Fashion & Family History

Jayne Shrimpton • £14.99
pen-and-sword.co.uk

Studying dress history teaches us much about the past. In this skilfully-illustrated, accessible and authoritative book, DYA’s resident photo and fashion expert Jayne Shrimpton demonstrates how fashion and clothes represent the everyday experiences of earlier generations, illuminating the world in which they lived.

As Britain evolved during the 1800s from a slow-paced agrarian society into an urban-industrial nation, dress was transformed. Traditional rural styles declined and modern city modes, new workwear and holiday gear developed. Women sewed at home, while shopping advanced, novel textiles and mass-produced goods bringing affordable fashion to ordinary people. Many of our predecessors worked as professional garment-makers, laundresses or in other related trades: close to fashion production, as consumers they looked after their clothes.

The author explains how, understanding the social significance of dress, the Victorians observed strict etiquette through special costumes for Sundays, marriage and mourning. Poorer families struggled to maintain standards, but young single workers spent their wages on clothes, the older generation cultivating their own discreet style. Twentieth-century dress grew more relaxed and democratic as popular culture influenced fashion for recent generations who enjoyed sport, cinema, music and dancing.

Seeking Sanctuary: A History of Refugees in Britain

Jane Marchese Robinson • £14.99
pen-and-sword.co.uk

Seeking Sanctuary explores the history of people looking for refuge in this country. It starts with those protestant refugees fleeing oppression and persecution from Catholic Spain who ruled the Netherlands in the 16th century. It traces successive waves of peoples in the context of why they fled. At various times this was due to religious persecution, political upheaval, war and ethnic cleansing.

Painted Faces: A Colourful History of Cosmetics

Susan Stewart • £9.99
amberley-books.com

Throughout history, women (and men) have applied make-up to enhance, alter, conceal and even to disguise their appearance. Also, to a greater or lesser degree over time, cosmetics have been used as a visible marker of social status, gender, wealth and well-being. A closer look at the world of make-up gives us not only a mirror reflecting day-to-day life in the past, but also an indicator of the culture and politics of earlier periods in history.

Susan Stewart guides the reader through the bewildering, fascinating and complex story of cosmetics, from the ancient world to the present day.

Anyone who has ever wondered how the Romans used algae to colour their faces and urine to whiten their teeth, how Radium came to be a popular 1930s beauty trend, or how make-up survived the war will enjoy this colourful journey through the human obsession with improving how we look.

Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain

Padraic X. Scanlan • £25
hachette.co.uk

The British empire, in sentimental myth, was more free, more just and more fair than its rivals. But this claim that the British empire was ‘free’ and that, for all its flaws, it promised liberty to all its subjects was never true. The British empire was built on slavery.

Slave Empire puts enslaved people at the centre the British empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. In intimate, human detail, the chapters show how British imperial power and industrial capitalism were inextricable from plantation slavery. With vivid original research and careful synthesis of innovative historical scholarship, Slave Empire shows that British freedom and British slavery were made together. In the 19th century, Britain abolished its slave trade, and then slavery in its colonial empire. Because Britain was the first European power to abolish slavery, many Victorian Britons believed theirs was a liberal empire, promoting universal freedom and civilisation. And yet, the shape of British liberty itself was shaped by the labour of enslaved African workers.