. Indeed, for Penny, an Art Director, it is important that her workwear communicates a knowledge of the fashion trends circulating at the time, as this cultivates an image of her as someone who has expertise in her field. Her image, she suggests, is perhaps even more important than her ability to do the work, and certainly in terms of future promotions she considers it essential. At work, we’ve got everything, I mean we’ve got English Vogue, French Vogue . . . Italian Vogue, i-D, we have POP, you know, everything, and it’s all available as so as they come in. It’s quite an important part of the job, to know [what the next trend is]. And dressing the part . . . it’s a very easy thing to do, and I think it’s important. So even if I can’t do the work, I look the part, and that’s something. [Aged 31, Art Director, Advertising]

PENNY: 

Equally, for Julia, who is returning to work from maternity leave, selecting clothes which convey an image of someone professional and dedicated to the company is key to asserting her capacity to do the job, demonstrating that her commitment has not been diminished by her time away or her new family obligations. Similarly, Elizabeth suggests that when she returned to work having had her children, she was conscious that her work clothes needed to disguise her post-baby body and her new mothering identity and assert her authority in that space. And for Shelly too, dressing ‘for the specifics of the situation’, as she describes it, enables her to use clothing to mediate the relationships and interactions she has at work, so that she is convincing and ‘taken seriously’, in an environment dominated by men. Your clients need to forget that actually what you’re thinking about is your baby, you need to be completely focused on them, so I suppose a long black coat or something semi-fitted, but very smart . . . whatever it may be, women are absolutely scrutinising you. The first lectures that I went back to give . . . I had really wide flared black trousers, slightly high waisted and a really fitted sort of coat. And I knew I was like making a statement and I felt good in it. And they were like, ‘wow, that’s amazing’ . . . it made an immediate impression. ‘Yeah, she is back’, ‘She means business’, ‘She’s absolutely bang on it’, ‘She’s totally focused’. I do think that your clothes represent you. [Aged 42, Designer]

ELIZABETH: 

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Performance, Confidence and Beauty For performances to be convincing, however, Goffman suggests that they also need to be confident. Certainly, he argues that social actors need to have ‘belief in the part one is playing’ for the audience to be ‘taken in’ by the character being performed (1956: 10). The actor ‘implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them’. However, in order to understand and evaluate the extent to which the audience are convinced by a performance, Goffman suggests that it is more useful to ‘turn the question around’ and consider the actors’ ‘own belief in the impression of reality’ (1956: 10), as convincing performances not only require the actors to look the part, but also require self-belief. In fact, Elizabeth suggests that self-confidence is just as important, if not more important, than the clothes being worn, with a successful performance relying not so much on what you wear, but how you wear it. It doesn’t matter what you look like as long as you feel confident because then you’ll rock, and everyone will just, you know . . . I have this client, and she is a big woman but my God, she is the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen . . . beautifully made-up face, great hair, beautiful nails, great smile, fab swimsuit. And . . . it’s because she is happy and confident. [Aged 42, Designer]

ELIZABETH: 

If we view dressing up as a mask which represents ‘the conception we have formed of ourselves’ and the ‘true self we would like to be’, which ‘we are striving to live up to’, as Goffman (1956: 12) suggests, then self-confidence and self-assurance are key to an individual’s success. Certainly, for Elizabeth, her client’s dressing up is viewed as successful because she has conviction and confidence, and this association is one which is reflected across a range of fashion media. The role fashion discourse plays in cultivating these perceptions of women is also evident in Elizabeth’s remarks, with ‘rocks’ being an expression repeatedly employed across fashion media to describe those who are seen to have ‘pulled off’ bold fashion statements or unusual fashion styles. This type of fashion language, or ‘Vogue speak’ as Laird O’Shea Borelli describes it (1997: 254), is developed and used to emphasise certain characteristics or trends. Metaphors, alliteration and references to popular culture are employed by editors to denote and connote the items depicted, in a way that Roland Barthes ([1997] 2006) describes, conjuring up notions of style, luxury and originality, while ‘season-specific’ terms, such as ‘edgy’, ‘eclectic’ or ‘grunge’, are incorporated into both readers’ language and popular terminology. ‘When talking about magazines women endlessly and delightedly, parody and mimic them, displaying their own literacy in and mastery of, [their] generic conventions’ (Ballaster et al., [1991] 1993: 35), and as fashion commentators have been less

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able to command the fashion looks their audiences’ adopt, due to pluralisation of fashion media and the growth of fashion bloggers and vloggers, generating fashion language has become increasingly important for mainstream fashion commentators to demonstrate their continued relevance (Matthews, 2015). Elizabeth, however, not only makes a connection between the expression ‘rocks’ and being confident, but rather, she adds that her client looks ‘sexy’, ‘beautiful’, ‘great’ and ‘fabulous’, thereby inferring a level of attractiveness. This association between fashion, confidence and beauty has had a very long history with fashion publications, too. Dating back to the 1800s, ‘trendsetter’ Mrs Irene Castle explained to shoppers in Philipsborn, a US mail-order catalogue, that ‘Good dressing gives grace and poise and confidence. . . [and] attracts admiration’ (Olian, 1995), and in today’s post-feminism era, this association between attractiveness and confidence has ‘gained increasing traction across multiple domains’ (Gill and Orgad, 2017: 18). Education and health policy, fashion media, advertising, work and leadership initiatives, books, television programmes, vloggers, bloggers and hashtags are all involved in encouraging greater self-confidence amongst women, to the point where Rosalind Gill and Shani Orgad argue that the ‘Confidence Cult[ure]’ has become ‘the new imperative of our time’ (2016: 324). Citing examples such as Sheryl Sandberg’s best-seller Lean In and The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, as well as advertising campaigns from Nike and Dove, and public health initiatives such as #ThisGirlCan, Rosalind Gill and Shani Orgad maintain that there is a growing demand on women to be confident  in terms of work and body image, with confidence  being  heralded as the  key  to self-esteem, workplace promotion and desirability. These themes were echoed by my participants, with the same two sites (work and the body) featuring heavily in discussions of performance and dressing up. This is not surprising, however, for as Laura Favaro (2017) and Gill and Orgad (2015, 2017) argue, the concepts of ‘leaning in’ and ‘loving your body’ have become a staple part of fashion media and advertising. Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Marie Claire, Red and Vogue regularly feature articles which show women how to achieve confidence at work, and  they document  models’ and  celebrities’  journeys to body confidence,  while  praising  various fashion brands for their increased body diversity. These articles tout confidence as the ‘new sexy’, claiming it holds the key to happiness, beauty and finding love (Favaro, 2017) –  a message which has been echoed across advertising campaigns from Missguided, Nastygal, Dove, SimplyBe, Nike, H&M, Sainsburys, Boots, My Pale Skin and countless more brands. While these campaigns may appear positive and progressive by seeming to disrupt the hostile surveillance of women’s bodies, and responding to earlier feminist critiques of beauty and fashion industries for their focus on whiteness and thinness (see Orbach, [1978] 2006 or Bordo, 1993), Gill and Orgad suggest that all is not well. Using Foucault’s concept of the ‘technology of self’

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(1988), which posits that individuals act upon themselves, through a process of self-examination in the pursuit of ‘happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality’ (1988: 18), they argue that the focus on confidence operates as a ‘gendered technology’ which works to individualise structural and cultural inequalities, and simultaneously instils a high degree of self-regulation and self-surveillance (2017: 26). The emphasis on the self and self-work which besets the culture of confidence, through its constant language of self-love, self-esteem, self-belief and self-help, has the effect of obscuring the structural barriers which exist. ‘The brutal effects of patriarchal capitalism are dismissed as trivial compared to women’s own toxic baggage – which, bizarrely, is treated as self-generated’ and detached from culture (Gill and Orgad, 2017: 27). Rather, reflecting the culture of new femininities, post-feminism and neo-liberalism, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 4, responsibility for women’s beauty, desirability and success is said to lie within women’s own thoughts, actions and inactions. As a result, women are drawn to engage in various forms of self-surveillance and regulation, employing technologies (such as apps, quizzes and emails) to build their confidence, while these same technologies  work to  monitor, measure and assess their attitudes and behaviours, obscuring social disadvantages while pertaining to empower them. Moreover, the continual emphasis on women’s ‘self’ plays into the notion that confidence is universal, inclusive and thus available to all,  with  cultural and social differences  largely  erased. Those who are seen to lack confidence are encouraged to work more on themselves, in a bid to overcome their own internal barriers and to make themselves more attractive, as insecurity and a lack of self-confidence are considered both ugly and unhealthy. Indeed, being insecure or self-deprecating is read as abject and abhorrent. Yet, my conversations with participants suggest that structural and cultural inequalities do play an important role in women’s self-confidence, and the role that social class plays is not insignificant. Diane’s experience, which I consider later in this chapter, clearly demonstrates the ways in which class habitus affects an individual’s ability to feel ‘at ease’ in a space, and similarly, conversations around femininity infer an understanding amongst workingclass women of the ways in which their dressing-up practices are judged negatively by others. As I discussed in Chapter 2, class exists, not only as a material resource but also as a lived experience, and therefore it is concerned with psychological and social resources as well as economics. Bourdieu ([1984] 1996: 66) argues that increased cultural and social capital, and distance from necessity, provides those higher up the social hierarchy with a level of self-confidence and self-certainty which comes with the knowledge that their presentation to the world has cultural legitimacy. Thus, amongst middle- and upper-class women, there is a greater sense of self-confidence and entitlement which is lacking amongst those from working-class backgrounds (Reay, 1997).

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Moreover, literature within social psychology further suggests that the universal presentation of confidence is misleading, as confidence, self-esteem and even educational and financial success are much more likely for those who are deemed conventionally beautiful (Datta Gupta et al., 2016; Hatfield and Specher, 1986; Judge et al., 2009: 752; Langlois et al., 2000; Feingold, 1992). Those who are attractive tend to be more sociable. They receive more positive responses such as smiles, nods and touches when interacting, and they are more likely to be perceived as virtuous and assumed to be high achievers (Tolmach and Scherr, 1984; Chapkis, 1986). In fact, beauty results in a ‘halo effect’, conferring on individuals a host of other desirable qualities, which also affords  them greater social status (Kanazawa and Kovar, 2004: 228; Gupta et al., 2016; Feingold, 1992; Tolmach and Scherr, 1984; Webster and Driskel, 1983). Yet, as feminist authors have clearly demonstrated (see, for example, Appleford, 2016; Bordo, 1993; LeBesco, 2003; Collins, 1996; hooks, 1992; Craig, 2002), what is considered attractive is culturally and socially constructed, with beauty standards largely formulated around white, Western, middle-class ideals. Consequently, though fashion media may propose that women need to be confident in order to be attractive, it is likely that self-confidence is implied or assumed as a result of an individual’s good looks, and that those who sit closer to the normative standards of beauty appear more confident as their performances are legitimised. Barriers to Self-Confidence: Motherhood, Menopause, Age and Body Image Though confidence may be essential to a convincing performance, for many of the women I spoke to, ageing, menopause, motherhood and gaining weight damaged their self-esteem, disrupted their sense of self, and thus, challenged their ability to publicly perform and to make their performances convincing. The body forms an important part of women’s performances, working with fashion to create an identity and a ‘mask’ with which to play a particular role (Shilling, 2012; Twigg, 2013), and shifts in women’s identities, entering new life stages, and changes in their body shape and size had significant impacts on their relationship with clothes and dressing-up practice. Mixed in amongst these changes are issues around social class, as well as race, age and sexuality, as these forms of identity inform the ways in which women understand their own bodies and how women’s bodies are read by others (Shilling, 2012; Twigg, 2013). As I discussed in Chapters 2 and 4, for example, the notion of excess is often attributed to working-class bodies, whether this be in relation to too much flesh or too much flesh on show, and as I discuss further in Chapter 7, the performance of mothering and pregnancy are also very closely linked to ideas around respectability with expectations about how mothers’ bodies should look. Thus, while women may not talk explicitly about class

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when they are talking about the barriers to self-confidence or the thoughts on their changing body shape, issues of class linger in the background, informing and influencing women’s ideas on social expectations and fashion practices. Amongst some of the older women, for example, they talk about the enjoyment they once had dressing up when they were younger, but explain that as older women, they feel much less sure of what to wear as they do not want to look ‘too frumpy’ or like ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, or as Grace puts its ‘an over-aged tart’. As Julia Twigg (2013) and Helen Thomas (2013) note, this phrase ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ has a long history dating back to the eighteenth century. Historically carrying connotations of prostitution, moral decay and attempts to deceive, today it still implies a level of sexual deviancy. Set in opposition to the notion of ‘growing old gracefully’ (Fairhurst, 1998), it is used to describe older women who are seen to dress in ways which are considered too young and/or too provocative, and their dress seen as a challenge to the normative cultural codes and the moral order (Thomas, 2013). Indeed, the phrase captures the important intersections which exist between age and class, in respect of fashion and the body, as clothing is seen to reveal too much of, or draw attention to, the body, suggesting a lack of (sexual) restraint and thus, respectability. As well as negotiating the bounds of what is acceptable in terms of their age, many of these women also describe how they feel intensely ‘body conscious’, mindful that over the years they have gained weight or that their body shape has changed due to having children. This shift also requires women to renegotiate their relationship with fashion and dressing up, and their understanding of public, feminine performance. My conversation with Veronica, aged 55, demonstrates this point. Veronica spoke about dressing up from the very top of the interview, but it was clear that her interest in this subject is driven by her own insecurities about what to wear. Dressing up is something that she struggles with. She has ‘lost confidence’ in her ability to choose ‘suitable’ clothing and is unsure of ‘how to present herself’ and how to perform. As a result, she shies away from social events and public spaces, in which she is visible and feels judged by others. For Veronica, ageing and going through menopause has meant that her body has changed, and her social identity had changed, too. She remarks that she is ‘no longer the same person’ and so, she is now unsure of the rules around what is acceptable or appropriate, or how to perform her role at work. Rather, she lacks the self-confidence and self-belief needed to give a convincing act, and while she still acknowledges that dress is an important part of her performance, enabling her to ‘feel right’ because she is ‘dressed right’, she is now extremely insecure over what to wear and has much less trust in her ‘safety net’. I think it is really important, especially for women as they get older, because I  think in your fifties you really start to look your age. You lose confidence, your body is changing in shape and in other things,

VERONICA: 

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you lose a lot of your confidence and you need someone to help you . . . in terms of how you look and how you present yourself to the world. The only models for, that my generation’s got, are our own mothers, and I think our own mothers tended to dress quite old, where women in their fifties now don’t so much. So, I think we need that support. . . . I don’t want to look too, too frumpy. . . . I get very anxious . . . especially connected with work. And I use clothes as a safety net, so there is a link there, feeling right in what you are doing and being dressed right. . . . That has really changed in the last few years, as I’ve got into my fifties . . . you want to do anything you can to raise your confidence and your profile. So, make-up, clothes, hair . . . I think about it for a long time in advance . . . so I’ve had a complete nervous breakdown, buying things to wear, I don’t do . . . cropped trousers, T-shirts tend to be too tight around here [her midriff]. I wish I’d not said that I was going now. [Aged 55, HR Manager] Interestingly, though ageing is not a topic typically explored within fashion media or academic discourse (Twigg, 2013), for these women it is a subject of vital importance. Though, as Veronica suggests, older women may feel ‘confined less by assumptions of what they should wear’ than they have been in the past (2013: 151), there remains an inference that older women’s fashion should be duller or at least more neutral and that they should ‘retreat from sharper, ultrafashionable dress’ (2013: 5). Moreover, as Carol and Angie’s comments imply, though the bodies of these women may have once adhered to conventional beauty standards, they no longer live up to the expectations of thinness and youth (Bordo, 1993; Bartky, 1990), and so these women now feel obliged to renegotiate their relationship with fashion in order to find clothes which hide their body as much as possible, making them less visible, if not invisible, in the visible space. ANGIE:   When

I was younger, I was a size 10, and I would wear belly tops and bikinis. But as you get older and you get fatter, you think ‘Oh God, I look awful’. You know? You have to look for something that would look not as revealing. At my age, I just think, ‘No, I’ll wear something that covers me up, or looks nice’. [Aged 54, Full-time Mother] CAROL:   I hate shopping . . . and I absolutely will not now use communal dressing rooms. . . . Because comparing myself to some nubile 18-year-old, with a tight little bum and no bosom, doesn’t make me feel great. And whatever I put on it doesn’t look good because you look across at someone else, . . . and it’s like you shouldn’t be wearing clothes really, you should just be wearing a black sack. [Aged 56, Hospital Manager] This relationship between fashion and the body, and the anxiety which is generated around body shapes and beauty ideals when dressing up and navigating public space, also comes to the fore with the onset of motherhood. Again, this

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is a context in which women experience significant shifts in their identity, their body shape and thus, their relationship with clothes. Dressing up becomes, as Beverley Skeggs (1997: 107) suggests, ‘a site of anxiety and pleasure’ as it offers women a rare opportunity to reaffirm their individual identity, instead of being perceived as ‘just’ a mother, and yet requires women to modify their practice in order to reflect their new mothering status and changing body shape. Several of the women interviewed talk about feeling like they have nothing suitable to wear, and in fact Kim explains that she does not ‘go out as much’ as a result. KIM:  

If I was dressed up, it just gives me so much confidence, and I feel so much better about myself. It’s for me, to feel good about myself. I look different, I feel different. Instead of being a mum, I’m me. . . . Just after I had him [her son] two years ago, I would have worn a skirt, or a dress, but after having the third one, who is now six months, I’ve put on weight. I used to be a size 8 and now I am size 12. I feel bigger and I don’t like it, and people are saying to me, ‘you have put on weight’, and I lost some confidence because of that. So, on the weekend I don’t go out as much. [Aged 33, Full-time Mother] LUCY:   I actually dread dressing up now . . . going out now for me is a complete nightmare because it just accentuates the fact that I have absolutely nothing that fits. . . . I mean my boobs are just . . . over-spilling. Thinking ahead of all the things I’ve got planned, I’m just like ‘oh my God!’ [Aged 30, Recruitment Consultant] As with ageing, motherhood often causes anxieties over the performance of femininity and sexuality. Although performances of sexuality are not denied to mothers, in the same way that they might be amongst older women (Thomas, 2013; Twigg, 2013) – particularly with the rise of the ‘Yummy Mummy’ as I discuss in Chapter 7 – there does remain a tension between eroticism and chastity (Nash, 2012) and a concern over how much of the body should be on show. Added to this, changes in body shape and size as a result of having children can lower women’s self-esteem, as they feel more removed from the dominant body ideals and beauty standards. Although they still engage in dressing up and view it as an opportunity to ‘look different’ and ‘feel different’, to embody a different character or persona, as Lucy and Kim do, for these women their change in body shape and size impact on their ability to act and perform in public. Their wardrobes have had to adapt, incorporating new clothes which help them play out their various new roles, but there remains an anxiety over what to wear, how to wear it and how their ‘new’ body works with their clothes, and thus it impacts on their ability to give a convincing performance. I put on a lot of weight, and so I’m finding it difficult, . . . I mean every day you seem to feel different in your clothes whatever you wear, especially

SARAH: 

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if you’ve put on weight, ‘oh there’s an extra pound there’. . . . I never know what to wear, or what suits me. [Aged 52, Retired Police Officer] Although much more recently there have been shifts in representations of women’s body image, with many more plus-size or curvy women being featured in fashion advertising, magazines and television media, alongside a significant increase in the availability of plus-size clothing or ‘curvy collections’, as discussed in Chapter 3, for the women I interviewed their size and shape played a pivotal role in terms of their self-confidence, their enjoyment of dressing up and their ability to give a confident performance. Gaining weight, which is often coupled with a new life stage, affects their ability to wear what they perceive as the ‘right’ clothes for the role and the setting they are in, and as a result they feel less comfortable and less convinced by their own act. Instead, they look to shy away from public performances, in some instances cancelling or avoiding social gatherings, and when these women are in public situations, they often seek to lessen their visibility, and thus public scrutiny, as much as possible. Class and Visibility In respect of visibility, the significance of class is evident as it underpins women’s fashion anxiety, and their apprehension and perception of various social encounters. In her work on femininity, Tseëlon makes a distinction between secure and insecure environments, arguing that some spaces operate as spaces in which ‘one feels approved, accepted, loved, inconspicuous – in short, confident, and psychologically invisible’, but that in an ‘insecure environment’ one feels ‘on display, on show’ and as if one is ‘being examined and measured’ (1995: 56). In these insecure environments, women might, as Valerie suggests, look to wear clothes that are more ‘inconspicuous’, allowing an individual to ‘blend in’, thus mitigating the level of judgement that one might face. Sometimes you go out and you feel really uncomfortable. I bought a pair of silver shoes once, they are very nice, but I just felt like I was wearing silver shoes all night. . . . I’d never wear them again. . . . I was really conscious of them, they stood out. . . . I was thinking that everyone was looking at my shoes. . . . I wouldn’t want to be the one that stands out, I’d rather look like everyone else and blend in. That is dreadful, isn’t it really? [Aged 32, Legal Secretary]

VALERIE: 

‘Dressed inappropriately for a situation, we feel vulnerable and embarrassed. . . [because] of the shame of failing to meet the standards required of one by the moral order of the social space’ (Entwistle, 2015: 35). But whether an environment is familiar and secure, or not, is arguably linked to class position for, as Bourdieu ([1984] 1996: 172) argues, our cultural practices and

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pursuits, our lifestyle choices, such as the places we go and the activities we are engaged in, are the product of our class location. Faced with entering a space which is unfamiliar, as it is not something akin to our habitus, one may lack the right type of emotional and cultural awareness, or knowledge for that environment (Skeggs, 2012) and thus be apprehensive about what to wear. This is clearly illustrated by Diane, a 41-year-old school receptionist. Diane describes herself as having a ‘working-class background’. She makes this judgement based on her parents’ occupations and their lack of home ownership, and describes her parents as poor, but feels that since she gained her role at the school she has become more middle-class. Her job often means that she is invited on staff trips, the most recent being an outing to the theatre, and although she attends these various social events, she feels very unsure of what to wear. I  find things like that [staff trips] really difficult to know what to wear . . . so I tend to go boring, black and white or, you know, something really safe, . . . things that are neutral-ish, you know, so it doesn’t matter if the do is slightly posher. . . . I went to the Theatre Royal. . . . I agonised over what to wear for that, and so I had a black skirt, which is almost ankle length and it’s just got a few round silver beads about 2 inches up from the hem, . . . so I wore that with a dark top. And I felt smart enough to go but I thought I won’t stand out, I won’t look too over-dressed, even if they all turned up in jeans, which half of them were, but I felt okay. . . . And I tend to carry jewellery in my pocket so that if I need to, then I can put something on . . . because I’m a coward when it comes to dressing. . . . I think if I went out to these things a lot more I probably wouldn’t [worry] so much because I think . . . when you go out a lot more you kind of know what to wear, but I think because I don’t go out that much I do worry a lot more, and until I get there and I’ve blended in . . . I do get stressed. [Aged 41, School Receptionist]

DIANE: 

Diane is conscious that the public space of the theatre requires some degree of dressing up, but as she acknowledges, her lack of familiarity with the space makes her unsure of what to wear. Arguably her working-class background means that she does not have the requisite ‘cultural capital’ to know how ‘dressed up’ she should be; hence, she takes her jewellery with her, but hidden in her pocket, just in case it is needed. Diane lacks, what Bourdieu (1990) describes as a ‘feel for the game’, and the casual self-assurance that comes with familiarity with these spaces ([1984] 1996: 66), something Diane suggests other staff might have. Indeed, she comments on the fact that other staff members turned up in jeans, which she perceives to be too casual, indicating a distinction between her perception and understanding of the social space and that of the teachers, more of whom may have grown up in typically middle-class households. Less accustomed to this environment, Diane uses her clothes ‘as

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armour against an uncomfortable situation’ (Tseëlon, 1995: 61), choosing garments that she considers ‘neutral’ and ‘safe’, which allowed her passage into that space, but which are inconspicuous enough that they enable her to ‘blend in’. These clothes provide her with sufficient confidence to ‘feel okay’, yet not enough to necessarily give a ‘convincing’ performance. In fact, Diane describes herself as a ‘coward’ in that respect, scared perhaps of going out on stage.

‘Seeming’: Maintaining Standards and Class Distance Diane’s discussion highlights an important class variable in the continuum of space and visibility. As Bourdieu’s work suggests, class can play a significant role in our cultural knowledge of different social spaces, such as the theatre or restaurants, but as Diane’s comments show, class informs an individual’s perception of space too, and their sense of visibility, and this is not only true for working-class women, but across the class spectrum. This is something that Bourdieu too picks up on in his analysis of middle classes, suggesting that middle classes have a ‘Berkeleian vision’ of the social world, which centres on the way in which they are ‘perceived to be’ ([1984] 1996: 253). ‘Committed to the symbolic’, and keen to present a social character which ‘inspires confidence’, he further suggests that the middle-class are ‘haunted by the appearance [they] offer to others and the judgement they make of it’ ([1984] 1996: 253). Bourdieu’s assertion implies that middle-class women, plagued by concerns about how they may appear to others, are likely to perceive any space with an audience as one in which they feel ‘visible’ and thus, a space which requires some consideration or preparation in relation to their dress. Certainly, amongst the women I spoke to, there is a mindfulness, if not an obsession over the impression that they give to others. Great care is taken in cultivating and managing their appearance and anticipating social encounters, so that the clothes or accessories they wear reflect the ‘right’ type of character. Jane, for instance, explains how she feels that her yoga class might not take her seriously if they were to see her wearing her Buddhist symbol around her neck, and pre-empting their possible negative reaction, she makes the deliberate decision not to wear it in these spaces. JANE:  The

night before . . . I will make sure that I’ve put . . . cords out, and a belt and socks and stuff, and underwear, which isn’t going to show through the clothes. . . . If I know I’m going somewhere where people might not like this [points to necklace], the little Om sign, it’s safer to leave it off . . . if you see a teacher with an Om sign . . . they think, ‘oh no, this is going to be a wacko’, [particularly] at health clubs . . . they just want, ‘look teach me how to do the bloody splits’ . . . I won’t wear it, . . . I would probably either take it off in the changing rooms or not bother at all. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor]

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The laying out of her clothes the night before is just one example of the type of preparation many of the middle-class women I spoke to engage in, and for Jane, as well as several others, the importance of ‘maintaining standards’ and mitigating the judgements of others through their dress is crucial. Audiences, whether they were fleeting or familiar, are significant, and any space – whether it is outside the confines of their home or in the company of visitors – can be considered a public space in which they feel they need to make a performance. The school run, a trip to the supermarket, answering the door to the mail carrier, are all spaces in which middle-class women feel ‘on show’ (Tseëlon, 1995) and thus, experience some ‘fear of exposure’ (Thibaud, 2001: 24). PENNY:   Oh, I

think about what I’m wearing even if I’m going to the supermarket. . . . God, I hate the thought of being seen by someone when I’m getting the shopping, in tracksuit bottoms and baseball cap! [Aged 31, Art Director, Advertising] VALERIE:   I do have stuff that I would be embarrassed to open the door in, but generally I try not to wear those clothes. But there are some things that I would wear in the house that I wouldn’t go out in, like tracksuits and T-shirts, things that you shouldn’t wear, or pyjamas. . . . I wouldn’t wear them out of the house! [Aged 32, Legal Secretary] JESSICA:   I have clothes that I would only wear in the house, and if I was wearing them and someone came to the door, I just wouldn’t answer it. [Aged 30, Civil Servant] So concerned by their visibility, or what Bourdieu terms ‘seeming’ ([1984] 1996: 200), these women are keen to maintain a level of dressing up almost all the time, even when they are home alone, with no audience except themselves. As Norma tells me, although she tells herself when she is at home that she knows ‘no-one is looking’, she still puts ‘a bit of make-up on’ to make herself look and feel better. Concerned that they might be ‘caught out’ by an unexpected caller, a neighbour or a friend, these women create an ‘unseen audience’ or an imagined audience (Goffman, 1956: 50), or in several cases, the women are an audience for themselves, judging themselves on how they appear. The anxiety over an anticipated audience is also fuelled by the embarrassment the women experience when they have ‘got it wrong’ or when they have been unable to ‘correct’ or ‘conceal’ ‘mistakes’ that they have made during previous acts (Goffman, 1956: 26). Lucy describes, for example, how she had worn a top for work that she later realised was too low-cut, and how she has since ‘vowed’ to ‘never wear it to work again’. This embarrassment, coupled with these women’s keenness to ‘get it right’, means that many middle-class women spend a considerable amount of time making decisions over what to wear on a daily basis, and look for advice from relatives, particularly mothers, as shown in Chapter 7, in order to avoid fashion faux pas on particularly special occasions. As Goffman notes, they are happy to ‘forgo or conceal action’

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(1956: 23) or ‘sacrifice’ those clothes that they feel are at odds with the impression they are trying to give, or the ‘proper’ standards they set themselves. Valerie’s and Jessica’s comments are particularly interesting in this respect, as they both suggest that there are some clothes that you ‘shouldn’t wear’ and definitely should not be seen in, with Valerie providing the example of pyjamas. Though Valerie’s reference to pyjamas may appear to be just a passing remark or innocent example, her use of pyjamas is actually much more significant. Derived from the Hindi word,  Paejama, meaning leg covering, the original pyjamas were a loose trouser tied at the waist which was worn by men and women in Asia and the Middle East. Colonialised by the British in the late 1800s, these trousers were soon teamed with a shirt-style top, creating a ‘sleep suit’ for men, to be worn in bed instead of a nightshirt. By the 1930s, pyjamas had become a universally accepted form of dress for both men and women, as a form of evening or lounge wear, to be worn at home and in bed (Cumming et al., 2010). Subject to various fashion trends since the 1980s, such as the palazzo pants or the onesie, pyjamas have largely kept their association with home and the bedroom, despite fashion designers, such as Dolce and Gabbana and Stella McCartney, featuring them on the catwalk as a form of eveningwear and workwear. Certainly, for Valerie and for many other women, pyjamas are considered inappropriate dress for everyday public encounters and, in fact, wearing pyjamas, onesies or even tracksuits in public spaces is typically viewed as a failure to maintain the normative standards of respectability, and thus is read as a sign of working classness. What may appear at first glance then as an innocuous comment about not being seen in pyjamas, is in fact a remark loaded with class connotations, neatly capturing the middle-class desire to ‘maintain standards’ while creating distance from any working connotations. Similarly, Chloe comments on young women wearing tracksuits, and suggests that this form of dress in public spaces represents a certain class of person, who fails to ‘match up to standards’. CHLOE:   I’m

not the kind of person who would wear tracksuit bottoms, I just wouldn’t wear them, I just can’t do it. I live quite near Croydon and the girls are like buffed out in tracksuits, with slicked-back hair, and I  just think they look disgusting. I know that’s really bad [laughs]. I just think you get some perceptions about them when they wear clothes like that. That they’re pikeys and they’re just not nice people. KA:   What do you mean by pikey? CHLOE:   Common, rude and not very good manners . . . just, I think there is a certain amount of class that people should have, like if girls are going about in tracksuit bottoms and trainers, they just don’t really match up to standards. [Aged 18, Student] JANE:  You can tell working classes . . . sportswear in the street, walking around town in your tracksuit bottoms, tracksuit bottoms . . . for me, it’s

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become associated with a certain underclass, it’s chavvy. . . . And they don’t seem to have a sense of what’s formal, what’s informal. I’ve been brought up better. I’ve been brought up to know that you don’t wear sports clothes when you’re going to the opera. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor] As Imogen Tyler (2013: 161) argues, this new vocabulary of class, which includes terms such as chav and its ‘various synonyms and regional variations’ such as pikey, makes class difference and antagonism explicitly visible. These terms are used to distance working classes, situating them on the outside of ‘civilised society’, and are often closely linked to fashion and consumption practices, such as wearing tracksuits, gold hoop earrings or certain fashion brands (Hayward and Yar, 2006). Added to this, Chloe’s remarks illustrate the way these class signifiers and routine practices are intertwined with judgements of morality (Gieryn, 2000; McDowell, 2007). Whether a person is viewed as ‘nice’ or not is dependent on them following the legitimised middle-class dress code, and if they fail to do so, they run the risk of being labelled delinquent and depraved. While Bourdieu claims that ‘seeming’ is motivated by an aspiration and a desire for social mobility ([1984] 1996: 253), it appeared that for these women the anxiety over ‘seeming’ was motivated much more by a preoccupation with ‘maintaining standards’, and a need to create distance between themselves and any perceived working-class practices. As many others have argued (e.g. Bottero, 2004; Skeggs, 1997; Southerton, 2002) and as discussed in Chapter 2, contemporary class analysis is about demarcation and difference, rather than class consciousness, aspiration and upwards social mobility. The ‘profit’ ([1984] 1996: 202) that comes with ‘seeming’ is not an increase in social status, but an ability to uphold a middle-class identity and to distance oneself from any suggestions of working classness. It may also be, however, that ‘seeming’ and the anxiety middle-class women feel over the ways in which others might perceive them is driven by their own critiques of respectability and the judgements they make of others.

‘Being’ ‘at Home’ Notably, the notion that one should ‘maintain standards’, though apparent throughout all middle-class interviews, is particularly marked in conversations with middle-class women who have young children. These women comment on how crucial it is to continue ‘making an effort’ both in the context of work and at home, regardless of the fact that they now have less time to prepare or get ready. For working mothers, as already discussed, dressing up is an essential part of playing the role of the professional and legitimising their authority at work, but dressing up is also important for these women in the context of home. Here, class distancing is a constant influence, as participants express

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their keenness to not let standards slip, and once again, the wearing of pyjamas is used as the benchmark of working classness and seen as symbolic of chavs. [As a new mother] . . . comfort becomes vital, key. But I would still say I didn’t want to lose my identity. I still wanted to dress up, . . . I would still get up in the morning and get dressed. I wouldn’t stay in my pyjamas all day, and I’d still put a bit of make-up on, I didn’t want to be a chavvy mum. [Aged 35, Business Analyst]

JULIA: 

For working-class women, however, there is a fundamental difference in their understandings around dressing up and motherhood. For these women, mothering is key to their social identity and crucial in terms of their visibility. Being a mother, having children to look after, means there is far less pressure to dress up when at home. Rather, the priority is caring for their family, as Joy explains: ‘because we are mums . . . we don’t have to get up every morning and spend two hours doing hair and make-up’. Moreover, motherhood is essential for their understandings of time and space. Whereas middle-class women tend to refer to home, work and specific social occasions in their conversations of dressing up, working-class women instead talk about ‘being at home’ and ‘going out’, and this closely corresponds to the working week, with Monday to Friday being days associated with home, and the weekends offering opportunities to ‘go out’. Moreover, though home refers to being in their house, the phrase being ‘at home’ does not just refer to this space. Rather, ‘being at home with the kids’ includes any activities or any spaces they encounter which are related to domestic tasks such as the school run, the grocery shopping, the housework, and the gardening. All these activities come under the umbrella of ‘at home’, as these are spaces where the women are involved in performing motherhood, and as a result, these spaces do not require dressing up. Rather, the primary concern in terms of their clothes ‘at home’, during the week, is that they are practical and functional, as Bourdieu ([1984] 1996: 201) suggests, ‘realistic’, because they are ‘running around after the kids’. Consequently, ‘unlike the middle classes, who have a degree of anxiety about external appearances, both sartorial and cosmetic, at least outside and at work’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 201), participants like Joy, Amber, Kim and others prioritise ‘being’ over ‘seeming’, viewing themselves as largely ‘invisible’ in this space, and not subject to scrutiny or judgement in terms of their dress. KIM:  

I just bung something on in the morning, get them to school. . . . I’ve got jeans that I’ll wear every day and jeans that I wear out. . . . The jeans that I wear every day I wear with either flat shoes or trainers. . . . You can’t do high heels with kids, you know, you’d be staggering about all over the place, so it’s either flat shoes like this [ballet pumps] or trainers during the day, but then on a weekend if I am going out I’ll wear winkle picker

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boots or shoes, or high heels or something, you know? I have two different lives. During the week I feel I’m a mum, during the week I don’t get time to do hair and make-up, I don’t have time to bother with myself. But if I was dressed up, instead of being a mum, I’m me, and I’m doing it for me. [Aged 33, Full-time Mother] JOY:   If I am with the baby and I’m looking . . . bad, I think people look at me and think, ‘Oh she looks awful, but she’s got a baby’; if I went somewhere without the baby I would be more self-conscious, because they wouldn’t know that I had a baby, . . . so with the baby I have something to hide behind, I have an excuse. [Aged 19, Fast-Food Restaurant Worker PT] In terms of the time and space spent ‘at home’ then, the priority for these women is simply to be clothed, not dressed, as these are spaces in which their appearance is largely invisible. Indeed, as I discuss further in Chapter 7, mothering negated the obligation to dress up, as a mother’s dressing-up performance becomes secondary to her children’s. The school run, the corner shop, the market and seeing neighbours are not encounters where these women are concerned by their audiences’ judgements of their clothes. They certainly do not have the same degree of anxiety over being seen in pyjamas when opening the door to the mail carrier or visiting the supermarket or school gates in tracksuits and trainers. In fact, as Kim’s comments show, these are precisely the types of clothes that they choose to wear in these spaces because they are more practical. In understanding these working-class attitudes towards visibility, and the distinctions which exist between the middle-class and working-class women, it may be that time constraints offer one explanation. Certainly, Richard Coopey et al. (2005) suggest that as well as having limited economic resources, working-class women are time poor, too. Keeping a household running, fulfilling domestic tasks and having to shop around for bargains while using public transport limits the time available for dressing up. Perhaps more significant, however, is a difference in attitude towards mothering and parenting, which sees the performances of femininity as more trivialised in relation to family responsibilities and economic concerns (Skeggs, 1997). Across a range of work exploring experiences of working-class women (see, for example, Walkerdine et al., 2001;  Skeggs, 1997; Skeggs et al., 2008; Gillies, 2007; Paterson, 2019), authors have suggested that working-class femininity is much more likely to view good parenting in ‘opposition to aspiration and social mobility’ (Skeggs et al., 2008: 13) and to encourage hard-work and self-sacrifice for the benefit of the family. Putting the needs of the family first and fulfilling caring responsibilities on a day-to-day basis is seen to take priority over dressing up, and instead, as I discuss further in Chapter 7, the focus of attention is on the child’s clothing and dressing-up practice, rather than the mother’s.

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Semi-Public/Private Spaces Though these arguments concerning working-class femininity and parental responsibility go some way to explaining the practices of working-class mothers, they still do not fully explain the wider attitude of working-class participants, who perceived local spaces as those which did not require dressing up, or any form of performance. In fact, even in the context of the interviews, two participants were dressed in vest tops and pyjama bottoms. For these women, who were not mothers, or for those who had grown-up children, the distinction between being ‘at home’ and ‘going out’ is still evident. In those spaces which were largely local, dressing up is not deemed necessary, and Becky even admits that she had visited the local newsagents in her nightdress. These spaces, though outside the parameters of their intimate and private space of their own home, are still spaces in which these women feel invisible and not subject to scrutiny by the local audience, and so as Kelly explains, there is no need to put time and effort into what you are wearing, so you can wear just about anything. If I’m going out I’ll put effort in, but if I’m going just round here I’ll just wear tracksuit bottoms and just a top . . . because I know everyone and I know everyone’s the same as me, because it’s just a little area you don’t get to see many people, so I wear just anything. [Aged 18, Unemployed]

KELLY: 

Though Goffman makes very few explicit class references, he too identifies this distinction in working-class women’s attitudes towards dressing for local spaces, commenting that in working-class quartiers in Paris in the early morning, women feel they have the right to extend the backstage to their circle of neighbouring shops, and they patter down for milk and fresh bread, wearing bedroom slippers, bathrobe, hair net and no make-up (1956: 77). Equally Bourdieu suggests that working classes are likely to ignore ‘the bourgeois concern to introduce formality and formal dress into the domestic world . . . they scarcely mark the distinction between top clothes, visible, intended to be seen and underclothes invisible or hidden’ ([1984] 1996: 201). Comfortable with ‘extending their backstage’ beyond the realms of their home, Kelly and others had a much greater concern with ‘being’ within the context of their local neighbourhood, and thus their clothes in these spaces were much more practical consisting of jeans, T-shirts, leggings, tracksuit bottoms and even pyjamas. Content with being seen in clothing which middle-class women viewed as strictly private, these working-class women arguably perceive their neighbourhood, such as the estate where they live, as semi-private space. This is a space, as Madanipour (2003: 16) suggests, where a residential boundary results in the intensification of encounters among residents. Individuals tend to see each other on a daily basis, and as a result ‘the possibility of privacy and

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concealment is reduced’. As a result, the distinction between public and private space blurs, resulting in ‘semi-private’ space, into which private or backstage performance might extend. As Kelly explains, entering this semi-private space does not constitute ‘going out’. It is not a space in which she is ‘on show’ or ‘seen’. She knows everyone, and everyone knows her, and therefore it is not a space which necessitates dressing up.

‘Going Out’ Though Bourdieu’s assessment of working-class attitudes does seem to hold some relevance in relation to contemporary working-class women’s fashion practices in the context of ‘at home’, his work does tend to over-emphasise the notion of ‘being’, thus overlooking instances where working-class women dress up. Although the women are, as already discussed, largely occupied with ‘being’ during the week, dressing up in the context of ‘going out’ on the weekend is essentially important, and ‘going out’ clothes play a fundamental role in creating an impression and a ‘personal front’. Unlike the semi-private local space where they are likely to routinely meet the same people, ‘going out’ involves visiting spaces beyond the realms of the local neighbourhood. These public spaces involve encounters with audiences who are ‘unfamiliar’ and much more ‘significant’, and as such, the women are more concerned about the judgements that others may make of them. Visible, self-conscious and more concerned over the impression they want to create, the women feel it is crucial to ‘look good’, to make the right impression and thus, as Skeggs (1997: 106) suggests, the preparation that goes into dressing up is ‘enormous’. On a day-to-day basis I pick my clothes out just randomly, it takes me about half an hour. When I’m going out, on the other hand, it will take me about two hours to decide what I’m wearing, and that not like [including] having a bath, doing my make-up, . . . that’s just on choosing my clothes . . . decide what goes with what, what shoes to wear, what bag to wear. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother]

MANDY: 

In contrast to ‘being at home’, ‘going out’ takes place much less frequently and is therefore viewed as much more of an occasion, and because the dressing up associated with it is considered more special, it demands infinitely more time and ‘effort’, preparation and ‘care’, thought and ‘consciousness’ (Tseëlon, 1995: 55). Some of the women said it could take up to three hours to get ready. ‘Getting ready’ involves bathing, shaving, putting on make-up, wearing false lashes, styling their hair, adding hair extensions, applying fake tan, and painting their nails or applying false finger and toenails as well as getting dressed. Their dressing-up clothes are significantly different from the clothes that they wear day-to-day. They are more ‘revealing’, ‘smarter’, detailed, colourful and conspicuous; ‘something special as compared to the ordinary’ (Tseëlon, 1992:

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506). As Angie, Lisa and Louisa explain, the women often spend time leading up to the ‘event’ thinking about what they are going to wear, and will spend days and weeks leading up to the event shopping for something new to wear, in anticipation, as Skeggs (1997) and Nicholls (2019) also found. ANGIE:  

I’m going to a party soon at the end of the month. . . . I’m going to buy something new for that. Because that’s a fortieth, and the friend that I’m going with has seen me in everything I go out in. So, I’m going to look for something new. [Aged 54, Full-time Mother] LISA:   If I’ve been told in advance that a special occasion is coming up, . . . you know it’s going to be expensive. . . . I’ll save up so I can get a good outfit, and then I’ll go shopping. But if it’s just like going out, like a night out on the town, then I’ll decide like the week before. [Aged 26, Full-time Mother] In many respects the desire to wear something new relates to the women’s conception of looking good, which I discuss in Chapter 6, and a general keenness amongst working-class women to wear fashionable, up-to-date trends. Certainly, within these comments from Angie and others, there’s an economic consideration taking place, too. As I discuss further in Chapter 6, these women must plan ahead in order to make sure they can afford something new. But the comments from Lisa and others also highlight the importance placed on creating the right impression; as Trish remarks, ‘you dress to impress’, and for these women wearing something new is an essential part of the performance. I don’t like to go to the same place wearing the same stuff that I’ve worn before. . . . Even though I may never see the same people there again, I always get that feeling that ‘she wore that last time she was here’, you know what I mean? So you know I always have to have something new. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother]

MANDY: 

Mandy’s ‘conscious attention to appearance’, as Tseëlon suggests, is ‘a way of dealing with evaluation apprehension’ (1992: 510). Wearing something new puts her at ease, enabling her to give a more confident and convincing performance in an environment in which she feels more visible. Yet, as Tseëlon (1992) further suggests, this ‘attention to appearance’ can also be read as a sign of ‘insecurity’, fuelled by anxiety over how one might be judged by others and the eagerness to get it right. This may also explain why working-class women take such efforts to ensure their appearance is the best it can be, as they may not only be unfamiliar with the social space, as Diane is with the theatre, but because they may also have reservations over their performance of femininity, as dressing up is not only about public performance but the performance of gender, too.

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In fact, for working-class women, the gendered aspect of the performance is key to their dressing-up practice, and yet, as Skeggs (1997) argues, because femininity is a middle-class construct, working-class women are somewhat distanced from it. Though they may attempt to perform femininity in legitimised ways, ‘their mimicry is often not recognised as such’ (106), and as Kelly’s comments illustrate, they are all too aware of the judgements they face in respect of their public performances. As a result, the women place even greater emphasis, effort and energy on managing this aspect of their act in a bid to get it right. I could go into Croydon and buy a £10 dress and look as good as someone else who spent £500 on a dress, it just depends how much you try because if I saw someone who I thought was posh, yeah, I’d just have to think about it from the way that they dressed, and I’d think just looking at someone like that, I’d think, ‘oh they’re posh, they live in a big house’, . . . I do think that some people who have loads of money, when they see people like myself, they turn their nose up a bit because they think we don’t have much money, we’re not [good enough], do you know what I mean? [Aged 18, Unemployed]

KELLY: 

Moreover, Kelly’s comments here again highlight the class dynamics around the notion of looking good, which I discuss further in the next chapter. Though she suggests that she could ‘look as good’ in the £10 dress as someone who has spent £500, she also recognises that others may nevertheless make a distinction between her dress and that of someone ‘posh’, and evaluate and place her as working-class as a result. Crucially, as I discuss in Chapter 6, what Kelly perceives as ‘looking good’ differs from ‘people with loads of money’, as thus these distinction in tastes, which include characteristics such as quality, cut and fit, as well as respectability, operate as markers of class, as Bourdieu (1984) suggests.

Femininity, Respectability, Desirability and Class The significance of femininity in dressing up is demonstrated by the types of clothing that it typically involved such as high heels, skirts and dresses. For working-class women these garments form a crucial part of their dressing-up wardrobes, and for women across the class spectrum, the more visible the occasion, the more feminine the performance needs to be. Weddings, for example, which are highly visible events (Tseëlon, 1995: 57), are considered an occasion where clothing needs to be ‘dressy’, both conspicuous and femininity. These feminine clothes, particularly high heels, are frequently considered to be less comfortable and therefore demand more physical effort as well as thought, care

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and attention. Yet, the women feel a cultural and social expectation to wear these clothes, and on the whole, they oblige. RUTH:  

For weddings and things, obviously my whole wardrobe would be light, I’d tend to go for something more flowery . . . and I would move heaven and earth to find a dress. I would definitely be looking for a dress. . . . I think dresses for me are far more dressy, so you know; I’d go the extra mile. [Aged 43, PA] MIRIAM:   I like to be comfortable . . . comfy jeans or trousers, something that you can like bend in and like sit in . . . but if I was going out for dinner I would wear more uncomfortable . . . it would probably be like a dress, or you know a skirt. . . . I’m not comfortable wearing skirts, so it was like, ‘ooh that’s really smart’, because it was like an effort. [Aged 28, GP] Although there is some consensus as to the type of clothes that are considered more or less feminine, notions of femininity and feminine performances are clearly subject to class distinctions. As discussed in Chapter 4, Judith Butler ([1990] 2006) argues that femininity is a cultural and social construction, which has the appearance of reality only because it is ‘naturalised’ through the ‘repetition’ of bodily acts and customs ([1990] 2006: xv). In fact, using Goffman’s dramaturgical model, gender could be described as a ‘social front’, or an act which is ‘institutionalised in terms of the abstract stereotyped expectations to which it gives rise’ through a series of ‘behavioural scripts’, resulting in a performance which ‘becomes a “collective representation” and a fact in its own right’ (1956:17). Yet, according to Lawler (1999), Skeggs (1997, 2001), and Imogen Tyler and Bruce Bennett (2010), these ‘conventionalised portrayals’ (Goffman, 1979: 1) are constructed within the context of the middle-class habitus, and while this normative understanding of gender performance might present femininity as a universal quality, ‘[b]eing, becoming, practising and doing femininity are very different things for women of different classes’ (Skeggs, 2001: 297). Though middle-class notions of femininity are normalised and legitimised, workingclass femininity is ‘othered’. Considered inferior, abnormal and unconvincing, working-class femininity is read ‘as a sign of moral worthlessness, of vanity, [and] of tastelessness’ (Skeggs, 2001: 304), and ‘coded as the sexual and deviant’ (2001: 99). ‘Putting on Femininity’ For working-class women, femininity is not something that needs to be performed day-to-day, but is mainly associated with ‘going out’ and rather than being ‘part of them’, femininity is, as Skeggs argues, something which is ‘put on’ at the weekend in the process of dressing up and ‘used tactically to have a

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good time’ (1997: 106). This weekend performance ‘offers momentary respite’ from their weekly and/or family responsibilities and operates as a collective activity in which women shop and dress together, as Mandy and Trish explain. The resulting feminine performance is the product of shared ‘interests and intimacy’, in which these women learn to ‘pass’ together (1997: 104–105), providing these women a feeling of union and belonging and a sense of not standing alone, in the way Simmel ([1904] 1957) suggests. MANDY:   Yeah, always! I always ask, because you’re girlfriends, yeah I ask my

sister what she was going to be wearing that night . . . she’ll come round here . . . she normally comes out with me, so it’s the same with her, she’ll ask me if what she’s wearing looks good and things like that, and she does it for me as well. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother] TRISHA:   It’s like I was going out the other night and Charlotte [her daughter] and her girlfriend were here, and I was in the bedroom getting ready, and I just go in and ask ‘How does this look, does this look good?’ And . . . so they came into my room and were going through all my stuff, and they’re like, ‘Yeah that’s good’, ‘No, no, wear this’. I was going to wear the jumper . . . and they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, wear that one, but wear this belt with it’, and wear this jewellery. [Aged 43, Full-time Mother] This ‘putting on’ femininity also means that it is more consciously constructed and enacted (Skeggs, 2001: 299), with the clear intention of becoming the object of the ‘male gaze’. This is the idea that women are presented as a passive object for men to survey, and though women too survey each other, they do so from the perspective of the heterosexual male, thus becoming the surveyor and surveyed (Berger, 1972; Mulvey, 2009). Keen to be read as woman, as opposed to as mother, in the public context of ‘going out’, for many of the participants dressing up is closely associated with desirability and being sexually attractive. As Amber and Joy remark, one of the key motivations behind dressing up and performing femininity is to be ‘chatted up’ by a ‘bloke’ or ‘fella’. The ‘value in performing femininity’ (Skeggs, 1997: 111) comes, as Amber suggests, from ‘being noticed’ and being admired by men, for although friends can make these women ‘feel good’, validation that they are physically attractive can really only be confirmed by ‘male approval’ (1997: 112). AMBER:  

If I was going out for a meal or something like that, then I would wear something low-cut, or a short skirt or something, boots. . . . If I went for a night down Tiger Tiger I would wear very tight tops, tight trousers, stiletto heels always. I suppose you go there to get noticed . . . it’s nice to think that I can still get noticed, you know? Because you go out with friends that are single, and you dress like them, so revealing clothes, . . . low tops, short skirts. . . . It’s nice, you know, to think you can still get a bloke. [Aged 29, Hospital Receptionist]

Dressing Up 121 JOY:   Like

if I was wearing a vest top I would want to wear a bra so that you could clearly see the straps, so if I wore a white top I’d wear a black bra, to draw attention to it . . . but then that is fine, if you are young and single then why not? It’s part of it, isn’t it? Being out, being out on the pull. [Aged 19, Fast-Food Restaurant Worker PT]

Again, these comments demonstrate how dressing up is about making a public performance, to a significant audience, whose opinions and ‘validation’ matter, but in this instance the women seek validation from men that they are ‘desirable’ and ultimately fancied, whether they are single or not. Desirability then, is central to working-class women’s ‘confidence’ and ‘sense of self’ (Skeggs, 1997: 111), and this has important implications for the way in which workingclass women dress. While Skeggs (1997: 110) argues that there is an social expectation that for ‘working-class women the sexual has to be disavowed’, for many participants in this study there was an open acknowledgement that the clothes that they dress up in are more provocative and tend towards the excess, not only in terms of short skirts, low tops and big hair, but as already noted, fake tans, false eyelashes, acrylic nails and hair extensions. RUTH:  

It tends to be a bit more revealing, show more arms and chest probably [laughs] and a bit, probably, shorter. I tend to have a bit more cleavage on show, you know. [Aged 45, PA] TRISHA:  I’d wear three-quarter-length trousers and like a raunchy top, like a v-neck, something sexy. . . . I like to feel good and I like to look sexy, but not tarty, just nice and attractive. [Aged 43, Full-time Mother] LISA :   If I was going clubbing I’d wear a short skirt. . . . You want to look sexy but not look sleazy because obviously a girl with big boobs they’re sort of like half hanging out . . . you just think, ‘no’. It just doesn’t look right, it looks nasty. And it’s cheapening her. [Aged 26, Full-time Mother] Some, like Trisha and Lisa, do draw a distinction between ‘sexy’ and ‘tarty’. They are aware of the relationship between femininity and respectability, and the links made between appearance and moral behaviour or conduct (Finch, 1993; Lawler, 1999, 2005; Skeggs, 1997, 2001; Tyler, 2008; Tyler and Bennett, 2010). Moreover, as Lisa’s remarks demonstrate, these women are conscious of the class judgements that individuals make of women who are seen to dress inappropriately, commenting that these women are deemed ‘cheap and nasty’. But this awareness, though useful, is not sufficient knowledge to enable them to dress in ways which are legitimised. Rather, a performance of legitimised femininity would require a certain kind of cultural knowledge, a particular set of dispositions and orientations which come with a middle-class habitus, and which, as discussed in Chapter 7, are learnt and cultivated across an individual’s lifetime.

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Dress to Excess: Middle-Class Judgements on Dressing-up Performances In contrast to working-class women, for middle-class women being ‘feminine’ does not mean being overtly sexual, and in terms of being desirable there is a distinction between sexy and tarty. Sexy can still be respectable, but when dress and performances become ‘excessive’ or ‘too much’, then the respectability is lost. Those considered to be dressed too provocatively run the risk of being labelled a ‘hussy’ or a ‘hooker’ and almost certainly are considered to be working-class. ROSIE:  

I think there is a fine line between dressing up, . . . and looking quite sexy, . . . it’s nice to feel sexy and it’s nice to feel that you look good, . . . but you just dress smart and presentable, you don’t kind of wear anything too revealing, . . . you don’t want to look, you know, like a complete hussy. [Aged 23, Engineer] JESSICA:   I mean there are definitely women at my work where you think, ‘Are you actually a hooker?’ [Aged 30, Civil Servant] LUCY:   Yeah . . . you just think, ‘Oh my God!’ I had one girl with a really wellendowed chest, and she would wear a bra and spaghetti top and she’d be walking round the office . . . and you’d be like, ‘Oh my God!’ You know? ‘Do you really think that is suitable?’ I’d be hard pushed wearing that on holiday. [Aged 31, HR Manager] Chavs and pikeys, identified on the one hand by their lack of dressing up, are also marked out by their overt sexuality and exaggerated looks, their heavy make-up, short skirts and low-cut tops. These women were, according to participants, ‘well known’ for wearing ‘black thongs’ which are visible ‘through their white trousers’, having ‘their tits hanging out’ and being ‘caked in makeup’. And as Jessica’s remark infers, they are often judged to be sexually deviant, promiscuous and lacking in self-respect or self-control. Again, for middle-class participants these examples are used as a point of distinction, with the women keen to distance their dressing-up practice and notions of femininity from what they perceive as working-class performances. While they do, in some public spaces, consider their own performances of femininity to be ‘sexy’, they are keen to stress the ways in which they remain within the boundaries of what is considered ‘respectable’ through their adherence to important social rules, which means that aspects of their dress, such as their underwear and parts of their bodies, remain private and not visible. JANE: I hate

these spaghetti strapped tops, with designer bras underneath. Underwear is key. Either don’t wear a bra or get a strapless one, or those plastic things, but don’t wear a white bra under a black strappy vest, it

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doesn’t work. I’d always make sure I’ve got straps adequately hidden. And if I was going to go out, I’d make sure I had the underwear which would make the outer garment look good. . . . I have middle-class values: the thing about foundations, getting it right from the beginning and spending the money on that. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor] KERRY:  I notice women . . . if they’ve got vast, unbelievably, unfeasible amounts of flesh on display  .  .  . I don’t understand how they can actually do that . . . either boobs or legs, I think both  is wrong. [Aged 25, Marketing] NAOMI:  It’s always nice to have a bit of cleavage but. . . [Aged 25, IT Consultant] JENNY:   You can have tasteful cleavage. [Aged 27, Accountant] EMILY: Yeah, you don’t want everything hanging out. [Aged 27, Marketing Consultant] SALLY:   You do cleavage, or legs, don’t you. . . [Aged 27, IT Consultant] EMILY:   Yeah. Cleavage or legs . . . not both. Again, these class evaluations are tied to moral judgements, and to be seen as a ‘good person’ women are required to follow the relevant (middle-class) dress code. Hence working-class women, marked by their failure to adhere to the ‘proper standards’, are referred to as tarts and hookers, deemed to be lacking in decency. Their dress, viewed as sexual rather than feminine, is taken as representative of their inner character or true nature, and thus they are perceived to be sexually deviant and thus morally wrong. These important class distinctions not only exist in relation to how femininity should be performed, but when it should be performed, too. Rather than femininity being something that middle-class women ‘put on’ for special occasions, it is constantly part of their act: at work, and at home, when going to lectures or on the school run. In fact, it is performed in any context in which dressing up takes place. I think for lectures . . . I’ve got little ballet pumps, with my skinny jeans or baggy jeans and a T-shirt, cardigan. I’ve got about a million colours of cardigans, like the one I’m wearing now. So, I always put those on, and like big chunky necklaces. . . . I like belts as well actually, and red nail varnish. . . . You always dress up to make sure you look good. I literally just put on some lip gloss and eyeliner and I’m done. [Aged 18, Student]

CHLOE: 

One participant in particular, Shelly, talks a lot about femininity and her dress at work. Employed to secure sponsorship for various educational schemes, she discusses how her dress was sexual at times, especially when dealing with allmale audiences, but remains within the ‘boundaries of professionalism’. Used as a ‘façade’ (De Beauvoir, [1949] 2006: 543) in order to become the ‘object of

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the gaze’ (Berger, 1972), she dresses in a way which gets men’s attention, but she maintains that she does this in ‘subtle’, not excessive, ways, which enable her to retain her credibility. I’ve got a muffin top, there is no denying it, but can you imagine if I turned up to a meeting with my muffin top showing over my trouser top, you know? A lot of it is about credibility. . . . It’s about what you show, ‘less is actually more’. If you’ve got a very elegant, soft flowy top on, a bit chiffony, and it’s right down to your wrists and you’ve got long black trousers on, and the button just by your bra, . . . your cleavage, it’s just undone . . . that has more power than showing your midriff. I’ve started to be aware of how people interact with me, through my dress, and that’s quite important as a female trying to cut a career. Trying to actually understand it, how dressing for the right occasion . . . the only way that I could achieve [successful meetings], remotely with men, is by dressing to get their attention. [Aged 44, University Sponsorship Manager]

SHELLY: 

Though Shelly’s dress is about performing femininity and being seen as ‘an erotic object’ (De Beauvoir, [1984] 1996: 543), the need to be ‘desirable’ or ‘fancied’ is not the same as it is for working-class women when ‘going out’. Rather, Shelly knows that ‘she is to be subjected to the cold appraisal of the male connoisseur and that her life prospects may depend on how she is seen’ (Bartky, 1990: 38). Thus, in order to get the men in the meeting to agree with her, she must internalise ‘the male gaze’ and perform femininity in the hopes of manipulating the situation, or she runs the risk of ‘the refusal of male patronage’ (Bartky, 1990: 76). Moreover, though she openly admits that she looks to be sexually provocative, she also argues that her performance of femininity is acceptable and more effective because it is done ‘subtly’. Her performance, though sexually suggestive, remains within the boundaries of what is acceptable, and thus is deemed respectable. By contrast, working-class performances of femininity in the workplace, as in other social contexts, are negatively evaluated (Skeggs et al., 2008) and seen to go beyond the confines of what is acceptable. So, while Faye can get away with her black high heels, Ruth’s red high heels are a bit too ‘racy’. Normally my shoes aren’t really very sensible; I tend to wear trousers but underneath they’ll be these high-heeled boots, or chunky wedges or something. I did come in one day and someone said, ‘They’re a bit racy, aren’t they?’ but you get bored wearing the same, especially if you’re wearing black at work. [Aged 45, PA]

RUTH: 

Ultimately, it seems that while middle-class performances of femininity are considered respectable, working-class performances often fail because they are produced from a different ‘condition of existence’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 53).

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‘Femininity has never been easily accessible to working-class women’ (Tyler and Bennett, 2010: 7), because it is considered that they ‘do not know the right things, they do not value the right things, they do not want the right things’ (Lawler, 1999: 11). They have a different set of classed ‘dispositions’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 53), and thus an ‘inability to properly inhabit a middleclass habitus’ (Lawler, 1999: 15). As a result, their performance of femininity will never meet the normative standards, because they do not possess the right kind of cultural capital, and furthermore they are unable to convert their cultural capital into ‘symbolic capital’. They are not able to give a ‘legitimate’ performance. I’m more interested in looking at people and thinking, ‘Why are you doing that? What are you trying to do?’ You know? ‘You don’t have the body to have a pierced navel, and crop top and a white shirt loosely hanging. It doesn’t work for you. What are you trying to buy into?’ . . . I would notice that they haven’t got it quite right. It’s attention to detail. And I also think as well, ‘What lifestyle are you trying to buy into here?’ [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor]

JANE: 

As Jane’s comment suggests, there are ‘right’ ways, legitimate ways, of dressing which working-class women are unable to ‘successfully’ perform. While dress can operate as ‘symbolic capital’, communicating an individual’s economic and cultural wealth, it can also identify those who do not have this ‘feel for the game’, because they fail to adhere to the unwritten rules and regularity of the feminine performance (Bourdieu, 1990: 64), such as exposing your midriff when ‘you don’t have the body’. Indeed, these women do not possess the right habitus to know what the rules are. While Chapter 6 further explores ideas about flattering clothing and the body, Jane’s comments demonstrate that class cannot be simply purchased with commodities (Casey, 2016; Williams, 1987: 323). Rather, it ‘is performed, marked, written on minds and bodies’, and ‘we can “spot it a mile off” even in the midst of our wish for it no longer to be there’ (Walkerdine et al., 2001: 215).

Conclusion For many of the women I spoke to, they felt that dressing up was one of the most obvious instances where they engaged with fashion because it was a practice which required them to consciously and carefully consider the ways in which their dress would be read by their social audiences. Dressing up is concerned with performance – the performance of gender and public performances – and it therefore forms a crucial part of those social interactions where women feel judged by others. As Goffman suggests, clothing operates as an important part of the women’s ‘personal front’, and the practice of dressing up is key to cultivating a specific impression within

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a given social space and making a confident and convincing act. Moreover, as Tseëlon (1995) has identified, this practice of dressing up operates on a continuum, which differs with levels of ‘visibility’, and the more significant the audience is, and the more ‘visible’ the occasion, the greater the need to dress up. Yet, how women perceive social spaces, and how they understand their social audiences and thus how visible they feel, depends on their class location and class history. Class informs women’s knowledge of social spaces, meaning that those who have been socially mobile and who lack the requisite cultural capital can find these performances challenging. But women’s class and habitus also informs their understandings and perceptions of social audiences and their reading of social spaces. Middle-class women, as this chapter has shown, are much more likely to perceive their social audiences as significant, and therefore they have much greater concern over the ways in which their clothing may be judged, even within the context of very ordinary or everyday settings or even when they were alone. Anxious about the impression formed by their social audiences, they are preoccupied, as Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) suggests, with ‘seeming’, in order to maintain an image of respectability and self-control and ‘maintaining standards’ at all time. This concern over ‘maintaining standards’ also informs much of their fashion consumption, and as we shall see in the next chapter, concerns over respectability and authenticity are important principles which motivate much of the middle-class desire for quality, authenticity and practicality in terms of their fashion consumption and tastes. Yet, for working-class women, local audiences encountered in local spaces are much less important, for these audiences are likely to be people they know, or those whose social status and circumstances are familiar. As a result, the opinions of local audiences are largely insignificant, and for many women the requirement in these spaces is simply to be clothed rather than to be dressed. Moreover, for those who are mothers, their choice of dress in these ‘semipublic/private’ spaces is further mitigated by them being ‘at home’, engaged in domestic tasks where the needs of the home or family take priority over the time and effort needed to dress up, and again motherhood lessens the demands for any form of pretence. Indeed, as Skeggs (2004, 2005, 2011) suggests, working classes are very anti-pretentiousness. Snobbery is viewed as a characteristic central to middle-class culture, a culture which because of its authority and legitimacy can vilify and demonise working classes. Though working-class women may have less regard when ‘being’ ‘at home’, this does not mean that dressing up is a practice that working-class women do not engage with. On the contrary, in the context of ‘going out’, these women are very invested in dressing up and looking good. An opportunity for women to reaffirm their self-identity in these spaces, the judgements of social audiences are important, and thus it is important for these women to ensure that they look good. What is understood as ‘looking good’, however, as I discuss in Chapter 6, is informed by class, and so too are the women’s

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performances of dressing up. As well as being a public performance, dressing up is also a performance of gender and femininity, but as authors such as Skeggs have clearly demonstrated, these performances are also classed. In fact, the notion of respectable femininity, developed within the Victorian era, as discussed in Chapter 4, is still very evident today. While middle-class performances are legitimised and recognised, working-class performances are situated as ‘other’, their emphasis on desirability misrecognised, and read as overtly and excessively sexual (Skeggs, 1997; Lawler, 1999; Armstrong et al., 2014). This misreading of working-class femininity is evident in the comments made by middle-class women and their keenness to distance themselves from those tastes which they perceived as ‘tarty’, ‘slutty’ and ‘over the top’. Concerned by the judgements made by others, they are eager to ensure that their dress conforms to the (middle-class) standards of respectability, thus distancing them from working-class connotations, but also securing them a level of social and moral superiority. In this way, the fashion‒class relationship operates via the relationships with gender and space, and fashion’s role in social performance. And, as Chapter 6 explores, women’s understandings and concerns over social audiences and their understandings and performance of femininity also have an important impact on their shopping practice and perceptions of ‘looking good’.

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128  Dressing Up Bourdieu, P. [1984] (1996) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bourdieu, P. (1990) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Butler, J. [1990] (2006) Gender Trouble, New York and London: Routledge. Casey, E. (2016) Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience, 2nd edition, Oxon: Routledge. Chapkis, W. (1986) Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance, Boston, MA: South End Press. Collins, P. H. (2000) Black Feminist Thought Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edition, New York: Routledge. Coopey, R., O’Connell, S. and Porter, D. (2005) Mail Order Retailing in Business: A Business and Social History, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Craig, M. L. (2002) Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cumming, V., Cunnington, C. W. and Cunnington, P. E. (2010) The Dictionary of Fashion History, Oxford: Berg. Datta Gupta, N., Etcoff, N. L. and Jaeger, M. M. J. (2016) Beauty in Mind: The Effects of Physical Attractiveness on Psychological Well-Being and Distress, Journal of Happiness Studies,17(3): 1313–1325. De Beauvoir, S. [1949] (2006) The Second Sex, London: Vintage. Entwistle, J. (1997) Power Dressing and the Fashioning of the Career Woman, in M. Nava, I. MacRury, A. Blake and B. Richards (eds.) Buy This Book, London: Routledge. Entwistle, J. (2015) The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Polity Press. Fairhurst, E. (1998) ‘Growing Old Gracefully’ as Opposed to ‘Mutton Dressed as Lamb’: The Social Construction of Recognising Older Women, in S. Nettleton and J. Watson (eds.) The Body in Everyday Life, London: Routledge. Favaro, L. (2017) Just Be Confident Girls’! Confidence Chic as Neoliberal Governmentality, in A. Elias, R. Gill and C. Scharff (eds.) Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Feingold, A. (1992) Good-Looking People Are Not What We Think, Psychological Bulletin, 111(2): 304–341. Finch, L. (1993) The Classing Gaze: Sexuality, Class and Surveillance, St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, London: Tavistock. Gieryn, T. F. (2000) A Space for Place in Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 463–496. Gill, R. and Orgad, S. (2016) The Confidence Cult(ure), Australian Feminist Studies, 30(86): 324–344. Gill, R. and Orgad, S. (2017) Confidence Culture and the Remaking of Feminism, New Formations, 91: 16–34. Gillies, V. (2007) Marginalised Mothers: Exploring Working Class Experiences of Parenting, Abingdon: Routledge. Goffman, E. (1956) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Research Centre.

Dressing Up 129 Goffman, E. (1979)  Gender Advertisements, London: Palgrave Macmillan, International Higher Education. Hatfield, E. and Specher, S. (1986) Mirror, Mirror: The Importance of Looks in Everyday Life, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hayward, K. and Yar, M. (2006) The ‘Chav’ Phenomenon: Consumption, Media and the Construction of a New Underclass, Crime Media Culture, 2(1): 9–28. hooks, b. (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representations, New York: Routledge. Judge, T. A., Hurst, C. and Lauren, S. (2009) Does It Pay to Be Smart, Attractive or Confident (or All Three)? Relationships Among General Mental Ability, Physical Attractiveness, Core Self-Evaluations, and Income, Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(3): 742–755, May. Kanazawa, S. and Kovar, J. L. (2004) Why Beautiful People Are More Intelligent, Intelligence, 32(3): 227–243. Langlois, J. H., Kalakanis, L., Rubenstein, A. J., Larson, A., Hallam, M. and Smoot, M. (2000) Maxims or Myths of Beauty? A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review, Psychological Bulletin, 126(3): 390–423. Lawler, S. (1999) ‘Getting Out and Getting Away’: Women’s Narratives of Class Mobility, Feminist Review, 63(1): 3–24. Lawler, S. (2005) Disgusted Subjects: The Making of Middle Class Identities, The Editorial Board of the Sociological Review, 2005: 429–446. LeBesco, K. L. (2003) Revolting Bodies: The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity, Cambridge, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Madanipour, A. (2003) Public and Private Spaces of the City, Oxon: Routledge. Marcketti, S. B. and Farrell-Beck, J. (2008) Look Like a Lady; Act Like a Man; Work Like a Dog, Dress, Costume Society of America, 3549–3569. Matthews, R. (2015) Contemporary Fashion Tastemakers: Starting Conversations That Matter, Catwalk: The Journal of Fashion, Beauty, and Style, 4(1): 51–70. McDowell, L. (2007) Spaces of the Home: Absence, Presence, New Connections and New Anxieties, Home Cultures, 4(2): 129–146. Mulvey, L. (2009) Visual and Other Pleasures, 2nd edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nash, M. (2012) Making ‘Postmodern Mothers’: Pregnant Embodiment, Baby Bumps and Body Image, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nicholls, E. (2019) Negotiating Femininities in the Neoliberal Night-Time Economy, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Olian, J. (1995) Everyday Fashions, 1909–20, as Pictured in Sears Catalogs, London: Dove Publications. Orbach, S. [1978] (2006) Fat Is a Feminist Issue: The Anti-Diet Guide and Fat Is a Feminist Issue 2: Conquering Compulsive Eating, London: Arrow. Paterson, L. (2019) I Didn’t Feel Like My Own Person’: Paid Work in Women’s Narratives of Self and Working Motherhood, 1950–1980, Contemporary British History, 33(3): 405–426. Reay, D. (1997) Feminist Theory, Habitus, and Social Class: Disrupting Notions of Classlessness, Women’s Studies International Forum, 20(2): 225–233. Shilling, C. (2012) The Body and Social Theory, Los Angeles: Sage. Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

130  Dressing Up Skeggs, B. (2001) The Toilet Paper: Femininity, Class and Mis-Recognition, Women’s Studies International Forum, 24(3–4): 295–307. Skeggs, B. (2004) Class, Self, Culture, London: Routledge. Skeggs, B. (2005) The Making of Class and Gender Through Visualizing Moral Subject Formation, Sociology, 39(5): 965–982. Skeggs, B. (2011) Imagining Personhood Differently: Person Value and Autonomist Working-Class Value Practices, The Sociological Review, 59(3): 496–513. Skeggs, B. (2012) Feeling Class: Affect and Culture in the Marking of Class Relations, in G. Ritzer (ed.) The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology, Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Skeggs, B., Wood, H. and Thumim, N. (2008), ‘Oh Goodness I am Watching Reality TV’: How Methodology Makes Class in Multi-Method Audience Research, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 11(1): 5–24. Southerton, D. (2002) Boundaries of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, Sociology, 36(1): 171–190. Thibaud, J. P. (2001) Frames of Visibility in Public Places, Places, 14(1): 42–47. Thomas, H. (2013) The Body and Everyday Life, London: Routledge. Tolmach, R. L. and Scherr, R. L. (1984) Face Value: The Politics of Beauty, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Tseëlon, E. (1992) Self Presentation Through Appearance: A Manipulative vs. Dramaturgical Approach, Symbolic Interaction, 15(4): 501–513. Tseëlon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life, London: Sage. Twigg, J. (2013) Fashion and Age, London: Bloomsbury. Tyler, I. (2008) Chav Mum Chav Scum: Class Disgust in Contemporary Britain, Feminist Media Studies, 8(1): 17–34. Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain, London and New York: Zed Books. Tyler, I. and Bennett, B. (2010) ‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(3): 375–393. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H. and Melody, J. (2001) Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Webster, M. and Driskell, J. E. (1983) Beauty as Status, American Journal of Sociology, 89(1): 140–165. Williams, R. (1987) Culture and Society, London: Hogarth.

Chapter 6

Looking Good Fashion, (Dis)Taste and Buying Practices

Introduction As we have already seen in Chapter 5, class is an important influence in shaping women’s perceptions of social spaces, their anxieties around social audiences and their performances of femininity, and it therefore plays a critical role in orientating women’s everyday fashion practices. Moreover, specific clothes are read as class markers and are used to create social divisions, as women seek to distance themselves from certain class connotations. As a result, ‘social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 6), typically articulating their tastes through expressions of distaste. Indeed, expressions of distaste form an important part of the fashion‒class relationship and are, perhaps, even more apparent in women’s discussions of ‘looking good’. Closely related to the concept of dressing up, looking good is often a ­primary objective, and the expected outcome, of women’s dressing-up endeavours. Yet, ‘looking good’ is not a foregone conclusion, for as we have already seen in Chapter 5, what is believed to ‘look good’ by one group may not be a view shared by others. Rather ‘looking good’ is a judgement of taste. Informed by an individual’s habitus and conditions of existence, it is a concept which is shaped by an individual’s economic position, their cultural and social values, and their social networks, and as a result it operates as a marker of class. That is not to say that class is the only factor involved in women’s understandings of looking good. As Sophie Woodward (2007) argues, looking good is also concerned with a personal aesthetic and an individual style. But alongside women’s own unique preferences, looking good concerns collective understandings about fashion and style, consumer spending, and body image and is closely tied to women’s public performance and performances of femininity, as discussed in Chapter 5. In this chapter I want to focus on unpacking women’s understandings of ‘looking good’ in order to demonstrate the ways social class orientates women’s consumer behaviour. In doing so, I consider the significance of economic capital, but I suggest that cost is not the only factor driving class distinctions

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in women’s fashion consumption. Rather, women’s differing attitudes towards fashion, their understanding of quality and value, a desire for class distancing and the pursuit of social status are also significant. The chapter starts by building on what we have already learnt about the problem of the ‘f’ word by considering the middle-class aversion to fashion and their disapproval of those who follow it. In doing so, I explore the middle-class’s broader attitude around consumer spending and consumer goods, their focus on self-restraint and rationality, and their need for class distancing. Moreover, I consider how these attitudes not only cultivate a fashion distaste but also encourage a fondness for clothes and style which they describe as ‘classic’. These styles are seen to transcend fashion trends and embody many of the facets of respectability, including conservativism and authenticity. This presents a significant contrast with the attitudes and practices of working-class women, which form the focus of the second half of the chapter. These women generally have a great enthusiasm for fashion and, echoing some of the arguments of Beverley Skeggs’ work, they appear eager and interested in fashion shopping and fashion media. This interest in fashion conflicts with Pierre Bourdieu’s ([1984] 1996) notion of ‘taste of necessity’, as discussed in Chapter 2, which suggests that working classes are chiefly concerned with practical urgencies, due to their conditions of existence and limited capital which focuses their spending on meeting basic needs. Yet, it seems that fashion and brand knowledge operate as an important form of cultural capital for working-class women, at least amongst their peers, and provides them with a level of esteem which they generally lack in the wider social context. Consequently, despite their limited financial resources and restrictions on time, these women find ways to purchase fashionable clothing, keeping their wardrobes up-to-date with the latest fashion trends and styles.

Fashion Distaste As already discussed in Chapters 2 and 5, the term fashion has mixed responses, and as the project developed, it became clear that for middle-class women there is something of an ‘aversion’ to fashion. Fashion is not a subject which they feel they engaged with or are enthusiastic about. It is not an industry or topic which they are interested in, and generally most suggest that they avoid fashion trends as much as possible. PATRICIA:   I’ve

never been one to wear something just because it is in fashion. . . . I don’t deliberately buy fashion magazines as such, and I don’t go out of my way to watch fashion programmes . . . there is nothing worse than ­trying to stay trendy. [Aged 43, Teacher] JESSICA:   I am aware of the fashion, and I think it looks great on a very small number of people, but I would never, ever wear it myself. Like skinny jeans I would never wear because they wouldn’t suit me. So, I’m aware

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but I don’t change anything, or follow it . . . these things never last. [Aged 31, Civil Servant] As John Galilee (2002) found in his research with middle-class men, few of the women admit to reading fashion magazines, or only talk of reading them in waiting rooms or on long journeys, and like Patricia and Jessica, participants tend to suggest that ‘fashion does not suit’ them. In fact, middle-class women often express quite traditional and disapproving views of fashion, regarding it as something trivial, unimportant and short-lived. The notion that women should be ‘trendy’ is considered foolish, as it demonstrates a lack of consumer awareness and any exercising of taste, and those who are seen to be followers of fashion are labelled fashion victims or fashion slaves and are considered cultural dupes who have failed to realise just how the industry has manipulated them into ‘blindly’ consuming and wasting money. I’m kind of cynical. Part of it [fashion] is a marketing ploy to get you to keep spending money . . . but I won’t think ‘Oh I’m going to be a slave to it. I must have that handbag, because it’s obviously the latest “it” bag’. [Aged 35, Business Analyst]

JULIA: 

Middle-class women view their consumption, unlike that of the so-called fashion victim, as much more sensible and considered. They see their clothing purchases as involving active decision making, rather than being driven by an irrational compulsion, and instead of being ‘dictated to’ by advertising and marketing agencies, they explain how they choose garments which are not necessarily fashionable but are nevertheless flattering and ‘stylish’. Moreover, as ‘savvy shoppers’ they feel that they are able to make wise economic decisions, avoiding buying ‘basic’ garments in stores such as Oasis or French Connection where they might ‘pay over the odds’ and opting instead for cheaper stores where the quality is comparable. The buying of items such as socks, knickers, vest tops and basic T-shirts in stores like Primark or supermarkets, for example, is a deliberate move in order to gain the best ‘value for money’, and this was also a key reason for avoiding designer labels, as they were disinclined to purchase something ‘just for the name’, especially when they felt the quality was often lacking. ROSIE:  

I do like it if I can find something cheap . . . and I’ll avoid things like Oasis . . . because they are slightly more expensive and I resent having to pay a lot of money for things . . . they’re pretentious . . . deemed as fashionable, ‘that’s what we should be wearing’. . . . I’m not really one for labels and stuff like that, so I avoid anywhere that’s too expensive . . . it doesn’t appeal to me. [Aged 23, Engineer] JANE:   I’ve looked at what’s in the expensive stores and then gone around the corner to Primark, to see if they’ve got anything similar. So, for example,

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a Marks and Spencer’s plain V-neck T-shirt for 10 quid, I’d maybe feel the quality of the fabric and look at the colour and think actually the Marks and Spencer’s one is going to fade in 10 washes, that one’s [the cheaper version] going to fade in 10 washes, that one’s £2, I might as well just get the cheaper one. If it’s comparable . . . then I get them cheaply. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor] SARAH:   They think it’s so much better, it isn’t . . . you could have a little Nike sign and that T-shirt is trebled in price because it’s got the word Nike on it, and I’ve always tried to tell my children it doesn’t mean anything . . . it doesn’t make any difference. They might as well go to Primark. And there are quite a few young people in Primark these days that are saying goodbye to the named products and going for those. [Aged 52, Retired Police Officer] Adopting a very rational approach to fashion buying and motivated by a need for quality and price, their clothing choices tend to conflict with Thornstein Veblen’s idea that middle-class dress demonstrates status through its impractical nature ([1899] 1994: 106) or Bourdieu’s claim that middle classes ‘look for . . . a fashionable and original garment’ ([1984] 1996: 247). Instead, the middle-class priorities are much more akin to those which Bourdieu links to a working-class ‘taste of necessity’. According to Bourdieu, the working classes are keen to purchase ‘the proper thing and no more’ and will look to buy goods that will last but as cheaply as possible, and thus in terms of clothing, adopt a ‘pragmatic and functionalist aesthetic’ ([1984] 1996: 378); that does not necessarily mean that they purchase the cheapest items, but it does mean that they look for what they consider to be the most prudent economic purchases. Though some of these dispositions are evident amongst working-class women, in relation to the clothes worn ‘at home’, as discussed in Chapter 5, the importance of practicality and the emphasis on value for money is equally, if not more, apparent amongst middle-class participants. Indeed, as Daniel Miller et al. (1998) suggest, middle-class participants look for a ‘sensible balance’ between ‘price, quality and taste’ and have an expectation of ‘high quality functionalism’ (1998: 150). Although they are not looking to buy the lowest cost items, as Bourdieu’s ‘taste of necessity’ model might suggest, they are looking to strike a balance among quality, price and purpose, which leads them to opt for cheaper garments where the quality is ‘reasonable’, or where the purpose of the clothing is quite ordinary and short-term, as Hannah explained. I’ve got no problem with Primark, because to be honest I bought a suit for work, this was when I was temping for John Lewis and it did actually look quite smart, fitted the bill and when I was finished after five weeks, it lasted five weeks, I burnt it, because to be honest by the end of it everything had pulled, and you could tell it was a £20 job from Primark. [Aged 24, Legal Secretary]

HANNAH: 

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In many respects the economical or thrifty approach of middle-class participants represents something of the Protestant work ethic (Weber, [1958] 2003), which calls on the middle classes to save all they can despite their increasing wealth. Writing in 1958, Pierre Martineau suggests that higher-class consumers are much more concerned with saving and investments than their working-class counterparts, whose focus is primarily on spending. And even more recently, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (2008) suggest that ‘middle-class values’ are largely centred on the accumulation of economic and social capital and a demand for quality, even in a global context. Within British society, this so-called smart shopping has been particularly noticeable in recent years in respect of grocery shopping, with middle-class consumers shifting their weekly household shop from Waitrose or Tesco to ‘hard discount’ stores such as Aldi and Lidl. Indeed, between 2012 and 2017, the combined market share of Aldi and Lidl doubled, as middle-class shoppers look to buy goods which they consider to be of similar quality but at a much lower price (Benedict and Steenkamp, 2018; Hyde, 2015), and within fashion consumption too, there appears to be a more ‘cautious attitude toward spending’ which fuels a desire for value for money (Galilee, 2002: 46). Primark is fantastic, and I have bought some of the most amazing linen shirts in there, and if you select well, people would never ever know that it’s from Primark. My gloves are Primark and they cost me eight quid . . . they don’t look cheap . . . because of the stitching around the finger area . . . the leather is actually quite thin and quite soft, . . . it is a genuinely well-made glove . . . it looks quite expensive, . . . people probably think it cost me £25 from Debenhams. [Aged 44, University Sponsorship Manager]

FAYE: 

Financially prudent, these women are also keen to avoid emotional or impulsive purchases, and consequently take lengthy steps to ensure that their clothes buying is restrained and cost-effective. Indeed, the middle-class culture of formality, restraint and control that Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) observes is evident. Alex, for example, explains how she makes a list of the clothes she intended to buy, to ‘organise’ her clothes shopping and safeguard that she only purchases things which she needs. Others, like Jane and Elizabeth, suggest that they spend time thinking about what an item ‘would work with’ before making a purchase. JANE:   I would

never buy something which didn’t go with everything else. It would have to be something you could wear many different times with many different things, or that, if it was long and you bought it for a wedding you could hack it off at the knee after a couple of weddings and then it would be, you’ve still got something. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor]

136  Looking Good ELIZABETH:   I saw

a shirt before Christmas, and it is nice . . . I still didn’t buy it. It’s not like it is expensive or anything, it is £85. But you know what, it’s just, it’s really good, but it’s just not quite right. And even though it’s the best I’ve seen and half of me says, ‘buy it anyway’, I won’t buy it because it’s not quite right. I know now, because I have tried it on like three or four times. There is nothing in my wardrobe that I haven’t worn. [Aged 42, Designer]

Of course, this does not mean that these women never make ‘impulse’ purchases. As Colin Campbell ([1987] 2005: 69) argues, modern consumption is in many respects hedonistic, filling a desire for pleasure and emotion rather than satisfying needs, and several women acknowledge engaging in some degree of ‘retail therapy’ and buying things that make them feel better. Both Alex and Elizabeth admit that sometimes they ‘fall in love’ with an item and just ‘have to have it’. But at the same time, the dominant middle-class ethos is one of frugality, and even in respect of these impromptu spends, the underlying principle is that women should think carefully before making a spending commitment. As Grace told me, ‘you do not want to waste money’, even on those purchases which are just some form of ‘pick-me-up’, and it is important to retain some sense of self-control. It is about control. I’ve analysed it quite a lot over the years, because I tend to spend, I tend to buy clothes to cheer myself up, though if I’m going to do that, I still want to make them work for me. So, there are a lot of emotions going on . . . but you don’t waste money buying stuff that’s the wrong colour. [Aged 57, University Services Manager]

GRACE: 

The thrifty nature of the middle classes is also demonstrated by their willingness to mend and repurpose items rather than dispose of them. Several women commented, for example, that they have their shoes re-heeled rather than purchasing new ones, and they would adapt old garments in order to recycle them, chopping a dress in half to make a shirt, for example, or dying a white blouse a dark colour if its crispness had faded. Crucially, however, it is because they deem these items to be of ‘good quality’ that they feel they are worth repairing, and indeed, investment in good-quality garments goes hand-in-hand with their attitudes toward spending. As Veblen suggests, the women very much felt that ‘a cheap coat makes a cheap man’ ([1899] 1994: 104), and in respect of particular items they are keen to avoid those things which they feel are ‘cheap and nasty’. Winter coats and winter boots, for example, jeans, tailored trousers, clothing for special occasions such as weddings and christenings, are considered investments, and thus in these instances women are keen not to waste money on cheaper items but look to buy something that they will wear again and again. In fact, rather than being ‘conspicuously wasteful’, in the way that Veblen ([1899] 1994) suggests,

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constantly changing their look, the women seek garments which they consider to be economical in the long term. This means that they are willing to pay more to buy something of better quality and are even prepared to ‘go without’ until they are able to source the right thing. PENNY:  

These are expensive boots, so I’ll pay a lot of money on things that are going to last a long time, so boots or coats. I know they are going to last. I’m going to wear them until they fall apart, basically . . . so I don’t mind spending [on] those sorts of things. [Aged 31, Art Director, Advertising] SHELLY:   I went maybe four years without a winter coat to save up, because I  couldn’t afford a good decent one, and I  didn’t buy one until I  could afford a good decent one. [Aged 44, University Sponsorship Manager] Again, echoing the findings of Galilee (2002), buying something of better quality lessens the anxiety over more expensive purchases, as an investment purchase justifies a bigger spend, and interestingly, shoes are often cited as examples in these conversations. Here, the women suggest that not only do they expect to spend more, but that women should buy their shoes and boots from ‘specialist’ stores such as Clarks. This is important, not only to ensure the longevity of the item, but also the comfort and protection of their feet, as the investment extends beyond the quality of the shoes to their personal health and wellbeing. In a similar vein, underwear is also viewed as a crucial part of looking good, because of the way it works to support or shape and comfort the body, and then means that clothes look their best. And equally looking after your physical self – your skin, hair, teeth, and figure – is viewed as just as important for clothes to look good. This is perhaps most clearly explained by Jane who, because of her work as a yoga instructor, is perhaps especially conscious of health and the body. Jane feels very strongly that looking good is about buying garments of good quality, but she also explains that it is necessary to ‘look after the foundations’, too. If you want to wear cheap shit T-shirts, fine, but look after what’s underneath. And that’s what I think about class and fashion. The people that look at what’s underneath and whether it’s actually doing your body any harm, and don’t do it, if you can’t do it properly. If I was going to go out and get a really fantastic outfit, I’d go out, but I’d make sure I  had the underwear which would make the outer garment look good, that whatever was on my feet I could actually walk in, because there is no point in putting on a beautiful dress if you’re kind of standing around pigeon-toed. It’s got to look like you’re comfortable in it, and if that means getting shoes with a small heel rather than a stiletto that the advert has, then that’s what you do. I mean, I wouldn’t care, if someone had gloriously painted red nails, the whole thing is, if your nail is healthy it doesn’t need masses of red paint on it. It’s the same thing, if your teeth and mouth are healthy,

JANE: 

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you don’t need masses and masses of lipstick to detract from the face. The same with eyes, if you are getting enough sleep then you’re not going to need colours all up here. And if you know you haven’t got the body for it, buy some magic knickers, they’re about 60 quid a pair, and don’t blow 30 quid on a lipstick by Lancôme, get a cheapy from Superdrug and go to the hygienist every six months. Then it’s a real smile. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor] In many ways, Jane’s comments reflect much of the overall middle-class approach to fashion buying and looking good, which focuses on investment, durability, quality and authenticity. For these women, looking good requires a degree of rigour, forethought and prudence, not only in terms of the clothing purchases, but in respect of the ways in which these garments shape and move with the body and the way the body itself is cared for. As demonstrated in Chapters 4 and 5, appearance is seen as symbolic of an individual’s social values and inner character, and thus as Jane suggests, the authenticity and quality of a person’s look, their smile and so on, as well as their clothes, are seen as indicative of a woman’s interior essence. Looking after oneself is symbolic of one’s healthy, wholesome and moral character, and thus an individual’s failure to care for their body was indicative of danger and disease. Moreover, Jane’s comments highlight important arguments concerning the relationship between the body and social class. As Chris Shilling (2012) notes, Bourdieu’s work (1987, [1984] 1996) argues that the body is the ‘most indisputable materialisations of class taste . . . and the deepest dispositions of the habitus’ ([1984] 2006: 190) as it represents attitudes concerning how the body should be cared for and maintained, and it is the physical product of tastes, concerning food, exercise, work and leisure. The material representation of one’s conditions of existence, the body also symbolises the differing orientations of the classes and, as such, is a ‘conscious manifestation of the habitus’ (Shilling, 2012: 138). Due to the middle-class’s distance from necessity they have more time and more resources to devote to the body, and they are more likely to view the body as a ‘project’ as it forms part of a presentation for others. As discussed in Chapter 5, middle-class women are largely preoccupied with the notion of ‘seeming’ and pretence, and this concern not only informs how they dress their bodies, but also the time dedicated to their physical health and appearance too. Consequently, middle-class women are much more likely to spend time and money attending the gym or dieting classes and accessing medical and dental care, as they look to achieve a body which in its shape and size gives the impression of restraint, control and confidence (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996; Shilling, 2012). This practice of investing in the body also encourages an attitude amongst the middle-class that individuals have choice and control over the health and appearance of the body through lifestyle choices, although, as Shilling (2012) notes, such ‘class-based perceptions in health, . . . reflect closely the different capacity of individuals from different backgrounds to

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effect control over their internal somatic environment’. Working-class women, by comparison, are much less able to make these types of choices. Restricted by their economic, cultural and social capital, they have less opportunity to invest in their physical body and, as discussed in Chapter 5, they are much less concerned with pretence on a day-to-day basis. Rather, working-class women, as I explore further in Chapter 7, prioritise providing for the family in terms of both paid work or work within the home, meaning that this leaves little space for leisure actives which centre entirely on their own needs. In fact, as I discuss in the next chapter, working-class mothers are very likely to sacrifice their needs for the needs of their children, and this has implications not only for their fashion practices and consumption choices, but their bodily practices and attitudes, too. Mostly concerned with just getting by or making do, they place limited value on their health and, as a result, develop bodies which reflect this. The Classic Taste: Quality, Authenticity and Longevity The middle-class priorities in terms of value for money, financial prudence, quality and the emphasis on investment, is neatly captured in the middle-class notion of a ‘classic’ style, which is viewed as the hallmark of looking good and is a key feature of many of the discussions. Understood as timeless, tasteful and refined, classic is set in opposition to the fast-paced, trivial and wasteful nature of fashion, and emphasises discrete and subtle details in respect of a garment’s colour, pattern and design. In fact, classic dress could almost be heralded as anti-fashion, for although it is not a ‘fixed mode of adornment’ (Polhemus and Procter, 1978: 13), it is considered a style of dress that is established, and thus transcends fashion changes (Solomon et al., 2010). Many women talk about the ‘classic’ styled items which have been in their wardrobes for years, or which have been passed down from mothers or grandmothers. The passing down of items from mothers or other maternal figures through the generations is also an important example of the shared taste and shared habitus, as I discuss in Chapter 7, but even items that are relatively new could be considered ‘classic’ if they had a ‘traditional’ cut, which meant that they would outlive various fashion trends. PATRICIA:   I’ve

got classic shoes that you know, I’ve had for years and I’m a great believer of if it still looks right, if it still looks classic, why throw it away? [Aged 43, Teacher] VALERIE:   I bought a coat recently, . . . sort of classic again, that will last a good while I would think . . . it’s not too one season, . . . if it’s classic, kind of plain really, then . . . the coat will just last for years. [Aged 32, Legal Secretary] As a classic style involves ‘nothing too old fashioned or too trendy’ (Polhemus and Proctor, 1978: 69), it demands thoughtful decision making and discretion,

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and thus requires a type of cultural capital, as women negotiate the range of styles available across the fashion market. In contrast to the fashion victim, classic dressing is seen to symbolise an individual’s rational attitude toward consumer goods and consumer spending, and the longevity of classical items closely links to a preference for practicality, quality and authenticity. Natural or authentic fabrics such as leather, cotton or linen are considered of a ‘better standard’ than synthetic alternatives, such as polyester or plastics. These fabrics are said to ‘feel nicer’, ‘hold their shape’ and ‘wash well’, while neutral tone and shapes mean that clothes will not be marked out as belonging to a specific fashion trend or season. MARGARET:   I don’t

like polyester, it’s got a gritty feel, but if you feel cotton or linen it’s sort of crisp. . . . I think you can feel quality, . . . the fabric tells you the quality. . . . I mean a cheap chiffon dress, it feels horrible to wear. . . . I mean linen creases but it doesn’t seem to spoil the look of it, but some materials seem to go out of shape so quickly, they’re cheap, cheap fabrics. [45, Learning Support Assistant PT] SARAH:   It’s all to do with fabric, I mean I could feel one piece of fabric and say, ‘That’s not bad’, and then I could feel something else and feel ‘That’s definitely good cotton in there’, I  can feel the difference .  .  . nice good thick cotton . . . will wash and wash. [Aged 52, Retired Police Officer] MIRIAM:   It’s the quality . . . I feel the stuff and it’s really, really nice to feel, I’m a very touchy person. I’ve got more expensive clothes and shoes and you feel that the quality is better . . . so in a lot of places that I go to it’s the quality that I am looking for. [Aged 28, GP] Colour is important too. As Alison Lurie ([1981] 1992: 157) suggests, the middle classes prefer ‘unimaginative’ colours and muted tones. Black, white and navy are identified as key classic colours, alongside muted shades of greens or blue and other ‘neutral’ tones such as beige and brown. The only exception in the classic colour palette appears to be red, which although ‘bright’ is still considered ‘conservative’. These colours, as Faber Birren (1978), Annie Grove-White (2001) and Daniel Miller (2004) note, are considered ‘pure and modest, natural and simple’, while ’their classic look suggests a sense of elegance’ (Garthe, 1995: 104) and thus provides an air of ‘sophistication’ and respectability (Fisher-Mirkin, 1995). Moreover, reflecting their need for practicality, these colours also ‘blend effortlessly’ (Garthe, 1995: 104), and thus offer women versatility and plenty of wear. EVA:  I bought

a cardigan last weekend. It is blacks, greys and whites. And I thought, ‘Yes, it will go fantastically with black trousers for the winter.’ I never buy anything, or I will take it back if I think, ‘No, that’s not going to go with that’. If it is an ‘oddity’, it’s got to go back. [Aged 60, Retired/ Music Tutor]

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Moreover, the neutrality of these colours also reflects the subtlety, sobriety and discretion encompassed in respectability and a disapproval of forms of excess. Garments that are too bright or too sparkly are considered ‘too over the top’ or ‘too much’, and big patterns or designs are also generally avoided. Moreover, on the rare occasions where the women have bought designer items, they are keen to stress that logos or labels are discreet and therefore generally go unnoticed. I had a pair of Gucci sunglasses and they had G’s in little diamantes, but they were still quite discreet. But I was very conscious of them and I felt that everyone would see the G’s. . . . It’s not nice to be blatant. If you’ve got something nice, it’s nice to have it, but you don’t want to be, ‘Look what I’ve got’, and it wouldn’t be so other people would notice, it’s for you. [Aged 32, Legal Secretary]

VALERIE: 

This preference for modesty is even more apparent in conversations around jewellery, where women emphasise a preference for subtle and understated items, such as ‘small pearl earrings’ or simple pendants and chains, which are delicate and ‘low key’. MARGARET:  

I do like to wear a necklace or earrings, but I would wear plain, a plain gold chain or necklace, although I have got a necklace which is stone which I’ve had for years, it’s on a leather thong, but again it’s got to be fairly low-key. [Aged 45, Learning Support Assistant PT] JULIA:   I’ll wear sort of classic [jewellery]. It varies, but I’ve got a diamond cross necklace or pearl earrings so much more classic. [Aged 35, Business Analyst] As Erving Goffman (1956) argues, modesty operates as an expression of wealth, and thus the women’s ‘attention to detail’ and small, subtle differences work as important class indicators (Sennett, [1986] 2002: 162). Jewellery made up of pearls, gemstones and precious metals is considered conspicuous in its quality, excellence and authenticity rather than in its size, and as Veblen suggests, the ‘rarity and price’ of these items ‘adds an expression of distinction to them, which they would never have if they were cheap ([1899] 1994: 130). Just in the same way that cheap clothing is seen as indicative of a person’s questionable character, expensive jewellery operates as a marker of capital and taste, affording the women greater honorific value and social status. Indeed, the classic style overall operates as a ‘code of reputability’; its ‘shapes, colours, materials’ embodies a middle-class ethos of rationality, formality, modesty and authenticity. An established style, and a legitimised taste, any significant ‘departure’ from its form is considered ‘offensive’ (Veblen, [1899] 1994: 131), and thus as well as operating as a marker of class, it also functions as an important vehicle for class distancing and distinction.

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Classic and Class Distancing In the course of discussions around classic styles there is often a contrast made with perceived working-class tastes. The subtle and discreet nature of classic garments and accessories is pitched against the stereotypical images of the working-class chav, marked out by her heavy gold jewellery, tracksuits, trainers and other forms of excess (Tyler, 2008; Tyler and Bennett, 2010; Nayak and Kehily, 2014). As Angela McRobbie suggests, working classes are depicted by middle-class women as those who live on council estates, the ‘welfaredependent, single maternity’, dressed in pyjamas, as discussed in Chapter 5, who are further marked by their preference for harsh colours, cheap materials, gold hoop earrings, fake designer labels and a ‘child in a buggy’ (2004: 102). CAROL:  

Classical dressing, it’s less showy, it’s definitely less bling. If I saw someone in heavy-duty bling I would, even if it was expensive bling, designer bling, I would put them into a lower bracket mentally than if someone had classic. [Aged 56, Hospital Manager] NAOMI:   I wouldn’t want to look chavvy . . . with some enormous clown hanging off a necklace, big gold earrings. [Aged 25, IT Consultant] CHOLE:   It’s just all like teenagers with babies from, like, different dads, and they walk around pushing their buggies, and do you know like those trousers, they’re like of a really, really tight material, like nylon, they wear trousers like that, with the big nylon roll-neck jumpers, . . . with big gold hoops. [Aged 18, Student] These perceptions of working classness further fuels these women’s anxieties about their own fashion choices. Already concerned by the ways in which they might appear in public, in terms of their degree of dressing up as discussed in Chapter 5, they are also keen to distance themselves from the types of clothing, colours, fabrics and styles which they associate with working classness and look to avoid garments which could be seen as garish or read as signs of excess. As Kerry and Hannah’s discussion demonstrates, this means avoiding (fake) designer labels, any clothing which is too conspicuous in terms of its display of the body or flesh, and anything that is considered too extreme in terms of colour. Classic dressing required a more modest approach, according to Kerry and Hannah, it was ‘more demure’. GRACE:  

One of my colleagues . . . said, ‘You’re very brave’. And I said, ‘Well, why?’, and she said, ‘because of those really bright colours that you are wearing’, and [I was wearing] a lot of fuchsia and pink, the fuchsia is a colour that suits me, but I did feel, ‘Oh God, I look like some over-aged tart or something!’ [Aged 56, University Services Manager] KERRY:   You don’t want to look pikey. [Aged 25, Marketing Consultant] HANNAH:   Yeah, all that fake stuff. [Aged 25, Legal Secretary]

Looking Good 143 KERRY:   Fake stuff with massive logos across it. HANNAH:   Yeah, and you just think if it is Prada,

it’s not going to say Prada in pink, diamante letters across your boobs is it? . . . By pikey I would be talking about someone wearing something. . . KERRY:   Far, far too tight. A crop top. . . HANNAH:   A crop top and trousers or a skirt that shows your G-string. You’ll see them . . . in a tiny little strappy top, with gold hanging off their neck and ears. . . . It’s how you choose to put it together, it’s what you think about your image and what you are trying to project to other people, and if you want to look like you’ve got a lot of money but you haven’t, you’ll be wearing the brands. KERRY:   It is the way that you choose to put something together, and the way you carry yourself and what you choose to wear, because I think people will choose to wear completely different things depending on what their values are. The link between working classness and a preference for designer labels, as evident in Kerry and Hannah’s conversation, whether authentic or not, was also apparent across the discussions, and more broadly there was a common association made between buying brands, ‘fashion victims’ and working classness. Indeed, working-class women, as Carly’s comment suggests, were deemed cultural dupes, lacking the consumer intellect to recognise the ways in which they were being tricked by the industry and coaxed into spending money. I see girls on the council estates walking around with their, like, puffer coats, they’re supposed to keep you warm, but they’re cropped and I don’t understand that, if it’s a coat why is it cropped? . . . Obviously it’s for fashion, not to keep warm . . . and it’s quite sad to see that because you think, ‘well, they don’t know’. [Aged 21, Student]

CARLY: 

Consequently, though the middle-class preference for classic and their aversion to ‘fashion’ was attributed to scepticism of the fashion industry, the association made between being working-class and following fashion was not insignificant in motivating the women’s fashion distaste. Classic not only captures the various aspects of respectability which the women are keen to align themselves with, but it also distances them from working classness, and this may also explain the keen desire amongst those who have been socially mobile to disassociate with fashion and ‘fashion slaves’ too, as they look to distance themselves from their own class history. As with any fashion, some look absolutely brilliant in it, just a few, but the majority actually don’t look so good in it, they are just wearing it because that’s the in thing to wear. . . . There is a woman who gets on my bus in the morning, . . . but she is definitely a product of the fashion

DIANE: 

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industry, a fashion victim, she is wearing what the industry tells her to wear, her hair changes and her jewellery changes, and her bags, and it’s always the shapes that I’ve seen in my daughter’s magazines, it must be the latest shape . . . she always has the latest bags and whatever. [Aged 41, Receptionist] Here Georg Simmel’s argument that fashion functions as a means of union and segregation, as discussed in Chapter 3, still seems relevant. As Simmel ([1904] 1957]) and indeed Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) suggest, perceived differences in relation to fashion and looking good allow these women to differentiate themselves from others, while their own preferences work to classify them as belonging to the middle-class. Individuals’ fashion choices are used to locate them in the social space, and fashion tastes operate as dividing lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Moreover, the interpretation of others’ taste was also subject to class distinctions, as in order to grasp ‘the level of the meaning of what is signified’ one needs the requisite knowledge to recognise the ‘stylistic properties’ on display (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 2). Although middle-class women perceive their choice of clothing and accessories as ‘classic’ or modest, for example, and value the authenticity of the goods, those in other classes may simply read it as boring or ‘dull’, as without the ‘access to power’ or cultural capital others would not realise the item’s symbolic value (Skeggs, 1997: 87). Indeed, the role that class plays in interpreting taste and the symbolic value of consumer goods is demonstrated by Carly. Reminiscent of Skeggs’ (1997) argument that femininity is a coat which does not fit working-class women, Carly suggests that working-class women do not wear designer clothes in the way they are meant to be worn as they do not possess the requisite economic or cultural capital to ‘pull it off’. While designer labels or even counterfeits may be understood by working-class women as symbolising economic capital and social status, for Carly they are indicative of those who are trying to inhabit a space which they do not have access to. If you can’t afford something you just, you shouldn’t mimic it,  .  .  . because obviously Louis Vuitton is very expensive because it caters for a particular class of people, people who are quite well off, whereas people who live on a council estate, you know, come from a broken home, they try and dress in Burberry and Louis Vuitton. I just don’t think they can pull it off. I just don’t think people should wear things like that because if they can’t afford it then they shouldn’t. [Aged 21, Student]

CARLY: 

Again, in respect of Carly’s suggestion that working-class women ‘mimic’ expensive fashion styles in a bid for social status, aspects of Simmel and Veblen’s traditional theories seems relevant here. Although it may not be the case that working-class women are motivated to consume due to an ‘invidious

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comparison’ or emulation, as Veblen and Simmel suggest, Carly’s comments nevertheless indicate that this is an understanding which is still employed by middle-class women. Moreover, the ways in which appearance is read as a sign of morality and respectability is evident too, as ‘clothing is used to indicate social worth’ (Barnard, 2002: 61). Internal character, once again, is judged on the basis of the external appearance (Finkelstein, 1991; Sennett, [1986] 2002), and the wearing of (fake) designer labels is viewed as indicative of poor social classes, council houses, broken homes, deviance, danger and forms of excess. As already noted, working-class women’s bodies too, are understood in the context of excessive display and unruly behaviour. They are described as wearing clothes which were too tight, which display too much flesh and which expose the wrong parts of their bodies, and in the same way that clothes are read as evidence of an individual’s true character, the visibility of the body and how that body moves is also used to make judgements of morality and social class. A social product, the body itself is ‘sign-bearing and sign wearing’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 192), and the ways in which individuals physically behave and display their bodies is ‘commonly perceived as the most natural expression of innermost nature’. Operating ‘as an index of moral uprightness’ ([1984] 1996: 193), while the middle-class body is viewed as delicate and reserved, the workingclass body tends to be perceived as loud and bold, making large gestures or much more noise ‘as if to amplify to the utmost an experience’ ([1984] 1996: 192). Amongst the middle-class participants, the association made between class, the body, and morality, and the ways in which clothes fit the body are key in evaluations of self-governance and self-restraint. Women who are described as having their midriff or muffin top ‘hanging out’ or boobs ‘spilling over’, for example, are also considered slutty, described as cheap and nasty, and at the same time middleclass women are keen to ensure that their clothing is not too revealing, but ‘flatters’ their figure by disguising the less attractive or bulgy parts. EMILY:   You

need to think, ‘Do my clothes match, do the colours go, does it fit me, does it suit my figure?’ . . . I’ll look at people who stand out, either in a good way or a bad way, like, if they’re like, ‘Oh God she’s really bought the wrong size, she should have gone for a size bigger,’ you know like if they’ve got a big muffin top hanging out, you know . . . people that kind of, sort of, you know, tried to fit themselves into a size 8 when they’re actually a size 12 and they really shouldn’t. [Aged 27, Marketing Consultant] VERONICA:   Increasingly, I’ll see something that I think will be flattering. . . . I try to buy things that flatter my shape, that is really important to me, to camouflage and disguise my shape, disguise my bulging bits. [Aged 55, HR Manager] These thoughts around revealing, flattering or unflattering dress once again relate back to the women’s concept of classic and their focus on quality, as good-quality, classic styles are considered to be ‘better cut’, offering a more

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generous and flattering fit. Poor-quality garments or ‘fashionable’ clothes, in contrast, are considered the opposite and thus, perhaps inadvertently, display parts of women’s bodies which are meant to be covered. CAROL:  

I’ve just bought a really nice skirt which was eighty quid, and felt that was a lot for a skirt, but I bought it at the same time as the one reduced to £12, so I sort of thought, two skirts for £90. And then I took the £12 one back because it looked awful. . . . It just didn’t look right. There was nothing about it which flattered any part of me, and it was a size 18 whereas the posh one, the expensive one was a 14. [Aged 56, Hospital Manager] FAYE:   I have to buy classic clothes. For example, I cannot buy trousers that sit on the hip, which I know are very fashionable, because my body shape will not allow me to. . . . I don’t expose my stomach. I don’t wear hipsters, trousers on the hips, because I don’t want my muffin top hanging over. . . . I don’t want to wear something that is ill-fitting and looks cheap. [Aged 44, University Sponsorship Manager] Looking good then, for these women, is about classic styles and legitimised tastes. The investment in clothes meant that expensive items still offered value for money as they are of good quality, cut and fit and are seen as the hallmarks of good taste. These garments are considered to be flattering, as they enhance the women’s shape and simultaneously control and disguise their less attractive or excessive parts, thereby symbolising their respectability through their modesty, authenticity and sobriety. As a result, these clothes are seen to operate as a means of distinction, setting middle-class women apart from the practices and taste of their working-class counterparts. In fact, as the next section clearly demonstrates, the ‘rules of the game’ for looking good clearly differ with class location, and not only is fashion used to evaluate class, but it plays an important role in shaping tastes and consumer practice.

A Passion for Fashion While for middle-class women looking good is about dressing ‘classically’, for working-class women it seems quite the opposite. Looking good for many working-class women is about being ‘fashionable’ and ‘trendy’, and they are very much engaged with fashion, spending time and energy reading fashion magazines, watching fashion programmes and shopping for new clothes on a regular, weekly basis. Unlike their middle-class counterparts, working-class participants are keen to tell me about the fashion items they have seen on daytime television shows and fashion series, and rather than shying away from fashion trends, they are eager to display their knowledge of the latest styles. RUTH:  

Now, Heat, You, Grazia, we tend to get them all at some point. . . . I’ll definitely see something in a magazine and then go and find it in the

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shops . . . keeping up to date as possible . . . it’s important to look good. You know? I like to be fashionable. [Aged 45, PA] JUDY:   I’ll see a fashion item and then I’ll go and put it together. GMTV is really good, they are always showing you things that you can wear, and they do a lot of fashion things in [the local shopping centre], fashion shows and so on. [Aged 60, Hairdresser] Just as Skeggs (1997: 85, 104) suggests, fashion is a form of ‘cultural capital’ for these women. Fashion knowledge is held in high esteem and involves ‘dedication, commitment, labour’ (1997: 104). Rather than labelling followers of fashion as ‘victims’ or ‘slaves’, wearing up-to-the-minute fashionable trends operates as a form of ‘symbolic capital’ (Bourdieu, 1986). Women spend time studying fashion via magazines, catalogues and television features, as they look to learn about new fashion styles or trends, and they are keen to gather hints and tips from friends and relations, who they view as having fashion knowledge and expertise. I look at what my sister is wearing, and I’ll say, ‘That’s nice, what are you wearing?’ and she’ll tell me, ‘It’s a new trend’. And I’ll say, ‘That’s nice, I might get myself one’ . . . and I do look at what other people are wearing . . . and if they’re wearing something that’s nice, or new, I’m like, ‘Oh I like that’, and I’ll get an idea of what they’re wearing to go and buy something just like it. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother]

MANDY: 

Accompanying this fashion enthusiasm is also a significant level of fear, as women worry about ‘getting behind, or not having the right knowledge, or getting it wrong’ (Skeggs, 1997: 104). As a result, the women are keen to continually update their own wardrobes and to present an image which reflects a knowledge of the latest looks. Time is spent clothes shopping, especially when they need something new to ‘go out in’, as discussed in Chapter 5, and even when they do not buy anything, the practice of shopping still enables them to learn about the latest styles emerging on the high-street, and to evaluate and observe other women’s dress. I go to the market every week, my friend owns a stall there, so I’ll see what she’s got new in. . . . I’ll go and buy something new, whatever the latest look is. [Aged 43, Full-time Mother]

TRISHA: 

Looking good, however, is not just about wearing fashionable clothes per se, but rather it involves carrying off a look in its entirety. All the elements of an outfit need to be considered: clothes, shoes, handbags, accessories, hair and make-up, and several participants said that they look to buy a complete outfit at any one time, as replicate images and styles that they have seen in catalogues, on screen, or on other women. Emphasis too is placed on items matching,

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and it is generally felt that colour coordination of clothing and accessories is important, in some cases even down to underwear and socks. KIM:   The

top, the trousers, the shoes, the hair, the bangle, the bag . . . it all has to match, I’ll buy the entire outfit. [Aged 33, Full-time Mother] AMBER:   Everything has to be matching. . . . I wear boots and skirts, probably with like this roll-top, and then I’ll match the top and the shoes . . . yellow top with, yellow shoes. [Aged 29, Hospital Receptionist] LISA:  You have to coordinate your colours and keep your colours together. [Aged 27, Full-time Mother] JAZZ:   I do coordinate a lot, even sometimes down to the underwear and socks. [Aged 36, Cleaner] JUDY:   I always know exactly the colour, I always know what I’m looking for, it depends on what’s in that season. [Aged 60, Hairdresser] Here the choice of colours is varied, shaped by fashion trends and styles which are circulating across fashion media at the time, and rather than sticking to neutral or sober tones, the participants are happy to adopt bright colours, such as pink, blue and greens depending on the look they are aiming to achieve and what is popular. This is also true in terms of patterns and designs, and though the women do have personal preferences, they are also keen to reflect the various styles and looks being advertised. Catalogues: Credit and Copying This fundamental difference in working-class women’s perception of looking good and their attitude toward fashion has significant implications for their buying criteria and shopping practices, and one consequence was a far greater use of fashion catalogues. Most of the women interviewed receive Littlewoods, Additions, Great Universal, Gratton, Next, or La Redoute, or more often, a combination of these. Part of the reason for using catalogues is the credit that is available. As Alison Clarke (1998), Emma Casey (2015) and Richard Coopey et al. (2005) suggest, by allowing customers to pay for items over a number of weeks, these mail-order catalogues enable the women to purchase fashionable items that they may otherwise not be able to afford, and therefore they allow women to budget for clothes for themselves and their children. JOY:   I love

the Next Directory because I can control it, you know, I can buy something and I can pay £10 next week, whereas if I go shopping, you have to pay straightaway, you know. [Aged 19, Fast-Food Restaurant Worker] MANDY:   Yeah, mainly for the kids if I run out of money and they need something desperately, I can get it . . . and I thought I need a new pair of shoes

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to go out in, it was just as easy to order something off it. [Aged 21, Fulltime Mother] Budgeting is not an insignificant part of these women’s fashion consumption, and there is little doubt that they have less economic capital than their middleclass counterparts to spend on fashion. As mentioned in Chapter 5, Louisa comments that she ‘saves up’ so that she can buy ‘a good outfit’ for special occasions, and similarly Yvonne buys ‘in advance’ knowing that she can afford to make the purchase at that time, whereas she might not be able to in the forthcoming weeks. Several women talk about the way they seek to buy items, especially designer labels or clothes for special occasions, in the sale season or online so that they can purchase something which is otherwise too expensive, and catalogues too, provide a means of purchasing fashion items which otherwise sit outside of their price range. Yet, the use of catalogues is not only driven by economics, for unlike Clarke’s participants who see the Argos catalogue as an inexpensive way to buy presents or toys (1998), many of the women suggest that they do not buy from the catalogues, even though they still subscribed to them, because they know where to buy the same or similar items cheaper. Rather, as Becky suggests, the women browse the catalogues for ideas and inspiration, and like magazines, the catalogues operate as a useful source of information on upcoming trends and styles. Their use, then, is not simply the result of ‘low investment in clothing’, as Bourdieu ([1984] 1996: 378) would suggest. Rather, it signals an enthusiasm for fashion, as they offer the women a clear and convenient way of learning about ‘what’s going on’ (Clarke and Miller, 2002: 202) and how to ‘put things together’. If the Argos catalogue operates as a ‘shop window’ and a fantasy shopping space where children can get ideas for Christmas and birthday presents, as Clarke (1998: 89) suggests, then it seems the fashion catalogues operate as a fashion catwalk, style guide or fashion bible, from which women can gather ideas for outfits, copy the images and recreate styles. BECKY:   I was

looking through the catalogue because . . . I wanted ideas, it was for a specific occasion, but another reason I buy from catalogues is because they do the buy now pay later option . . . and I can spread the payment out every month. [Aged 29, Nurse] YVONNE:   The dress I’ve got for the christening [from the catalogue] . . . it’s a purple dress right, so I put it together with the silver shoes like in the picture, and I’ve got a little top to go over it. . . . I wanted that [points to the image] but they didn’t have it, so they are going to send me something else, if they don’t have it they phone you back to tell you they’ve got something similar to what you were looking for. [Aged 47, Care Worker] Again, though these examples do not demonstrate emulation of the upper classes, in the way that Simmel ([1904] 1957) or Veblen ([1899] 1994)

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describe, they do suggest the imitation and reproduction of fashionable styles. Motivated by a taste and appreciation for fashion, and a desire for ‘symbolic capital’ amongst their peers, these women use fashion catalogues in a calculated way, to keep ‘up to date’ with the latest designs and to make sure they are ‘in style’ (Blumer, [1969] 1981: 50). A source of knowledge, the catalogues help them create looks which are ‘on trend’, providing images which could be copied and offering ideas and examples of how to be fashionable and thus ‘look good’. Catalogues, however, are not the only source of inspiration and imitation. ‘[W]hat people wear on the street’ and what is advertised in stores, as Crane (1999: 547) argues, are important sources of information, too. The people that women witness in their everyday lives offer examples of how to dress, while high-street stores provide women with knowledge about what is currently in vogue. By visiting stores, working-class women are able to keep abreast of what is new, and at the same time they can spend time looking at how other women are dressed, often asking them where they found particular items, with the sole intention of replicating their look. MANDY:  

The majority of the time, yeah, see what they’re [women day-to-day] wearing and ideas, things for me to buy. I do look at what other people are wearing. . . . I’m like, ‘Oh I like that’, and I’ll buy not the exact same thing but get an idea of what they’re wearing to go and buy something just like it. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother] ANGIE:   Well, I might see someone in the street . . . and I might like their skirt and think, ‘I’ll get that’, and then the next time I go shopping it’ll go through my mind, ‘I want that’. [Aged 54, Full-time Mother] LISA:   Yeah, because sometimes you’ll be out and you’ll think, ‘Oh, she’s got a top, where did she get that from?’ Like, I’ve seen a girl with a really, really nice top out before, and I said, ‘Where did you get your top from?’ and she goes ‘Primark’ . . . so I could get one, too. [Aged 26, Full-time Mother] While middle-class women also engage in the practice of looking at others, they tend to focus on class distancing and distaste, concentrating on styles or outfits that they would not wear, rather than seeing other women as a source of information about fashion and how to dress. Very few middle-class women said that they would ask strangers where they bought items. Yet, amongst the working-class women it appears to be common practice for them to ask someone where they have bought something if they admire their style. Disposable Fashion and Designer Labels These fashion-conscious women are also all too aware of the way fashion changes rapidly (Rutter and Bryce, 2008), and therefore unlike the middleclass who place emphasis on quality and longevity, working-class women generally feel that women should seek to buy fashion cheaply as ‘trends don’t last

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long’. It is not as important that their clothes last, as they will soon be ‘out of fashion’ anyway, and although access to economic capital is again a consideration, some degree of ‘calculability’ is also operating with ‘quantity not quality’ being a primary concern (Ritzer, 2004). KELLY:   My

dad always says. . . ‘If you buy a ten pound pair of shoes you’re only going to get ten pound wear out of them’, and I think that is true because when I’ve bought them before they’ve only lasted like three weeks. Whereas when I spend like forty pounds on shoes they last ages. But I do think, yeah, how they last is different and all that, but at the end of the day they’re shoes, they all do the same thing . . . and the fashions don’t last all that long. [Aged 18, Unemployed] ANGIE:   Well, I’ve only spent a fiver on that top, so that’s not really a problem if that shrinks. I’m not spending very much. I’m washing those two T-shirts now. If they both shrink today, I’m not bothered. It doesn’t matter really. [Aged 54, Full-time Mother] Being fashionable does not warrant individuals spending more money than is necessary to get ‘the look’. Rather, ‘fashion is disposable’, and the women frequently throw out clothes because they are no longer ‘trendy’, even though, as in Mandy’s case, they might have never been worn. I just like shoes, I’ve got over 100 pairs of shoes, and I’ve just got rid of a load. . . . I got rid of two black sacks full of shoes, . . . ones that I’ve had for quite a while, ones that I’ve never worn and now would never wear again . . . because they’re not fashionable anymore. The shoes I get now have to be, like, the shoes I see up the market I know that they are in fashion, so people are wearing them or whatever, so I’d go and buy them. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother]

MANDY: 

Although those following Bourdieu’s arguments may suggest that the buying of cheap goods is due to economic reasons and an inability of the workingclass to afford items of good quality, it appears that the desire for cheap goods was not solely driven by the women’s financial position. The women would be less able to continually update their wardrobes if they were to buy more expensive items. As Jazz told me, the most she has spent on a pair of jeans is around £50, because she cannot afford any more. But, at the same time, there is a general consensus that ‘you don’t have to spend money to look good’. Highstreet retailers, discount stores and markets have made fashion affordable and ‘disposable’ (Morgan and Birtwistle, 2009; Shields, 2008), and therefore there is ‘no need to spend more money than you have to’. You can buy, especially these days with places like Primark, you can buy fashion and dispose of it really quickly . . . you can stay ahead of the game really. [Aged 45, PA]

RUTH: 

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Consequently, shops such as Primark are popular, but for different reasons to those given by the women’s middle-class counterparts. Instead of the emphasis being on ‘value for money’ in terms of ‘cheap and cheerful’ basic items, Primark is viewed as somewhere that offers fashionable clothing at low cost, and thus allows women, whatever their income, to look good. Nine times out of 10 you go to Primark and there is something new that’s come out and that is what everyone’s wearing to that club . . . sometimes we see things in River Island, and then we’ll see the same thing but it will be cheaper. Sometimes you know, you’re watching telly, and they say there is this dress but they have it in Primark, so that’s the dress you’re going to go and get, you’re not going to go and get the Kate Moss dress which is £120, when you can get a Primark dress which looks the same. [Aged 33, Full-time Mother]

KIM: 

Again, Kim’s comments suggest that importance is placed on the overall look, not on the specific details of quality or fabric, and therefore the key objective is to buy fashion and to buy it cheaply. However, there are two instances where working-class women are perhaps more likely to spend more money: in case of wedding outfits and when buying designer labels. As discussed in Chapter 6, weddings are primary occasions for dressing up, and as Tseëlon suggests, they are at the top of the visibility scale (1995). On these ‘special’ occasions it is considered important not only to look good, but to ‘look your best’, and as a result, working-class women feel it is important to spend more in order to get a ‘nicer’ outfit. NATASHA:  

I probably would go, I’d look in Oasis, if I was going to a wedding and wanted something really nice, and I probably would be spending more money. [Aged 18, Student] RUTH:   If it was a wedding, I’d go to Debenhams, places like that. Yeah, so, nicer places maybe, spend a bit more money. Only because I want to get what I wanted; I want a dress so I’d have to spend a bit more to get exactly what I wanted . . . then I need a matching handbag, and I’ve gone to every shop to get one. [Aged 45, PA] ANGIE:   My daughter got married a few years ago so I went to Anne Harvey for my wedding outfit, it was the only place I  could get one. They are expensive, but it came in at £160 for the three pieces. I’d been everywhere looking . . . I wanted a skirt. I’d been to the West End, to the Anne Harvey there, I’d been to Evans. I’d been to wedding shops, but they do suits and outfits to rent, but none of them were my size. So yeah, it was a bit of a drop. I’ve still got it, Christ, it cost enough! But it’s screwed up into the wardrobe and I don’t think I’ll ever wear it again. I don’t think I ever have since the wedding actually. And the hat, that just went to Oxfam. [Aged 54, Full-time Mother]

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Having spent more money on these outfits, working-class women suggest that they are also less likely to dispose of these garments quite so easily. Instead, these clothes constitute more of a financial investment, so they are less willing to part with them, although the women often comment that they are also very unlikely to wear these outfits again. In fact, like Angie, many have expensive outfits that have sat in their wardrobes ever since they were first worn. This was either because they have not had an occasion to wear it again, or if they have, they have chosen instead to buy something new. This is not totally unsurprising, however, for as Chapter 5 discussed, wearing new clothes is a key aspect of dressing up for working-class women, as they are keen not to be seen in outfits that they have worn before, and added to this, looking good requires them to wear something fashionable, meaning that these investment items are often considered too out-of-date. The other context in which working-class women spend more money is when buying designer items. Several participants, for example, tell me that they will spend ‘a bit more money’ in order to purchase Tiffany’s jewellery, or designer sunglasses from eBay, or alternatively how they will look for designer clothing in department stores such as Debenhams or House of Fraser. Jazz, for example, describes how she loves the Playboy brand. She likes the label and feel that their clothes are of better quality, and thus it is worth spending more. Though she was not prepared, or not able, to buy them at the full retail price, she looks instead to buy them in the sale. JAZZ:  

I’ve always liked the Playboy design. I just love the Playboy bunny and their clothes, they’re quality stuff. . . . I’m such a bargain hunter and I like to get stuff cheap. I think the most I ever spent on a pair of Playboy jeans was £46 in the sale. So everything I normally get is in the sale. [Aged 36, Cleaner] LOUISA:   A lot of my stuff comes from Debenhams because they’ve got all the designers at Debenhams, and I do like them, I buy a lot of stuff from the designers at Debenhams ranges . . . but I would only ever go in the sale. [Aged 38, Nursery Nurse] Unable to afford these items at the non-sale price, the women search for items on the internet, during the January or mid-season sales, or at outlet stores, so they can get them for less, although they still spent relatively much more on them than they would on their routine purchases. And in some cases, some participants have spent very significant amounts of money, the most notable example being Mandy, who told me that she spent £200 on a Louis Vuitton handbag which, touted as ‘limited edition’, she purchased from a market trader. MANDY:  

I notice the designer labels like the Chanel and Gucci and Armani, and D&G are the ones that stand out, Christian Dior is another one I like. . . . I’ve got a limited-edition Louis Vuitton bag.

154  Looking Good KA:   Where did you get that from? MANDY:   The market actually, the lady

up there she was selling all these bags, and there was only ever 10 made, and I got one and it was, the tag on it was £500. It’s still in the dust bag that I bought it in. It cost £200, but it’s a nice bag and I’ve never seen anyone with it . . . but it stays in the cupboard with the rest of the bags that I don’t ever use hardly. . . . I don’t want to hurt it, it cost me so much money . . . that is the first time I’d ever spent that amount of money on a bag . . . but then it’s worth it because it was a must-have. But on a normal day I’ve got a bag up there it cost me £3 from Asda. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother]

In some respects, the spending of large sums of money on what is considered a designer item goes against some of the more typical features of working-class consumption. These are not items which women are intending to dispose of quickly, and unlike more routine purchases, they value the quality of the garments and their longevity. Yet, at the same time, the fact that working-class women are willing to spend large sums of money and financially invest in designer goods also reaffirms the ‘cultural capital’ which they place on having knowledge of fashion and the subsequent ‘symbolic capital’ which comes with owning items with designer labels. The motivation behind Mandy’s purchase, for example, is not functional or practical, and although the bag may be of good quality, this was not the primary reason for buying it. Rather, the Louis Vuitton bag is a ‘must-have’. A designer item and a ‘limited edition’, its value stems from its conspicuous fashion label, its designer status and its exclusivity. As it was such a large financial investment, Mandy does not want to risk damaging it or harming it, so it stays in its dust cover, and like the participants’ more expensive wedding outfits, it is very rarely used. But even though she is not regularly seen with it, Mandy knows that she owns it, and so do her friends and family, and thus within her reference group it provides her with social status and esteem. And Mandy is not the only one to spend money on designer items. Jazz, Ruth, Louisa and several others also discuss their desire for designer labels, and Lisa explains how she buys designer sunglasses and branded clothes from eBay, because she feels she wants to have those items which are considered fashionable and wants to wear the designer labels she sees advertised in magazines, catalogues and stores. But again, she says she cannot afford to buy them at the full retail price. I get stuff from eBay. . . . I get all my designer glasses from there because they are cheaper  .  .  . like I’ve a Rocawear top and stuff like that. I’ve got bags, glasses . . . whenever you go shopping, designer stuff is always advertised, so if I’ve seen like Chanel glasses, I look to see if they’ve [eBay] got something. Because it’s like the high-street stuff it’s just all

LISA: 

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copies of the designer stuff, everything is just like a copy, copy, copy, you just know what’s going on. [Aged 26, Full-time Mother] Unlike Mandy, Lisa wears her designer items regularly, and she notes how friends and strangers comment on them and admire them, asking her where she bought them from. Collectively they have cost her a significant sum of money, certainly hundreds of pounds, but as each individual item has cost her less than Mandy’s bag, she does not have the same anxiety over ‘hurting’ them. These items bring Lisa fashion kudos, they represent style which ‘generate[s] admiration and signal desirability’ (Skeggs, 1997: 104), and they operate as a form of ‘symbolic capital’. The accounts are reminiscent of an example provided in Lisa McKenzie’s (2015) work, where she describes a working-class woman, called Ayesha, who buys a pair of Gucci sunglasses from a man in a gym for £25. McKenzie describes how Ayesha’s mood changed having bought the glasses, how she ‘was really proud’ of them and how ‘she had lots of compliments when she wore them and for months recounted the stories of her friends commenting on her good taste’ (2015: 110). In analysing the ways in which this situation might be interpreted by the popular press, McKenzie argues that these women are largely excluded from the lifestyles of the middle and upper classes, which they witness in their daily lives and in the media. Living in a society ‘that values high branded and designer items such as Gucci, Blackberry and Apple’ is difficult, McKenzie argues, when you are ‘financially excluded from joining them’ (2015: 110). Rare opportunities to own and engage with consumption, with fashion, with designer labels then, are crucial for these women, as they offer the chance to participate in a lifestyle that they will never have full access to, and in a society in which they are de-valued, because of their class and because of where they live, owning these goods makes women feel better about themselves. Although they might not be valued outside of the estate, in the wider social context, ‘being valued inside the estate is achievable . . . for Ayesha the Gucci sunglasses gave her value’ and in a similar way perhaps so do Mandy and Lisa’s designer buys. This working-class notion of looking good presents some significant challenges to Bourdieu, for while the evidence does support his assertion that working-class people ‘buy their clothes in the market, by post or in “popular” department stores’ ([1984] 1996: 378), the idea that working-class women’s dress is ‘simple’ and ‘modest’ and chiefly concerned with what is ‘needed in order to “get by” ’, certainly in the context of ‘going out’, is far less convincing. As discussed in Chapter 3, the democratisation of fashion, the speed at which it is produced and the reduction in clothing costs has meant that fashion has become far more widely accessible to all class groups. Fashion has become something which women across the class spectrum can engage with to some extent, and for working-class women it appears to be a cultural pursuit

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which they are keen to adopt. Moreover, in recent years fashion has become an increasingly ‘disposable’ commodity. Today, shops such as Primark and supermarkets such as Asda and Tesco produce clothes intended to be worn on fewer than 10 occasions (Morgan and Birtwistle, 2009), which are therefore marketed at very low prices. In fact, the latest figures suggest that women wear an item just seven times before throwing it away, and one in 10 throw an outfit away after being photographed in it on three occasions (Shank and Bedat, 2016; Bayley, 2018). As a result, despite their economic position, working-class women are much more able to buy fashionable clothes and readily update their wardrobes, and thus it seems that their priorities in terms of clothing have broadened and that their tastes have changed. That is not to say that their economic position is not still influential. As already discussed, working-class women are still less able to afford expensive clothing, and even when they do look to buy more expensive goods, they still have to find ways of obtaining them more cheaply. Their use of catalogues is at least in part motivated by the opportunity to spread the cost, and equally, counterfeit goods are bought because they offer a designer look at a much more affordable price. Economic capital is not irrelevant or absent from the fashion practices or fashion tastes of either class, but equally, working-class women’s economic position does not mean that they simply look for clothing that will allow them to ‘get by’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 378). When dressing up, and in the context of ‘looking good’, these women are keen to be seen as fashionable; being in the latest ‘looks’ circulating in high-street stores and fashion media brings admiration, value and esteem and demonstrates fashion knowledge and expertise, which is also desirable.

Democratisation and Class Distinction Democratisation has had a significant impact on the ways in which class distinctions operate. As Chapter 3 demonstrates, it is no longer possible to effectively argue that fashion is the innovation of the upper classes, or that it trickles down the class hierarchy or that the class system fuels fashion change (Crane, 1999, 2000; Davis, 1994; Polhemus, 1994). Middle-class women are no longer looking to establish their status through impractical and conspicuous items, as Veblen ([1899] 1994) suggests, and the working-class is no longer driven by practicality, as argued by Bourdieu ([1984] 1996). Democratisation has enabled working-class women to engage and participate in fashion consumption, while the pluralisation of the fashion market has meant that many different styles are circulating at any one time. Perhaps even more importantly, democratisation appears to have significant affected working-class women’s perceptions of class, and the extent to which fashion continues to operate as a means of class distinction or class marker, for although some working-class women still make associations between what women wear and class status, others appear to believe that today’s fashion is

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less of a class indicator. Several of the working-class women in this research, for example, suggest that nowadays, particularly with places such as Primark, money is not a barrier to ‘looking good’. Fashionable styles and even designer labels are considered accessible to all, and this means that it is much more difficult to determine social class based simply on what someone is wearing. RUTH:   You

can have taste whether you’ve got money or not. I think it’s very difficult. I think you can’t tell class [through clothes] so much over the last twenty years. [Aged 45, PA] JUDY:   You can’t tell if someone lives on a council estate. Especially, the styles are so different, and you don’t have to wear clothes that are so suitable for your age so much. [Aged 60, Hairdresser] KELLY:   It depends really . . . because I could go into Croydon and buy a £10 dress and look as good as someone else who spent £500 on a dress, it just depends on the girl. Do you know what I mean? If I saw someone and I’d think, ‘Oh they’re posh, they live in a big house’, but then they could actually be the same and live on an estate with loads of kids, how my family lives. [Aged 18, Unemployed] YVONNE:   You can look nice, even if it’s cheap. . . . My daughter, you can put her in a rice bag and she would look expensive, you know? My daughter came here and she had this very lovely dress, and I said to her, ‘You look nice, you look rich, man’, and she said ‘Yeah, I know, people think I’m rich but I ain’t got no money in my purse, Mum’. People who look good, it’s how they wear certain things, and . . . how they put things together. Because you can get an expensive top or bottom and put it with a cheap one and it can look good, you know what I mean? [Aged 47, Care Worker] On the one hand, the view that fashion does not communicate class may well represent women’s ‘refusal to be fixed or measured’ by their own fashion tastes and practices (Skeggs, 1997: 75). As Skeggs’ work suggests, workingclass women may not want to imply that their fashion choices operate as a means of classification. By suggesting then that it is no longer possible to identify class on the basis of dress, they are ‘protecting and distancing’ themselves ‘from the pathological and worthless’ connotations of working classness (1997: 86). In another part of the interview, for example, Kelly tells me that she can identify ‘posh boys’ in the nightclubs, or female businesswomen by their clothes, which somewhat contradicts her later remarks about not being able to distinguish a £500 dress from a £10 one. Yet, it may also be true that some of these women feel that today’s fashion market allows individuals of all classes to wear fashionable styles, and thus it enables women, including themselves, to appropriate looks which are common within all sections of society. Indeed, many magazine articles and media programmes are based on this premise, offering women ideas on how to recreate expensive looks on a budget, which can still pass as designer, encouraging the view that fashion

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does not operate as an obvious means of classification. For these women then, fashion no longer operates as a marker of class, as anyone can engage with fashion and look good. For others, however, especially those whose work takes them outside of their local neighbourhood and who are witness to those from a broad range of social backgrounds, fashion still works as a means of class distinction. ‘Posh’ women are marked out by their dress and their designer labels. Brands are seen to communicate class and economic capital, and for some, they believe that their own dress would also be read as a sign of class status. AMBER:  

I think I judge people, so people must judge me the same way. I don’t do it to be nasty, but you look, don’t you? I worked in Chelsea and, you know, everybody is in suits and designer clothing. So, you get to know Jane Shilton handbags, you can just tell. I see that side with the patients and the private sector. To me it’s a lot, to them it’s nothing. It’s like Mama and Papas prams . . . and if you take an interest in fashion, you know. . . . I’m interested in fashion, so I know the names and I can see them on other people, but I can’t afford to buy the same things, you know. So you spend within your budget. [Aged 29, Hospital Receptionist] JOY:   It’s like tomorrow I’ve got to meet a friend who went to uni, and I’m like, shall I just cancel because I’ve nothing to wear, you know. I really do think ‘Shall I just make an excuse?’ It’s sad, isn’t it? Because even if I do make an effort, you do feel, you’re walking down the street with this girl, and she just looks amazing . . . and they’ll think I’m her maid! . . . You can see the Ugg at the back of the boot, [laughs] whereas mine say Ella on the back! . . . like I do scrimp and save, but then everyone has to start somewhere. [Aged 19, Fast-Food Restaurant Worker] Though democratisation has made some women feel that class distinctions in fashion are much more blurred, if not completely erased, for others the increased awareness and availability of fashion, particularly of designer labels, has actually made the class distinctions much more apparent. Media and catalogue coverage of the most desirable brands or garments has meant that they are able to identify where clothes have been bought and estimate how much they cost, and though individual items may confer some level of value and esteem, the overall coherence of a look in terms of its quality, brand and designer labels could mark someone out. For these women then, fashion operates as an important means of classification and distinction, and they recognised that their own clothes are equally used by others to classify and judge them in the same way.

Conclusion By exploring the notion of ‘looking good’, which is often discussed in conjunction with ‘dressing up’, the ways in which fashion practices and tastes

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are informed by class and used by British women to evaluate and place others become even more evident. Looking good, like dressing up, as discussed in Chapter 5, reflects important class differences in women’s attitude towards fashion and significant distinctions in British women’s buying criteria and consumer behaviour. Discussions around looking good highlight, once again, the ways in which the middle-class culture of respectability continues to inform middle-class practices and how concerns over class distinctions and class distance motivate middle-class women’s fashion (dis)tastes. Indeed, while the middle-class aversion to fashion, or fashion distaste, is said to be motivated by the traditional view that fashion is ‘faddy’ and just another way in which consumers are duped into spending money unnecessarily, there is also an important class dimension to this view. Middle-class women look to distance themselves from working-class women who they perceive as ‘fashion victims’, who they suppose are ‘foolishly’ spending money on designer goods and the latest trends. Indeed, there is a degree of intellectual superiority at work here, as middle-class women consider themselves more able than their workingclass counterparts to recognise and resist the consumer manipulation operating within the fashion system. For working-class women, however, fashion is understood very differently, and for these women owning and wearing fashionable clothes and engaging with fashion trends and fashion media is an important symbol of cultural capital. Being fashionable, having knowledge of fashion brands and fashion designers demonstrates an individual’s fashion expertise, and fashion knowhow is a source of status and esteem. Moreover, though their consumption is limited by what they can afford, these women adopt various strategies to acquire up-to-date fashions and trends through their use of catalogues, sales and shopping around. Though they acknowledge the importance of quality, particularly in relation to designer or branded goods, they also feel that ‘looking good’ is available to all as fast fashion has made fashion affordable, meaning that ‘you don’t need to spend money to look good’. These important class distinctions in women’s attitudes towards fashion then play out in terms of fashion practice, informing the ways in which women shop and purchase clothes. For middle classes their desire for class distancing leads them to adopt a preference for classic styles, a style which also embodies middle-class respectability in its modest and sober colours and shapes. Their association between working classness and conspicuous dress, heavy jewellery and poor-quality clothing encourages them towards a more ‘dominant aesthetic’ (Bourdieu, [1984] 1996: 249), with emphasis placed on quality, practicality and longevity and economic investment. Good-quality and authentic materials are seen to signify the authenticity of their moral and social character, and their thrifty purchases, evidence of their responsible nature. For working-class women, however, the symbolic value of fashion means that they look to engage with fashion media as much as possible and to shop regularly to keep abreast of the latest fashion trends. Clothing needs to be new

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and up-to-date, coordinated and coherent in its look. Catalogues then, are a useful tool in learning about upcoming fashion styles, offering examples to imitate, or purchase, alongside cheap high-street clothing or similar fashion styles found on market stalls. Consequently, though class emulation is not the driver of fashion adoption, as Simmel ([1904] 1957) and Veblen ([1899] 1994) suggest, imitation is still an important part of fashion consumption, and there is evidence of conspicuous consumption, in terms of the newness of clothes and the labels that they might carry. To suggest then, as Bourdieu ([1984] 1996, 2005) does, that working-class women only buy what is necessary seems somewhat outdated, for although their consumption is still influenced by their economic position, their tastes are much more diverse. The democratisation of fashion and development of fast fashion has made fashion trends much more available and more disposable, and working-class women are therefore much more able to update their wardrobes cheaply and frequently. In some respects, this has always been true. As Angela Partington’s (1992) work suggests, working-class women have typically looked to embrace fashion, modifying and adapting fashion trends to suit their budget and to create new styles. Clearly, amongst the women I spoke to, there is a continuing enthusiasm for fashion and an embracing of the ‘Primark effect’ (Shields, 2008), and this enthusiasm for fashion is further demonstrated by their consumption of designer goods. Though not able to afford these items at full cost, the women are nevertheless eager to purchase garments in department store sales, or those touted as authentic in markets and on auction websites, in order to have what is most up-to-date and desirable. This desire to own branded goods, and the perception of designer fashion as important symbols of status and prestige, is also evident in the ways working-class mothers looked to shop for, and dress, their children. As I discuss in the next chapter, working-class mothers are often willing to sacrifice purchases for themselves for the sake of their children, and they are keen to ensure that the dress of their children in public spaces strongly adheres to their principles of looking good. Consequently, it appears that although consumer behaviour is still shaped by women’s economic means, the democratisation of fashion and rise of fast fashion has significantly shaped the fashion‒class relationship, not only because it has allowed working-class women to participate much more in fashionable consumption, but also because it has impacted on the way in which women evaluate class on the basis of dress. Whereas for middle-class women, fashion adoption clearly operates as a symbol of working-class status, for some working-class women their ability to participate in fashion and the availability of fashion means that it no longer operates as a means of class distinction. Yet, at the same time for some, the increased awareness of fashion brands and labels, and knowledge of fashion, such as where items are sold and how much they cost, means that fashion is a continuing sign of wealth and status. Rather than blurring class distinctions, for these women democratisation has made others’ wealth more obvious. Consequently, while democratisation might be

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heralded as a way in which class distinctions in fashion have become more nuanced and blurred, at the same time it seems that within this democratisation of fashion, new divisions have emerged. Fashion, like many other cultural practices and tastes, may becoming more inclusive, and yet, within this inclusivity new divisions occur, as middle-class women look to identify workingclass women through their keen fashion adoption, while working-class women evaluate each other’s wealth, or lack of it, through their use of designer labels and on-trend styling, in their bid to look good.

References Banerjee, A. V. and Duflo, E. (2008) What Is Middle Class About the Middle Class Around the World? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(2): 3–28. Barnard, M. (2002) Fashion as Communication, London and New York: Routledge. Bayley, S. (2018) One in 10 Throw an Outfit Away After Three Photos Wearing It, The Evening Standard, 8 October, https://www.standard.co.uk/fashion/fast-fashionclothing-throw-away-social-media-a3956231.html. Bedat, M. and Shank, M. (2016) There Is a Major Climate Issue Hiding in Your Closet: Fast Fashion Co. Exist, https://www.fastcompany.com/3065532/ there-is-a-major-climate-issue-hiding-in-your-closet-fast-fashion. Benedict, J. and Steenkamp, E. M. (2018) Brands and Retailers Under Attack from Hard Discounters, in K. Gielens and E. Gijsbrechts (eds.) Handbook of Research on Retailing, Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Birren, F. (1978) Color and Human Response: Aspects of Light and Color Bearing on the Reactions of Living Things and the Welfare of Human Beings, New York: Wiley. Blumer, H. [1981] (1969) Fashion: From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection, in G. Sproles (ed.) Perspectives of Fashion, Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing Company. Bourdieu, P. [1984] (1996) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bourdieu, P. (1986) The Forms of Capital, in J. G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, London: Greenwood Press. Bourdieu, P. (1987) What Makes a Social Class? On the Theoretical and Practical Existence of Groups, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 32: 1–17. Bourdieu, P. (2005) Habitus, in J. Hiller and E. Rooksby (eds.) Habitus: A Sense of Place, Aldershot: Ashgate. Campbell, C. [1987] (2005) The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, Oxford: Blackwell. Casey, E. (2015) Catalogue Communities: Work and Consumption in the UK Catalogue Industry, Journal of Consumer Culture, 15(3): 391–406. Clarke, A. (1998) ‘Window Shopping at Home’: Catalogues, Classifieds and New Consumer Skills, in D. Miller (ed.) Material Cultures, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Clarke, A. and Miller, D. (2002) Fashion and Anxiety, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, 6(2): 191–213. Coopey, R., O’Connell, S. and Porter, D. (2005) Mail Order Retailing in Business: A Business and Social History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

162  Looking Good Crane, D. (1999) Diffusion Models and Fashion: A Reassessment, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 566(1): 13–24. Crane, D. (2000) Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing, London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Davis, F. (1994) Fashion, Culture, and Identity, London and Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Finkelstein, J. (1991) The Fashioned Self, Cambridge: Polity. Fisher-Mirkin, T. (1995) Dress Code: Understanding the Hidden Meanings of Women’s Clothes, New York: Gladys Print Palmer. Galilee, J. (2002) Class Consumption: Understanding Middle Class Young Men and Their Fashion Choices, Men and Masculinities, 5(1): 32–52. Garthe, M. (1995) Fashion and Color: A Guide to Creative Color Combination, Rockport, MA: Rockport Publishers. Goffman, E. (1956) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Research Centre. Grove-White, A. (2001) No Rules, Only Choices? Repositioning the Self Within the Fashion System: A Case Study of Colour and Image Consultancy, Journal of Material Culture, 6: 193–211. Hyde, D. (2015) One in Three Aldi and Lidl Shoppers Is ‘Upper or Middle Class’, The Telegraph 15 March. Lurie, A. [1981] (1992) The Language of Clothes, New York: Random House. McKenzie, L. (2015) Getting by: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain, Bristol: The Policy Press. McRobbie, A. (2004) Notes on ‘What Not to Wear’ and Post-Feminist Symbolic Violence, The Sociological Review, 52(2_suppl): 99–109. Miller, D. (2004) The Little Black Dress, in K. M. Ekström and H. Brembeck (eds.) Elusive Consumption, Oxford: Berg. Miller, D., Jackson, P., Thrift, N., Holbrook, B. and Rowlands, M. (1998) Shopping, Place and Identity, London: Routledge. Morgan, L. R. and Birtwistle, G. (2009) An Investigation of Young Fashion Consumers’ Disposal Habits, International Journal of Consumer Studies, 33: 190–198. Nayak, A. and Kehily, M. J. (2014) Chavs, Chavettes and Pramface Girls: Teenage Mothers, Marginalised Young Men and the Management of Stigma, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(10): 1330–1345. Partington, A. (1992) Popular Fashion and Working Class Affluence, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds.) Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: HarperCollins. Polhemus, T. (1994) Streetstyle: From Sidewalk to Catwalk, London: Thames and Hudson. Polhemus, T. and Procter, L. (1978) Fashion and Anti-Fashion: Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment, London: Thames & Hudson. Ritzer, G. (2004) The McDonaldization of Society, London and New York: Sage. Rutter, J. and Bryce, J. (2008) The Consumption of Counterfeit Goods: ‘Here Be Pirates? Sociology, 42(6): 1146–1164. Sennett, R. [1986] (2002) The Fall of Public Man, London: Penguin. Shields, R. (2008) The Last Word on Disposable Fashion, The Independent on Sunday, 28 December. Shilling, C. (2012) The Body and Social Theory, Los Angeles: Sage.

Looking Good 163 Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Solomon, M. R., Bamossy, G., Askegaard, S. and Hogg, M. (eds.) (2010) Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective, Harlow: Person Education Ltd. Tseëlon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life, London: Sage. Tyler, I. (2008) ‘Chav Mum, Chav Scum’: Class Disgust in Contemporary Britain, Feminist Media Studies, 8(1): 17–34. Tyler, I. and Bennett, B. (2010) ‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(3): 375–393. Veblen, T. [1899] (1994) Theory of the Leisure Class, London: Dove Publications. Weber, M. [1958] (2003) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Dover Publications. Woodward, S. (2007) Why Women Wear What They Wear, Oxford: Berg.

Chapter 7

Mothers and Motherhood Nurturing the Fashion–Class Relationship

Introduction As we saw in Chapter 6, though fashion and fashion media are much more democratised in a contemporary context, significant class differences remain in respect of women’s fashion tastes and fashion consumption, and as Chapters 5 and 6 have both shown, women’s clothing continues to be used as a means of class evaluation and distinction. Moreover, though Pierre Bourdieu’s ([1984] 1996) arguments concerning ‘taste of necessity’ and ‘taste of luxury’ are too simplistic an explanation for these contemporary distinctions, the notion that class cultivates a particular habitus, informing women’s orientations, dispositions and evaluations of their own and others’ fashion practices still seem relevant, as does the concept of cultural and symbolic capital, as women’s fashion choices work to communicate their differing cultural understanding, tastes and values to their social audiences. The continued relevance of these concepts, however, raises further questions about the ways in which a fashion habitus and consumer spending behaviour is cultivated, and how such key distinctions in attitudes towards fashion and dressing up develop. Clearly, as Chapters 3, 5 and 6 demonstrate, various aspects of the fashion industry, including fashion media, fashion retailers, catalogues and advertisers, play an important role in informing some women’s understandings of how to dress and what and how to buy. But, given that middle-class women suggest that they are largely unengaged with various forms of fashion media and trends, who else informs women’s everyday understandings of what looks good or when or how to dress up? How is a woman’s fashion habitus cultivated and informed? In his discussion of habitus, Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) suggests that our tastes in clothing, food and furniture are heavily dependent on our social origins and ‘early learning’, as these are not knowledges which are taught within the formal education system. Rather, cultural capital in respect of these aspects of social life is transmitted within the family, and mothers in particular play an important role as the family members most associated with the domestic space and who have the most ‘usable’ time (Bourdieu, 1986). This focus on mothers is also highlighted throughout Distinction ([1984] 1996: 97), not least in the

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opening to Part II: Economy of Practices, where Bourdieu provides a quote from Marcel Proust’s ‘Sur la lecture’, in which Proust refers to ‘all those things whose rules and principles had been instilled into her by her mother’, from making certain dishes, to playing Beethoven sonatas and being a successful hostess. Indeed, mothers have been identified across social science disciplines as cultivating a wide range of cultural practices and attitudes, from gender roles and expectations, work and employment choices, to notions of bodyimage and self-confidence (Armstrong, 2019; Boyd, 1989; Chodorow, 1978; Dally, 1976; Eichenbaum and Orbach, 1983, 1993; Fischer, 1981; Young and Willmott, 1957). As Simone De Beauvoir ([1949] 1996) suggests, women learn ‘how to be women’ by following the practices of their mothers, and in terms of fashion practices and fashion tastes, mothers and mothering seem to play a particularly crucial role. Certainly, throughout the conversations with women, mothering and motherhood is a continual feature. As already noted in Chapter 5, for example, the women who are mothers talk about the impact motherhood has had on their body image and self-confidence. They discuss how motherhood has shifted their sense of identity and thus affected their practices of dressing up, and they talk about the importance of children’s dress, the ways in which children’s clothes are used in evaluations of mothering and of social class. Moreover, for those women who are not mothers, mothering is still an important theme within our conversations as the women talk about relationships they have with their own mothers. They discuss the ways they look to their mothers for advice or guidance when unsure of what to wear, how they share tastes and share clothes, or look at catalogues together or shop together. Moreover, the women talk about how their mothers instilled principles about how and where to shop and what looks good, and they talk about the way that, as adults, they now give their mothers advice. In fact, although motherhood might not be an obvious aspect of the fashion‒class relationship, as we have seen through Chapters 4, 5 and 6, motherhood and mothering are of crucial importance to women’s understandings of fashion and class, and the role of mothers lingers in the background in conversation around public performance, femininity, respectability and consumer choices. As girls, women share practices and tastes with their mothers, as they watched their mothers’ practices of shopping, getting dressed and as they overheard their mothers’ talk about fashion and discussed fashion with them. Mothers then, are central to the cultivation of a ‘fashion habitus’, a classed orientation and understanding of fashion worn on the body (Entwistle, 2009), and a set of guiding principles which govern their consumer behaviour and perceptions of space. In this chapter I want to explore the politics of motherhood and the role mothers play in cultivating women’s attitudes and practices in relation to fashion. I consider the ways in which mothers consciously and unconsciously shape their daughters’ fashion practice and the reciprocal relationship which often emerges in adulthood as women seek honest advice from those they love and trust. The chapter starts by reflecting on the politics of mothering and

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the role that class and consumption play in the construction of motherhood. Here, I consider the ideology of the ‘good mother’ and more recent ‘yummy mummy’, noted in Chapter 5, highlighting the ways these models rely on economic, cultural and social capital, the ownership and display of consumer goods, and the performance of a particular aesthetic. This then leads to the second theme, which concerns the ways in which children operate as mothers’ representatives. Here, I consider the ways in which children’s clothing and their aesthetic is understood as symbolic of a mother’s love and care, and read as indicative of a mother’s own taste and respectability, both by the mothers and by others. Moreover, I examine how class distinction in women’s understandings of motherhood, space and taste are mobilised through children’s dress, meaning that fashion practices in relation to children further operate as a means of class distinction. In the third and fourth sections, I focus more closely on the participants’ reflections on their mothers’ practices and the ways in which their mothers helped to cultivate their fashion habitus, class practices and class evaluations. Here, I  argue that mothers are key influencers in women’s fashion habitus, fostering an orientation towards fashion, particular understandings of femininity and space, and consumer practices. Moreover, this consumer socialisation often results in a shared habitus, meaning that mothers and daughters have similar dispositions and shared tastes which then encourage a reciprocal relationship to emerge in terms of fashion consumption, advice and guidance, as mothers and daughters seek support and reassurance from each other. Again, this reciprocity can be understood, in part, as materialisation of love and care between mothers and daughters, as well as a shared habitus. Significantly, it poses a contrast to experiences women have with friends, whose differing tastes and fashion habitus can present women with challenges or conflicts to their own perceptions of space, performances of femininity and their understandings of looking good.

The Politics of Motherhood and the Role of Consumption Since the 1970s feminist authors from the across the social and political sciences have been unpacking the institution of motherhood and mothering experiences, exploring the ways in which the concept of mothering has restricted women’s choice and agency (Boyd, 1989; Chodorow, 1978; Dally, 1976; Friedan, [1963] 2010; Oakley, 1974; Rich, [1976] 1995). Reflecting on Adrienne Rich’s work ([1976] 1995) Of Woman Born, Andrea O’Reilly reminds readers that ‘there is no essential or universal experience of motherhood’ (2004: 5), and although it is often presented as a ‘human condition’, motherhood is neither natural nor inevitable. Rather, motherhood is a cultural construction, a cultural practice and an ideology, and although it is a model which shifts in time and space as it adapts to changing economic and social conditions, it continually operates

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as a ‘patriarchal institution to constrain, regulate and dominant women and their mothering’ (O’Reilly, 2004: 4). Policed by ‘the gaze of others’ (Ruddick, 1989), and evaluated and critiqued via various media commentators, health care professionals and government agencies, Rich ([1976] 1995) suggests that mothers operate in a state of ‘powerless responsibility’ in which they are expected to enact the concept of motherhood and yet have little opportunity to shape the way in which it is conceptualised. ‘Mothers do not make the rules . . . they simply enforce them’ (O’Reilly, 2004: 6). Today, the concept of mothering, or as Shari Thurer (1995), Susan Dougals and Meredith Michaels (2005) describes it, the ‘myth of motherhood’, centres largely around the notion of the ‘good mother’, which first emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Hager, 2011). As discussed in Chapter 4, this period saw the rise of industrialisation and a change in the physical and social landscape across much of Western Europe, including Britain. New forms of manufacturing and labour created a new spatial division between work and home, and this shift gave rise to a gender distinction which saw men associated with the public world of work, while women became responsible for the private domestic space (McDowell, 1999). Moreover, industrialisation also brought about the development of a new middle-class, which established itself through a culture of respectability. Judged on appearance and manner, as already discussed, respectability focused attention on women’s domestic consumption, and in particular women’s dress, their management of the home, and their role as wives and mothers (Gunn, 2000; Skeggs, 1997). Indeed, the ‘good mother’ became an important measure of respectability and, ‘vigorously espoused’ by the middle classes (Yeo, 1999: 205), it soon became a widely accepted cultural and social norm. Informed by Christian values and built on the premise that women are naturally caring and nurturing because they give birth to children, the ideal mother was constructed as asexual and altruistic, meaning that her sole identity centred on mothering and taking care of the family. Totally devoted and utterly self-sacrificing, mothers were seen to gain immense satisfaction from fulfilling the needs of others, and instinctively loved their children continually and unconditionally (Asher, 2011; Locke, 2015; Johnston and Swanson, 2006; Rich, [1976] 1995). Though the feminisation of the labour market, democratisation of family structures and increasing individualisation (Giddens, 1998) brought about some shifts within this ideology of motherhood, many feminist authors and academics suggest that much of this mothering ideal continues, and in some respects has intensified, meaning that today’s women ‘remained trapped in the “good mother” myth’ (Hager, 2011: 37). Emma Banister et al. (2016: 652), for example, argue that motherhood is still ‘celebrated in many women’s identity projects’. Viewed as a woman’s ultimate achievement, it remains a ‘dominant, expected and glorified marker of adulthood, in a woman’s life’ (Martin et al., 2006: 257). Certainly, as discussed in Chapter 4, women are still typically viewed as primary carers within the family (De Vault, 1991; Jenkins, 2004;

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Lawler, 2000; Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008; Tyler, 2011), with their chief responsibility for the childrearing and the home reaffirmed through public policy, research groups and media representations (Asher, 2011). And, again as highlighted previously in Chapter 4, within the context of employment, women tend to be overrepresented in administrative and caring professions such as social care, nursing and teaching. Moreover, according to Sharon Hays (1996), in today’s culture where most mothers are increasingly looking to juggle work and home, the self-sacrificing elements of ‘good mothering’ have strengthened, leading to a child-centred and ‘intensive’ form of ‘good mothering’. This conception of mothering regards the child as sacred and their needs as paramount and positions the mother as directly responsible for meeting the child’s overall health, welfare and success. As a result, the mothers’ needs are continually surrendered in favour of the child’s and as the fear over risks to children increase, so too do the levels of self-sacrificing demands (Armstrong, 2019; Hays, 1996; Johnston and Swanson, 2006; Locke, 2015). Though this expectation of motherhood is largely unrealistic and unachievable, although Hays (1996) does suggest it is more likely to be realised by married middle-class women who can afford to stay at home, this view of mothering is nevertheless continually reinforced through popular culture and social institutions. Pregnancy advice and healthcare professionals, childcare experts, school initiatives, online apps, social and television media, advertising and celebrity culture push mothers towards an ‘intensive’ and ‘extensive’ form of mothering (Armstrong, 2019; Garey, 1999; Jensen, 2018), in which they are seen to have the power to improve the everyday lives and long-term life chances of their children. As a result, the ‘good’ and ‘intensive’ mothering model has become the common-sense and hegemonic notion of what mothering is, meaning that those who fail to meet these idealistic standards, or those who challenge or transgress them, are stigmatised for doing so. Indeed, those women who sit outside of the typical notion of motherhood, or who diverge from the common-sense expectations, are subjected to ‘mother blame’ (Thurer, 1994; Johnston and Sawnson, 2006; Jensen, 2018), in which they are labelled as ‘bad’ or ‘unfit’ parents, while collectively mothers experience a constant sense of anxiety, guilt and disappointment, which keeps them entrenched in the ‘intensive mothering’ narrative. Moreover, in this contemporary construction of motherhood, consumption is increasingly important, helping to create the image of what mothers are, how they should be and what they should look like (O’Donohoe et al., 2013; Ponsford, 2014). ‘From the onset of pregnancy, the conceptualisation of motherhood is bound up with facets of provisioning and consumption choices that mark imagined trajectories for both women and infants’ (Clarke, 2004: 55). In fact, even before women become mothers, there is a wide range of products and advice for women wanting to conceive, outlining what they should eat and drink, how they should exercise, and to track their fertility, ovulation and sex life. Once pregnant, expectant mothers are faced with a further array of

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self-help manuals, parenting magazines and pregnancy guides, recommending how to choose and manage the right birth plan and how to care for their baby. Coupled with foetal monitors, four-dimensional sonograms, gender-reveal parties and baby showers, these commodities work to cultivate the identity of the mother and of the child, even before it is born, while actively mobilising the ‘good mother’, child-centred and ‘intensive mothering’ ideology as women transition into parenthood. As Alison Goodwin and Kate Huppatz argue, consumption has been ‘co-opted into the culture of motherhood’ (2010: 77), to the point where good mothering is as much about objects as it is about practice. In fact, Alison Clarke (2004) and Janelle Taylor (2004) go as far as to argue that the ‘good mother’ ideal is now achieved through consumption and relies on mothers owning and displaying the right buggy, baby monitor, toys and clothes. In this way, motherhood has become an ‘extension’ of women’s consumption and leisure practices, as ‘mothers and soon-to-be mothers now ask, “What can I buy in order to be a better mother?” ’ (Goodwin and Huppatz, 2010: 77). In more recent years, the notion of glamour has also entered this framework, giving rise to the figurative ‘yummy mummy’, whose image largely fits the ‘good’ and ‘intensive mothering’ ideal but signals something of a break with traditional Christian models, as it also emphasises desirability (Littler, 2013: 228). Bringing together notions of glamour, attractiveness and mothering, the ‘yummy mummy’ focuses attention on the aesthetics of mothering, encouraging the extension of fashion, beauty and exercise regimes to the pregnant and post-pregnant woman (Goodwin and Huppatz, 2010). Fuelled by celebrity culture, this representation of motherhood is said to have emerged alongside the glamourized images of celebrity pregnancies, which began with Annie Leibovitz’s photograph of a naked and heavily pregnant Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991 (Ross, 2016; Littler, 2013). Described by Stephanie O’Donohoe (2006) as an aspirational yet mythical creature, the ‘yummy mummy’ is heralded by Liz Fraser (2006: xvi) in her Survival Guide as the ultimate modern women, who seamlessly transitions into motherhood while retaining the perfect body, relationship and career (McRobbie, 2009). Slim, well groomed, sexy and ‘fashion conscious in the extreme’, she is ‘an expert caregiver, home-maker and working woman’ (Ross, 2016: 26). The epitome of maternal perfection, characterised by a host of celebrity mothers including Jools Oliver, Myleene Klass and Angelia Jolie (Littler, 2013; Pitt, 2008), the ‘yummy mummy’ is juxtaposed with ‘slovenly mummy’, ‘slummy mummy’, ‘chav mum’ or ‘pramface’, whose excessive and unruly behaviour marks her out as a failing and irresponsible parent who fails to take responsibility for herself or her children (McRobbie, 2006; Tyler and Bennett, 2010). This comparison made between ‘yummy’ and ‘slummy’ mothers draws attention to one of the key features of the ‘yummy mummy’ concept, which is the class dynamic. As Jo Littler (2013) argues, the ‘yummy mummy’ caricature is ‘profoundly classed’ (2013: 231) as it relies not only on women’s ability to

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‘afford a plethora of beauty treatments and “good” clothes’ but also ‘the time to plan and buy them’ (2013: 231). Indeed, while the consumption concerned with motherhood is presented as championing greater choice for women over their birthing and parenting approach, the ‘yummy mummy’ expectation demonstrates the ways in which these choices are dependent on a certain level of economic and cultural capital, and thus, work to legitimise the consumption practices and lifestyle choices of the white, heteronormative, middle-class (Ponsford, 2013). These critiques of the ‘yummy mummy’ concept echo many of the arguments raised in respect of post-femininity, discussed in Chapter 4, which strongly suggest that women’s choices are limited by structural inequalities and classed expectations. The contrast made with the ‘slummy mummy’ works to reinforce the ‘yummy mummy’ ideal, as those who are considered to have failed in their aesthetic are also perceived as failing in their mothering role, their appearance viewed as indicative of their wider attitudes and values. Once again then, the ways in which appearance is used to judge class and respectability is evident, with a moral discourse cultivated around certain consumer objects and fashion choices, such as dummies, tracksuits and designer labels, which are read as signs of working classness (Clarke, 2013; Goodwin and Huppatz, 2010).

Being a ‘Good Mother’ These representations of motherhood have relevance for my participants, and although very few specifically talk about the ‘yummy mummy’ image, being a ‘good mother’ is an important aspect of identity for many respondents, over two-thirds of whom have children. These women talk about the ways that parenthood has influenced their own fashion practice or what it meant to be a ‘good mother’, and they talk about the conversations and negotiations they have with their daughters, around dress, body image and femininity. Conversations around mothering and fashion are not just restricted to women who are parents, however. Several women who are not mothers also talk about the role of parents and reflect on the ways their mothers have influenced their tastes and consumer behaviour. They talk about the ways children’s dress represents parental attitudes and values, and how it is symbolic of good or bad mothering. Indeed, across the participants there is a general understanding that mothers are ‘accountable for the clothes their children wear’ (Rawlins, 2006: 360) and that it is primarily the mother’s responsibility to ensure that children look good. As looking good is a concept informed by class, however, as discussed in Chapter 6, evaluations of children’s dress are also subject to class distinctions, and what was considered appropriate or acceptable dress, and thus symbolic of appropriate or responsible mothering, differs accordingly. Moreover, mothers are not only considered responsible for the dress of infants or young children, but also their teenage daughters and young women. In

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fact, although research suggests that young adults have greater autonomy over clothing choices as they enter adolescence, and are increasingly influenced by peers and other intermediaries (Ganetz, 1995; Simpson and Douglas, 1998), participants see mothers as continuing to play a principal role in daughter’s fashion consumption, collaborating with their daughters and/or teaching young women the fundamental rules of what not to wear and what it means to look good. RUTH:  

I do see youngsters . . . in short skirts or leggings and they are far too big for that style. And . . . I wish their mum would have said to them, ‘Don’t do that, that’s not a good look for you.’ I will tell Melissa . . . I’ll tell her that, ‘That’s not her colour’ or ‘It doesn’t show off her shape’. [Aged 45, PA] TRISHA:   I give her [daughter] advice . . . it’s difficult though because Charlotte is only thirteen years old, going on seventeen, so you have to be careful of what I would call the raunchiness and sexiness. [Aged 43, Full-time Mother] These ‘lessons’ in dressing up, and the guidance or discipline mothers are expected to give in respect of their daughter’s fashion practices, seem to resonant with the key conclusions of Daniel Miller’s (1998: 342) work, in which he argues that a mother’s love and care is constituted through shopping and consumption practice. Focusing on the experiences of ‘Mrs Wynne’ and her practice of shopping for her family, Miller suggests that mothers engage in monitoring and influencing their family’s consumption, including the clothes that they wear, in a bid to educate and improve their lives and wellbeing, mindful at the same time of the judgements others may make of their respectability. In this way, a mother’s love is manifested, reproduced and evaluated through her everyday household shopping, and certainly, for many of my participants children’s dress is viewed as evidence of a mother’s love and care, operating as a measure of ‘good mothering’. But, as understandings of dressing up and respectability differ with class, these acts of love can be misread by others if they do not manifest themselves in legitimised or recognised tastes. To me . . . you see little kids, they haven’t got a pair of shoes, they’ve only got a pair of trainers. Little girls in . . . trainers and dresses. I think if you’re going to put her in a little dress . . . then go to Clarks, get her feet properly measured. I mean, we had three pairs of Clarks shoes every year. . . . My mum was such a terrible snob, she’d see the mothers buying the shoes off the shelf and trying them on their children and saying ‘that’ll do’. She’d say, ‘they’re going to have bunions, they’re going to have terrible feet when they’re older’. And actually she was probably right. And again, I associate it with a fairly middle-class upbringing that

JANE: 

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certain people make sure that their kids, I suppose it’s about looking after [yourself/ your children]. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor] AMBER:   I don’t think you need to spend money to look good, you can look fashionable . . . you can get some very nice things for him [her infant son], we got Ben Sherman and Jasper Conran, but he has grown out of it already. [Aged 29, Hospital Receptionist] JOY:   There is a woman at the baby group and she goes on and on about charity shops . . . [Aged 19, Fast-food Restaurant Worker] AMBER:   But Primark is so cheap, like this PJ cost £3 . . . JOY:   Yeah, I’ll look bad, but he’ll look good. As Jane’s comments illustrate, for middle-class women value is placed on traditional or ‘classic’ styles and the idea of ‘maintaining standards’, even in respect of children’s shoes. These values form a crucial part of middle-class tastes and their understandings of looking good, and thus these characteristics, or their absence, are also read as symbols of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ mothering. Yet, for working-class women much greater emphasis is placed on the newness of clothes, on branding and on fashionable trends. In fact, Amber and Joy are quite mocking of another mother from their baby group who regularly declares her charity shop purchases, as they feel that ‘good’ clothes are available on the high-street for a similar price and have the benefit of being new and up-to-date. Indeed, both feel that it is important to buy new clothes for their children, as this is key to them looking good and being well looked after. Children’s clothing then, offers opportunities for important instances of misrecognition, and a misreading of children’s dress if it does not conform to an individual’s own orientations and practice, and added to this middle-class women still view particular forms of dress such as tracksuits and trainers as important class markers. The comments concerning children’s dress not only emphasises class distinctions in notions of taste or fashion practice, however, they also reflect important class distinctions in women’s understandings of motherhood. Though Joy’s comment, ‘I’ll look bad, but he’ll look good’, might not appear to be particularly significant, it reflects a crucial class distinction in perceptions of mothering which orientates women’s understandings of public space, as discussed in Chapter 5, and everyday fashion practice. As other authors have identified, working-class women often view personal sacrifices for the sake of the children and the household as part of their role as a ‘good’ parent, prioritising the needs of the child much before their own (Gillies, 2007; Skeggs, 2011; Skeggs et al., 2008). As Ruth Ponsford’s (2014) work argues, being able to provide materially for children is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be a mother for working-class women, and even before the child is born, Ponsford suggests that young working-class mothers are far more

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interested in consuming for the child than for themselves. In fact, they are not at all concerned with marking their pregnant bodies through consumer fields. . . . Pregnancy [is] seen as a necessary corporeal prelude to the real business of mothering and . . . a time to prepare for the new arrival through the consumption of objects. (2014: 256) This shift in priorities for new mums is also evident to some degree amongst middle-class mothers. As Miller’s work indicates, ‘the sense of pleasure that they had developed in buying clothes and items for themselves is transferred directly onto the infant’ (1997: 36). Yet, for working-class mothers the purchase of goods is key to establishing themselves as ‘competent carers’. In a social world in which they are typically presented as bad, irresponsible and/or neglectful, buying clothes and toys for their children provides a sense of reassurance that they are ‘good’ mothers who are putting their children’s needs first (Banister et al., 2016). Moreover, because of the greater limits on economic capital, working-class mothers are more likely to forfeit purchases for themselves for the sake of their children. Joy, for example, uses clothing vouchers given to her as a Christmas present to buy clothes for her son, while Mandy and Kim say that they will always buy something for their children, even if they do not buy anything for themselves. Although this may mean, as Joy suggests, that she ‘looks bad’ while her son ‘looks good’, it is important to these women that their children are well dressed, as it demonstrates that they are prioritising their children’s needs and upholding their maternal responsibilities. LOUISA:  

I go to Next and Debenhams because I can kit the kids out so cheaply in the sale, and it’s really nice-quality stuff. I don’t like buying shit. . . . I like to put the kids in stuff that’s nice. . . . I want people to look at my kids and think they are really nicely, tastefully dressed you know? [Aged 38, Nursery Nurse] JOY:   I love his [her son’s] clothes, but mine I don’t bother with. . . . I asked for Next vouchers and GAP vouchers for Christmas, and I was determined to spend them on myself, and I spent them all on him. [Aged 19, Fast-Food Restaurant Worker] Moreover, as Louisa’s comments imply, the women are also conscious of the surveillance that exists around their mothering, and the ‘slummy mummy’ and ‘pramface’ stereotypes which characterise working-class mothers as reckless and irresponsible. Consequently, they view their children’s clothing as key to establishing that their children are well looked after. As far as financially possible, they want their children’s dress to be of ‘good quality’, new and ideally

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branded, as these are considered important symbols of good taste, and thus carry greater respectability and status. Designer or labelled items such as Ben Sherman shirts, GAP T-shirts or Nike trainers, and clothes from designer lines within department stores, are viewed as the best. The ‘correct markers of care and style’ these clothes symbolise fashion capital amongst their peers, demonstrating the women’s ability to provide as mothers, and to ‘ “fit in” with accepted local styles of dressing babies’ and children (Ponsford, 2014: 259). Restrictions in economic capital, however, mean that the women have to adopt a strategic approach to their children’s consumption, in the same way that they do with their own clothing purchases, sourcing items, as Louisa suggests, in the sale, on credit or through online sites such as eBay, in order to spread the cost. I wouldn’t go to Harrods or something and spend loads of money on a bag, and obviously I couldn’t do it now because I’ve got two kids to think of. I like to keep these two up-to-date with the fashion though. I like them to be wearing the new tracksuits out, you’ve got to get them, it looks nice on them to keep them up-to-date with the fashion, you know? I want them to look reasonable when they go out, and I don’t, sometimes they look better than what I look like, you know? Like, for some people that’s what kids are, they’ve fashion icons, you know? Just to dress them up in the pink, like all the pink stuff, pink this, pink that, and with the boys it’s more the gold, the jewellery side of things, but as long as they’re clean and their clothes look nice and they’re ironed, that’s the main thing to me. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother]

MANDY: 

As Banister et al. (2016) suggest, by buying better quality or designer items, these mothers hope to protect their children from negative judgements and stigmatisation. Dressing their children in designer goods or good-quality clothing works to amplify the signs of love and care, and simultaneously defends against working-class stereotypes, the stigma of poverty and any questions over their ability to financially provide for, or meet the needs, of their child. DIANE:   When

I’ve not had a lot of money, I didn’t want anyone to look at the girls and think we were poor. [Aged 41, Receptionist] LIZ:   I mean again, . . . because I didn’t have much money I would actually, I had to support us completely on my own, it meant that I went to Quality Seconds and whatever was cheap. And I used to get some lovely things, because at the same time that I might buy clothes from the cheaper shops, but I will get the good-quality clothes from the cheaper shops, because it’s cheap, I’m not just buying it. You can look and see, ‘Well, actually, that doesn’t look as if it’s come from a cheap shop’ so that’s alright, you know? Whereas, if it looks particularly rubbishy, you don’t get it. So, I could still be well dressed, but via cheap shops and the same with the girls. [Aged 41, Book-Keeper]

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Amongst middle-class mothers, there is also a concern about judgements of working classness, and as already noted in Chapters 5 and 6, they are keen to distance themselves, and their children, from those specific garments or styles of dress which they perceive as working-class markers. Concerned by the judgements that everyday social audiences may make, as already discussed in Chapter 5, they look to embrace the image and expectations of the ‘yummy mummy’, distancing themselves from the image of the ‘slummy’ or ‘slovenly’ mother and the connotations that come with this label. As a result, ‘maintaining standards’ is a marked feature of our conversations, and this extends to children’s dress as well as their own. Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 5, rather than viewing their identity as a mother as negating the need to dress up, these women feel that it is important to maintain an individual identity and to not let their standards of dress slip. But they also look to ensure that their children are dressed well too, as their children’s clothes play an important role in their own impression management, operating as an extension of their identity and respectability, and thus upholding their class status. In fact, even in my interviews, some of the middle-class mothers provide explanations for why their children are not ‘properly dressed’, clothed in babygrows or pyjamas, because they have ‘been swimming that morning’, for example, and they are keen to justify the apparent incongruity between their children’s dress and their own. Using the work of Erving Goffman (1956), Jessica Collett (2005) argues that children can be used as ‘props’ or ‘associates’ in regard to a mother’s moral character and self-presentation, as individuals tend to be judged by the company they keep. Children can be an important influence on the audience’s ‘perception of the adults associated with them’ (2005: 331), and thus, just as working-class women view their children’s dress as a means to defend against the working-class stigma and assert them as ‘good mothers’, middle-class women too used the dress of their children to uphold their respectability and class status. One example of this is provided by Carol, who tells me that her mother would insist she wore her ‘posh coat’ and ‘white gloves’ whenever they visited the dentist. As a private practice, rather than NHS service, her mother viewed the dentists as a middle-class space, and therefore it was important to her that Carol was dressed appropriately in order to assert that their family were of the right social standing. Whatever the occasion that you go to . . . you are dressed accordingly as a child. I remember as a small child . . . we had a private dentist then, we weren’t top notch, we were sort of middle-class, but for some reason we went to this private dentist, and my mother made me wear white gloves and my posh coat to go to this dentist . . . when we went to the doctor I went in whatever I was wearing, but I had to dress up to go to the dentist . . . it’s that sort of appropriate behaviour. [Aged 56, Hospital Manager]

CAROL: 

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As Lydia Martens et al. (2004) argue, ‘children can act as symbolic representations of their parent’s cultural orientations and attitudes’, and mothers have ‘considerable concern that the material culture associated with their children should represent’ their own tastes and ‘stylistic aspirations’ (Miller, 1997: 36). This point is evident in the comments from Louisa, Mandy and others quoted earlier. These working-class mothers are keen for their children to wear clothes which they perceive as ‘looking good’, but mothers are also aware of the ‘symbolic capital’ these clothes have for social audiences (Bourdieu, 1990). Clothes are a way in which economic and cultural capital is recognised, and as an ‘associate’ a child’s clothes are just as important as a mother’s for securing potential profit. Yet, as Lucy’s comments indicate, how mothers look to profit from children’s dress is different. For middle-class mothers it is not only important that children’s dress reflects their tastes in order to ensure that their children look good, but it is vital that their children’s dress mimics their own, in order to reinforce the symbolic boundary that exists between social classes (Skeggs, 2011), distancing them from notions of working classness. Like chavs might do the same as us, they might spend money on their babies, but in a completely different way. What I consider to be nice isn’t necessarily expensive, whereas they might put their baby in a label and be like, ‘Yeah, the baby’s got all Burberry on’. But it is taste, isn’t it? [Aged 30, Recruitment Consultant]

LUCY: 

Indeed, while working-class mothers are eager to ensure their children’s dress means that they are seen as ‘good mothers’ and afford their children protection from working-class stigma, middle-class women are more focused on ensuring that their dress, and that of their children, distances both of them from working-class connotations and evaluations, and by doing so, middle-class women automatically secure their reputation as ‘good mothers’, as their class status legitimises their mothering practice.

Cultivating Habitus: Classed Practices and Perceptions Not only do concerns over working-class distancing inform the ways in which middle-class mothers dress their children, but it is also apparent in the ways middle-class mothers teach their daughters about appropriate dress and fashion choices. Concern over ‘maintaining standards’ and avoiding working-class markers are an important aspect of the women’s reflections around their own mothers’ teaching of everyday fashion practice and consumption, with mothers gate-keeping and vetoing particular garments and offering clear rules about how and where to shop, and what not to wear. Chloe, for instance, explains how growing up her mother typically refused to let her wear tracksuits and trainers, as she felt that Chloe would look like one of the girls from the local

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council estate, and if Chloe had bought clothes with her friends, her mother would normally tell her to ‘take it back’, ‘change it’ and then ‘tell [her] what to buy’. Similarly, Elizabeth discusses how she had never been allowed to buy or wear stilettos, particularly not white ones, because of the working-class connotations, as her mother insisted that they ‘looked cheap’ and were the hallmark of ‘Essex Girls’. A working-class stereotype, like that of the chav, Essex Girls were viewed as loud and rough, and were typically depicted as drunk, wearing vulgar and revealing clothes, and lacking self-control (Gillies, 2007: 26). There are certain things that my mother would absolutely not let us have, like my mother would never ever let me have a pair of white stilettos, and so still to this day I’ve never owned a pair . . . and that was purely a class thing. . . . And it’s still true, unless you’ve got a red sole, and they are pretty amazing. Any form of stilettos, particularly white ones, and anything that looked cheap. [Aged 42, Designer]

ELIZABETH: 

Concerns over class identity and class evaluations meant that mothers, like Chloe’s and Elizabeth’s, placed restrictions on their daughters’ dress, and by vetoing specific items, mothers not only distanced their daughters from judgements of working classness, but they also taught their daughters about the class associations which existed in relation to particular fashion styles. As a result, the women learnt to avoid these fashion looks, and at the same time they used these same associations to inform their evaluations of others. So, for example, Elizabeth explains how even now as an adult she cannot bring herself to buy white stilettos, for even when they have ‘red soles’ marking them out as Christian Louboutins, she still associates them with the Essex Girl stereotype and bad taste. Moreover, as well as gatekeeping fashion purchases or dressing-up choices, middle-class mothers also look to instil specific shopping habits and tastes amongst their children, encouraging them to consider the fabric, quality, value, authenticity, longevity and practicality of items before buying them. These are lessons that they too had learnt from their mothers, suggesting that these fundamental principles of taste are passed down from one generation to the next. SARAH:   It’s

all to do with fabric, I mean I could feel one piece of fabric and say, ‘That’s not bad’, and then I could feel something else and feel ‘Arun’s definitely good cotton in there’. . . . And I say to my girls, ‘Arun won’t wash and it’ll come up like a scrumpled mess . . . a nice good thick cotton . . . will wash and wash’. [Aged 52, former Police Officer] CARLY:   I pay attention to the quality of the clothing, because . . . I know that if it is better quality, it will last longer. . . . My mum’s really good when it comes to shopping, she’s always been very picky, and she will pick things up and rather than try them on, she’ll feel them, and look underneath at the

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label to see what material it’s made from and things like that. I think I’ve kind of picked up on that. [Aged 21, Student] MARGARET:   My mother always insisted on buying clothes of good quality, and that has stuck with me . . . you can feel the quality in the material. [Aged 45, Learning Support Assistant PT] As mothers are the main purchasers of clothing for individuals within their household (Miller, 1998; Woodward, 2007), the level of influence they have in shaping women’s understandings of fashion and consumption practices is largely unsurprising. However, this regulatory approach to cultural practice and consumer socialisation does present something of a contrast to the more collaborative style, described by working-class mothers. In fact, whereas working-class parents have traditionally been viewed as more authoritarian in their parenting style (Lawler, 2000) common in respect of fashion workingclass mothers appeared to adopt a more democratic approach more typically associated with middle classes, while middle-class parenting appeared to be more authoritarian. Though working-class mothers were equally fundamental in cultivating fashion practices and perceptions, they saw fashion shopping, dressing up and the consumption of fashion media as much more of a joint activity. As discussed in Chapter 5, with respect to femininity, working-class women perceive dressing up as something fun, which takes place collectively. Mothers and daughters ask each other for help and advice with their fashion choices, clothing purchases and the consumption of fashion media and arguably adopt a much more democratic, collaborative approach to the cultivation of fashion tastes, reflecting perhaps the general sociability which forms an important part of working-class culture (Skeggs, 2011). Rather than suggesting to their daughters that there were clothes they should not wear then, working-class mothers talk about sharing ideas about what clothes or colours work together, or what looks good. Trisha, for example, tells me that she encourages her teenage daughter to try things on, to learn what looks good on her, and she similarly accepts advice from her daughter about what is in fashion, or what she should wear, and is quite happy to share clothes with her daughter, assuming they are wearing the same dress size. Jazz, too, talks of the way she shares clothes with her teenage daughter and how they each give advice on what to wear or what to buy. Ruth explains how she reads fashion magazine or looks at celebrity images with her daughter and exchanges ideas as to what looks good or what looks ‘dreadful’. She uses these opportunities to impress upon her daughter the enhanced nature of fashion images, explaining the ways in which models are airbrushed to look thinner. Sometimes I will see something, and I really like it and I buy it. And then I might get it home and say ‘Jade, do you want this?’ Jade, my daughter’s got so many clothes. . . . I don’t buy her stuff, she just lands up with

JAZZ: 

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half the stuff I’ve bought for myself. It’s like I  bought this little black cardigan thing in the market and it’s quite nice, it’s quite dressy, but she’s got that as well. [Aged 36, Cleaner] Through these collaborative interactions, working-class mothers cultivate ideas around fashion buying, notions of taste and they develop shared understandings of what looks good. By sharing catalogues and shopping together, daughters learn important lessons in fashion buying and the tactical methods working-class women employed to ensure that they can afford the most up-todate fashions or designer labels. This consumer socialisation is evident in my interview with Yvonne, whose 10-year-old daughter Keisha is present at the interview and very interested in the discussion taking place. Keisha is able to tell me all the catalogues that her mother receives, and in fact, she tells me that the La Redoute catalogue is hers. She has marked up the items that she hoped her mother would buy for her and clearly understands the concept of browsing as she flicks through the catalogue to see what is available. Keisha knows that buying via mail order means that her mother is able to purchase lots of different fashion outfits and return those that are not suitable, and added to this, she knows that there are a host of free gifts that they can receive if they order enough. KEISHA:   She

[Yvonne] gets Fiftyplus, Littlewoods, Ambrose Wilson . . . and this is my catalogue [La Redoute]. . . . This is one of her dresses, and you’ve got 18 but you thought it looked big. [Aged 10, Student] YVONNE:   I like La Redoute because they always have deals, they are always giving you something like . . . [Aged 47, Care Worker] KEISHA:   Mum is going to buy me a coat and you get the camera free. As Keisha shows me her mother’s catalogues, it is clear she is very much involved in her mother’s fashion consumption. She knows a great deal about the clothes that have been bought, which have been returned, and she has been part of the ‘trying on’ of various outfits. Yvonne has taught her daughter about catalogue shopping, notions of appropriate dress and looking good, not via a direct teaching, but through their collaborative practice, and Keisha looks to emulate her mother, imitating the actions she had watched her mother perform. This closeness between mother and daughter, the imitation and the internalisation of practice, and even the regulation that middle-class mothers tend to provide, is not particularly novel. Since the 1950s many psychoanalysts and sociologists have acknowledged the intimacy between mothers and daughters and the kinaesthetic nature of gender socialisation, arguing that daughters are drawn to imitate and internalise much of what their mothers do (e.g. Boyd, 1989; Chodorow, 1978; Dally, 1976; Eichenbaum and Orbach, 1983, 1993; Fischer, 1981; Young and Willmott, 1957). As fashion forms a fundamental

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part of the gendered, feminine performance, and is an important aspect of the performativity of gender, as discussed in Chapter 4, it is unsurprising that daughters mimic many aspects of their mother’s fashion practice, naturalising and normalising notions of dressing up or consumer behaviours which form part of their mothers’ everyday lives. Yet, the experiences of Yvonne and Keisha and the other mothers within this research not only suggest that mothers are key players in their daughters’ gender and consumer socialisation, but they demonstrate the crucial role mothers play in cultivating class distinctions and fashion‒class associations. Through the processes of imitation, regulation, praise and reward, mothers encourage perceptions and understandings of fashion and of class, and associations between the two. And at the same time, mothers shape and nurture their daughters’ own ‘bodily’ or ‘fashion habitus’ (Entwistle and Rocamora, 2006; Entwistle, 2009), and thus the way in which their own class and capital is worn on the body, made evident through physical movement and clothing choices. Though academics have recognised the ways in which mothers influence their daughters’ attitudes, values and practices across many aspects of social life, such as motherhood, body image or work (Armstrong, 2019; Chodorow, 1978; Dally, 1976; Woertman, 1993), and they have commented on the closeness of mothers and daughters in terms of shared tastes and fashion consumption (see Clarke and Miller, 2002; Woodward, 2007), the role of mothers in cultivating class distinctions in individual fashion tastes, practices and evaluations have been somewhat overlooked. Yet Bourdieu ([1984] 1996) suggests that in terms of clothing practices and tastes, early learnings are instrumental, as cultural knowledges in relation to these fields is only provided for within the home. As a result, much of the teaching around fashion, furnishing and food relies on mothers, as they are the family members with the most available time. That is not to say that children simply replicate their mother’s tastes. As Stephanie Lawler (2004) argues, the habitus is not a ‘straightforward reproduction’ of history; it is a ‘generative’ process, which reflects shifts in a person’s social life and experiences (112), and as the work concerning cultural omnivores shows, personal experiences, social mobility and levels of education all have important impacts on cultural tastes and knowledge (Peterson and Kern, 1996; Hanquinet, 2017). But equally, within the realm of fashion consumption, body image and gender performance, mothers do appear to play a significant role in shaping attitudes, and even if, as Bourdieu suggests, there is not a ‘expressed intention teach’ ([1984] 1996: 78), just through ‘doing’ gender and ‘doing’ class themselves, by mobilising class references in relation to their own dress and the dress of others, mothers offer examples of practice which their daughters copy. Moreover, as well as suggesting that dispositions and orientations in fashion, furniture and food are most likely developed in the early years, and within the family structure, Bourdieu also claims that these early tastes are the most

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‘indelible’ ([1984] 1996: 79), and thus difficult to change. Certainly, for many of the women, particularly those who are in their forties, fifties and older, there are practices which they feel have ‘stayed with them’ from their early childhood. Louisa, for example, talks of her tendency to choose shoes similar to those that her mother would choose for her. It is a ‘childhood thing’, she tells me, as her mother ‘always used to put [her] in black patent angle straps’. Diane, too, talks about the way her mother used to dress her in a certain style, and how she has continued wearing that same style long into adulthood without ever consciously considering it. It’s taken me a long time to grow up . . . my mother used to dress me, and I carried on wearing those sorts of things even after I left home. It was only when my daughter said, ‘Mum, you shouldn’t wear things like that’, I just suddenly went to buy something. I picked up a skirt and thought, ‘I’ve been wearing this shape since I was about 14!’ [Aged 41, Receptionist]

DIANE: 

The long-established nature of clothing practices and habitus, however, is possibly most clearly illustrated by an exchange between Bridget, Carol, Geraldine and Anne and their discussion of ‘keeping for best’. Here, a recollection from Bridget highlighted a practice which had been a feature of several of the women’s childhoods: keeping for best. ‘Keeping for best’ is the idea that new or more expensive clothes should only be worn for public spaces and performances, going to church on a Sunday, for example, birthday parties or celebrations, spaces where it is important to look smart, respectable and well turned-out. Indeed, in Vivienne Richmond’s (2013) historical work on nineteenth-century working classes, she describes how clothes kept for Sunday’s best were markedly different from those worn every day and that great care would be taken to source and look after these clothes as they were such an important symbol of respectability. Though some of the women feel this practice simply reflected the economic and social circumstances of the time, as Caroline suggests, the notion of ‘keeping for best’ is a practice some women still find themselves applying to newly bought items. Indeed, this habit was hard to break, even though the economic need was no longer there. BRIDGET:  

Do you remember ‘best’? . . . You’d buy clothes . . . and they would stay in the wardrobe. . . . When I was growing up, my mother would say ‘I should keep it for best’. [Aged 65, Retired] CAROLINE:   I think that was particularly a wartime thing. [Aged 63, Retired] BRIDGET:  Absolutely. GERALDINE:   You had something and you’d keep it apart, you’d only wear it on certain days. [Aged 65, Retired] BRIDGET:   Yes, like Sunday best.

182  Mothers and Motherhood GERALDINE:   And you’d pull it out of the wardrobe and you know your mother

would say, ‘keep that for best!’ By the time you could wear it any old time, you were sick of it. [laughs] ANNE:   Sometimes I feel like a child because I’ve bought new clothes and then not worn them. Some things never change! [Aged 63, Retired] BRIDGET:   I can remember something that I’d bought . . . I’d leave it out so that when I woke up in the morning it would be the first thing I’d see.

These comments seem to suggest that in the same way that motherly teachings and early experiences can inform adult practices in relation to other aspects of social life, mothers also have the potential to instil longstanding fashion practices and values. The comments suggest a durability of the habitus and the strength of early learnings, and they also raise questions about the consciousness of practice, for while the women are able to recall their mothers’ teachings and reflect on their long-term impact within the context of the interview, the women’s discussions also suggest that these actions are not generally thought about or questioned in the context of their daily lives. In fact, Diane says that it was only when her daughter told her that she ‘shouldn’t wear’ a particular style that she ‘realised’ she had been wearing the same ‘shape’ since she was 14, and again, for Anne it was Bridget’s recollection of the past that causes her to reflect on her current and continued practice of ‘keeping for best’. As well as arguing that the habitus has durability because it is a product of early experiences, which are most deeply ingrained, Bourdieu also maintains that our habitus operates at an unconscious level because it has become an ‘intrinsic feature of the self’ (Lawler, 2000: 114). Bourdieu suggests that the habitus ‘tends to perpetuate itself . . . by reactivation in similarly structured practices’ (1990: 54), and as a result, it ‘ensures the active presence of past experience’, providing ‘continuity and regularity’ to our thoughts and actions. Embodied and internalised, Bourdieu suggests that our practices and perceptions become so routine that they are ‘second nature and so forgotten history’ (1990: 56), and as result become ‘taken for granted’ and ‘common sense’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 58). Thus, our habitus is able to ‘regulate’ our actions, but without ‘consciously aiming at ends’ or being ‘in any way the product of obedience to rules’ (1990: 53). Instead, our motivations appear to be ‘objective’, and our actions ‘necessary’, ‘natural’ and ‘correct’ (1990: 58), and in fact, it is only when we are confronted by a situation that we have not experienced before, when actions are ‘immediately inscribed in the present’ (1990: 53), that our practices become much more conscious and deliberate. The degree of consciousness of practice is particularly pertinent for those women who have been socially mobile and whose ‘habitus has been subject to disruption’ (Lawler, 2000: 113). For these women, specifically working-class women who have moved into middle-class spaces, new practices have been

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acquired so as to embody a more middle-class taste and ‘pass’ as middle-class. Yet, as their tastes, consumption and bodily practice are still largely informed by old habits and class history, ‘there remains with the self, a continual reminder that the habitus claimed is not one which can fully inhabited, that dispositions implied (by the habitus) are not fully possessed’ (2000: 114). Moreover, their ‘capacity for practical anticipation of “upcoming” future contained in present’ is inhibited, as they lack a ‘feel for the game’ (1990: 66). This ‘disrupted habitus’ is demonstrated to some extent by Diane, who, as discussed in Chapter 5, finds dressing up for work outings stressful because she was unsure of what to wear. Her working-class background means she did not have a history of visiting the theatre or similar spaces, and therefore she lacks a ‘feel for’ the dress code or sartorial expectations. However, the experience of having a ‘disrupted habitus’ is even more apparent with Liz, whose conversation is littered with instances of negotiation and conflict between her working-class habitus and longstanding practice, and her more newly acquired middle-class tastes. Liz is one of the few participants who identifies herself as being socially mobile. She grew up on a council estate and both her parents worked on the market, but now she owned her own house, with her husband, whom she married a year ago, and she considers herself middle-class. In terms of fashion, Liz demonstrates a mix of middle-class and working-class tastes and practices. She has learnt, for example, to embrace the notion of ‘classic’ styles, to wear ‘classic’ neutral colours, and she is conscious of the judgements that come with being a fashion victim. Yet her consumer behaviour reflects much of her working-class history, including her need to budget and her keenness to find cheap versions of various fashion styles, knowing that trends changed quickly. Indeed, though she is keen to distance herself from the judgement associated with being a fashion victim, she is still very much engaged with fashion trends and keen to embrace them. LIZ:   Simon

[husband] and I went shopping one day and we just happened to walk past Coast, which I’ve never looked in or shopped in before. I’ve looked at the window, but I’ve never gone in there, and went in and saw this dress, tried it on and it looked lovely and I thought, “Oh dear!” I very, very rarely, having grown up in a poor background, I’ve always had to find everything in the sale. I don’t tend to spend a lot of money on clothes, I prefer bargains. Like one example is, I had this skirt that in the Eighties was a lovely fashion at the time, a waistband and then a big pleat running all the way down, they were selling in Mark’s for £30 and I found it in the market for £5. And it was exactly the same, so I had about five different colours, so I got five for the price of one, so I love things like that. So, it’s unusual for me to go and spend a lot. . . KA:   What had stopped you from going in Coast before then? LIZ:   Nothing, I’d just, I’d never really noticed it as a shop, if that makes sense, whereas, now having been in there, I thought, “Oh I love the clothes in

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there”. I probably have looked at their range in Debenhams, so I have looked at their clothes but never really noticed the shop. You know I’ve looked at them, looked at the price and gone away again. So, you know, that’s what would put me off, is the price. If I don’t feel that, it’s not so much value for money but think a lot of these prices are too much, they are value for money in some ways because they are better made. But I can be a bit fickle about the things that I like, I prefer to choose cheaper things, and because fashion changes so quickly as well. I will be influenced by fashion, but I make my choice over whether I like it. You know, I’m not a fashion victim! I am to a certain extent because I like to look trendy I suppose and I like to look fashionable. I guess to a certain extent I try and be classically fashionable if that makes sense, I tend to choose things that aren’t outrageously fashionable. [Aged 41, Book-Keeper] Liz’s economic position has changed since she has got married, meaning that she is more able to afford the clothes in Coast, and certainly she has ‘consciously’ acquired some middle-class traits or dispositions. She has been encouraged by her middle-class husband to shop differently, in places she has avoided before, and to spend more on ‘better quality’ clothes. Yet, some of her working-class consumption practices, buying things cheaply and her desire to be ‘trendy’, have been difficult to shake. Perhaps this is simply because of the longstanding nature of these practices. Adopting a set of new consumer values and behaviours takes time. But equally, it may be that these tastes and behaviours have become a core and instinctive part of her identity, and therefore they are much more difficult to even identify, let alone reform or renounce.

Shopping Together: Friends vs. Family It is not only women who have been socially mobile, however, who have experienced instances where their tastes and practices have been challenged by others or where their ‘common sense’ understandings of looking good or dressing up have been confronted. For many of the middle-class women in the project, shopping with friends has brought about instances where their scheme or perception of fashion have been questioned. Clothes shopping with friends tends to be viewed as awkward and uncomfortable. There is a concern that they might be taking too long or visit stores which their friends considered below par, and they also feel that their friends have ‘different tastes’, that they ‘shop in different places’ and that they have differing budgets. As a result, the women are sceptical of the advice offered, for friends have a different view on what looks good, friends do not know what is going to look ‘right’, and as Jane suggests, ‘friends lie’. I don’t always listen. I do ask their opinion on stuff, but if I really like something and I think it suits me, then I’ll buy it. But it’s more the opposite

MIRIAM: 

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way around, because they’ll say, ‘That looks really nice, that looks fine’, and I’ll say, ‘But no, look at it. Look at that bit of it. It’s not right.’ I kind of know what looks right, what will look good on me.’ Shopping with friends presents itself much more as an occasion to ‘catch up’ rather than an opportunity to buy, and the level of clothes shopping that takes place on these occasions is minimal, with most of the women suggesting that they are much less likely to make purchases. Moreover, though friends may make offers of help and advice in good faith, the women experience great difficulty in accepting these suggestions, because these ideas so often differ from their own perceptions and practices, as they are informed by a different set of circumstances. This situation is clearly explained by Carol, who tells me about her experience of shopping with her friend Fran. Carol explains that Fran has had a very different upbringing and has ‘more expensive’ taste as a result. Though their shopping trips are enjoyable, as they are an opportunity to get together, and Carol welcomes the advice and guidance from her friend with ‘good taste’, she finds herself wrestling with Fran’s advice as it presents such a contrast to her normal shopping practice, and often requires spending ‘loads of money’ on ‘seriously expensive’ garments which she otherwise would avoid. My friend Fran . . . I trust her, but she has much more expensive taste than me. She came from a family where looks were very important . . . so I think she was probably brought up with good taste, she was always dressed in very smart clothes. Her mother would not consider buying from Marks and Spencer’s [unlike Carol’s]. . . . They were quite wealthy, and that was how she was brought up. So, we have very different budgets. I remember going shopping with her once and trying on a camisole, and she said, ‘you ought to get that, because it’s one of those useful bits of equipment’, and I said, ‘okay, yes’. And I looked down at the price and it was seventy quid! And I said to her, ‘I can get one of these for three quid’. And she said, ‘Yes, but that one will always bounce back, it’s such good quality’. But no way is something that you’re going to see that much of [indicates size of small area] is worth seventy quid! I’d rather buy 10 cheap ones for thirty quid and chuck them away. [Aged 56, Hospital Manager]

CAROL: 

Faced with an alternative scheme of perception, taste and practice, the women generally find it very difficult to adjust and adapt their normal routine or judgement, and still tend to see their practice as that which was ‘right’. That is not to say that women never followed their friends’ advice, but certainly they are uncomfortable in doing so, and therefore they tend to avoid these interactions. Again, Bourdieu suggests that this is a symptom of the habitus as it ‘tends to protect itself from crisis and critical challenges by providing itself with . . . a relatively constant universe of situations tending to reinforce its dispositions’ (1990: 60). Indeed, the habitus, he argues, leads individuals to

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‘non-consciously’ avoid those people, places and events which will give rise to conflicting perspectives and dispositions, either through practical and economic means, such as class or geographical segregation, or through ‘strategic intention (such as the avoidance of “bad company”)’ (1990: 61). Shopping with family, however, is much more of a common occurrence and is presented as a very different experience. As others have suggested, for many of the women, mothers and daughters are important shopping partners (e.g. Klepp and Storm Mathisen, 2005; Rawlins, 2006; Miller, 1997; Woodward, 2007), alongside other maternal figures such as grandmothers, sisters and aunts. For working-class women in particular, shopping with family offers yet another occasion for collective and collaborative consumption and performances of femininity. Shopping with maternal figures and/or sisters, often in preparation for ‘going out’, is a regular activity, and because these women tend also to live close to one another, it is something which is easy to arrange. Kim, for example, says she shops with her sister ‘every Wednesday’ either to buy something for their children or to ‘go out’ in, and similarly Trisha, Jazz and Jackie all talk about shopping weekly with their daughters. Oh, we’re [Angie and her daughter] shopping mad. We went to Belfast for two days and all we did was shop. When she [her daughter] comes to stay, we’re always in Croydon, in the shops, we love to shop. She used to live by East Croydon train station and she had a flat up there, so we used to shop. I’d meet her in the mornings and we’d shop all day long. [Aged 54, Full-time Mother]

ANGIE: 

For these women their shared habitus, fashion capital and fashion tastes mean that there is a much stronger collective understanding of what is suitable, in terms of price, occasion and a greater level of agreement over what looks good. Moreover, mothers and daughters operate as an important source of reassurance and are trusted to give good, honest advice. Functioning as an ‘external “other” against which choices might be judged’ (2002: 200), the views of mothers and daughters may be ‘brutal’ but valued nevertheless. Indeed, mothers and daughters operate as an important source of ‘emotional support’ (Solomon and Rabolt, [2004] 2009: 257), love and care, motivated by a desire to protect each against others’ negative judgements and/or class evaluations. KELLY:   Yes,

every time I get ready I come down and I ask my mum, and she won’t lie if I look bad, she won’t lie about it. I’d rather her tell me if I look bad, rather than me going out in it. [Aged 18, Unemployed] MANDY:   She’s the one [her sister] that I take [shopping] with me . . . because I know that she won’t lie to me. Whereas one of my friends would probably say to me, ‘Yeah, that looks nice’, and make me go out looking like an elephant or something. . . . Whereas my sister will tell me the truth. If

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it looks horrible she’ll say ‘That don’t suit you, take it off’. So that’s why she’s the best one to take shopping. [Aged 21, Full-time Mother] KIM:   She’ll [her sister] always say if that ‘Really don’t look right’, and I won’t be offended. Because some people can say, ‘What have you got on?’ And you think, ‘What’s wrong with it?’ And you feel quite offended the way they said it. But  .  .  . if she says that, you don’t get offended.  .  .  . You know, I’d rather she’d tell me that I look stupid, yeah. [Aged 33, Full-time Mother] NATASHA:   I had to find a dress for a party. . . . I think me and mum went round all the shops trying to find a nice dress. . . . I wanted to wear something nice, something new . . . so I went [shopping] with my Mum, because I think Mum knows places to go. I like to know her opinion, so I often take her with me for stuff like that . . . she tells me the truth. [Aged 18, Student] The willingness to accept these opinions as honest and ‘true’ is also encouraged by mothers’ and daughters’ shared habitus and tastes. These women have a very familiar vision and understanding of what looks good, and having acquired their fashion knowledge and practices from their mothers, mothers and daughters present each other with the opinions and practices closest to their own. They have what Bourdieu describes as a common ‘sense of place’ ([1986] 1996: 466). A ‘kind of affinity or style’ which was ‘immediate recognisable’ (Bourdieu, 2005: 44), ‘mutually intelligible’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 58), and a common code or understanding of how one should dress. In their work on fashion anxiety, Alison Clarke and Daniel Miller (2002) also note this ‘supportive relationship’ between mothers and daughters, and the similarities in their tastes. In fact, Clarke and Miller suggest that in some cases mothers’ and daughters’ tastes are so similar that they are ‘regularly drawn to identical garments as potential purchases and pre-empt each other’s preferences in matters of style’ (2002: 199). As a result, they argue that something of a ‘joint taste’ exists between mothers and daughters, which means that even as adults, living apart, they still seek each other’s advice on potential outfits and purchases. For Clarke and Miller this reliance on each other is motivated by a fashion anxiety, rather than being a consequence of the habitus, but in many ways their participants’ stories present very similar experiences to the women I spoke to. Although, inevitably for some mothers and daughters, there is a need to ‘assert their autonomy through their clothing choices’ (Woodward, 2007: 102) and some strongly disagree with their family member’s advice, mothers and daughters generally operate as a source of support and reassurance, and due to their shared perception and bodily practice, and as a consequence of their ‘collective consumption’, particularly for working-class women, they had confidence in each other’s advice. While working-class women engage in various forms of ‘collective consumption’, however, middle-class women are much more likely to suggest that they shop alone. Clothes shopping for these women mostly falls into two

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categories: either it is ‘focused’ shopping which centres on buying for a particular social occasion or space, in which case it requires time and concentration; or, more commonly, it takes place ad hoc, on the ‘spur of the moment’ in a free lunch hour or afternoon or as part of their grocery shop. As a result, clothing purchases are largely a private affair, and confident in their own fashion knowledge and taste, middle-class women are happy to make everyday decisions over purchases independently, without even seeking the advice others. ROSIE:   Generally

I’ll wander round the shops most lunch times. [Aged 23, Engineer] VERONICA:   Most days I am just too busy, so I won’t even go out to lunch. But if I go out at lunch time I wander through Marks and Spencer’s because it’s on the doorstep. [Aged 58, HR Manager] JULIA:  I probably shop on my own more than I go with friends, possibly because I’ll go out on a lunch time and have a quick look round the shops, or I’ve bought things from Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s when I’ve been doing my food shop. [Aged 35, Business Analyst] However, when dressing up for more public spaces or when they have entered a new ‘stage’ in their life, women are more likely to call upon their mother’s or daughter’s opinion, for, as discussed in Chapter 5, these are occasions where women feel they need to deliver a confident and convincing performance, and thus need the reassurance of others. As Clarke and Miller (2002), Beng Huat Chua (1992) and Sophie Woodward (2007) all note, decisions over what to wear, particularly when dressing up, can be a source of much anxiety, and fashion decisions for very public events or significant audiences can be an exceptionally ‘risky’ business, as the wrong decision can result in ‘sustained embarrassment’ (Chua, 1992: 116). In these situations, then, such as buying wedding outfits or when returning to work from maternity leave, middle-class women seek advice from others to boost their self-confidence and, like their working-class counterparts, they tend to turn to family members because they ‘know what suits them’, they have ‘similar tastes’ and again are more likely to offer honest and frank advice. Again, for these women, their shared habitus means that they have a mutual understanding of what ‘looks good’, and there is the added advantage, as Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Ardis Storm Mathisen (2005) suggest, that mothers will pay for items, or in some instances offer to alter garments. LUCY:   I’ll

go on my own, but quite often I’ll go with my mum and she’ll end up paying for stuff. She is so patient she will literally traipse around all the shops until we’ve found an outfit, like for this wedding. . . . I can find a dress for £100 and she’ll pay for it, but otherwise yeah I’ll go shopping on my own. [Aged 30, Recruitment Consultant]

Mothers and Motherhood 189 JESSICA:   When

I go shopping with her she is really good, she is very patient with me, and she’ll say ‘Well, what about this?’ and you can guarantee actually that the dress that my mum will pick up will be quite a good one. And she is quite good actually, she will say, ‘I can just take that in’ or ‘put a stitch there’. [Aged 31, Civil Servant]

Moreover, as Lucy’s and Jessica’s comments suggest, mothers and daughters are also viewed as those most willing to give up their time and with whom the women can be themselves. As shopping together is an expression of love and care, there are not the same conditions put upon their shopping experience as they might have been with friends, in terms of time taken or the places visited. Mothers are patient and willing to prioritise the needs of their daughters over their own. Moreover, for those participants whose mothers had passed away, there is a greater reliance on daughters to offer this same kind of support, although for Veronica, whose mother had passed and who did not have any children, she did turn to personal shoppers to fill this void, although she laments that she would much rather have a daughter that she could shop with. CARLY:  

I like shopping with my mum . . . she will be honest with me. If I tried something on, she would be like, ‘That really doesn’t suit you’. [Aged 21, Student] GERALDINE:   Because I’ve lost confidence and I need somebody to say, ‘Yes, that suits you’. I haven’t got the confidence. . . . That’s why I like going with Jo [daughter] because she will . . . she’ll say ‘No, mum’. [Aged 65, Retired] Shopping together meant that when the women lacked confidence they were, as Simmel suggests, ‘freed from the worry of choosing’ ([1904] 1957). It lessened the risk of embarrassment of making the wrong choice or wearing something that would make them stand out, and it enabled them to share the burden of finding something to wear. This shared experience, however, did not mean that the women relinquished autonomy over their fashion choices. As much as they appreciate their mothers’ or daughters’ comments, as Lucy explains, she ‘doesn’t always listen’. Fear of becoming too much like their mothers (Lawler, 2000: 61) and worries about dressing older or younger than their years means that the women are keen to maintain some distance and independence around their fashion choices, and they do not share clothes as some of the workingclass mothers and daughters do, even if some mothers, like Anne’s, might have been keen to do so. But despite this drive to maintain distance, the reciprocal relationship between mothers and daughters is an important one and a significant part of women’s fashion consumption, practices and tastes. JESSICA:   There

is a fear that, you know, I could end up wearing something the same as my mother . . . that would be awful. [Aged 31, Civil Servant]

190  Mothers and Motherhood JANE:  

Sometimes I think I am turning into my mother! The way I fix things, like sewing on buttons, or mending. [Aged 29, Lecturer and Yoga Instructor] ANNE:   My mother will say, ‘Ooh, that’s nice. Where did you get that?’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, it’s from wherever’. But then she’ll want the same thing! So, I think, ‘Do I look like I’m eighty?’ if my mother is wanting to wear the same things as me? [Aged 63, Retired]

Conclusion Though motherhood and mothering might not appear to be an obvious part of the fashion‒class relationship, women’s understandings of motherhood and women’s relationships with their mothers are a very important part of the fashion‒class dynamic. The experience of motherhood, as already discussed in Chapter 5, has an important impact on women’s confidence, their relationship with clothes and their ability to give a convincing act. But perhaps more importantly, women’s perceptions and practices of motherhood shape the way in which they dressed in public spaces, and equally women’s practices are informed and influenced by the lessons they have learnt from their mothers. Indeed, as several authors have argued, the relationship between mothers and daughters is significant in terms of gender and consumer socialisation, meaning that mothers and daughters often share fashion tastes (Clarke and Miller, 2002; Woodward, 2007). Crucially, however, as this chapter has demonstrated, these tastes operate as markers of class. Thus, by teaching their daughters about fashion, by encouraging an understanding of what looks good and how to dress up, mothers cultivate classed practices and perceptions, and foster class evaluations of others. Not only are mothers important in cultivating classed practices, however, but class dynamics are also at play in respect of women’s practices and perceptions of motherhood. Class informs women’s conception of motherhood, what they recognised as good or bad mothering and what they consider important in terms of their own mothering practice. This then shapes their everyday fashion choices, whether they feel it necessary to dress up or not, for example, and it also influences their evaluations of others’ dress. Thus, once again, the fashion‒class relationship operates through the intersection among class, gender, mothering and public performance. Moreover, it is not just in respect of mothers’ dress that class evaluations take place. Rather, the way in which mothers dress their children forms a key part of class distinctions. Children’s dress reveals important class differences in women’s understandings of looking good and women’s interpretation of ‘good mothering’, and it also reflects women’s anxieties over others’ evaluations of their class status or their competency as parents. For working-class mothers, for example, the clothing of their children takes precedence over their own, as ensuring that their children look good is key to protecting them from the stigma of poverty and working classness. As a result, working-class mothers look to dress their children in new and up-to-date fashions, and where possible

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branded clothes, particularly when in public spaces, as these clothes are seen to symbolise good taste and respectability, as discussed in Chapter 6. Operating as associates, their children’s appearance is read as symbolic of both the mother’s taste and their mothering practices. Seen to secure their position as ‘competent carers’ and ‘good mothers’, they demonstrate working-class women’s efforts to make sure that their children’s dress is prioritised above their own. For middle-class mothers too, the dress of their children is seen as symbolic of their tastes and understandings of looking good, and therefore, it is important for their dress, and that of their children, to articulate their concern for ‘maintaining standards’ as this distances them from working-class connotations. In doing so, middle-class mothers also assert themselves as good mothers, as their practices of mothering are legitimised by virtue of being middle-class. As well as the politics of motherhood, mothering is also an important aspect of the fashion‒class relationship, because of the role mothers play in cultivating class practices. Women learn how to be women by following the example their mothers set (Woertman, 1993: 57), and part of this learning concerns understandings of how to dress. Though the idea that mothers are key to women’s socialisation, and that mothers and daughters share tastes or that they shop together is not new (see, for example, Clarke and Miller, 2002; De Beauvoir, [1949] 2006; Rawlins, 2006; Woodward, 2007), previous research has overlooked the importance of class in the transposing of these social practices. Yet the ways in which mothers teach their daughters about fashion is informed by class, and in cultivating fashion tastes mothers instil classed attitudes and practices, some of which can last a lifetime. Once again, middle-class concerns over class distancing are evident, as middle-class mothers look to deter their daughters from those practices or garments which they associate with working classes. And by teaching them about what not to wear, they also encourage class associations, identifying particular fashions, styles and practices as working-class markers. For working-class women, mothers are just as important in fostering classed perceptions and practices of fashion. Their teachings, however, are much more of a collaborative affair, less concerned with restriction and regulation. Fashion consumption is a joint venture, and just as the performance of femininity is a collective experience, so too are lessons in looking good and fashion shopping. In sharing fashion media, clothing and shopping together, mothers teach their daughters about tastes and buying practices, and by engaging daughters in their own fashion practice, mothers transpose their perception, practices, orientations and tastes, which in turn operate as markers of class. Indeed, mothers are key to the cultivation of fashion habitus, which perhaps goes some way toward explaining the similarities in mothers’ and daughters’ fashion tastes and their reliance on each other for fashion advice and guidance when lacking in confidence or in need of reassurance. Having passed on many of their own attitudes and practices to their daughters as they were growing up, mothers and daughters provide each other with the opinions and attitudes

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which most resemble their own. Unlike friends, their comments and advice are considered the most honest and trustworthy. Indeed, mother and daughters demonstrate their love and care for each other through this fashion practice, sharing responsibility for decision making and providing a sense of togetherness, which underpins much of the mother/daughter role.

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Mothers and Motherhood 193 Eichenbaum, L. and Orbach S. (1993) Feminine Subjectivity Countertransference and the Mother-Daughter Relationship, in K. M. G. Schreurs, L. Woerton and J. van Mens-Verhulst (eds.) Daughtering and Mothering: Female Subjectivity Reanalysed, London: Routledge. Entwistle, J. (2009) The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion: Markets and Value in Clothing and Modelling, Oxford and New York: Berg. Entwistle, J. and Rocamora, A. (2006) Field of Fashion Materialised: A Study of London Fashion Week, Sociology, 40(4): 735–751. Fischer, L. (1981) Transitions in the Mother-Daughter Relationship, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 45: 613–622. Fraser, L. (2006) The Yummy Mummy’s Ultimate Family Survival Guide, London: HarperCollins. Friedan, B. [1963] (2002) The Feminine Mystique, New York and London: W. W. Norton. Friedan, B. [1963] (2010) The Feminine Mystique, London: Penguin. Ganetz, H. (1995) The Shop, the Home and Femininity as a Masquerade, in J. Formas and G. Bolin (eds.) Youth Culture in Late Modernity, London: Sage. Garey, A. (1999) Weaving Work and Motherhood, Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Giddens, A. (1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Cambridge: Polity. Gillies, V. (2007) Marginalised Mothers: Exploring Working Class Experiences of Parenting, Abingdon: Routledge. Goffman, E. (1956) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Research Centre. Goodwin, S. and Huppatz, K. (2010) Mothers Making Class Distinctions: The Aesthetics of Maternity, in S. Goodwin and K. Huppatz (eds.) The Good Mother: Contemporary Motherhood in Australia, Sydney: Sydney University Press. Gunn, S. (2000) The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and Authority in the English Industrial City 1840–1914, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hager, T. (2011) Making Sense of an Untold Story: A Personal Deconstruction of the Myth of Motherhood, Qualitative Inquiry, 17(1): 35–44. Hanquinet, L. (2017) Exploring Dissonance and Omnivorousness: Another Look into the Rise of Eclecticism, Cultural Sociology, 11(2): 165–187. Hays, S. (1996) Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, London and New Haven: Yale University Press. Jenkins, S. (2004) Gender, Place and the Labour Market, Aldershot: Ashgate. Jensen, T. (2018) Parenting the Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Neo-Liberal ParentBlame, Bristol: Policy Press. Johnston, D. D. and Swanson, D. H. (2006) Constructing the ‘Good Mother’: The Experience of Mothering Ideologies by Work Status, Sex Roles, 54(7–8): 509–519. Klepp, I. and Storm Mathisen, A. (2005) Reading Fashion as Age: Teenage Girls and Grown Up Women’s Accounts of Clothing as Body and Social Status, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, 9(3): 323–342. Lawler, S. (2000) Mothering the Self: Mothers, Daughters, Subjects, London and New York: Routledge.

194  Mothers and Motherhood Lawler, S. (2004) Rules of Engagement: Habitus, Power and Resistance, in L. Adkins (ed.) Feminism After Bourdieu, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Littler, J. (2013) The Rise of the ‘Yummy Mummy’: Popular Conservatism and the Neoliberal Maternal in Contemporary British Culture, Communication, Culture & Critique, 6(2): 227–243. Locke, A. (2015) Agency, ‘Good Motherhood’ and a Load of Mush: Constructions of Baby-Led Weaning in the Press, Women’s Studies International Forum, 53: 139–146. Martens, L., Southerton, D. and Scott, S. (2004) Bringing Children (and Parents) into the Sociology of Consumption, Journal of Consumer Culture, 4(2): 155–182. Martin, D. M., Schouten, J. W. and Stephens, D. (2006) American Artemis at the Wheel: Motherhood and Identity Conflict in Automobile Consumption: Gender and Consumer Behavior, Association for Consumer Research, 8: 255–276. McDowell, L. (1999) Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. McRobbie, A. (2006) Yummy Mummies Leaves a Bad Taste for Young Women, The Guardian, Thursday 2 March. McRobbie, A. (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, London: Sage. Miller, D. (1997) How Infants Grow Mothers in North London, Theory, Culture and Society, 14(4): 67–88. Miller, D. (1998) A Theory of Shopping, Oxford: Polity. Oakley, A. (1974) Housewife, Harmondsworth: Penguin. O’Donohoe, S. (2006) Yummy Mummies: The Clamour of Glamour in Advertising to Mothers, Advertising & Society Review, 7(3), doi:10.1353/asr.2007.0006. O’Donohoe, S., Hogg, M., Maclaran, P. Martens, L. and Stevens, L. (eds.) (2013) Motherhoods, Markets and Consumption, London: Routledge. O’Reilly, A. (2004) Introduction, in A. Reilly (ed.) From Mother to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich’s of Woman Born, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Peterson, R. A. and Kern, R. M. (1996) Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore, American Sociological Review, 61(5): 900–907. Pitt, N. (2008) ‘Yummy Mummies’: Angelina Jolie and Early 21 Century Representations of Motherhood, paper presented at Re-Imagining Sociology: The annual conference of The Austrian Sociological Association 2008, The University of Melbourne, Australia. Ponsford, R. (2014) ‘I Don’t Really Care About Me, as Long as He Gets Everything He Needs’ – Young Women Becoming Mothers in Consumer Culture, Young Consumers, 15(3): 251–262. Rawlins, E. (2006) Mothers Know Best? Intergenerational Notions of Fashion and Identity, Children’s Geographies, 4(3): 359–377. Rich, A. [1976] (1995) Of Woman Born, New York and London: W. W. Norton. Richmond, V. (2013) Clothing the Poor in Nineteenth Century England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ringrose, J. and Walkerdine, V. (2008) Regulating the Abject: The TV Make-Over as Site of Neo-Liberal Reinvention Toward Bourgeois Femininity, Feminist Media Studies, 8(3): 227–246. Ross, L. (2016) Interrogating Motherhood, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: AU Press.

Mothers and Motherhood 195 Ruddick, A. (1989) Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace, Boston: Beacon. Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Simpson, L. and Douglas, S. (1998) Adolescents’ Purchasing Role Structure When Shopping by Catalogue for Clothing, Clothing and Textile Research Journal, 16(2): 98–104. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Skeggs, B. (2011) Imagining Personhood Differently: Person Value and Autonomist Working-Class Value Practices, The Sociological Review, 59(3): 496–513. Skeggs, B., Wood, H. and Thumim, N. (2008) ‘Oh Goodness, I am Watching ‘Reality’ Television’: How Methods Make Class in Audience Research, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 11(1): 5–24. Solomon, M. and Rabolt, N. R. [2004] (2009) Consumer Behaviour in Fashion, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pearson, Prentice Hall. Taylor, J. (2004) Introduction, in J. S. Taylor, L. L. Layne and D. F. Wozniak (eds.) Consuming Motherhood, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers. Thurer, S. L. (1994) The Myths of Motherhood: How Culture Reinvents the Good Mother, New York: Penguin. Thurer, S. (1995) The Myths of Motherhood: How Culture Reinvents the Good Mother, New York: Penguin. Tyler, I. (2011) Pregnant Beauty: Maternal Femininities Under Neoliberalism, in R. Gill and C. Scharff (eds.) New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tyler, I. and Bennett, B. (2010) ‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(3): 375–393. Woertman, L. (1993) Mothering in Context: Female Subjectivities and Intervening Practices, in J. Van Mens-Verhulst, K. Schrerurs and L. Woertman (eds.) Daughtering and Mothering: Female Subjectivity Reanalysed, London: Routledge. Woodward, S. (2007) Why Women Wear What They Wear, Oxford: Berg. Yeo, E. J. (1999) The Creation of ‘Motherhood’ and Women’s Responses in Britain and France, 1750–1914, Women’s History Review, 8(2): 201–218. Young, M. and Willmott, P. (1957) Family and Kinship in East London, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Chapter 8

Conclusion

At the outset of this book, I suggested that fashion and class are concepts which have much in common. Complex, messy and nuanced, both can be understood in terms of production and consumption; they are both concerned with individual and collective identities, and as this book has shown, both involve matters of taste and judgements of others. Moreover, within British society, fashion and class have an important relationship, as appearance and manner are employed in judgements of respectability and used to evaluate and place individuals in a social hierarchy. What women wear in their daily lives is informed by their class position and class history, and equally what women wear is used by social audiences to make judgements and social evaluations of their class location. While class may not be the only factor that shapes or informs what women wear, and while it may only be evident in subtle distinctions in the fabric, cut or quality of garments, the visibility and authenticity of designer labels, their choice of colours, their performance of femininity, or whether their clothes are deemed to fit the social space, class is nevertheless significant and salient in British women’s everyday fashion practice. An important part of their ‘presentation of self’ (Goffman, 1956), clothing works to include or exclude women from social spaces, to legitimise or delegitimise their practice, and it informs judgements of moral and social character. Across British popular culture and the British press, these aspects of the fashion and class relationship are evident. Obsessed with the notion of social class, the fashion‒class association is notable within Britain’s class stereotypes and popular discussions of class identity. Within the academy, however, authors are yet to fully explore just how this relationship operates in terms of British women’s ordinary fashion practice. Though fashion and class have both been subject to extensive academic enquiry, as discussed in Chapter 2, and many works consider the intersections between fashion and class in their discussion of subcultures, femininity, respectability, austerity, parenting and media representations (e.g. Hebdige, [1979] 2002; Skeggs, 1997; McKenzie, 2015; Nicholls, 2019; Tyler, 2013; Jensen, 2014), research which focuses attention on the fashion‒class relationship and the ways class is mobilised through fashion practice within a mainstream context, or how

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British women’s everyday fashion practice and tastes is informed and influenced by class, is scarce. Perhaps this is because both fashion and class are such complex and messy concepts. Difficult to define and difficult to discuss, as I considered in Chapter 2, they are obscure and imprecise, and over time the ways in which they have been understood have changed. Class, though once thought of in terms of one’s economic position and relationship to the means of production, is now approached by many social theorists from a Bourdieuisian perspective, which sees class mobilised through cultural practices and tastes. As Bourdieu claims, taste is a marker of class (1984: 6), reflecting an individual’s economic, cultural and social capital and their class habitus. As such, class is not detached from economics, employment or education, but it is also concerned with individuals’ lived experiences, and is made visible through social and cultural tastes and pursuits. Indeed, as the women’s discussions demonstrate, as shown in Chapter 2, when asked about class directly, women often focus on economics, education and housing, but throughout Chapters 5, 6 and 7, it is clear how class informs, and is read, through differences in cultural practices and taste. Class is evident in the music we listen to, the food we eat, the sport we play (Bennett et al., 2009), and we have seen, it informs the clothes that British women wear, as it orientates their view of the social world, their cultural and social experiences, and their social relationships. It is not just understandings of class that have changed, however. Since its first inception in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fashion too has changed significantly. Once considered exclusive and elite, classical theorists such as Georg Simmel ([1904] 1957) and Thornstein Veblen ([1899] 1994) suggest that fashion is the innovation of the upper class, with the fashion cycle fuelled by a desire for social emulation and a need for class distinction. Yet, as Chapter 3 explores, fashion is now a vast and complex industry, and the fashion cycle exists as a complicated web of overlapping agencies and intermediaries, where responsibilities for production and consumption are no longer fixed or clearly defined. Consumers can be producers, social influencers can be designers, and high-street retailers can produce both fast fashion and haute couture. Moreover, the lines of demarcation in terms of styling and brands are just as permeable and fluid, as today’s fast fashion encourages the democratisation and imitation of fashion styles and designer labels, while the speed at which fashions change means that a social group can no longer be marked out by one particular fashion look. Indeed, today’s fashion trickles down, it bubbles up and it is transmitted across various sections of society. In the digital age, with the rise of low-cost online stores, as well as fashion bloggers, vloggers and social influencers, the opportunities to engage with fashion media and to consume clothing are immense. Fastfashion has enabled those on low budgets to access and engage with fashion more easily, and in recent years there have been significant shifts in fashion media and fashion retailing to market fashion as more inclusive and diverse,

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promoting the image that fashion is for all – regardless of size, age, race, (dis)ability or social class. These shifts in fashion and class could be seen as reflecting a growth in choice and agency, and the increasing individualisation which theorists such as Ulrich Beck (1992) and Anthony Giddens (1991) argue for, as discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. Arguing that society has moved away from traditional hierarchies and boundaries, and that class is obsolete, these theorists see modern society as much more individualised, meaning that there is greater choice and agency over lifestyles and social relationships. Yet, as several authors argue (e.g. Skeggs, 1997, 2011; Tyler, 2015; Gill, 2007; McRobbie, 2009), this notion of individualism and choice is very much a class project. Individualism represents the product and the interests of privileged groups, as it only extends to those ‘who can occupy the economic and cultural conditions which enable them to do the work on the self’ (Skeggs, 1997: 163). Opportunities for choice and for individualism are limited by structural inequalities, and indeed what appears as choice is really a means of surveillance and control, as individuals are ‘compelled to be the kind of subject who can make the right choices’ (McRobbie, 2009: 19) as some choices are more legitimate than others. As Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate, as much as fashion is democratised, economic, cultural and social capital still influence and shape women’s fashion consumption, and though there may be evidence of a broadening of tastes, or fashion being more affordable and available, class economics and class dispositions still orientate women’s fashion practice and consumer behaviour, meaning that class distinctions remain. As I discuss in Chapter 5, class differences exist in women’s performance of femininity, their perspective and judgement of public and private space, and social audiences, and as Chapter 7 identifies, class also informs women’s practices and perceptions of ‘good mothering’, which in turn impact on women’s everyday fashion choices. Moreover, consumer behaviour, as Chapter 6 demonstrates, is very much informed by class, as women’s buying criteria and consumer spending are shaped by economic and cultural capital, not to mention mothers’ early teachings. Amongst the middle-class, class anxiety and class distancing also play a very significant role. As a result, what is considered to ‘look good’ and what women prioritise in terms of clothing purchases differs with class position, meaning that while fashion may be more accessible, more affordable and more diverse, it still operates as a means of class distinction. That is not to say that women’s fashion practice is not shaped by many other aspects of identity or social relationships. As other authors have clearly demonstrated, fashion consumption and fashion tastes reflect many intersecting aspects of identity, including gender, religion, race, sexuality and age (Entwistle and Mears, 2013; Lewis, 2013; Cole, 2015; Twigg, 2013). But fashion embodies important class differences too, and as Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, fashion is often read as a marker of class and used by middle classes to create class distance. For instance, conversations with middle-class women

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time and again highlight the way tracksuits, trainers, heavy jewellery and overly branded or ‘harsh’ forms of dress are read by these women as indicators of working-class identity, while words such as cheap, tacky and chavvy or phrases such as ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ help reinforce a reading of workingclass women’s fashion performances as sexualised, deviant and inauthentic. Despite middle-class women recognising representations of the ‘chav’ or the ‘pikey’ as cultural stereotypes, they still employ them and use these forms of dress to make inferences about other women’s social lives, moral character and their social circumstances. Moreover, the legitimisation of middle-class practices and tastes is still evident too, and certainly, in terms of the performance of femininity, perceptions of space and appropriate dress, and the performance and practice of mothering, what is considered right and proper is still cultivated within a middle-class context (Skeggs, 1997; Littler, 2013; Tyler, 2013; Jensen, 2014, 2018). By comparison, working-class women are less engaged in these types of class evaluations or class conversations. Unlike their middle-class counterparts, their working-class identity means they do not have the same anxiety or motivation for class distancing, and my research participants do not demonstrate the same level of class dis-identification as Skeggs’ (1997) participants either. That does not mean, however, that talk of fashion‒class associations are absent from their interviews. Rather, as discussed in Chapter 5, their discussion reflects on the ways in which others may perceive them, and they are conscious of the class stereotypes which position working-class women as hypersexual and irresponsible. Moreover, they talk about other women being well-to-do, posh or rich, focusing their attention on the expensiveness and the authenticity of clothes, as they look to assess others’ levels of economic capital and occupation, rather than focusing so closely on the ways in which fashion choices convey respectability and moral character. As Chapters 5, 6 and 7 demonstrate, these class evaluations also form a key part of the women’s own fashion practice, and particularly for middle-class women, their concerns over working-class markers is crucial in terms of their own fashion choices. Anxious about the way they might be judged by others, and keen to distance themselves from any notion of working classness, as discussed in Chapter 5, middle-class women are driven by the idea of ‘maintaining standards’ and upholding their respectability. This means that they engage in some degree of dressing up almost all the time, even when they are on their own, or otherwise look to avoid potential social encounters, by not opening the door to the mail carrier, for example. As well as ensuring that they are not ‘seen’ in public spaces in clothes which they perceive as working-class signifiers, such as pyjamas or tracksuits, they look to ensure that their clothes embody all the aspects of respectability, neatly captured in the concept of ‘classic’. Timeless, tasteful and refined, classic dress, as discussed in Chapter 6, is sober in colour, modest in look and conspicuous it its quality and authenticity. Set in opposition to fashion, which is viewed as fleeting and fickle, classic styles are

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concerned with long-term investments in clothing and physical appearance, and thus, classic is a look which has an undertone of intellectual superiority about it. For middle-class women, the classic style demonstrates a rejection of the fashion system and a resistance to fashion media, fashion marketing and advertising. Indeed, middle-class women feel that they can disengage from the fashion system. As ‘savvy shoppers’ they are able to recognise and resist the ways in which the fashion industry manipulates women and encourages them to spend unnecessarily. Financially prudent, they look to rationalise and control their fashion consumption and seek ‘value for money’, evaluating the purpose, practicality and longevity of clothes or shoes, in relation to their cost. Significantly, these attributes of their clothing are again transposed to the person. As Erving Goffman (1956: 5) suggests, a ‘moral projection’ takes place in social encounters, in which an obligation is placed on the audience to read and respond to a person in a way which reflects the image they present, meaning that in respect of clothing, quality, authenticity and so on, is read as indicative of a woman’s moral and social character. Consequently, while classic dress works to secure the legitimacy and status of middle-class women, the perceived preference for fickle, frivolous and fashionable styles amongst working-class women is a source of criticism. Viewed as ‘fashion victims’ and ‘fashion slaves’, working-class women are considered culture dupes, fooled by the fashion industry, which has encouraged them to spend irresponsibly on fashion brands and the latest styles with the hopes of securing social status. Perceived as inauthentic, cheap and excessive, their look is also considered indicative of their moral character, seen to signal their lack of restraint, care and responsibility, not only in respect of their consumer spending but many other aspects of their social lives, too. Indeed, working-class women’s fashion choices are continually misrecognised, as the middle-class fails to see the ways in which fashionable dress and on-trend styles operate as an important form of cultural capital for workingclass women, and the way looking good is constructed differently. For workingclass women, being perceived as fashionable is important, and they spend time and energy engaging with fashion media, shopping for clothes, and browsing fashion catalogues in order to learn about upcoming trends and styles, often using them as inspiration for their dressing-up practice. As Chapter 5 explored, dressing up for these women takes place much less frequently, as it is not an important practice within the context of ‘being’ ‘at home’. During the week the women are mostly concerned with wearing practical and functional clothing, bought cheaply, as they are involved in a range of domestic tasks and located within their home neighbourhood. In these spaces the women are not anxious about the impression they give to social audiences, local and familiar, because the audience’s judgements are insignificant, and thus it is just important to be clothed. In the context of dressing up, however, when ‘going out’ into public spaces – spaces away from their locality in which they are visible – dressing up and

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dressing fashionable is important. Here, the women ‘dress to impress’. Looking good, as discussed in Chapter 6, means wearing new clothes that are conspicuous, detailed, fancy, colour-coordinated and on trend, for these characteristics bring status and admiration amongst their peers. It comes as little surprise then that these women are also keen to consume branded goods or those which have conspicuous designer labels, for again, these items communicate fashion expertise and fashion know-how. Rather than being understood as reckless or irresponsible forms of consumption, these goods are key to the women’s selfesteem and social relationships. Moreover, in a consumer society where the ownership of branded or expensive goods is continually advertised as a means of establishing prestige and status, these ‘designer’ items, even if counterfeit, are a small way of creating a sense of belonging in a society where they are continually marginalised and excluded (McKenzie, 2015). In fact, as Chapter 7 demonstrates, the role of designer and branded goods in affording social status and offering some degree of protection against the experiences of working-class stigma, and the shame of being poor, is deemed particularly important in terms of working-class children’s dress. Designer logos and brands are viewed as symbols of quality, helping to defend against some of the negative social judgements that children might face otherwise. Moreover, by ensuring that their children ‘look good’, working-class mothers hope to benefit too, as children’s dress demonstrates their own good taste. And even if children’s clothes do not carry designer labels, ensuring that their dress is clean and tidy is still crucial as it operates as a symbol of a mother’s love and care. In addition, prioritising the needs of their children above their own is seen as an essential part of good mothering, and they are willing to forfeit the time, effort and money they might have spent on their own dress for that of their children. Yet, once again, it seems that these moves by working-class women are misread and misrecognised by middle-class women and wider society, too. Labelled as ‘slummy mummies’ for their lack of dressing up, their children’s dress is used as instances of excessive or reckless consumption and examples of failing to care for children in the ‘right’ way. As Chapter 7 explores, for middle-class mothers the dress of their children is no less important, but significant class differences exist in terms of what is valued, and children’s dress certainly does not take priority over a mother’s obligation to dress up. Rather, operating as an associate (Collett, 2005), middle-class mothers look to ensure that their children’s dress is consistent with their own impression, in order to secure their distance from the workingclass. Though equally keen to be viewed as ‘good mothers’, it is largely by virtue of their class status that middle-class mothers secure evaluations as good parents, as good mothering is synonymous with their middle-class respectability. As a result, emphasis is placed again on maintaining standards and avoiding those styles which may carry working-class connotations. These concerns over working-class distancing are also evident in the ways middle-class mothers teach their daughters about fashion, adopting a rather regulatory approach,

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vetoing garments which they perceive as having working-class connotations. In doing so, mothers teach their daughters about the symbolic value of clothes and specific garments which are seen to operate as working-class markers. This contrasts significantly with the approach of working-class mothers, who though traditionally have been understood as more authoritarian, appear to be much more collaborative and collective in respect of fashion practice, in the same way that they are in respect of their feminine performances. Through these teachings, whether from middle- or working-class mothers, mothers cultivate and nurture their daughters’ fashion habitus. Indeed, the discussions around mothering and motherhood, explored in Chapter 7, clearly demonstrate the ways in which class practices and perspective are formed through early teachings, and their intergenerational quality and longstanding impact. Moreover, as Bourdieu suggests, the habitus orientates and structures practice in ways which are often unconscious. Ritualised, routinised, in a similar way to gender, women’s class orientations, dispositions and tastes take on a natural character, only challenged or questioned when they are faced with situations or friends in which their practices and tastes conflict with those around them. In respect of this final point, I  think it is important to acknowledge that in conducting this research I  have often reflected on the ways in which my fashion practice mobilises my class identity and class history, and in ways that I was not previously aware of. It led me to consider how my fashion practices and tastes have been informed by my mother as well as my paternal grandmother, and to consider how body image and size intersect with class, affecting my willingness to engage with fashion and my ability to produce a confident and convincing public performance. When I was conducting the research for this book, I often found myself questioning the way my fashion practices were representative of my own class location and how my experiences had been similar or different from that of my participants. My starting point for this research was my university experience, where it was clear that my understanding of what (not) to wear was different from those I was studying with, and particularly those who came from a very different economic, cultural and social background. It was in this space that I became more conscious of class. I noticed the ways fashion styles and fashion taste operated as a marker of class, the ways fashion was used to evaluate and talk about class, and the ways in which I had, up until then, seen my practices and perceptions as ‘right’ or ‘correct’. Throughout the research I  able to reflect more on this experience and the ways in which class identities, class evaluations and class language is a ubiquitous part of everyday fashion practice and consumption. Moreover, the conversations I had with participants about their mothering and motherhood highlighted the impact my mother had on me and the degree to which her ‘lessons’ unknowingly informed my fashion choice and fashion attitudes. Like Valerie Walkerdine, Helen Lucey and June Melody (2001), I found the experience emotional, but I looked to use my own subjectivity and experience

Conclusion 203

to empathise and understand that of the participants. My own experience enabled me to explore the ‘unconscious’ nature of habitus and the extent to which mothers influence their daughters’ actions in the long term.

Contribution and Continuing Research Overall then, this book looks to make a valuable contribution to the literature on fashion, class, gender and space and to the discussion of Bourdieu’s work. It builds on the work of Alison Clarke, Daniel Miller, Sophie Woodward, Efrat Tseëlon and others, emphasising the importance of class within their finding and discussions. Many of the conclusions from this project have similarities with earlier research. Tseëlon’s (1995) notion of significant and insignificant audiences, for example, is evident as demonstrated in Chapter 5, while Clarke’s (1998) idea that catalogues provide individuals with opportunities for a form of window shopping is evident in Chapter 6. What this research does, however, is emphasise the importance of class and respectability within these debates. Moreover, the research demonstrates how existing theories of class and consumption can be applied specifically to fashion. In terms of consumer behaviour and consumer spending, the book offers a greater insight into how the concept of ‘classic’ or thoughts on quality or value influence and inform British women’s fashion buying, how the ‘f’ word is thought of, whether fashion is valued or not, and the ways in which fashion is consumed, imitated or avoided. In terms of class discussions too, this work adds to the vast body of work which explores class as lived experience, emphasising once again the pathologizing of working-class women and the continuing legitimation of middle-class practice via the culture of respectability. It highlights the ways in economic, cultural and social capital are mobilised through tastes and cultural practice, but also raises concerns around the notion of ‘taste necessity’. Building on examples from subcultural and feminist work (Hebdige, [1979] 2002; Jefferson, [1975] 2002; Partington, 1992; Skeggs, 1997; Rocamora, 2002), it argues that working-class women are engaged and enthusiastic about fashion and that their taste is not simply concerned with practical urgencies or basic necessities. Rather, working-class women look to embrace fashion trends and are keen to display their fashion capital. Moreover, the book contributes to debates concerning the construction, performance and classed nature of femininity, emphasising the important intersections among gender, class, fashion and space. It explores how women’s attitudes towards visibility, their perceptions of public space and their anxieties over social audiences are informed by class, how these perceptions are made visible from ordinary and everyday dress and the ways in which these differences in perceptions of space often underpin class evaluations. Finally, in respect of class, it also adds to our understanding of motherhood and mothering, not only reinforcing arguments about the ways in which the politics of mothering is classed (Hays, 1996; Clarke, 2013; Littler, 2013) or the ways in which class orientates women’s practices of mothering or

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their consumption in relation to this (Ponsford, 2014; Banister et al., 2016), but also emphasising the significant role mothers play in cultivating the habitus, and thus the way in which they transmit and then nurture longstanding class practices in respect of fashion, that even as adults women find hard to shake. In considering areas for further research and investigation, the project raises several possibilities. Given the recent developments in the fashion industry with the rise of social media and social influencers, and the increasing complexity of the fashion system as well as concerns over the environmental damage that fast fashion causes, there are many more ways in which the relationship between fashion and class could be further explored in terms of ethical consumption or the class distinctions that exist within the consumption of fashion media. As well as considering class in terms of consumption, one could explore the class dynamics which exist within the fashion industry itself. Building on the work of Joanne Entwistle and Agnés Rocamora (2006), there is space to explore how those within the industry perpetuate class distinctions in fashion tastes and fashion practice and whether fashion media in the digital age offers opportunities to challenge this, or whether it largely reinforces fashion‒class associations. Moreover, more recently there has been some concern over working-class appropriation within high fashion, with designers such as Prada and Balenciaga producing collections which mimic the workwear of hospital staff, or Louis Vuitton and Gucci ‘slumming it’ style on the catwalk (Schwarts, 2018; Brown, 2019). In some ways these instances link back to Ted Polhemus’ (2010) arguments concerning the bubble-up of fashion and street style, but they also raise interesting questions about classed reading of fashion styles and about the fashion consumption of these type of collections. Who is wearing the ‘slumming it’ style, who may or may not imitate these collections, how is it interpreted and performed, and in what context can these forms of dress can become legitimate having been previously rejected due to their working-class connotations? However much the fashion‒class relationship may shift and change, it has been a salient feature in women’s fashion practice, fashion tastes and class evaluations for more than a century. Class distinctions in fashion do not appear to have disappeared yet, and it is unlikely that they will wane any time soon.

References Banister, E. N., Hogg, M., Budds, K. and Dixon, M. (2016) Becoming Respectable: Low-Income Young Mothers, Consumption and the Pursuit of Value, Journal of Marketing Management, 32(7–8): 652–672. Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society, London: Sage. Bennett, T., Savage, M., Silva, M., Warde A., Gayo-Cal, M. and Wright, D. (2009) Culture, Class, Distinction, London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. [1984] (1996) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Conclusion 205 Brown, S. (2019) How Working Class Culture Influences High Fashion – Then Gets Left Behind, 29 May, https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/working-class-streetwearhigh-fashion, accessed 18 October 2019. Clarke, A. (1998) ‘Window Shopping at Home’: Catalogues, Classifieds and New Consumer Skills, in D. Miller (ed.) Material Cultures, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Clarke, A. (2013) Designing Mothers and the Market: Social Class and Material Culture, in S. O'Donohoe, M. Hogg, P. Maclaran, L. Martens and L. Stevens (eds.) Motherhoods, Markets and Consumption, London: Routledge. Clarke, A. and Miller, D. (2002) Fashion and Anxiety, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, 6(2): 191–213. Cole, S. (2015) Looking Queer? Gay Men’s Negotiations Between Masculinity and Femininity in Style and Dress in the 21st Century, Clothing Cultures, 2(2): 193–208. Collett, J. L. (2005) What Kind of Mother Am I? Impression Management and the Social Construction of Motherhood, Symbolic Interaction, 28(3): 327–347. Entwistle, J. and Mears, A. (2013) Gender on Display: Performativity in Fashion Modelling, Cultural Sociology, 7(3): 320–335. Entwistle, J. and Rocamora, A. (2006) Field of Fashion Materialised: A Study of London Fashion Week, Sociology, 40(4): 735–751. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity. Gill, R. (2007) Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2): 147–166. Gofffman, E. (1956) Presentation of Self in Everydaylife, Endinburgh: University of Edinbury Social Research Centre. Hays, S. (1996) Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, London and New Haven: Yale University Press. Hebdige, D. [1979] (2002) Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Routledge. Jefferson, T. [1975] (2000) Cultural Response to the Teds, in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds.) Resistance Through Rituals, London: Routledge. Jensen, T. (2014) Welfare Common Sense, Poverty Porn and Doxosophy, Sociological Research Online, 19(3): 1–7. Jensen, T. (2018) Parenting the Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Neo-Liberal ParentBlame, Bristol: Policy Press. Lewis, R. (2013) Modest Fashion: Styling Bodies, Mediating Faith, London: I.B. Tauris. Littler, J. (2013) The Rise of the ‘Yummy Mummy’: Popular Conservatism and the Neoliberal Maternal in Contemporary British Culture, Communication, Culture & Critique, 6(2): 227–243. McKenzie, L. (2015) Getting by: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain, Bristol: The Policy Press. McRobbie, A. (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, London: Sage. Miller, D., Jackson, P., Thrift, N., Holbrook, B. and Rowlands, M. (1998) Shopping, Place and Identity, London: Routledge. Nicholls, E. (2019) Negotiating Femininities in the Neoliberal Night-Time Economy, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

206  Conclusion Partington, A. (1992) Popular Fashion and Working Class Affluence, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds.) Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: HarperCollins. Polhemus, T. (2010) Streetstyle, new edition, London: PYMCA. Ponsford, R. (2014) ‘I Don’t Really Care About Me, as Long as He Gets Everything He Needs’ – Young Women Becoming Mothers in Consumer Culture, Young Consumers, 15(3): 251–262. Rocamora, A. (2002) Fields of Fashion: Critical Insights into Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture, Journal of Consumer Culture, 2(3): 341–362. Schwarts, E. (2018) On Class Appropriation in Fashion, Vice Magazine, 17 May, garage.vice.com/en_us/article/xwmxgj/class-appropriation-in-fashion. Simmel, G. [1904] (1957) Fashion, American Journal of Sociology, 62(6): 541–558. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Skeggs, B. (2011) Imagining Person Differently: Person Value and Autonomist WorkingClass Value Practices, The Sociological Review, 59(3): 496–513. Tseëlon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life, London: Sage. Twigg, J. (2013) Fashion and Age, London: Bloomsbury. Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain, London and New York: Zed Books. Tyler, I. (2015) Classificatory Struggles: Class, Culture and Inequality in Neoliberal Times, The Sociological Review, 63(2): 493–511. Veblen, T. [1899] (1994) Theory of the Leisure Class, London: Dove Publications. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H. and Melody, J. (2001) Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class, London: Palgrave.

Index

advertising 22, 101, 150, 164; and authenticity 75; new femininities 77 aesthetic(s): understated 2; ‘yummy mummy’ 169 – 170 age 10, 27 All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry 1 apparel 20 appearance 68 – 69, 75, 76, 97 – 98, 117, 138, 145, 170; and attractiveness 103; ‘seeming’ 110, 111, 112, 138; see also respectability Aspers, P. 19 Attfield, S. 70 attractiveness 103 authenticity 48, 49, 60 – 61, 68, 69, 74, 75, 82 – 83, 132, 138, 159, 196; see also counterfeit goods; emulation; imitation(s) avoidance strategies 80 – 81, 177 Baker, J. 79 Banerjee, A. V. 135 Banister, E. 167, 174 Barnes, L. 52 Barthes, R. 100 beauty 103 Beauvoir, S. 165; The Second Sex 74 Beck, U. 23, 24, 25, 26, 77, 78, 198 Beck-Gernsheim, E. 26 bell hooks 27 Bennett, B. 119 Birren, F. 140 blogs 53, 55, 74, 101 body, the 145 body consciousness 104 – 105, 106 Borelli, L. O. 100 Bottero, W. 78

Bourdieu, P. 5, 16, 21, 26, 27, 28, 30 – 31, 57, 58, 59, 78, 79, 80, 85, 86, 87, 96, 107, 108, 112, 115, 118, 126, 134, 144, 149, 155, 160, 180, 185, 187, 197, 203; Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste 4, 25, 29, 164 – 165 Braham, P. 54 Braverman, H. 23 Britain 5, 10, 60; class 15; contemporary fashion 52; Cotswolds 2; department stores 83 – 84; Durham University 6; fashion 15, 16; fashion-class relationship 196, 197; Industrial Revolution 45, 46, 68, 69; middle class 69; Mods 56, 59; New Labour 77 – 78; public space 81 – 82; smart shopping 135; social class 3; Sunderland 1; Tunbridge Wells 2; see also London; Victorian era British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) 1, 3 Bronx leather jacket 55 bubble-up fashion 54 – 55, 60 Butler, J. 119 Campbell, C. 49, 51, 58, 136 capital 4, 8; ‘conditions of existence’ 25 – 26; respectability 70; see also cultural capital; economic capital; social capital; symbolic capital Casey, E. 148 Castle, I. 101 catalogues 148, 149, 156, 160, 164, 179 character ideals 59 chavs 30 – 31, 49, 54, 57, 60, 112, 122, 177, 199

208 Index children’s dress 12, 166, 170, 171, 172, 173 – 174, 175, 190 – 191; middle class 172 – 173; working class 171, 173 – 174, 176 Clarke, A. 148, 169, 187, 188, 203 class 3, 3 – 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 22, 29, 34, 36, 42, 44, 57, 69, 78, 96, 126, 131, 196, 197; Bourdieuian approach 27 – 29; chavs 30 – 31; and consumption practices 30; and cultural practices 27; ‘death of’ 16; and designer labels 153 – 155; evaluations 7, 12, 32, 33, 35, 43, 57, 60, 61, 70, 86, 122 – 123, 166, 177, 186 – 187, 190, 199, 202, 203, 204; and fashion 5; and intersectionality 9, 10; and lifestyle 24, 25; markers 8; Marxist theory 23, 24; and physical health 138, 139; related terms 32, 112; respectability 70, 71; respectable femininity 71 – 74; and risk society 24 – 25; and self-confidence 102; and taste 4, 5, 29, 144; terms 32; and visibility 107 – 109; see also fashion; fashion-class relationship; middle-class women; respectability; social class; upper class; working-class women class distancing 5, 11, 12, 33, 35, 44, 57, 88, 112 – 113, 132, 141, 142, 150, 159, 175, 198 class distinction(s) 9, 11, 12, 16, 30, 36, 50, 60, 61 – 62, 68, 86, 131 – 132, 156, 157, 158, 180; children’s dress 166, 170 – 171; department stores 83 – 84; dressing up 97; economic capital 25; fashion 17, 18, 42, 44, 45, 47 – 48; style 58 classic style 19, 132, 139, 199 – 200; colour 140 – 141; modesty 141, 142 – 143 clothing 3, 56, 82, 83, 98; ‘keeping for best’ 181; as means of distinction 46 – 47; as measure of moral character 86; plus-size 21, 107; and respectability 70; servants 51; workwear 99; see also dress; dressing up; fashion co-branding 54 Collett, J. 175 Collins, P. H. 27 colour 148; classic style 140 – 141 conditions of existence 1, 25, 26, 27, 28, 79, 81, 85, 124 – 125, 131

confidence 100, 102, 103, 108 – 109; technology of the self 101 – 102 conspicuous consumption 47, 48, 49, 50, 159 constructivism 79 – 80 consumption 19, 21, 22, 25, 35, 48, 50, 51, 68, 71 – 72, 95, 196, 197, 203, 204; budgeting 149; conspicuous 47, 48, 49, 50; counterfeit goods 48 – 49; and economic capital 28; fashion 42 – 43; and the Industrial Revolution 45, 46; of middle-class women 133, 137; and motherhood 168 – 169, 170, 171; and self-restraint 135; of working-class women 28 – 29, 148 – 149, 153 – 155, 159 contemporary fashion 18, 28, 52; bubble-up 54 – 55 contradictory class locations 23 Coopey, R. 114, 148 costumes 20, 86 counterfeit goods 48, 61, 156 Crane, D. 49, 72 – 73, 85, 150 Crenshaw, K. 9 cultural capital 25, 144, 147, 164; classic style 140; of working class women 132 cultural practices 4, 26, 27, 29, 42, 107, 178; and class 25; class divisions 84; and motherhood 164 – 165, 178 – 182, 191; see also practice Dandies 51 Davis, A. 27 Davis, F. 18 democratisation of fashion 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 198 department stores 83 – 84, 155 designer labels 2, 153 – 155, 157, 158, 161, 196, 201; children’s dress 174; working class preference for 143 – 144, 145 Devine, F. 25, 29, 30 difference 78 disposable fashion 151 – 152, 156 dispositions 25, 26, 125, 180, 183; middle class 85; taste of necessity 134 ‘distance from necessity’ 28 domestic space 73, 74, 87; dressing up 112 – 114 Dorling, D. 23

Index 209 dress 35, 61; costumes 20; everyday 19; respectable femininity 71 – 74; workwear 99 dressing up 2, 3, 5, 7 – 8, 11, 12, 95 – 96, 126, 127, 171, 200 – 201; and body consciousness 104 – 105, 106; and femininity 118 – 119; and ‘going out’ 116 – 118; at home 112 – 114; middle-class judgements 122 – 125; in private spaces 115 – 116; ‘putting on’ femininity 119 – 121; ‘seeming’ 110; and self-confidence 104; selfconfidence 100, 101, 102, 103; and social class 97; social events 96; special occasions 98; weddings 152; workwear 99; see also looking good Duflo, E. 135 economic capital 25, 28, 34, 58, 131, 151, 156; and children’s dress 174; and disposable fashion 151 – 152; of middle-class women 133 – 134, 135, 137; of working-class women 149; see also consumption elites see upper class emulation 47, 50, 59; bubble-up fashion 54 – 55; costumes 86; counterfeit goods 48 – 49, 61; trickle down theory 47 – 48; see also imitation(s) Entwistle, J. 19, 98, 204 Evans, M. 59, 70, 74 everyday dress 19; of older women 21 excess 103, 142 Facebook 53 fads 19, 21, 159 fashion 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, 30, 36, 45, 69, 82, 95, 98, 147, 197; adoption 55 – 56; advertising 43; and age 21; authenticity 48; blogs 42 – 43; and body consciousness 105 – 106; in Britain 16; bubble-up 54 – 55, 60; catalogues 148, 149, 160; children’s 12; classical theories 44, 57; co-branding 54; collaborations 54; and ‘conditions of existence’ 26 – 27; and confidence 101; consumption 28, 30, 42, 43, 84; contemporary 18, 28, 52; and costume 20; counterfeit goods 48, 49 – 50, 82 – 83; couture 54; defining 17 – 19; democratisation of 155 – 156, 157 – 158, 160, 161, 198;

disposable 151 – 152, 156; emulation 47; e-tailing 53 – 54; and fads 19; fast 52, 61, 160, 197; globalisation 52 – 53; ‘going out’ 116 – 118; imitation 44; and income inequality 28; and the Industrial Revolution 45 – 46; innovation 55; interdisciplinarity 19; and the internet 42 – 43, 53; judging others’ 20, 32 – 33; knowledge 147; language 100 – 101; magazines 53; as means of class distinction 45, 46 – 47, 51 – 52, 57, 58, 59, 86, 87; middle class aversion to 132 – 139, 150; modesty 141; negative connotations 22; older women 21; plus-size women 21; political nature 56; production 43; research 20, 21; respectable femininity 71 – 74; ‘seasons’ 52; selection 55 – 56; sociological research 17; and style 19, 43; subcultures 28; and technology 52; traditional theories 11, 60; trends 19 – 20, 58, 147; trickle down theory 47, 48, 52; Victorian era 11; see also dressing up fashion habitus 165, 166 Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture 17 fashion-class relationship 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 35, 36, 43, 44, 50, 57, 60, 196 – 197; and motherhood 165 fast fashion 52, 61, 160, 197 Favaro, L. 101 femininity 1, 2, 5, 7, 11, 44, 61, 62, 68, 79 – 80, 81, 96, 114, 122, 144, 165, 166; dressing up 118 – 119; performances 59, 78, 80, 96; ‘putting on’ 119 – 121; respectable 71 – 74, 74 – 75; see also dressing up; new femininities feminist theory 78; on motherhood 167 Fine, B. 50 Finkelstein, J. 73 Foucault, M., technology of the self 101 – 102 Frazer, E. 32 Frazer, L. 169 Galilee, J. 133, 137 gender 5, 7, 11, 17, 23, 59, 73, 80, 85, 119, 125; intersectionality 9, 10; performativity 79 Giddens, A. 24, 26, 77, 78, 198

210 Index Gill, R. 101 globalisation 27, 43, 52 – 53 Godart, F. 19 Goffman, E. 82, 86, 96, 97 – 98, 100, 119, 141, 175, 200 ‘going out’ 116 – 118, 126 ‘good mother’ ideal 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 198 Goodwin, A. 169 Gorz, A. 23 Great British Class Survey 29 Grew, C. 8, 32 Griffiths, K. 33 Grove-White, A. 140 habitus 4, 5, 12, 16, 26, 29, 30, 34, 57, 58, 78, 79, 80, 81, 96, 108, 119, 126, 131, 164, 180, 197; consciousness of practice 182 – 183; disrupted 183 – 184; durability 181 – 182; shared 166, 185 – 186, 187 – 188; see also fashion habitus Hall, S. 4 halo effect 103 Harper’s Bazaar 47 Hays, S. 168 Hebdige, D. 5 Hetherington, K. 81 high-street clothing 54, 150 Hill, D. 24 Huppatz, K. 169 identity 9, 15, 22, 27, 31, 43, 51, 56, 58, 103, 106, 175, 198; class 1, 3, 6, 9, 30, 44, 177, 199, 202; ‘good mother’ 170; middle class 4; and public space 81 – 82; social 4, 16, 17, 18, 19, 35; and subcultures 56 imitation(s) 44, 46, 48, 60; bubble-up fashion 54 – 55; catalogues 150; counterfeit goods 48 – 49, 61; magazines 53; and motherhood 179 – 180; trickle down theory 47 – 48 income inequality 28 individualism 198 Industrial Revolution 45 – 46, 68 industrialisation 69, 86, 167 inequality: class-based 25, 28; poverty 70; and self-confidence 102 innovation, bubble-up fashion 54 – 55 internet: fashion e-tailing 53 – 54; and luxury fashion 54

intersectionality 9, 10, 27, 88 interviews 7, 8, 22, 95 Jefferson, T. 5 Jensen, T. 78 jewellery, modest 141 Johnson, K. 49 Jones, E. 45 – 46 Jorgenson, J. 22 Kay, K., The Confidence Code 101 ‘keeping for best’ 181 Kern, R. 27 King, C. W. 52 Klepp, I. G. 188 Lacy, C. 7 Lau, S. 55 Lawler, S. 4, 59, 78, 119, 180 Lea-Greenwood, G. 52 Leopold, E. 50 lifestyle 24, 25, 30, 98; choices 78, 84, 198; ‘conditions of existence’ 25 – 26 Lillethun, A. 19, 20 Lipovetsky, G. 45 Littler, J. 169 Lockwood, D. 23 London: East End 87; West End 83 London College of Fashion 22 looking good 7, 12, 29, 58, 61, 127, 131, 144, 156, 158, 159, 166, 170, 201; children’s dress 176; classic style 139 – 141, 145 – 146; colour coordination 148; designer labels 153 – 155; disposable fashion 151 – 152; middle class approach 137 – 138; physical health 138 – 139; trends 146; weddings 152; see also children’s dress Lucey, H. 202 Lurie, A. 140 luxury fashion 54; collaborations with high-street 54 Lynch, A. 73 Madanipour, A. 97, 98 magazines 100, 133; teenage 77 maintaining standards 3, 109, 110, 112, 126, 171, 175, 199; and motherhood 176 – 177

Index 211 male gaze 120 Martens, L. 176 Martineau, P. 135 Marxist class models 23 – 24 masculinity 73 mass production 46; see also production Mathisen, A. S. 188 McCracken, G. 47 McDowell, L. 4 McKendrick, N. 46 McKenzie, L. 32, 33, 49, 59, 78, 155 McRobbie, A. 4, 77, 142 Melody, J. 202 middle-class women 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 16, 22, 28, 34, 46, 47, 57, 59, 60, 61, 68, 69, 79, 88, 126; approach to looking good 137 – 138; aversion to fashion 132 – 139, 150; children’s dress 172 – 173; class distancing 175; class evaluations 32 – 33, 122 – 123; classic style 139 – 141; consumption 133, 137; consumption of counterfeit goods 49; dispositions 85; dressing up 97; economic capital 133 – 134, 135; frugality 135 – 136, 200; judgments on dressing-up performances 122 – 125; maintaining standards 171; modesty 141; perception of space 109 – 110, 111; respectability 4, 5, 11, 31, 60; respectable femininity 71 – 74; selfrestraint 132; shopping 187 – 188; smart shopping 135; snobbery 126; social practice 4 Miller, D. 134, 140, 171, 173, 187, 188, 203 Mizrahi, M. 58 modesty 141, 142 – 143 Mods 56, 59 moral judgements: of appearance 145; on dressing-up performances 123 – 124 motherhood 5, 6, 7 – 8, 10, 12, 35, 44, 61, 81, 99, 103, 126, 164, 165, 166, 167, 188, 190, 201 – 202, 203; children’s dress 170 – 171, 172, 190 – 191; and consumption 168 – 169, 170, 171; cultivation of fashion tastes 178 – 179, 180, 181, 182, 191; fashion habitus 166; ‘good mother’ ideal 167, 168, 169, 171, 173, 175, 198; maintaining standards 175, 176 – 177; middle class 177 – 178; performances 80; shopping with family 186 – 187, 188, 189;

working class 178; ‘yummy mummy’ 169 – 170, 175; see also children’s dress new femininities 76 – 78, 102 Nicholls, E. 76, 96, 117 non-consciousness 81 O’Donohoe, S. 169 older women: body consciousness 104 – 106; and self-confidence 104 Omi, M. 27 online retailing 53; brandscapes 54; see also internet O’Reilly, A. 166 Orgad, S. 101 othering 4, 5, 31, 78 Pakulski, J. 23 Partington, A. 58, 85, 160 Payne, G. 8, 32 performances 96, 97, 98, 103, 110, 131; and body consciousness 104 – 105, 106; ‘going out’ 116 – 118; ‘putting on’ femininity 119 – 121; and selfconfidence 100; visibility 88; see also self-confidence Perry, G. 2; The Vanity of Small Differences 2 – 3 personal front 86, 116 Peterson, R. 27 physiognomy 75 pikeys 122 plus-size clothing 21 – 22, 107 Polhemus, T. 20, 204 Ponsford, R. 171 post-class theory 23, 24 Poulantzas, N. 23 poverty 70, 71 power 25, 87, 144 practice 79 Primark 152, 156, 157, 160 private space 5, 16, 69; dressing up 115; and identity 81 – 82 production 48, 50, 52, 95, 196, 197; fashion 42 – 43; and the Industrial Revolution 45 – 46 Proust, M. 165 public space 2, 5, 11, 62, 68, 69, 74, 81, 109; audiences 109 – 111; department stores 83 – 84; dressing up 97; and identity 81 – 82;

212 Index performances 97; and respectable femininity 71 – 74; women’s performances 81 – 87 ‘putting on’ femininity 119 – 121 pyjamas 111 qualitative research 8 race 23; intersectionality 9, 10 Reay, D. 4 Renouf, A. 30 respectability 2, 7, 11, 16, 31, 43, 52, 59, 62, 68, 69, 81, 83, 103, 104, 126, 145, 165, 167, 175; and authenticity 75; and femininity 71 – 74; ‘keeping for best’ 181; middle class 4, 5; pyjamas 111; women 69 – 70 Rich, A., Of Woman Born 166, 167 Richmond, V. 181 risk society 24 – 25 Rocamora, A. 17, 58, 204 Romanticism 75 romantics 51 Sandberg, S., Lean In 101 Savage, M. 25, 29, 30, 57, 84 secure environments 107 ‘seeming’ 86, 109, 110, 111, 112, 138 self-classification 8 self-confidence 96, 100, 101, 165; barriers to 103 – 104; and body consciousness 104 – 105, 106; and inequalities 102; technology of the self 101 – 102 self-restraint, of the middle class 135 semi-private space 115 – 116 Sennett, R. 82 – 83 servants, clothing 51 Shipman, C., The Confidence Code 101 shopping 6; with family 186 – 187, 188, 189; with friends 184 – 185; middleclass women 187 – 188 Simmel, G. 42, 44, 47, 56, 59, 88, 120, 144, 145, 149, 160, 197 Skeggs, B. 4, 7, 31, 32, 59, 70, 78, 80, 85, 116, 117, 118, 119, 132, 144, 157 ‘slummy mummy’ 173, 201 smart shopping 135 Smelik, A. 17 social capital 4, 5, 16, 25 social class 3, 16, 17, 26, 29; subcultures 59; see also middle-class women; upper class; working-class women

social distancing 30 social media 53; blogs 55 social practice 4 Sombart, W. 48 Southerton, D. 78 space(s) 5, 11, 59, 69, 165, 166; doing 85; domestic 72, 73, 87; perception of 109; visibility 85, 107 – 109; see also private space; public space Spencer, H. 42 status 27 stereotypes 33, 57, 60, 196; chavs 30 – 31, 49, 54, 57, 60, 112, 122, 177, 199; working class 5, 71, 76, 177 Storr, M. 59 Strauss, M. D. 73 street-style, bubble-up fashion 54 – 55 style 19, 26, 100; classic 6, 139 – 141, 142, 200; ‘slumming it’ 204; see also classic style subcultures 43, 56; Mods 56; Punks 56; and social class 59 Sugg, Z. 55 Sumptuary Laws 45 symbolic capital 147, 150, 154, 155, 164 taste 2, 4, 5, 6, 21, 26, 27, 30, 51, 57, 58, 68, 84, 197; and class 25; as class marker 29; of necessity 134, 203; perceptions of 144; shared 187, 190 Taylor, J. 169 technology: and fashion 52; of the self 101 – 102; see also Industrial Revolution television 53, 60, 71, 76 Thomas, H. 104 Tönnies, F. 42 trends 19 – 20, 21, 53, 58, 100, 147; disposable fashion 151 – 152; pyjamas 111 trickle down theory 47, 48, 52, 197 Tseëlon, E. 17, 86, 97, 107, 117, 126, 152, 203 Twigg, J. 10, 21, 104 Tyler, I. 4, 59, 78, 112, 119 United Kingdom: income inequality 28; see also Britain upper class 1, 47; trickle down theory 47, 48, 52; understated aesthetic 2

Index 213 Valentine, G. 9 values, middle-class 135 Veblen, T. 42, 44, 47, 48, 59, 60 – 61, 134, 136, 141, 145, 149, 160, 197 Victorian era 88; East End 87; prostitutes 75 – 76; respectability 70; respectable femininity 71 – 73, 74 – 75; servants’ clothing 51; West End 83 Vinken, B. 86 visibility 105, 152, 196; and class 107 – 109; and dressing up 97; ‘going out’ 116 – 118; male gaze 120; of performances 88 – 89; of public space 85; ‘seeming’ 110, 111, 112; semiprivate space 115 – 116 vlogs 55, 74, 101 Walkerdine, V. 202 Waters, M. 23 Weatherill, L. 50 Weber, M. 26 weddings 118 – 119, 152 welfare 76 Welters, L. 19, 20 West, C. 27 Willis, P. 5, 7 Wilson, E. 18 Winant, H. 27 Wintour, A. 55 women 4, 56, 69; authenticity 74, 75; avoidance strategies 81, 177; middle class 85 – 86; new femininities

76 – 78, 102; performances 80; performances of public space 81 – 87; and poverty 70 – 71; respectability 69 – 70; respectable femininity 71 – 74, 75; working class 5, 85; see also motherhood; older women Woodward, S. 56, 86, 131, 188, 203 working-class women 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 16, 28, 34, 54, 57, 60, 61, 68, 69, 79, 114, 200; approach to physical health 139; chavs 30 – 31, 49; children’s dress 171, 173 – 174, 176; class evaluations 32 – 33; consumption 28 – 29, 153 – 155, 159; disposable fashion 151 – 152, 156; emulative spending 50 – 51; ‘going out’ 116 – 118; interest in fashion 132; knowledge 160; performances of femininity 123 – 125; preference for designer labels 143 – 144, 145; stereotypes 5, 71, 75 – 76, 177; subcultures 59; symbolic capital 150; taste of necessity 134; see also dressing up workwear 99 Worth, C. F. 46 Wright, E. O. 23 Yambao, B. 55 youth, working class 5 YouTube 53 ‘yummy mummy’ 166, 169 – 170, 175 Yurchisin, J. 49