Handbook

In Dressed to Kill, you will explore the links between dress and gendered identities using a number of case studies from Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas over the last four hundred years. This course will focus on the many meanings of dress from daily attire, to national dress and uniforms, to high fashion across a wide gamut of cultures. We will use photographs, paintings and readings to cover topics as diverse as shaping the body (such as foot-binding and the corset), deportment, haute couture, and even the meaning of cloth. Women’s dress as the Other of men’s dress, the manipulation of costume for political agendas (including fashion and fascism and feminism and fashion), current debates about veiling, and the history of the department store will also be explored.