"Medhurst’s history of lesbian fashion opens the closet on the details and meanings of clothes through the ages for any style-conscious sapphics "
This history of lesbian fashion is written in a way which is both detailed and accessible, as satisfying to the casual reader as to the academic. With case studies of lesbians and ‘lesbian-adjacent’ figures that readers will likely be varyingly familiar with, including Sappho’s tunics and violets, to Anne Lister’s hats (comparing how the character is presented in the Gentleman Jack television show in a top hat, to how the historical figure likely dressed from her diaries, in bonnet and lace) to the drag kings and ‘impersonators’ of European performers in the 1920s, to the DYKE slogan cut-off vests we might enjoy seeing at parades and protests today.
I love the way Medhurst writes about her topic, with evident passion, curiosity and care. She is alive to the reality of the lesbians wearing the clothes, using their fashions to understand more about the people as individuals (as well as being intrigued and delighted by the clothes themselves).
Lesbians are, almost by their nature, doubly excluded from historical archives, but it’s a treat to see lesbian history through diaries, love letters, and personal belongings, which all feel like particularly lesbian ways to record a life. Medhurst has rigorously displayed an otherwise hidden history, while also remaining open and fluid to the possibilities of different interpretations and subjectivity. It’s all the more powerful as a lesbian document for its inclusion of non-binary and trans interpretations, and for highlighting the similarities and differences of ‘butch’ and ‘femme’ presentations.
As Medhurst puts it, this is a history of lesbian fashion which opens the closet, and what a gorgeous closet it is. I feel like carrying this book will be the perfect lesbian accessory! Peek it out from your choice of practical bum bag, slogan tote, quirky purse or suit pocket.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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The way we dress can show or hide who we are; make us fit in, make us stand out, or make our own community. Yet ‘lesbian fashion’ has been strangely overlooked. What secrets can it reveal about the lives and status of queer women through the ages?
The lesbian past is slippery: often deliberately hidden, edited or left unrecorded. Unsuitable restores to history the dazzlingly varied clothes worn by women who love women, from top hats to violet tiaras. This story spans centuries and countries, from ‘Gentleman Jack’ in nineteenth-century Yorkshire and Queen Christina of seventeenth-century Sweden, to Paris modernism, genderqueer Berlin, butch/femme bar culture and gay rights activists—via drag kings, Vogue editors and the Harlem Renaissance.
This book is a kaleidoscope of the margins and the mainstream, celebrating trans lesbian style, Black lesbian style, and gender nonconformity. You don’t have to be queer or fashionable to be enthralled by this hidden history. Unsuitable lights it up for the world to see, in all its finery.
Unsuitable features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, Debut Books of the Month, Gifts, Lifestyle, Hobbies and Leisure, Sex and sexuality, social aspects, Cultural studies, LGBTQ+ Non-Fiction, LGBTQ+ Studies / topics, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations, Social and ethical issues, Society and culture: general, Society and Social Sciences, Cultural and media studies, Social groups, communities and identities, Debuts
Unsuitable is available in Paperback, Hardback
Unsuitable was written by Eleanor Medhurst and published by C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Unsuitable has 344 pages
£22.50
