University 
of 
Stirling 
Film 
and 
Media 
Studies 
A 
taste 
for 
excess: 
disdained 
and 
dissident 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
femininity, 
Adele 
Patrick 
Submitted 
for 
the 
degree 
of 
PhD 
January 2004 
I?jo 
Abstract 
A 
taste 
for 
excess: 
disdained 
and 
dissident forms 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
Adele 
Patrick 
University 
of 
Stirling 
Film 
and 
Media Studies 
Submitted 
January 2004 
This 
thesis 
examines 
the 
meanings 
of 
forms 
of 
fashioned 
femininity in 
Britain 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
Drawing 
on a 
range 
of 
popular, 
academic 
and media 
texts, 
the 
widespread social, 
political 
and 
cultural 
disdain for 
the 
feminised 
decorative 
is 
defined 
and 
discussed. 
Modernist 
rhetoric 
and 
taste, 
the 
championing 
of 
design 
austerity, masculinity, 
bohemianism 
and 
appropriations 
of 
functional 
working-class 
fashionings 
are 
shown 
to 
be linked 
to 
the 
emergent 
tastes 
of 
Second-Wave feminism. 
In 
contrast, 
fashionings 
associated 
with 
working class 
and other 
disdained 
communities 
of 
women, 
defined 
here 
as 
'feminine 
excess', 
whether 
in hair, 
make-up, 
jewellery 
or 
dress is 
shown 
to 
be demonised 
across 
historical 
and 
contemporary 
contexts 
by 
the 
arbiters 
of 
taste, 
expressed 
in 
key 
Modernist 
and 
feminist 
texts. 
Whereas 
both 
Modernism 
and 
facets 
of 
feminism 
are viewed 
as occluding 
and repudiating 
cultures and 
forms 
of 
working-class 
femininity, 
the 
emergence 
of queer 
theories 
and 
the 
rise of camp 
in 
popular 
culture 
is 
also 
critiqued 
here 
as 
ultimately 
confining 
discussions 
of 
and approbation 
for 
fashioned 
feminine 
excess 
to 
within 
the 
ironic 
discourse 
of 
drag. 
In 
the 
absence 
of research 
on, 
in 
particular 
working 
-class 
women's 
experiences and 
dis/pleasures 
in fashioning 
femininity, 
empirical 
data 
from female 
participants 
discussing 
their 
own 
histories 
of 
and 
tastes 
in fashioning 
is 
analysed 
alongside memory-work 
findings. Participants' 
contributions 
are 
discussed 
in 
two 
key 
chapters 
that 
focus 
on 
the 
significance 
of 
forms 
of 
identification 
in 
the 
self-fashioning 
of excess, speciflcally 
the 
iconic, 
excessive 
model 
of 
Dusty 
Springfield 
for 
women and 
girls growing 
up 
in 
Britain 
in 
the 
1960s 
and, 
secondly, 
the 
complex 
array of meanings 
of 
hair 
and 
hair 
fashioning 
in 
constructing 
feminine 
and 
feminist 
selves. 
Throughout 
both 
the 
significance 
of 
class, 
notions of 
cultural 
difference, 
glamour 
and 
other pleasures 
in 
the 
processes 
of 
fashioning 
femininity. 
In 
a 
flifther 
chapter an array 
of 
media 
texts 
are analysed 
alongside 
insights 
generated 
by 
research 
participants 
focussing 
on 
the 
trope 
ofjewels 
and 
jewellery. 
Desires 
for, 
pleasures 
in 
and 
identifications 
with 
female 
stars 
and 
RoYals 
through their 
fashioning 
of 
glittering 
models of excess are 
charted 
across an array of popular 
texts 
consumed 
by 
communities 
of girls and 
women. 
Self-conscious, 
middle-class 
tastes 
for 
dissident fashionings 
and 
ironic 
appropriations 
of working-class excesses 
exemplified 
in 
punk or 
trailer 
trash 
vogues 
are 
compared 
to 
the 
non-ironic 
dissidence 
of 
Royal Taste, 
a 
form 
of 
feminine 
excess 
exemplified 
by 
stars 
such 
as 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
and 
Shirley Bassey 
who, 
it 
is 
argued, 
have 
usurped 
the 
Royal 
aura 
in 
the 
post 
war 
period symbolised 
in 
their 
excessive will 
to 
adorn. 
This 
thesis 
concludes 
with 
a 
reflection 
on 
the 
obduracy 
of 
discriminatory 
trashing 
of 
working 
class 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
and 
the 
consequences 
of 
this 
in 
terms 
of 
cultural 
justice. 
The 
hegemony 
of 
Modernist 
taste 
in 
paradoxically 
subordinating 
and 
appropriating otherness 
is 
critiqued 
alongside 
feminist 
neglect 
of 
the 
productive 
processes 
and 
loci 
of 
fashioning. 
This 
thesis 
calls 
for 
a 
re- 
evaluation 
of 
the 
existing 
institutional, 
modernist 
and 
feminist 
demonising 
of 
the 
other, excessive 
woman, 
highlights 
the 
constructedness 
of all 
fashioning 
and 
details 
the 
cultural 
value of 
disdained 
women's 
fashioning 
regimes 
and 
tastes. 
Acknowledgments 
I 
have 
enjoyed 
inspiring 
supervision 
throughout 
the 
research process. 
Initially 
I 
received 
the 
support 
and guidance 
of 
Dr. Katie 
Grant in 
the 
Women's 
Studies 
Department 
at 
the 
University 
of 
Strathclyde. 
Since 
2000 1 
have had 
the 
good 
fortune 
to 
be 
supervised 
by 
Prof. Simon Frith 
in 
the 
Department 
of 
Film 
and 
Media 
Studies 
at 
the 
University 
of 
Stirling. 
I 
am 
grateftil 
for 
invaluable 
peer 
support 
in 
postgraduate 
seminars at 
Strathclyde 
and 
Stirling. Throughout 
the 
research period 
I 
have 
been 
encouraged 
by 
the 
best 
of 
'critical 
friends' 
Fiona Dean 
and 
Christine 
Patrick. I 
thank 
all 
the 
research 
participants 
for 
their 
invaluable 
contributions 
and 
insights. 
I 
hope 
the 
significance of 
their 
investment 
in 
this 
project 
is 
apparent 
to 
readers. 
Magda 
Ang, 
Elaine Crawford 
and 
Josie Evans 
have 
all 
played 
their 
part 
in 
the 
Patrick 
thesis 
emergency 
support 
team, 
as 
friends, 
colleagues and resources 
at 
Glasgow 
Women's 
Library. I 
also 
wanted 
to 
thank 
members of 
the 
Patrick, 
Fletcher 
and 
Buchanan 
families 
for 
the 
parts 
they 
have 
played 
in 
the 
construction of 
my own 
tastes 
for femininity, feminism 
and 
research. 
Final 
thanks to 
Sue John 
for 
ongoing 
support, 
beyond 
the 
call of 
duty. 
Glasgow 
School 
of 
Art Historical 
and 
Critical 
Studies 
Department 
supported 
this 
thesis' 
development. 
Grants 
enabled me 
to 
attend 
and 
deliver 
early versions of 
chapters 
at 
the 
following 
conferences: 
'Style', Bowling Green State University, 
1997, 'Unofficial 
Knowledges, 
Murcia, 2000, 
'Crossroads 
in Cultural 
Studies', Birmingham, 
2000 
and 
'Visual Culture 
in 
Britain', 
Newcastle, 2000. 
University 
of 
Stirling 
supported my participation 
in 
the 
'Third 
Wave Feminism' 
conference, 
Exeter, 
2002.1 
am 
grateful 
to 
Hilary 
Fawcett 
at 
University 
of 
Northumbria 
who 
invited 
me 
to 
deliver 
a 
paper 
on 
this 
research 
for 
the 
Gendered 
Subjects 
Research 
Group 
at 
University 
of 
Northumbria, 
2002. 
Early 
incarnations 
of 
sections 
of 
this 
thesis 
were 
published 
in Feminist 
Media 
Studies 
(Vol. 1 
no. 
3, November 
200 
1) 
and 
Visual 
Culture in 
Britain (Vol. 
2, 
no. 
2,200 
1). 
Index 
1 
2 
3 
4 
Index 
of 
illustrations 
P. 
i 
Introduction 
page 
1 
Literature Review 
page 
5 
Methodology 
and research 
aims 
page 
41 
Fashioning 'Dusty' 
page 
58 
4.1 
Introduction 
4.2 
Beyond Words: 
accounts of 
ineffable 
emotions and 
otherworldliness. 
4.3 A 
touch 
of 
Dusty 
- 
Expressing 
to 
excess: 
Transformation, 
creative self-fashioning 
and 
dissident 
rites of passage. 
4.4 
Intimacies between 
fernininities, 
subaltern 
pedagogies 
of 
fashioning 
and 
identification. 
5 
Fashioning Hair 
page 
126 
5.1 Introduction 
5.2 
Fashioning 
contexts 
and cultures 
5.3 
Hair 
and 
familial, 
sororial 
and salon-based 
relationships 
5.4 (Cross) identifications 
and 
pleasures 
in 
hair 
fashioning 
5.5 
Political 
discourses 
of 
hair 
6 
'Queening it': 
class, 
jewels 
and 
the 
disdained, 
dissident 
will 
to 
adorn 
page 
204 
6.1 
Introduction 
6.2 
Gallus 
glamour 
and 
fearsome fernininities 
6.3 
Sentiment 
and 
excess; 
abstraction 
and 
tastefulness 
6.4 
The 
demonisation 
and 
appropriation 
of 
trash 
6.5 
Royal/Vulgar Tastes 
6.6 
Conclusion: 
queening 
it 
and 
faking it 
7 
Conclusion 
page 
270 
Bibliography 
Appendices 
i 
Table 
of research participants. 
ii 
Introductory 
letter 
to 
gatekeeper 
at 
'La Paris' 
Index 
of 
illustrations 
Illustrations 
are 
unpaginated 
Allpage 
numbers refer 
to the textpage 
adjacent 
to the 
illustration. 
Independent 
jewellers, 
Gallowgate 
and 
Trongate, 
Glasgow, 
June 2003, 
photos: 
Adele Patrick. 
page 
4 
2 
Diagram 
demonstrating 'Beauty hurts' 
in 
Andrea 
Dworkin, 
Woman-hating, 
1974, 
p. 
117. 
page 
7 
3 
Studio 
portrait of 
Marlene 
Dietrich, 
Film 
Portraits 
3, 
annual, 
1949, 
unpaginated, 
coloured 
in by 
reader, 
Fay. 
page 
12 
4 
Studio 
portrait of 
Marlene Dietrich 
in Golden 
Earrings 
in 
Film 
Portraits 
3, 
annual, 
unpaginated, 
coloured-in 
by 
reader, 
Fay. 
page 
14 
5 
'A' 
failed 
as 
a 
bridesmaid due 
to 
'inadequate, 
small 
hair. 
page 
46 
6 
Atlantic 
City, 1968, first 
mass 
demonstration 
by 
the 
Women's 
Liberation Movement, 'No 
more 
Miss America', in Sisterhood 
is 
Powerful, 1970, 
Robin 
Morgan, 
unpaginated. 
page 
48 
7 
'Cilia, 
Kathy 
and me', 
Dusty 
Springfield, 
Radio Luxembourg 
Record Stars, 
annual, 
1965, 
pp. 
14-15. 
page 
62 
8 
Profile 
of 
Dusty Springfield in 
Valentine 
Pop Special 
annual, 
1966, 
p. 
72. 
page 
63 
9 
Veronica Lake, film 
still 
in 
Film 
Portraits 3,1949, 
unpaginated, 
coloured-in 
by 
reader 
Fay. 
page 
69 
10 
'Top 
ten 
golden rules of 
dress' 
in Helen Shapiro's 
New 
Bookfor Girls, 1963, 
p. 
38. 
page 
96 
'Top 
ten 
golden 
rules of 
dress' 
in 
Helen Shapiro's 
New Bookfor 
Girls, 1963, 
p. 
41 
and 
Dusty 
rehearsing 
for 
Ready, 
steady, go! 
in 
1964, 
reproduced 
in 
Dusty, 
1999, 
Lucy 
O'Brien, 
unpaginated. 
page 
97 
12 
Questionnaire 
in Sixteen 
annual 
filled in 
by 
readers 
M 
and 
L, 
1967, 
p. 
77. 
page 
98 
13 
Diana Ross 
in 
Top Pop Scene 
annual, 
1974, 
pp. 
42-43. 
page 
105 
14 
Aretha 
Franklin 
album cover, 
Aretha: Lady Soul, 1968, Atlantic. 
page 
115 
15 
Meg 
Christian 
tour, 
promoted 
in 
Spare Rib, 
issue 93, April 1980, 
p. 
48 
and 
detail, 
album 
cover, 
Margie 
Adam. 
Songwriter, 
1976, 
Pleiades Records. 
page 
122 
16 
Holly 
Near, detail from 
album cover 
Imagine 
my surprise! 
1978, Olivia 
Records. 
page 
122 
17 
Fantasy 
fashioning 
contexts: 
Margaret Lockwood 
and 
her 
daughter 
Toots 
in 
a 
theatre 
dressing-room, 
illustration 
in 
Girl, film 
and 
television 
annual, 
1957, 
p. 
47 
and 
Elsa 
Martinelli 
in 
The 
VIPs, 1963, 
still 
in 
ABC 
Film 
annual, 
1964, 
unpaginated. 
page 
127 
18 
Salon 
interiors, 
fashioning 
environments: 
'La Paris', 
photo: 
Adele Patrick. 
page 
129 
19 
Salon 
ergonometrics, 
'La Paris', 
photo: 
Adele 
Patrick. 
page 
129 
20 
Fun 
in 
'La Paris', 
photo: 
Adele Patrick. 
page 
151 
21 
Customers 
enjoy 
coffee and whisky 
under 
the 
dryers 
at 
'La Paris', 
photo: 
Adele 
Patrick. 
page 
151 
22 
Gabrielle's 
daughter 
Evelyn, 
whose 
hair 
was 
remembered 
as 
being 
like 
'black 
grapes'. page 
154 
23 
Scotch 
Wool Shop knitting 
pattern, 
1967. 
page 
159 
24 
Excessive 
hairpieces 
advertised 
in 
US 
magazine, 
Motion 
Picture, 1965, 
p. 
59 
and 
demure 
hair 
fashioning 
in Women's Own 
hook 
of 
70 
hairstyles 
you 
can 
setyourself, 
2 
April 
1966, 
p. 
16. 
page 
168 
25 
Salon 
interiors 
and 
fashioning 
environments: 
'Cutz'. 
page 
173 
i 
26 
'You 
at sixteen' 
quiz, 
filled in by 
reader 
Carolyn Paterson, 
in Sixteen 
annual, 
1967, 
p. 
5. 
page 
175 
27 
Cartoon, 
Wynnie Raine, 
Spare Rib, 
issue 
14, August, 
1973, 
p. 
25 
and 
caricature 
of 
Tammy Wynette 
in 
'Peroxide 
politics 
and 
the 
counter-revolution', 
Sue Tyrell, Spare Rib, 
issue 
42,1975, 
p. 
45. 
page 
179 
28 
Brigitte 
Bardot 
in 
Film 
Show 
annual, 
1962, 
p. 
38 
and 
Jean Shrimpton, 
undated and unaccredited 
photograph, 
reproduced 
in 
Decades 
ofteauty, 
Kate Mulvey 
and 
Melissa 
Richards, 1998, 
p. 
145. 
page 
187 
29 
'Be 
right 
on 
top' 
an array of 
hair identities including 
'Ballerina 
chignon' 
and 
'Pre-Raphaelite 
bunches' 
in 
Jackie 
annual, 
1979, 
p. 
33. 
page 
188 
30 
The 
character 
Bet 
Lynch defines 
'dolled-up' in Street 
talk 
the 
language 
of 
Coronation 
Street, 1996, 
Jeffrey 
Miller 
and 
Graham Nown, 
p. 
35. 
page 
192 
31 
Vidal 
Sassoon 
learns from 
a master. 
Adolf Cohen 
on a visit 
to 
Sassoon's 
Bond 
Street 
salon 
in 
the 
early 
1960s. 
Unaccredited 
photograph, 
illustration 34 in Sorry 
I 
keptyou 
waiting madam, 
Vidal Sassoon, 
1968. 
page 
201 
32 
Illustrations 
from 
'Tips for 
tent-peggers' 
in 
Sunshine 
bookfor 
girls, 
1962, 
p. 
34 
and 
extract 
from 
'Fiesta' 
in 
Sunshine 
bookfor 
girls, 
1962, 
p. 
57. 
page 
206 
33 
The 
first 
royal 
pantomime, 
Princess 
Elizabeth 
as 
Princess Florizel 
and 
Princess Margaret 
as 
Cinderella, 
The 
Little 
Princesses, Marion Crawford, 
1950, 
p. 
64. 
page 
207 
34 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
and 
Larry Fortensky, 
unaccredited photograph, 
in 
Elizabeth 
Taylor: 
the 
illustrated 
biography, 
1999, 
James 
Christopher, 
p. 
57. 
page 
209 
35 
Julie 
Goodyear 
after 
her 
marriage 
to 
Tony 
Rudman 
at 
Bury Parish Church, 
1973, 
in 
Queen 
ofthe 
Street, 
Sally Beck, 
1995, 
unpaginated, 
and 
'Bet Lynch's' 
marriage 
to 
'Alec 
Gilroy, 
photograph 
in Coronation 
Street: 
the 
inside 
story, 
Bill Podmore 
and 
Peter Reece, 1990, 
unpaginated. 
page 
210 
36 
Cover 
Hello 
I. 
July 13,1996, issue 415 
and 
Beckham's 
marriage, 
OKI, 
30 July, 
1999 
issue 
172, 
p. 
59, 
Beckhams 
enthroned 
at 
their 
marriage 
reception, 
in 
OKII 16 July, 1999, 
issue 
170, 
p. 
88 
and 
the 
Beckhams 
at 
Luttrell 
Castle, OKI, 16 
July, 
1999, 
issue 171, 
p. 
48. 
page 
210 
37 
Extract 
from 
W's 
grammar school 
rule 
book, 
1978-79. 
page 
216 
38 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
on 
the 
cover of 
Motion 
Picture 
magazine, 
October, 
'1965. 
page 
217 
39 
Spare 
Rib 
fashions, issue 
2, August 
1972, 
and 
fashions in 
Fab 208 
annual, 
1970, 
p. 
43. 
page 
221 
40 
Stepney 
Sisters, 
cover, 
Spare 
Rib, May, 1976, issue 46. 
page 
221 
41 
Advertisement 
for 
Rita Coolidge 
album 
It's 
only 
love, 
back 
cover, 
Spare 
Rib, 
December 1975, 
issue 
42. 
page 
222 
42 
Icons 
from 
The Woman's 
Hour: 
50years 
ofwomen 
in 
Britain, Jenni 
Murray, 
1996, 
unpaginated. 
page 
223 
43 
Ova, 
Musically Speaking, 
promotional 
leaflet, 
undated 
but 
1982? 
page 
224 
44 
Advertisement 
for 
Franklin 
Mint, Faberge 
magic, 
Observer 
magazine, 
2001 
page 
225 
45 
Beryl 
Reid 
as 
Marlene 
of 
the 
Midlands, 
in 
'Caught 
in 
the 
Act', TV 
Mirror 
annual, 
1956, 
unpaginated. 
page 
229 
46 
Chanel 
advertisement 
Vogue, 
early 
1980s 
and 
Versace 
advertisement, 
Tader, 
November 2001, 
Volume 
296, 
issue 
11, 
unpaginated. 
page 
233 
47 
Liz 
Hurley fashions 
trash 
in 'Chessex 
girls are 
Sloanes 
on 
the 
side', 
Sunday 
Times, 
June 
1,2003, 
p. 
3. 
and 
'Fashion 
algebra: 
how 
to 
be 
pure 
trailer 
trash. 
', 
Elle, 
March 
2001, 
p. 
274 
page 
235 
48 
Kelly 
Osborne 
and 
Mandy 
Moore, 
cover, 
Elle 
Girl, 
Spring, 
2003. page 
236 
49 
Julie 
Goodyear, Miss Britvic 
in Queen 
ofthe 
Street, 
Sally Beck, 1995, 
unpaginated. 
page 
238 
ii 
so 
Dusty 
featured 
in 
'Who 
would win 
the 
pop 
Miss 
World 
contestT, 
Albert Hand, in 
Pop 
Weekly 
Teenbeat 
annual, 
197 
1, 
p. 
88. 
page 
239 
51 
Extract 
from 
'She's 
a super 
looking 
sister', 
in 
Dianafor 
Girls 
annual, 
1974, 
unpaginated. page 
239 
52 
Diva's 
queered 
queens: writer and 
DJ Valerie 
Mason John, 
'Queenie' 
featured 
on 
the 
cover of 
Diva, 
January/February, 
1999 
and cover, 
Diva, 
September, 2002. 
page 
240 
53 
'Return 
of 
the 
beauty 
queen', 
Jan 
Masters, 
Elle, March 200 1, 
p. 
167. 
page 
241 
54 
Illustration 
from 'Think Natural' in 
Girl! 
Girl! Girl! 
Annual, 1974, 
pp. 
54-55 
and 
illustration 
from 
'Ken 
Rodway, 
a 
sort of male model', 
in 
Fashion 
Model 
annual, 
1971, 
p. 
20. 
page 
242 
55 
Missy 
Elliot, 
The 
Herald 
magazine, 
II 
January, 
2003, 
p. 
12. 
page 
248 
56 
'Filming 
the 
Coronation' 
special, cover, 
Picturegoer, 
2 May, 
1953. 
page 
250 
57 
Unaccredited 
coronation photograph 
of 
the 
Royal family, in 
The Queen's Clothes, 1977, Robb 
and 
Anne 
Edwards, 
p. 
52. 
page 
251 
58 
Cover, 
Vogue, 
December, 
2001. 
page 
256 
59 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
in 
the 
role of 
Cleopatra 
on 
the 
cover of 
Film 
Show 
annual, 
1962. 
page 
257 
60 
Julie 
Goodyear, 
in 
Queen 
ofthe 
Street, 
Sally 
Beck, 1995, 
unpaginated. 
page 
259 
61 
Beverley 
Callard 
and 
Prince Charles 
on 
the 
Rovers 
Return 
set, 
cover, 
Daily 
Record, 
29 
December, 
2000, 
113.11's 
Enders', 
Pam 
StClements 
meets 
the 
Queen 
on 
the 
set 
of 
the 
Queen Vic, Daily Record, 29 
November, 
2001, 
p. 
3, 'The House 
of 
Windsors' Scottish 
Sun, 
29 November, 
2001, front 
page. 
page 
260 
62 
Barbara 
Windsor 
and 
the 
Queen 
on 
the 
set of 
Eastenders'Albert 
Square, December 
2001, in 
Hello 
'I II 
December, 
2001, 
issue 
692, 
p. 
27. 
page 
260 
63 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
and 
Princess Margaret in 
Princess Margaret: 
a 
life 
ofcontrasts, 
2002, Christopher 
Warwick, 
unpaginated, 
Dolly Parton 
and 
the 
queen 
in The 
ojficial 
Dolly 
Parton 
scrapbook 
1977, 
Connie 
Berman, 
unpaginated, 
Joan Collins 
and 
the 
Queen, 
in 
The Independent, 
undated. page 
261 
64 
Barbara 
Windsor 
curtseys 
to 
Shirley Bassey 
outside 
Buckingham 
Palace, 
in Evening Times, 
19 July 
2000, 
P. 
4. 
page 
261 
65 
Dolly 
Parton's 
hair in The 
ojf1cial 
Dolly 
Parton 
scrapbook 
1977, 
Connie 
Berman, 
p. 
63. 
page 
262 
66 
Julie 
Goodyear 
meets 
the 
Queen, 1983, in Coronation Street: 
the 
inside 
story, 
Bill 
Podmore 
and 
Peter 
Rice, 
1990, 
p. 
68. 
page 
263 
67 
Illustrations 
ofjewellery 
in 
Argos 
spring/summer, 
2003, 
p. 
671 
and 
p. 
677 
and 
Index 
catalogue 
spring/summer, 
2003, 
p. 
54 
and p. 
39. 
page 
264 
68 
'Viva 
Victoriana', 
Dianafor 
girls 
annual, 
1974, 
unpaginated. 
page 
265 
69 
Trongate 
shopper, 
June 
2003, 
photo: 
Adele Patrick. 
page 
266 
70 
'A"s 
grandma 
with 
faux lcopard-skin 
collar 
meets 
the 
queen, 
Doncaster, 
early 
1970s. 
page 
267 
71 
Madonna 
wears 
Argos-stylc 
necklace 
with 
ironic 
air-brushed 
roots, 
cover, 
In 
Style 
magazine, 
August, 
2001 
and 
Madonna 
endorses 
the 
'pomo-look', 
the 
Tatler, 
200 1, Vol. 
296, 
issue 
11, 
unpaginated. 
page 
272 
72 
Strip 
cartoon, 
D 
Jackson 
and 
M 
Collin, 
List 
magazine, 
2-16, October, 
2003, 
p. 
84. 
page 
273 
73 
Modernist-style, 
feminist 
T-shirt 
designs 
advertised 
in 
Spare Rib, 
February 
1990, 
issue 209, 
p. 
59. 
page 
284 
74 'Knit 
yourself 
a woman's 
woolly', 
Spare 
Rib 
knitting 
pattern, 
issue 
114, 
p. 
28. 
page 
284 
iii 
75 
Spare 
Rib 
advertisements: 
issue 
90, 
p. 
45, issue 
87, 
October 
1979, 
issue 75, October 1978, 
p. 
33, issue 
123, 
October 1982, 
issue 
47, 
issue 
89, December, 
1979. 
page 
285 
76 
Women 
attending 
the 
Women's 
Liberation 
conference, 
London, 1977 
in Spare 
Rib, May 1977, 
issue 
58, 
p. 
14. 
page 
286 
iv 
1 
Introduction 
This 
thesis 
is 
a personal 
and 
political 
project. 
My 
motivations 
for 
examining 
forms 
of 
fashioned femininity 
are 
rooted 
in 
an 
acknowledgement 
of 
the 
constructedness 
of my own 
and 
others' 
histories 
of self-fashioning, 
dissatisfactions 
with 
the 
limitations 
of 
the 
literature 
on 
this topic 
for 
I 
teaching 
and 
research purposes, 
and 
a 
desire 
to 
contribute 
empirical 
perspectives 
to the 
research 
on 
0 
femininity 
and 
feminism, 
for 
example 
on working-class, 
feminist 
and 
lesbian 
patterns 
of consumption. 
Before 
summarising my 
main 
aims, 
and 
accounting 
for 
my 
perspective 
and 
methodology, 
I have 
sketched 
some 
of 
the 
more compelling 
questions, 
gaps 
and 
tensions 
in 
the 
field 
and 
the 
literature 
that 
prompted 
my 
initial 
enquiries. 
Femininity: 
an under-researched 
territory 
Katherine 
Stern has interpreted 
as 
mainstream 
and 
'feminist 
neglect' 
the 
lack 
of 
debate 
on 
fashioning 
forms 
of 
femininity: 
"There 
is 
no comprehensive 
account 
ofthe aesthetic category, 
no 
analysis 
of1he 
details 
that 
characterisefemininity 
"(Stern, 
1997, 
p 
184). Empirical 
accounts 
of 
either 
feminine 
excess or so-called 
feminist 
fashioning 
are 
negligible. 
' 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
literature 
on 
fashioning 
femininity 
is 
paradoxically 
expansive 
and 
fugitive; 
an 
anti-fashioning 
rhetoric 
formed 
the 
core of 
the 
germinal 
Women's 
Liberation 
Movement 
and yet 
few 
writers and 
activists 
codified 
the 
specificity 
of 
in/appropriate 
fashionings. 
I 
The 
landscape 
for 
research 
on and 
theories 
of 
femininity 
in 
the 
late 
1990s 
suggested 
that this 
was 
a 
territory 
virtually 
relinquished 
to 
transvestism. 
The 
proscriptiveness 
of early 
Second-Wave 
discussions 
on 
femininity 
and 
the 
subsequent 
repudiation of 
feminine 
excess, 
notwithstanding 
the 
polemical 
feminist 
debates 
and conflicted 
standpoints 
on 
the 
politics 
of 
butch 
and 
femme, 
had 
left 
discussions 
of 
femininity 
to 
queer 
commentators 
extrapolating 
the 
political 
agency 
of 
drag. 
2 
Feminist 
repudiation 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
and gay 
male 
appropriation 
appeared 
to 
have 
erased 
forms 
of 
1 
This 
point 
is developed 
in 
the 
Literature Review. 
In 
most 
instances 
this thesis 
is 
discussing 
femininity 
as a 
roml 
of 
fashioning. 
Skegggs 
notes 
that, 
"The 
appearance 
offemininity 
i. 
e. 
the 
labour 
oflookingfeminine, can 
also 
be 
distinguishedfrom 
the 
labour 
of 
feminine 
characteristics, 
such 
as caring, 
supporting, 
passivity 
and non assertiveness, although 
the tivo 
are 
merged 
in 
the term 
femininity 
"' (Skeg, 
-, s, 
200 
1, 
p. 
297). Beverley Skeggs' 
Formations 
research 
(200 
1 
a, 
2001 
b) 
has 
usefully contributed 
to 
recent 
fernin 
ist debates 
on 
femininity. 
'Feminine 
excess' 
is 
a 
phrase 
I 
used 
throughout 
this thesis 
to 
define 
farms 
or 
fernin in 
ity 
that 
rely 
on 
cosmetic acts 
that 
exaa 
crate conventions 
of 
feminine 
rashioning for 
example, 
ornately 
or 
exaggeratedly 
fashioned 
hair, 
og 
0' 
jewellM 
and 
make-up 
use. 
At 
points 
this 
idea is 
expanded 
to 
include 
elaborately 
reminised 
gestures, 
costuming and voice. 
Fashioning is 
inextricably 
linked 
to 
but 
not 
synonymous 
with 
rashion. 
For 
example, 
I 
discuss 
the 
idea 
or 
fashion 
inertia 
where 
individuals 
or groups 
appear 
resistant 
to 
the 
impact 
orthe 
promotion 
or 
fashion 
and 
beauty 
indus(ries. 
feminine 
excess 
coined and expressed 
by 
women, 
forms I 
remembered 
pleasurably 
fashioning, 
identifying 
with and 
consuming. 
These 
memories and observations 
were 
frequently 
what 
I 
would 
describe 
as 
classed or 
Black 
or minority 
ethnic 
forms 
of 
fashioning. 
3 
Commenting 
on 
the 
class 
and 
raced 
dimension 
to the 
queered 
landscape 
of 
femininity in 
the 
1990s 
Tyler 
claimed, 
A 
real 
woman 
is 
a real 
lady; 
otherwise 
she 
is 
a 
female impersonator, 
a camp 
or a mimic whose 
4unnaturally' 
bad 
taste 
- 
like 
that 
of 
the 
working-class, 
ethnic 
or 
racially 
'other' 
woman 
- 
marks 
the 
impression 
as 
such. 
Miming 
the 
feminine 
means 
impersonating 
a white middle-class 
impersonation 
of an 
'other' 
ideal 
of 
femininity 
(ibid. 
p57). 
4 
Ferninist 
disinterest 
and 
the 
camp 
hegemony 
has left 
constituencies 
of women 
who 
chose/choose 
to 
ingenuously fashion 
to 
excess 
without 
irony 
paradoxically 
neglected and exploited 
as 
I 
discuss 
in 
'Queening 
It'. 
5 
Further 
epistemological 
gaps 
and 
tensions 
motivated 
this 
project. 
Notwithstanding 
the 
unfashionability 
of research 
on 
fashioning 
a 
strain 
of queer 
influenced 
work on so-called 
body 
C) 
modification 
proliferated coincident with 
the 
research 
period. 
I 
found 
the 
academic 
and media 
interest 
in 
this 
field 
strikingly contrasted 
with 
the 
neglect 
of 
the 
modified 
body's 
'common' 
correlate, 
the 
excessive 
jewellery fashionings; 
visible 
in 
many 
working-class 
and 
black 
and 
minority ethnic 
communities. 
6 
Similarly, 
concomitant 
with 
the 
literature 
review, 
I became 
increasingly 
aware of 
the 
2 
Indicating 
the 
scope 
of 
the 
queered 
cultural 
hegemony 
Tyler 
claimed 
in 
1991 
that 
"not 
onlyfemininity 
but 
even 
macho 
masculinity 
is 
readas 
camp, 
and 
therefore, 
radical 
" 
(Tyler, 199 
1, 
p. 
33). 
`I 
use 
the 
problematic 
terms 
working class 
and 
middle 
class variously 
to 
designate 
economic 
status 
and, more 
routinely, a 
disposition 
in 
relation 
to 
cultural 
capital and specific 
structuring 
habitus'. Skeggs 
has discussed 
how 
the 
"working 
class came 
into 
effect 
through 
middle class conceptualisations 
" 
(Skeggs, 
200 
1, 
p. 
4) 
enabled 
by 
Enlightenment 
technologies 
and 
that 
it 
was 
women 
"who 
were 
predominantly observed" 
(ibid. 
p. 
5), 
Significantly 
"Observation 
and 
interpretation 
of1he 
sexual 
behaviour 
of 
working-class 
women 
on 
the 
basis 
of 
their 
appearance 
was 
central 
to the 
production 
of 
[these] 
middle- 
class 
conceptualisations 
" 
(ibid. 
). This 
notion 
is 
acutely 
reflected 
in 
the 
last 
chapter of 
this thesis. 
I 
have 
also 
drawn 
on 
the 
productive 
analysis 
of class 
(identifications) determined 
by 
Bourdicu, 
1979, 
Walkerdinc, 1997, 
and 
Painter 
amongst 
oithers. 
Tile 
paradoxical 
mutability 
and recalcitrance 
of class 
identifications 
were 
rehearsed 
specifically 
by 
some participants 
including 
Michelle 
and 
Sandy: 
Michelle: 
I 
think 
it's 
hard 
saying 
(flat 
about 
class 
because 
we've got a middle-class 
lifestyle 
but 
we're all socialists and 
communists 
so 
[ 
... 
II 
mean 
I 
think 
itjust 
sounds 
dead 
naffif 
you say 
I've 
got a 
pure 
working-class 
identity, 
because 
I'm 
obviously 
middle 
class now, 
but I don't 
([link 
I've 
got 
middle-class 
values. 
I low 
do 
you 
define 
class? 
I 
mean 
I 
think 
class 
is 
still 
important, 
I don't 
think 
it's 
something 
that 
we shouldn't 
be looking 
at. 
I 
think 
it's 
still as 
important. 
' 
The 
elision 
of 
working-class 
white and 
minority 
ethnic 
fashioning 
in 
this 
comment 
is 
a 
theme 
returned 
to 
later 
in 
this 
thesis. 
Despite 
the 
rise 
of 
identity 
politics 
in 
the 
last decades 
of 
tile twentieth 
century, 
and 
the 
expansion 
of 
Black British 
populations 
in 
British 
urban 
contexts 
significantly 
in 
the 
post-war period, 
literature is 
scarce 
that 
accounts 
for 
cross-cilinic 
identifications 
in 
forms 
of 
fashioning. 
3 
Skeggs 
has 
stated 
"whenfemininity 
is 
played 
straight, 
that 
is 
when 
it 
is 
not camped tip 
or 
disavowed, 
it 
is 
seen 
10 
constitute a 
capitulation, 
a sivamp, 
something 
maternal, 
ensnared or 
ensnaring 
" 
(Biddy 
Martin 
quoted 
in 
Skeggs, 200 1, 
p. 
300). 
' 
The 
visibility 
of modif led, mainly young, 
bodies 
on 
(lie 
streets 
of 
Glasgow 
increased 
over 
the 
research 
period. 
In West End 
areas, 
for 
example 
in 
bohernian/academic 
zones, modifications 
appeared 
to 
be illustrative 
of 
tile 
styles and 
forms discussed 
in 
academic, 
alternative 
and art 
texts. 
In 
the 
Glasgow University 
campus and 
the 
environs 
of 
Glasgow 
School 
orArt 
I 
noted 
ethnic 
tattooing, 
nose, 
lip, 
tongue, 
navel and 
eyebrow 
piercings, 
ear 
lobe 
stretching, 
corseting etc. 
In 
contrast 
'body 
modifications' 
evident 
in 
Glasgow's 
East End 
and 
in 
other 
less 
affluent 
areas, 
in 
particular 
the 
widespread 
use 
of multiple 
bangles, 
rings 
and 
ear 
piercings 
were 
not represented within 
the 
new 
literature 
or 
at 
related conferences. 
The 
Style 
conference 
in 
Bowling 
Green, Ohio, 
1997, 
captured 
the 
zeitgeist. 
MacKendrick 
and 
Braunberger 
discussed 
tattooing 
and 
corsetintg 
respectively 
focussing 
2 
development; 
influenced 
by 
post modernity 
and 
the 
queer 
turn 
in 
popular culture 
of 
the 
paradoxical 
disdain/fashionability 
of so-called 
trailer trash 
fashions. 
This 
vogue 
appeared 
to 
reiterate 
the 
notion 
of 
(mythologised) 
working-class 
fashioning 
to 
excess 
as worthy 
of attention 
solely 
for 
parodic, 
ironic 
and 
deconstructive 
purposes. 
The 
tensions 
outlined above, 
between 
feminist 
and 
queer 
standpoints 
and 
perspectives, 
and 
notions 
of classed 
fashionings 
were 
conflicted 
by 
my own 
autobiography 
or 
stories of 
experiencing 
academia, 
feminism 
and 
self-fashionin 
0.7 
My 
self-fashioning 
history 
represents a 
bifurcation 
of 
dispositions, 
rooted 
in 
a working-class 
habitus 
and 
(re) 
constructed 
in 
adulthood 
in 
an 
intensely 
visual 
self-consciously, 
fashioned, 
middle-class 
milieu. 
8 
My 
increasing 
engagement 
with 
feminist 
politics and 
activism 
from 
at 
least 
1986 
produced 
a 
further 
array 
of 
(fashioning) 
identifications 
and reconstructions. 
Memory 
work undertaken 
for 
this 
thesis 
rehearsed 
episodes 
of 
learning 
to 
'pass' 
in 
middle-class 
contexts 
that 
entailed 
bodil 
, 
linguistic 
and 
psychological 
tensions. 
9 
I 
also acknowledged 
classed 
y 
t, 
C) 
tensions 
in 
the 
distinct 
communities 
I 
inhabited 
prior 
to 
and 
throughout 
the 
research 
process; as 
a 
student 
and 
lecturer 
at 
the 
Glasgow School 
of 
Art, 
my 
first 
exposure 
to 
University 
cultures 
at 
the 
start 
of 
this 
research project, 
in 
feminist 
groups 
and 
the 
women's 
project 
that 
I helped 
to 
co-ordinate, 
at 
academic conferences 
I 
attended 
and 
the 
block 
of council 
flats 
I 
lived 
in 
whilst a 
lecturer 
and a 
doctoral 
student. 
In 
al 
I 
these 
contexts 
I 
was 
made 
aware 
that 
"the 
body 
and 
bodily 
dispositions [carried] 
the 
markers ofsocial 
class" 
(Skeggs, 1997, 
p. 
82). 
10 
Fashioned 
bodies in 
urban contexts 
In 
the 
broader 
field 
of 
Glasgow 
I 
was 
aware 
of classed 
zones 
of 
consumption 
and 
fashioning 
and 
the 
distribution 
of 
distinctly 
fashioned 
bodies 
in 
the 
urban environment. 
During 
the 
research period 
I 
travelled 
frequently 
on 
foot, between 
workplaces, 
at 
the 
Glasgow 
School 
of 
Art 
in 
bohemian 
autobiographically 
on 
their 
'academic' 
bodies' 
modifications 
which 
they 
interpreted 
as assaults 
on 
the 
academy's 
expectations 
of 
'docile 
bodies' 
(MacKendrick, 
1997; Braunbcrger, 
1997). 
Only 
one 
broader 
empirical 
study 
was 
presented, 
Waggoner 
and 
O'Brien's 
research 
on 
how 
white 
feminist 
academies 
develop 
strategies 
for 
asserting 
agency 
in institutions 
through their 
C, 
C, 
0 
C, 
fashioning 
(Waggoner 
and 
O'Brien 
, 
1997 
see also, 
Patrick, 
1998, 
pp. 
32-33). 
There 
were 
no papers 
on classed 
and/or vernacular 
0 CIO 
body 
modifications. 
7 
Walkerdine 
(1997), 
Skeggs 
(2001), 
Stanley 
(1995), Plummer 
(2000) 
and others 
have 
demonstrated 
how 
working-class 
identities 
may 
be 
subject 
to 
internalised 
conflict 
even 
on 
thejourney 
to 
academia: 
"The 
verypossihility 
ofsuccess 
depen4s] 
upon 
a 
physical, 
social 
andpsychological 
split 
[leavinol 
wonien 
with 
'the 
conviction 
that 
they 
don'tfit 
"' 
(Plummer, 
2000, 
p. 
x). 
C 
From 
1997 1 
attended 
Glasgow 
School 
of 
Art 
as an 
Embroidered 
and 
Woven Textiles 
student, 
subsequently 
undertaking an 
MA 
in 
Design 
and 
co-founding 
the 
Glasgow-based 
design 
company 
Graven Images. 
0 
91 
discuss 
the 
significance 
of 
memory work 
as a methodology 
used 
in 
this thesis 
later in 
this 
introduction. 
Bourdieu's 
term 
habitus, 
defines 
the 
"systems 
ofelispositions 
characteristic 
of 
the 
different 
classes 
" (Bourdieu, 
1979, 
p. 
6). 
It is 
a 
"structured 
and structuring 
structure. 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
17 
1) 
specifically 
in 
the 
interrelation 
of 
production 
and appreciation 
of 
classifiable 
judgements in 
which 
"the 
space 
of 
lifest), les 
is 
constituted 
"(ibid 
p. 
170). 
'" 
Other 
commentators 
have 
discussed 
tensions 
in 
terms 
of 
femininity 
versus 
feminism 
or 
Modernism, 
for 
example, 
I 
Wary 
Fawcett has 
acknowledged 
that 
growing up, 
a 
lower 
middle-class 
product 
of 
(lie 
baby 
boom 
in 
Sunderland 
in 
the 
1960s 
her 
"love 
C, 
of 
[Modern i 
st] 
fashion 
was part ofthe 
tension 
heheeen 
the 
achieving ine 
and 
traditionallyfenlinine 
me 
"(Fawcett, 
2002, 
p. 
122). 
3 
1. Independent 
jewellers, Gallowgate 
and 
Trongate. 
Glasgow, 
June 
2003 
Photos: 
Adele Patrick. 
; 
TQP 
5 
Garnethill 
ill 
the 
West 
Fild 
(o 
(lie 
Women's 
[. 
Ihrar? 
III economically and 
architcourall? Ileg-1ccted 
Tron-ate 
III 
(lie 
F, 
ast 
Fnd. 
'' 
I 
beuan 
to 
consciously 
o0serve and note 
this 
?ls ?1 lll()%Clllcllt 
1,1,0111 
MI 
environment 
where 
ironic. 
(self-) 
collsclousl? 
Idlos)[1cratic 
filshloll 
excesses 
prevailed. 
authored 
and 
authorised 
by 
the 
proximity ofthe 
School 
ofAr(, 
(hrough 
city 
cenire 
fashion 
orthodo\\ 
(o 
the 
increasin-1v 
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(Ile 
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unnameable. 
ClLISiVe 
bUt 
undeniably 
excessive 
forms 
off"Ishiolling, 
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1, 
I 
found 
little 
in 
the 
leminist 
or 
mainstream canon 
that 
cotild 
illuminme 
and 
offer productive 
allal?scs 
ofthe 
lClIsiolls 
between 
class. 
lonns 
offashionino 
and 
Issues 
oflusle 
that 
clearly 
defincd 
these 
differences 
ill 
'embodied 
capital' 
(Skeggs. 
2001. 
p. 
10). 
Working 
part-Ome 
\\ith 
groups ofmaml? 
middle-class 
(women) 
students 
a( 
Glasgow 
School 
ofArt, 
and 
par(-time 
?vijll 
t1le 
llj?jiljl\ \k0l. 
1?111, 
ClasS ?vollwll 
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the 
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(and 
the 
\\omell \\110 
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fashioned 
Illellisckcs 
as 
lellmllsts 
identified 
Ill 
both) 
raised 
my 
awareness of 
these 
strucuirlm, 
and 
structured 
discrete 
habitus. 
'' 
Gaining 
deeper 
understandin- 
ofilly 
own 
and 
other women's 
e\1wriences 
of(Icsiring and 
performing 
excessive 
femininity Wie 
most 
padiologised 
ofthe 
forms 
off'enuninit\. 
I-or 
both 
mainstream 
and 
1eminist 
commentators 
and 
in 
social 
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cultural 
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I 
In(end 
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an urgent 
project, 
a \vaN ofaddressing 
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4 
2 Literature Review 
Femininity 
Early 
second-wave 
feminist 
positions 
on 
fashioning 
femininity 
I 
shall 
not allure 
you 
with 
dangling 
ornaments 
Nor 
entice 
you 
with 
painted 
face 
Nor 
dazzle 
you 
with 
natty 
garments 
I 
shall 
not please 
you 
with 
a veneer 
belying 
my 
thoughts 
No, I 
shall 
not come 
to 
you 
cloaked 
in 
false 
beauty 
only 
to 
disillusion 
you 
later 
I 
shall come 
bald. 
(Janet 
Russo, Women: 
A Journal 
of 
Women's 
Liberation, 
1970) 
In 
the 
proliferation 
of 
feminist 
publishing, 
actions 
and 
artworks 
in 
the 
United 
States 
and 
in 
Britain 
following 
the 
resurgence 
of 
feminism 
in 
the 
late 
1960s, 
forms 
of 
fashioned 
femininity 
were 
iconoclastically 
and 
literally 
trashed. 
In 
a 
revolutionary 
move, 
the 
fashioning 
of 
femininity 
became 
unequivocally 
political. 
In 
subsequent 
decades, 
a 
reductive 
reading 
of 
fashioning femininity 
would 
be 
contested 
from 
within 
and 
outside 
feminist 
scholarship, 
nevertheless, 
a resilient paradigm 
had 
been 
established 
early 
in 
the 
Second-Wave. 
Excessive 
or cosmetic 
forms 
of 
fashioning femininity 
were seen 
by feminist 
writers 
to 
variously 
connote: 
the 
(patriarchal) 
subjugation 
of women 
through 
representations 
of 
fashioned 
femininity 
in 
advertising 
and 
in 
broader 
cultural 
contexts 
(Florika, 
1970; 
Rich, 
1980) 
the 
erasure 
of 
difference 
in 
the 
normalisation 
of 
the 
'made-up' 
woman 
(Dworkin, 
1974; 
MacKinnon, 
1982) 
the 
sexualisation 
and 
objectification 
of 
women 
through 
cosmetic 
acts 
for 
the 
male 
gaze 
(Mulvey, 
1975; 
Brownmiller, 
1984; 
Rich, 
1990) 
alienation 
(Daly, 
1978; 
Bartky, 
1990) 
a political 
weapon 
against 
women 
(Chapkis, 
1988; Wolf, 
1990; 
Faludi, 
1992) 
the 
internalisation 
of 
psychoanalytic 
'lack' 
and 
the 
a 
priori evidence of 
false 
consciousness 
(Friedan, 
1963; Dworkin, 
1974; 
Mulvey, 
1975; 
Greer, 
1981; 
Cottingham, 
1999)1. 
1 
Susan 
Bordo 
(1995) has 
noted 
that 
in 
mainstream 
theory 
the 
role of 
feminism in 
a 
developing 
a political 
understanding of 
the 
body 
is 
rarely 
acknowledged 
(Bordo, 
1995, 
p. 
16). Critiquing 
the tendency 
to 
omit 
feminist 
thinking 
from 
work on 
the 
body 
from 
Marx 
to 
Foucault, 
Bordo 
argues 
that there 
has been 
neglect 
of 
'personal 
politics' 
as an 
intellectual 
paradigm, 
and 
in 
particular 
"to 
the 
new understanding 
ofthe 
body 
that 
: 
personalpolitics'ushered 
in 
" (ibid. 
p. 
17). 
S 
The 
Second-Wave 
identity 
'feminist' 
was 
"predicated 
on a 
rejection 
offemininity" 
(Hollows, 
2000, 
p. 
1). 
2 
For 
many 
feminist 
writers 
and activists 
fashioning 
femininity 
was 
not 
indicted 
as 
being 
a 
superficial 
distraction 
to 
women engaged 
in 
feminist 
work, on 
the 
contrary, 
it 
was seen as 
injurious 
to 
Liberation 
itself, 
connoting oppression, 
bracketed 
with 
and/or 
evidence 
of violence 
against women 
by 
men. 
3 
The 
phrase 
'the 
personal 
is 
political 
A 
sanctioned 
and galvanised 
militancy 
in formally 
discrete 
private 
and public realms. 
The 
refusal 
of 
the 
so-called 
tyranny 
of specific 
cosmetic 
acts 
(enacted in 
the 
home) 
were 
ideologically linked 
to 
more 
collective 
forms 
of militancy 
(in 
the 
streets). 
Politicising 
such 
formally 
trivial/ised 
aspects 
of women's 
lives 
was 
informed 
by 
the 
collective 
disclosure 
and analysis 
of 
shared 
oppression 
in 
Consciousness 
Raising 
(CR) 
groups 
that 
operated 
in 
the 
Movement from 
the 
1960s. 
5 
But 
early 
Second-Wave feminist 
analysis 
and 
literature 
on 
fashioning 
femininity 
was 
paradoxically 
expansive 
and 
fugitive. 
Despite 
widespread 
adoption 
of an 
anti-femininity 
rhetoric, 
few 
writers 
and 
activists 
codified 
the 
specificity 
of 
in/appropriate 
fashionings. 
Actions 
against 
forms 
of 
fashioned 
femininity 
were more often 
a 
trashing 
of caricatures, 
of an 
unnamed 
Other, 
a 
Stereotype 
of 
6 
the 
Eternal 
Feminine 
(Greer, 
198 1, 
p. 
58) 
or 
homogenised 
Beauty 
Queens. Some 
later 
commentators 
have 
argued 
that 
this 
is 
evidence of 
early 
campaigners' 
desire 
to 
avoid 
demonising 
women 
involved in 
cosmetic acts or 
beauty 
pageants. 
Bordo has 
stated 
that, 
"the 
critique 
presented at 
that 
demonstration 
[No More Miss 
America] 
wasfarfrom 
[a] 
theoretically 
crude, 
essentialisingprogram 
" (Bordo 
1995, 
P. 
19). 
1 
3 
Exhortations 
against 
fashioning femininity 
can 
be found 
in 
the 
genealogy of 
texts 
of 
Women's 
Liberation, from 
materialist, 
cultural, socialist, 
radical, 
Marxist 
and 
lesbian 
feminist 
perspectives; 
indeed, 
many 
commentators 
have 
routinely cited 
the 
germinal action 
for Second-Wave feminism 
as 
being 
the 
trashing 
of 
Miss America 
(Watson 
and 
Martin, 2000, 
Kramarae 
and 
Treichler 
1985, 
Cottingham, 1999) This 
triggered 
years of 
copycat 
actions 
by feminists 
across 
the 
world. 
Arguably 
the 
earliest 
demonstration 
in 
Britain, 
in 
1969 
occurred at 
the 
Festival 
of 
London 
Stores 
where 
Miss Nelbarden 
Swimwear 
was appearing, 
it 
was reported 
in 
the 
July 
issue 
of 
Shrew. An 
early 
account 
of 
the 
Miss World demonstration 
appeared 
in 
the 
Nov/Dec 
issue, 
1969 
3 
Defining 
the 
eight 
characteristics 
of mate power 
(following 
an essay 
by 
Kathleen 
Gough) 
in her 
pamphlet 
Compulsory 
Heterosexuality 
and 
lesbian 
existence, 
Adrienne Rich 
interpreted 
'feminine dress 
codes' 
thus: 
" 5. 
to 
collfine 
themphysically 
and 
prevent 
their 
movement 
by 
means of rape as 
terrorism, 
keeping 
women 
off 
the 
streets; 
purdah; 
footbinding; 
atrophying of 
women's 
athletic 
capabilities; 
haute 
couture, 
'feminine 
" dress 
codes; 
the 
veil, 
sexual 
harassment 
on 
the 
streets; 
horizontal 
segregation 
ofwomen 
in 
employment; prescriptionsfor 
'fiull 
time 
" 
mothering; enforced 
economic 
dependence 
ofwives. 
" (Rich, 
undated pamphlct? 
p. 
11) For 
Catherine MacKinnon 
femininity 
was 
inextricably 
linked 
to 
men's 
sexual 
dominance 
over women, 
thus, 
"Femaleness 
meansfemlninio? 
which means attractiveness 
to 
men, 
which 
means 
sexual 
attractiveness, which 
means sexual 
availability on male 
terms 
" (MacKinnon, 1982, 
p. 
183). 
'Coined 
by Carol 
Hanisch 
and 
published 
in 
Notesfrom 
the 
secondyear 
(1970) 
see 
Humm, 
1989, 
p. 
204. 
5 
In her introduction 
to 
Sisterhood 
is 
Powerful 
(1970) 
Robin 
Morgan 
testified that, 
"During 
the 
pastyear 
I... 
was arrested 
on a 
militant women's 
liberation 
action, 
spent 
some 
time 
injail, 
stopped 
wearing makeup 
and 
shaving 
my 
legs, 
started 
to 
learn karate 
and changed 
my 
politics completely. 
That 
is, 
I became, 
somewhere 
along 
the 
way 
a 
feminist'committed 
to 
Women's 
Revolution. 
" (Morgan, 
1970, 
p. 
xvi) 
In 1976, 
Sandra Lee 
Bartky 
used 
this 
quote 
to 
infer, 
in 
her 
article 
'Toward 
a 
phenomenology 
of 
feminist 
consciousness. 
' how 
a 
rejection 
of 
fashioned femininity 
was 
a 
prerequisite, or 
sign 
of raised 
consciousness. 
"... 
these 
changes 
in 
behaviour 
go 
hand 
in 
hand 
with 
changes 
in 
consciousness: 
to 
become 
afeminist 
is 
to 
develop 
a 
radically 
altered 
consciousness of 
onesel( 
, 
ofolhers... 
Feminists 
themselves 
have 
a namefor 
the 
struggle 
to 
clarify 
and 
holdfast 
to this 
way of 
apprehending 
things: 
They 
call 
it 
'consciousness 
raising 
"' (Bartky, 1990, 
p. 
12). 
' 
For 
example, 
'The 
Degrading 
Mindless-Boob-Girlie 
Symbol' 
from 
the 
10 
points 
of 
protest 
at 
the 
No 
More Miss 
America 
demonstration, 
cited 
in 
Morgan, 
op. 
cit. 
(1970, 
p. 
586). 
7 
Others involved 
in 
the 
actions, 
including 
Hanisch 
have 
contested 
this. 
She 
claimed, 
" 
One 
of 
the 
biggest 
mistakes of 
the 
whole 
6 
NECK AND 
SHOULDEkI, 
pancaked 
stimmertanned 
Q; Why 
haven't 
women made 
great 
works 
of 
art? 
-ut 
jo fl-i" ivaA ait 
4atp 
asnmq 
:V 
2. Diagram 
demonstrating 
Ileauty 
hurts' 
in 
Andrea 
Dworkin, Woman-Haling, 
1974, 
page 
117. 
Andrea 
Dworkin 
was alone 
in her 
attempt 
to 
codify 
the 
'hurt' 
inherent in Fashioning femininity, 
(Dworkin, 
1974, 
p. 
117) 
but 
charges against 
specific women were seldom 
levelled 
in 
tleminist 
literature 
or 
'zap 
actions'. 
However, 
the 
development 
of a plienomeno 
logical 
Interpretation ofcosmetic acts 
is 
evident 
in feminist 
analyses 
of 
fashioned 
femininity forming 
a 
trajectory 
from 
early 
Second-Wave 
to 
contemporary 
publications 
and 
debates. 
' 
Although 
precise 
prohibitions 
are avoided, 
Second-Wave 
texts 
articulated 
binary 
oppositions 
between 
good/bad, 
fern 
in ist/counter-revo 
I 
Lit 
ionary, 
false/aUthentic 
forms 
of 
appearance. 
9 
In 
Britain, 
the 
'popularisation' 
of 
feminism 
was 
heralded 
by 
the 
publication 
in 
1970 
of 
Germaine 
Greer's 
The Female Eunuch, 
whose 
thesis 
rested on 
its indictment 
of women's 
historical 
preoccupation 
with 
the 
I 
idiotic 
ritual' 
of cosmetic 
acts. 
"' 
Such identifications, 
unconsciously rehearsed 
the 
notion 
in 
both 
mainstrearn and 
feminist 
cultures of 
fashioning 
as 
a 
differentiating 
marker, 
(in 
complex 
ways 
but 
indubitably 
on 
the 
grounds 
of class), 
between 
thinking 
women 
and 
feminine 
wornen. 
I 
The 
imposed 
mask of 
femininity 
versus 
a 
liberated 
image 
of womanhood 
is 
a paradigm 
in 
early 
Second-Wave 
polemics, 
activism 
and 
art and 
was 
inherent 
in 
the 
formulation 
of alternative 
[anti-] 
pageant 
[action] 
wasouranti- 
womanisin... posters 
which 
read 
'UpAgainst 
the 
Wall, Miss America', 'MissAmerlcaSells 
it, 
'and 'Afiss 
America is 
a 
Big Falsie, 
'hardly 
raised 
any 
woman's 
consciousness 
and really 
harmed 
the 
cause 
of 
sisterhood 
.. 
Terivilhus 
[... jalsocroivninga 
Miss America 
and 
all 
beautiful 
it-omen came 
off as our enemy 
instead 
of 
our 
sisters 
that 
slifi) 
live 
sheep 
Hiss 
America 
sort ofsaid 
that 
beautiful 
it-omen 
are sheep 
" 
(Hanisch, 
1969, in 
Kraniarae 
and'Freichler 
1995, 
pp. 
276- 
277), Watson 
and 
Martin 
have 
also 
noted, 
"As 
the 
pageant entered 
the 
1970s 
the 
controversies continued 
Aliss America 
1972, 
Laurel 
Shaefer 
ivas 
burned 
in 
effigy 
by 
radicalfeminists 
as she 
toured 
various cities 
during 
her 
reign. 
She 
received 
threats 
on 
her 
as 
ivell 
" 
(Watson 
and 
Martin, 2000, 
p. 
I 11). 
' 
For 
example 
a session 
oil 
Third-Wave Femininity 
was 
included at 
theThird 
Wave 
Feminism 
conference, 
Exeter University, 
July, 
2002. 
' 
in 
flyers 
calling 
for 
'No 
More 
Miss America' 
in 
August 
1968 
activists 
stated: 
"There 
will 
be 
Picket 
Lines, Guerrilla Theatre. 
Leafleting; 
Lobbying 
Visits 
to the 
contestants urging our sisters 
to 
reject 
the 
Pageant 
Farce 
andjoin 
us: a 
huge 
Freedom 
Trash 
Can (in 
which 
lie 
will 
throw 
bras, 
girdles, curlers, 
false 
eyelashes, wigs, and 
representative 
issues 
of 
Cosmopolitan, 
Ladies'Home 
Journal, 
Family 
Circle 
etc. 
- 
bring 
any such woman-garhageyou 
have 
around 
the 
house) " 
(Morgan, 
1970, 
p. 
585). 
"' 
Greer 
embodied 
herselfin 
the 
text 
as a 
template 
for 
New 
Womanhood: 
"I 
ain sick qfpeering 
at 
the 
world 
throughfii1se 
eyelashes, 
so 
everything 
Isee 
is 
mixed up 
with a 
shadois, ofbought 
hairs; I'm 
sick qfiveighting 
iny 
head 
ivith a 
deadmane I'm 
sick 
of 
the 
Powder 
Room 
" 
(Greer, 
198 1, 
p. 
61 ). 
Fashioning 
a 
feminist 
identity 
however 
elusive 
a concept 
was 
cast as a more 
intellectually 
developed 
correlate 
to the 
infantile 
excess oftashioned 
t?niininjly. 
" 
The 
eighteenth 
century 
Bluestocking 
connoted an 
"uqfeminine 
andpretentious woman 
" 
(Kraniarae 
and 
Treichler, 1995, 
p. 
77). 
The 
m 
th 
endures 
that 
in 
the 
precursors 
to the 
'salons', 
gatherings 
for intellectual 
conversation, 
the 
term 
was 
first 
used 
in 1750s 
y 
after 
a vogue 
for blue 
stockings was 
initiated 
by 
one of 
the 
people attending wore 
blue 
worsted 
insicad 
oftilack silk stockings. 
Originating 
as a 
term 
to 
denote 
-iqformal 
or 
hoinel 
"v 
dress 
", it 
quickly came 
to 
refer 
to 
"intellectual, 
literary 
or 
learned 
women 
"(ibid. 
p. 
77). 
In 
the 
late 1960s, 
The Redstockings 
*'the 
most 
strong?v 
verbalisedpro-o-oinen 
line 
o/ 
all 
the 
jearly 
Second 
Wave US 
ferninistj 
groups 
" 
(Celestine 
Ware, 
cited 
in Kramarae 
and'Freichler, 
1985, 
p. 
388) 
invoked 
the 
historical 
connection 
between fashioning/1eminism 
and anti-Ilernininity. 
The 
name, coined 
by Shularnith 
Firestone 
ill 
1969 
was 
intended 
"to 
represent 
a synthesis of 
livo 
traditions. 
that 
of 
the 
earlierftinintst 
theoreticians 
and 
writers 
who where 
insultingh- 
called 
Bluestockings 
in 
the 
nineteenth 
century 
and 
the 
inihiant 
political 
tradition 
q1'radicals 
-- 
the 
red qf revolution 
" 
(Sarachild, 
cited 
in Krainarac 
and 
Treichler, 
1985, 
p. 
387). In 
her discussion 
of 
the 
Danish 
Redstocking 
Movement, 
(1970-1985) 
Lynn 
Walter 
raised a 
range of' 
illuminating 
points, 
following 
BOUrdieu. The 
movement 
resembled 
their 
American 
and 
British 
counterparts? 
Consciousness 
Raising 
(or 
'basis' 
groups) and 
'actions' 
were used 
to 
confront 
patriarchy 
(and 
capitalism) 
and 
women's 
subjection 
to 
a 
"societal 
beaut), 
contest". 
Their first 
action 
was 
to 
parade 
in 
a public place 
in 
*sexy 
apparel' 
and, 
oil 
reaching 
tile town 
11,111, 
threw 
wigs, 
bras 
and 
false 
eyelashes 
in 
the trash 
(Walter, 
1990, 
p. 
108). Walter 
interprets 
the 
Movement's 
1110tivilholl 
to *embody 
ugliness' 
as, 
in 
part, a rebellion 
"against 
the 
habitus 
ofntid(ile-clcissftt? titiinity, 
". She 
argues 
that 
the 
)oung 
students' 
who 
initiated 
the 
movement 
championing 
of' 
'ugliness' 
could 
be 
attributed 
to 
economic 
position 
and 
generation, 
that 
is: being 
relatively 
privileged 
they 
had 
options 
for 
careers and could 
choose 
to 
have 
children 
without 
the 
support ofa man? 
Were-YOung enough 
to 
he 
attractive 
to 
'their'nian 
no matter 
how 
'ugly'they 
may 
dress 
" 
(Walter, 
1990, 
p. 
114). 
7 
epistemologies. 
12 
By 
1989, 
feminist 
positions on 
fashioning 
femininity 
had become 
so over-determined 
through 
the 
distorting 
lens 
of 
a 
largely hostile 
mainstream media 
that 
Hilary Radner 
could remark, 
"Popular 
wisdom would 
seem 
to 
suggest 
that to 
acceptfeminism 
is 
somehow 
to 
refinquishfemininity" 
(Radner, 
1989, 
p. 
319). 
In 
an 
attempt 
to 
stem revisionism 
in 
this 
field, 
Bordo 
reviewed 
feminist 
writings against sexist 
ideology 
in 
the 
early 
Second Wave 
and concluded 
that 
rather 
than 
men's 
desires 
and 
capitalist 
patriarchy 
being 
construed as 
determining 
feminine 
forms 
of 
fashioning, 
women 
themselves 
were 
indicted 
as, 
"responsiblefor 
their 
sufferingsfrom 
the 
whims 
and 
bodily 
tyrannies 
offashion 
"(Bordo, 
1995, 
p. 
22). 
13 
The 
feminist 
anti-theses 
then 
contested 
that 
women 
were 
the 
'done 
to' 
not 
the 
'doer', 
that 
fashion 
connoted 
self-inflicted 
bondage. 
Bordo 
interprets 
this 
as, 
"a 
crucial 
historical 
moment 
in 
the 
developing 
articulation 
ofa new 
understanding 
ofthe sexual 
politics ofthe 
boty' 
(ibid. 
p. 
23). 
'Beyond 
the 
Oppressor/Oppressed 
model': 
expanding 
feminist 
knowledge 
on 
femininity 
Feminists 
are widely regarded as enemies 
of 
the 
family; 
we are also 
seen as enemies of 
the 
stiletto 
heel 
and 
the 
beauty 
parlour, 
in 
a 
word, as enemies 
of glamour. 
Hostility 
on 
the 
part 
of 
some women 
to 
feminism 
may 
have 
its 
origin 
here 
(Bartky, 
cited 
in 
Gaines 1990, 
p. 
3). 
Bordo 
demonstrated 
that 
by 
the 
1980s 
the 
reductive paradigm, 
men 
are powerful 
and women 
are 
powerless, 
proved 
an 
inadequate 
one 
in 
the 
face 
of a matrix of 
criticisms 
(Bordo, 
1995, 
p. 
23). 
Increasingly, 
demands 
were made 
for 
constructing 
theory that 
would 
account 
for 
the 
experiences of 
women 
from 
different 
class and ethnic 
backgrounds. 
Others 
argued 
against 
feminist depictions 
of 
women 
as passive 
and 
lacking in 
agency, either 
in 
their 
collusion with or 
resistance 
to 
patriarchy. 
14 
From 
the 
1970s, 
feminist ideas had begun 
to 
percolate 
through 
US 
and 
British 
academic 
institutions. 
The 
development 
of 
post-structuralism, 
feminist 
film 
theory 
and 
(feminist) 
cultural 
studies enabled 
a 
" 
For 
example 
the 
polemics of 
WITCH. 
Covens 
sprang 
from 
a group 
inaugurated 
on 
Halloween 
1968. 
The New York 
coven 
stated 
"WITCH 
lives 
and 
laughs 
in 
every 
woman. 
She 
Is 
thefree 
part ofeach of 
us, 
beneath 
the 
shy 
smiles, 
the 
acquiescence 
to 
absurd 
male 
domination, 
the 
make-up 
orflesh 
suffocating clothing 
our 
sick society 
demands 
" (WITCH, 
1970, 
pp. 
605-606). 
Morgan 
expressed 
how 
the 
euphoric rejection 
of, 
the 
so-called 
cult 
of 
femininity 
promised 
revolutionary 
changes and 
an 
authenticity 
to the 
personal 
and political 
lives 
of 
feminists: 
"The death 
of 
the 
concept ofAftssAmerica 
at 
Atlantic 
city 
(which 
was celebrated 
by 
a candlelitfuneral 
dance 
on 
the 
boardwalk 
at 
midnight) 
was 
only 
the 
beginning. 
A 
sisterhood 
offree 
women 
is 
fiving 
birth 
to 
a new 
life-style, 
and 
the throes 
ofits 
tabour 
are authentic 
stages 
in 
the 
Revolution 
" 
(Morgan, 1970, 
p. 
78). 
3, 
Even 
in 
matters 
of extreme 
body 
modification, 
"she 
[was 
found 
to 
be] her 
own 
worst 
enemy" 
(ibid. 
). 
A 
somewhat 
uncomfortable anti-Sccond 
-Wave 
alliance was 
forged between 
a 
defensive 
academia 
and 
the 
feminist 
critics 
of 
the 
early 
polemics. 
'Old Feminism' 
was 
critiqued 
"for 
Its, 
'lack 
oftextual sophistication 
- 
In 
general, 
the 
'old'femlnist 
discourse 
is 
seen 
as 
having 
constructed 
an 
insufficiently 
textured, 
undiscerningly 
dualistic, 
overly 
Pessimistic 
(if 
not 
paranoid) 
view 
ofthe 
politics 
ofthe 
body 
"(ibid. 
). 
8 
more 
theoretically 
sophisticated notion of patriarchal 
(and 
capitalist) 
power 
to 
be 
articulated, 
sustaining, 
and 
arguably 
institutionalising 
forms 
of 
the 
women's 
movement within 
academia. 
This 
work 
did 
much 
to 
problematise 
the 
earlier 
movement's 
totalising 
concept 
of 
(oppressive) 
male power 
and 
(oppressed) 
female 
passivity and 
gave 
rise 
to 
the 
notion of 
the 
politics of 
women's 
pleasures'. 
15 
Some 
feminists 
working 
in 
cultural 
studies, 
notably 
Angela McRobbie 
(for 
example, 
199 
1) 
influenced 
by Althusserian 
theories 
of 
ideology 
and 
Gramsci's 
notion 
of cultural 
hegemony, 
embarked 
on 
analyses 
of 
individual 
media 
texts, 
significantly 
the 
girls 
magazine, 
Jackie. 
16 
In 
this 
germinal 
text, the 
relationship 
of girls and 
women 
to 
an 
oppressive 
notion of 
fashioning 
is ideologically 
apparent. 
McRobbie 
found 
it 
almost 
impossible 
to 
imagine 
any 
modes 
of 
resistance 
available 
for 
readers 
against 
the 
totalising 
frame 
of 
heterosexual 
romance 
foregrounded 
in 
Jackie. 
17 
In 
the 
wider 
frame, 
feminist 
campaigners 
were 
finding 
such 
approaches, allied 
to 
'Images 
of 
Women' 
criticism 
useful 
in indicting 
pornographic 
media and 
other 
texts that 
'objectified 
women"' 
(CCCS 
Women's 
Studies Group 
1978, 
Dworkin, 
198 1, 
MacKinnon, 
1982). The 
notion of 
women's 
objectification 
in 
man-made representations 
was 
disseminated 
at 
a so-called grass 
roots as well as 
academic 
level 
through 
debates, 
demonstrations 
and 
actions as 
well 
as 
forming iconographic 
and 
iconoclastic 
images 
used 
on postcards, 
posters, 
placards, 
graffiti, 
button badges, 
T-shirts 
and other 
paraphernalia, 
in 
artworks and 
via 
British 
publications 
such 
as 
Spare 
Rib. 
However, 
the 
'transmission 
view of 
communication' 
began 
to 
be 
subject 
to 
criticisms 
within 
academia 
to 
the 
extent 
that 
by 
1994, 
van 
Zoonen, 
in Feminist 
Media Studies, 
conceded 
that 
"the 
academic 
study ofmass 
communication 
is 
in 
the 
middle 
of a paradigm shift 
involving 
a 
movement 
towards 
perspectives 
in 
which 
meaning 
is 
understood 
as 
constructed out oftistorically 
and 
socially situated 
negotiation 
between 
institutional 
producers 
ofmeaning 
and audiences as producers 
ofteaning 
" 
(van 
Zoonen, 
1994, 
p. 
27). 
19 
Is 
Although 
cultural 
studies 
had 
Marxist 
and 
left 
political 
roots 
and 
was 
linked 
to 
non-academic 
progressive 
political 
groups 
the 
relationship 
between 
those 
feminists 
who 
acknowledged 
women's 
pleasures 
in 
the 
consumption 
of 
popular 
culture 
and 
the 
residual 
political 
aims of 
feminism 
became 
a classic 
issue 
in feminist 
media 
theory 
(van 
Zoonen, 
1994, 
p. 
6). 
"' 
McRobbie 
critiqued 
the 
text, 
using serniology, on 
the 
basis 
of 
the 
anti-unionism 
and capitalist 
entrepreneurship of 
the 
publisher, and 
the 
coercion of 
the 
readers 
of 
to 
comply 
with 
the 
wishes 
of 
the 
dominant 
order, 
Jackie 
was 
"merely 
a 
mouthpiece 
for 
ruling 
class 
ideology, 
focused 
onyoung adolescent girls 
" (McRobbie, 
1991, 
p. 
85). 
" 
in 
a 
later 
essay, 
'Jackie 
and 
Just Seventeen 
in 
the 
1980s' 
McRobbie 
critiqued 
her 
earlier 
approach 
as an 
inflexible 
one where 
readers were 
interpreted 
as 
'imprisoned' 
by 
the 
text 
and 
where 
their 
own 
construction 
and 
uses 
of 
the 
magazine were 
neglected 
(McRobbie, 
1991, 
p. 
135-188). 
Significantly, 
she 
identified 
fashion, 
cosmetics 
and 
beauty 
as 
a 
central code 
in 
the 
relationship 
of 
power 
intepellated 
from 
the text 
by 
adolescent 
girls. 
The 
other 
three 
being: 
the 
code of 
romance, 
the 
code 
of personal/domestic 
life 
and 
the 
code 
of 
pop music 
(ibid. 
p. 
93). 
" 
This 
method 
was 
used 
by 
early 
Second 
-Wave 
writers 
including 
Kate Millett (1970). in 
Sexual 
Politics 
she 
critiqued 
the 
work 
of male writers 
in 
their 
mis/representation 
of women 
in 
literature. 
These 
methods 
were 
also 
used 
in feminist 
art and 
film 
criticism. 
Gaines 
has 
critiqued 
"the 
slightlyprudish 
overtones" 
of 
these 
interpretations 
"and 
the 
all 
too 
easy confusion ofcinema 
[and 
art 
and 
literature] 
with 
pornography" 
(Gaines, 1990, 
p. 
7). 
'9 
Evaluating 
len Ang's 
work 
Watching 
Dallas: 
Soap Opera 
and 
the 
Melodramatic 
Imagination 
(1985) 
commentators 
have 
highlighted 
two 
significant 
innovations, 
firstly, 
the 
focus for 
her 
study are 
female 
viewers 
of 
an 
escapist 
TV 
soap, 
and she 
offered 
a 
redemptive 
reading 
of 
both. 
Ang 
and 
Stacey, 
began 
to 
move 
the 
debate 
further 
by 'confessing', 
to 
consuming 
and 
taking 
pleasure 
in 
popular 
culture 
themselves. 
9 
Further 
dichotomies: Film 
Stud ies/Cultu 
ral 
Studies, 
text/context 
This 
section addresses 
what 
has 
been 
interpreted 
as a 
turn 
towards 
an analysis 
of 
audience 
from 
an 
absorption 
in 
the textual. 
For 
many 
commentators 
this 
represented 
a progressive 
feminist 
response 
to 
a 
dichotomous 
feminist 
methodological 
impasse, 
'firom 
determinist 
explanations of 
women's 
subordination, 
by 
among otherfactors, 
mass media 
[ 
... 
] 
to 
afocus 
on processes 
of 
symbolisation 
and representation" 
(van 
Zoonen, 
1994, 
p. 
107). 
From 
the 
1970s, Fihn Studies 
became 
the 
pre-eminent 
discipline 
within 
which 
feminists 
examined 
the 
area of 
female 
dis/pleasures 
in 
spectatorship, 
but 
research 
on 
female 
audiences, readers 
and 
consumers 
has 
only 
begun 
to 
be 
rigorously 
theorised 
in 
the 
last 
decade. 
A 
methodological 
bifurcation 
prevailed 
in 
early 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
knowledge 
that 
served 
to 
inhibit 
a 
thorough 
analysis 
of 
female 
viewing 
pleasures. 
Van 
Zoonen 
and 
Stacey 
have 
described 
the 
early 
feminist 
work 
on 
spectatorship 
and gender as 
taking 
place 
in 
two 
key 
disciplines 
with remote and/or 
contested 
methodological 
positions 
. 
20 
For 
Stacey 
(1994), 
fihn 
studies 
research 
on audience 
pleasures 
ultimately 
revealed 
a pessimistic, 
passive 
model 
of 
female 
spectatorship, 
whereas 
cultural studies 
research 
interpreted 
the 
pleasures 
for 
audiences 
in 
media 
as 
active 
and, 
in 
particular accounts, 
resistant. 
21 
Although 
Laura 
Mulvey's 
work was 
embraced 
by feminists in 
that 
it 
theorised the 
centrality 
of gender 
in 
the 
production 
of meaning 
in 
the 
cinema, 
and 
has 
thus 
been 
viewed 
as 
'an 
inaugural 
moment' 
for 
the 
study of 
the 
female 
viewer 
(Brunsdon, 
199 1, 
p. 
370) 
it 
is 
unequivocally 
a refutation of 
the 
possibility of 
pleasure 
for 
the 
female 
audience. 
22 
In 
contrast, 
Stacey's 
methodological 
approach 
in 
Stargazing 
to the 
accounts of 
female 
filmgoers 
was 
to 
read 
them 
in line 
with 
a widespread 
turn 
to 
post-structuralism 
as 
'contextualised 
texts' 
(Stacey, 1994, 
p. 
76). She 
rejected 
the textual/empirical 
dichotomy 
in her 
criticism of 
a rigidly 
psychoanalytic 
approach 
and 
heralded 
a 
new 
departure 
in 
cross-disciplinary research. 
23 
Such 
ethnographic 
feminist 
work 
began 
to 
reverse 
the 
question, 
'What does 
media 
do 
to 
womenT 
" 
Stacey 
has 
argued 
that 
film 
studies 
privileged 
the text the 
latter 
context; cultural 
studies 
evolved 
an 
empirical epistemology, 
film 
studies was 
pro-psychoanalytic 
and anti-empiricist; 
cultural 
studies 
was 
derided for 
its 
atheoretical 
claims 
to 
reveal 
demonstrable 
truths, 
whereas 
the 
shortcomings of 
a 
wholly 
psychoanalytic 
asocial, 
ahistorical 
interpretation 
of spectators 
has 
been 
rigorously 
critiqued 
by 
researchers 
in 
cultural studies. 
11 
Above 
all, 
film 
studies work on 
female 
spectatorship 
had 
historically been 
distinct from 
cultural 
studies 
in 
that 
the 
'real' 
audience 
had 
not 
been 
the 
focus for 
research. 
So 
much so 
that 
it 
is 
somewhat 
ironic 
that 
the 
paradigmatic 
text 
for 
feminists 
in 
film 
studies 
by Laura 
Mulvey 
(1975), Visual Pleasure 
in 
Narrative 
Cinema 
interrogated 
pleasure 
in 
cinema. 
22 
Mulvey's 
contention 
was 
that 
pleasures 
for 
the 
female 
spectator 
were 
absolutely 
contingent 
in 
that, the 
only 
two 
possible 
spectator 
positions 
were either 
'masculine' 
or 
'hypothetical'. 
This 
approach, 
where 
the 
spectator 
was 
a concept and not 
a 
person 
necessarily 
foreclosed discussion 
on 
the 
pleasures 
of 
female 
audiences: 
indeed 
Gamman 
and 
others 
have 
accused 
Mulvey 
of 
Puritanism 
(Gamman, 
1988, 
p. 
28). Later 
feminist 
interdisciplinary 
research came 
to 
read 
the 
Mulveyian 
perspective 
as 
a 
monolithic 
orthodoxy 
(Stacey, 1994, 
p. 
12). 
21 
Stacey's 
research 
with cinema 
audiences 
drew 
on cultural 
studies models, specifically 
on 
Hall's 
influential 
model 
for 
'encoding 
and 
decoding' 
audiences responses, 
a 
challenge 
to 
the 
notion 
of 
an audience 
positioned 
by, for 
example, 
TV, (Hall 
cited 
in 
Stacey, 
1994, 
p.. 
36) 
and advanced 
the 
notion 
of an 
active 
feminine 
position 
for 
the 
female 
audience. 
10 
simultaneously undermining 
the 
notion 
of 
femininity 
being 
inextricably 
linked 
to 
passivity. 
In 
addition, 
such 
work with audiences overturned 
the 
assumption 
of women 
as 
the 
worst 
viewers 
and consumers. 
24 
Women's Pleasures 
Developing 
feminist knowledge 
of 
women's 
pleasures 
Frequently 
acknowledged 
as 
"thefounding 
document 
ofpsychoanalyticfilm 
theory" 
(Modelski, 
cited 
in 
van 
Zoonen, 
1990, 
p. 
53) 
Mulvey's 
Visual 
Pleasure 
in Narrative 
Cinema 
was 
unequivocally 
opposed 
to 
women 
milking 
pleasure 
from 
Hollywood 
movies. 
" 
The influence 
of 
Mulvey's 
approach 
was 
pervasive 
on 
broader 
aspects 
of 
visual 
culture. 
In 
stark contrast, 
redemptive 
or recuperative 
feminist 
research 
tended to 
endorse 
aspects 
of 
women's 
experiences 
as audiences 
and 
popular 
culture 
generally, 
these 
were 
defined 
by Charlotte 
Brunsdon 
as 
"academic 
analysis 
ofpopular 
texts 
and 
pastimes 
which 
sought 
to 
discredit both 
the 
left-pessimistic 
despair 
over, and 
the 
high 
cultural 
dismissal 
of, mass 
andpopular culture 
" 
(Brunsdon 
cited 
in 
Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
46). 
The 
conceptualisation 
of 
women 
as 
easily 
manipulated 
passive 
dopes in 
the 
'transmission' 
and 
'effects' 
models 
of early audience 
research, 
and 
the 
pessimistic, 
"dark 
and suffocating" analysis 
of 
femininity 
in 
Mulvey 
(van 
Zoonen, 1994, 
p. 
97) 
was rigorously 
critiqued 
in feminist 
audience 
research 
from 
the 
1980S. 
26 
Van Zoonen 
points 
out 
that 
"as 
we acknowledge 
the 
pleasure women 
derivefrom 
watching soap 
operas 
it 
becomes 
increasingly difficult 
tofind 
moraijustificationsfor 
criticising 
their 
contribution 
to the 
hegemonic 
construction 
ofgender 
identities 
" 
(van 
Zoonen, 
1994, 
p. 
7). 
Models 
of 
feminist 
research 
on women's 
pleasures 
in 
post-war 
popular 
culture 
(i) 
Romantic 
fiction 
: 
Janice Radway's 
Reading 
the 
Romance 
Concurrent 
with a 
radicalising of 
feminist 
research 
in 
film, 
spectatorship 
and 
audiences, 
the 
recruitment 
of 
a 
range 
of ethnographic, sociological 
and 
historicizing 
approaches 
were 
brought 
to 
24 
In 7he Female 
Gaze, Stacey 
anticipated 
later, 
radical perspectives 
by 
suggesting 
that 
discussions 
about 
sexuality 
and 
spectatorship problematise 
universal notions about women's 
viewing 
(and 
reading) 
positions 
and pleasures 
and challenged 
feminist 
research 
to 
embark 
on work with 
lesbian 
viewers. 
"7he 
question 
of 
the 
lesbian 
spectator, 
or 
the 
lesbian look 
may 
he 
reified 
and oversimplistic. 
Indeed 
there 
is 
likely 
to 
be 
a whole 
set of 
desires 
and 
identifications 
with 
differing 
configurations 
at 
stake, which 
cannot necessarily 
befixed 
according 
to 
the 
conscious 
sexual 
identities 
ofthe 
cinema 
spectators" 
(Stacey, 1988, 
p. 
114). Stacey's 
Stargazing 
had 
a significant 
impact 
on 
this 
research 
project 
on 
a range of 
registers, 
theoretically 
and 
methodologically. 
For 
this 
reason, 
Stacey 
is 
cited across 
several 
of 
the 
sections 
in 
this 
Review. 
" 
She 
claimed, 
"It 
is 
said 
that 
analysingpleasure, 
or 
beauty 
destroys 
it. 
That 
is 
the 
Intention 
ofthis article 
" (Mulvey, 
1975, 
p. 
24). 
26 
Hobson's 
work 
on 
female 
viewers 
of 
Crossroads, McRobbie's 
on 
the 
cultures 
of working-class 
girls, 
Radway 
and 
Ang's 
analysis 
of 
audiences 
(for 
romance reading 
and soaps respectively) 
and 
Modleski's 
redemptive 
readings 
of 
popular 
texts, 
have, 
amongst other 
contributions, 
developed feminist 
knowledge 
to 
include 
a reading of 
media 
as 
not 
necessarily 
bad for 
women, 
reproductive 
of 
dominant ideology, 
unworthy 
of critical 
analysis 
or evidence 
of 
false 
consciousness. 
11 
3. Studio 
portrait 
of 
Marlene Dietrich 
in 
Film 
Portraits 
3 
annual, 
unpaginated, coloured-in 
by 
reader, 
Fay. 
women 
reading popular 
fiction, 
watching mainstream 
film 
and 
TV. 
These 
methods 
and 
the testimonies 
and 
interpretation 
of 
pleasures 
that 
emerged 
began 
to 
challenge 
findings 
that 
had historically 
foregrounded 
psychic 
displeasures 
and essential 
passive 
femininity. 
Janice 
Radway, in 
a germinal 
study 
on 
female 
readers 
of romance novels 
discovered 
that the 
pleasures 
romance 
readers enjoyed 
were 
not restricted 
to text 
but 
were 
often 
material, 
ritualised 
and 
broadly 
experiential 
(Radway, 
1984, 
p86). 
27 
An 
aspect 
of germinal 
early 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
research 
had 
been 
literary; 
analyses of 
high 
cultural 
texts 
by 
men on 
the 
basis 
of 
their 
treatment 
of 
women 
and 
uncovering 
the 
hidden 
or misinterpreted 
canon 
of women's 
literature 
and art 
(Millett, 
197 
1, Firestone, 
1970, 
Spender, 
1980, Greer, 
1979, 
Showalter 
1977, 
Nochlin, 
199 1 ). In 
marked 
contrast, 
Radway's 
aim 
in her 
groundbreaking 
research 
on 
low 
cultural 
romance 
readers 
was 
to 
"distinguish 
analytically 
between 
the 
significance 
of 
the 
event 
of 
reading 
and 
the 
meaning 
of 
the text 
constructed 
as 
its 
consequence 
" 
(Radway 
1984, 
p. 
4). 
Both 
Radway 
and 
Stacey 
cited women's viewing 
and 
reading 
as oppositional 
and pointed 
to 
a range 
of ways 
through 
which 
their 
responses 
to 
discourses 
of 
femininity 
fore-grounded 
'independence', 
'autonomy', 
'rebelliousness' 
and 
'individuality' 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
238, Radway, 
1984, 
p. 
125 ). 
28 
Feminist 
research on 
female 
audiences 
sought 
to theorise 
such 
activity as relational. 
The 
sense 
of 
belonging 
and 
connectedness 
to 
others 
through 
cultural 
consumption 
within an audience 
marked 
the 
memories 
of 
Stacey's 
respondents, and 
Radway 
confirmed 
this 
as 
an 
important 
one 
for 
her 
romance 
readers. 
Romance 
reading 
"led 
to 
a 
desire 
to 
provide 
pleasurefor 
other 
women. 
" (Radway, 
1984, 
p. 
17). 
29 
(ii) 
Film 
and 
TV: 
- 
Stacey's Stargazing: 
female 
spectators 
of 
Hollywood 
cinema 
Stacey 
read 
the theoretical 
distance between 
film 
and cultural 
studies 
methods as 
ironically 
resulting 
in 
a 
lack 
of 
knowledge 
on audiences' 
pleasures, 
despite 
the 
fact 
that 
Hollywood had been 
recognised 
in 
many 
feminist 
critiques 
as 
the 
key 
conduit 
for 
women 
to 
consume 
idealised 
images 
" 
Although 
Radway 
had 
some reservations 
about 
the 
ritualised 
act of 
romance reading. 
As 
a 
'compensatory' 
strategy 
it has 
to 
be 
enacted 
time 
and 
again. 
28 
Radway's 
readers 
for 
example, 
described 
their 
favourite heroines 
as 
'intelligent', 
'spunky' 
and 
'independent' 
(Radway, 1984, 
p. 
125) 
absolutely 
against 
the 
grain 
of 
patriarchal 
and early 
feminist 
views 
of 
women 
objectified 
through 
Hollywood 
and 
the 
romance novel, 
her housewife 
readers 
"are 
oppositional 
because 
they 
refuse 
the 
self-ahnegating 
social 
role 
" 
despite 
the 
fact 
that 
the 
romance's 
narrative 
structure 
embodied 
a 
recapitulation 
and 
recommendation 
of 
patriarchy 
(ibid. 
p. 
44). For 
van 
Zoonen, 
Radway's 
analysis 
of 
the 
pleasures of reading 
romances 
undermined 
any conception 
of 
readers 
and 
audiences of popular culture 
as 
burdened 
by 
a 
false 
consciousness 
(van 
Zoonen, 1994, 
p. 
109). 
"' 
Radway 
makes 
causal 
links between 
romance 
reading and 
the 'transformation' 
of 
a significant 
number of readers 
into 
writers 
of 
romance 
(Radway, 
1984, 
p. 
17). Her 
text 
became 
one of 
the 
most oft-cited 
feminist 
projects 
to 
have 
recuperated women's 
pleasures 
in 
popular 
culture. 
Brunsdon, 
Ang 
and others 
have 
praised 
its 
accomplishments 
but 
noted 
the: 
"mutual 
exteriority of 
The 
two 
positions, 
feminist'and 
'romance 
reader'. 
The 
distribution 
of 
identities is 
clear-cut: 
RadwaY, 
the 
researcher, is aftininist 
and not a romancefan, 
the 
Smahton 
women, 
the 
researched, are 
romance 
readers 
and 
notfeminists. 
From 
such a perspective, 
the 
political 
aim 
of 
the 
project 
becomes 
envisaged 
as one of 
bridging 
this 
profound 
separation 
between 'us'and 
'them 
"' 
(Ang 
cited 
in Brunsdon, 
1991, 
p. 
380). 
12 
femininity. 
30 
She 
re-interpreted 
three 
key 
processes 
through 
which 
her female 
respondents 
could 
be 
said 
to 
have derived 
pleasure 
from 
cinema: 
'escapism', 
'identification' 
and 
'consumption'. 
Stargazing 
made 
a 
significant 
contribution 
to 
feminist 
knowledge 
in 
that 
it 
exemplified 
efforts 
to 
address 
both 
the 
neglect 
of 
the 
female 
audience and star 
(and 
the 
relationship 
between 
the 
two 
as 
defined by 
the 
spectator) 
and achieved 
this 
by 
demonstrating 
that 
it 
was 
possible 
to 
combine 
empirical 
and 
31 
psychoanalytic 
methodologies. 
Stacey's 
move 
came 
at a 
point 
when 
feminism 
had 
all 
but 
relinquished 
any 
hope 
that 
female identification 
(read 
negatively 
as 
'absence' 
and 
'lack') 
and 
pleasures 
(read 
as 
'masochistic') 
could 
be 
wrested 
from 
the 
spectre 
of 
masculine 
dominance 
inherent in 
Freudian 
and 
Lacanian 
theory. 
32 
At 
the 
very 
outset, 
Stacey's focus 
on 
audience's 
accounts 
of 
the 
pleasures 
of cinema 
revealed 
a paradoxical 
commonplace 
but 
yet new 
knowledge 
for 
feminist 
research 
- 
that the 
prime 
interest 
and 
pleasure 
for her 
female 
respondents was 
the 
female 
star. 
Through 
such 
research 
the 
material 
dimension 
and pleasures 
of 
viewing 
Hollywood 
movies; 
the 
'extra 
cinematic' 
the 
atmospheric 
effects 
that 
engaged 
the 
senses 
indeed, 
the 
'whole 
cinema experience' 
was 
contributed 
to the 
mass of 
feminist 
research 
that 
had 
privileged 
the 
visual. 
Stacey's 
identification 
of 
terrains 
of 
pleasure 
in 
cinema 
included 
notions 
of 
femininity 
constructed 
in 
respondents' memories; 
of abundant 
hair, 
costumes, 
fragments 
of 
bodies in 
close-up and 
glamorous mis-en-scene 
but 
also 
of cinema 
interiors 
remembered as 
soft, 
visually 
appealing 
'exotic' 
and sensual. 
33 
The 
importance 
of 
a 
discourse 
of 
escapism 
for 
Stacey's 
respondents was significant, 
whether 
longed for 
nostalgically, 
or reappraised 
self-critically, 
hence 
her 
project 
developed 
aims 
towards 
"an 
analysis 
of 
the 
meanings 
of escapism 
in 
relation 
to the 
cinema 
and 
an 
investigation 
of 
the 
relationship 
hetween 
escapism 
and 
the 
cultural 
construction 
offemininity 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
92). 
Narcissism 
was 
reconstituted: 
from 
a 
derogatory 
state 
linked 
to 
femininity 
to 
a 
necessary 
part 
of all subjectivities, 
and 
" 
Stargazing 
had 
as 
its focus 
the 
memories 
of 
British 
female 
spectators 
of 
Hollywood 
movies 
of 
the 
1940s 
and 
1950s. 
31 
Rather 
than 
a 
blanket 
rejection of 
Althussarian 
and 
Lacanian 
theory, 
or 
a 
slavish 
adherence 
to 
Mulvey's 
orthodoxy, 
Stacey's 
aim 
in Stargazing 
was 
to 
"offer 
an 
investigation 
ofthe 
ways 
in 
whichpsychic 
investments 
are 
grounded within specule sets of 
historical 
and 
cultural 
relations which 
in 
turn 
shape 
theformations 
ofidentities 
on conscious 
and unconscious 
levels " 
(Stacey 
1994, 
p. 
79). 
In 
the 
light 
of psychoanalytic 
film 
theories 
that 
attempted 
to 
explore 
the 
developments 
of 
unconscious 
identities, 
(for 
example 
Mulvey 
and 
Metz) 
identification 
itself 
was widely 
viewed 
by feminists 
as 
"a 
culturalprocess 
complicit 
with 
the 
reproduction 
ofdominant 
culture 
by 
reinforcingpatriarchalforms of 
identity" 
(ibid. 
p. 
132). 
" 
"Within 
a 
Lacanianframework 
[ 
... 
] 
women'spleasures 
in 
Hollywood 
cinema, 
either 
through 
Identification 
with 
thefemale 
protagonist, 
or 
otherwise, can 
'only be 
conceivedofas 
a sign 
oftheir complicity 
with 
their 
oppression 
underpairlarchy. 
" (ibid. 
p. 
133). 
11 
Stacey 
argued 
that 
such cinema 
pleasures 
were 
'gendered' 
on a 
range 
of registers, 
were 
powerfully 
evocative when 
first 
experienced and 
could 
be 
recalled 
in 
detail 
in 
memories. 
Such 
sensations 
intensified 
the 
difference 
between 
the 
audiences 
lived 
experiences 
and 
the 
other worldliness of 
the 
screen 
images: 
"It 
isprecisely 
thefeminisation 
of 
the 
context ofcullural 
consumption 
which 
contributed 
to the 
pleasures 
ofcinema 
going 
at 
a 
time 
when 
such 
'expressions'offemininity 
remained 
relatively unavailable 
to 
many 
women 
in 
everyday 
life 
in 
Britain 
"(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
97). 
Tarnsin 
Wilton 
has 
concurred, 
finding 
that the 
'cultural 
product', 
the 
meaning 
of 
a 
film, 
is 
produced 
by 
an act of cooperation, 
"located 
In 
the 
intersection 
of 
two 
cultures, 
that 
ofthe 
auteur 
and 
the 
production 
system and 
that 
ofthe spectator 
" 
(Wilton, 
1995, 
p. 
152). 
13 
4. Studio 
portrait 
of 
Marlene 
Dietrich, 
in 
Film 
Portraits 
3 
annual, 
1949, 
unpaginated, coloured 
in 
by 
reader, 
Fay. 
one 
that 
was 
activated 
in 
the 
complex 
relationships 
between 
self, 
ideal 
self and 
idealised images 
of 
femininity 
as enacted 
in 
the 
cinema 
(ibid. 
p. 
132). 
Notwithstanding 
the 
cautiousness 
of 
feminist 
critics such as 
Modelski 
34 
feminist 
media 
researchers 
have been interested 
to 
investigate 
the 
mass 
appeal 
to 
women 
of 
the 
formally 
academically 
untouchable 
ferninised 
excesses 
of 
TV, in 
particular soap viewing. 
35 
Belinda 
Budge 
proposed 
that 
feminist 
rejection of women's 
pleasures 
in 
popular 
culture 
both 
denied 
a complex 
and significant 
36 
phenomenon 
and called 
into 
question 
the 
underpinnings of 
the 
methodologies 
that 
neglected 
them 
. 
In 
her 
work 
on audiences 
viewing 
Dallas, 
Ang developed 
a 
feminist 
research 
methodology 
that 
included 
an examination 
of 
taste 
in 
the 
viewing 
pleasures 
of women and 
suggested 
that 
"popular 
pleasure 
is 
first 
andforemost a pleasure 
of 
recognition" 
(Ang 
cited 
in 
Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
45 ). 
37 
Such 
readings 
advanced 
feminist 
research 
to 
embrace 
the 
notion 
of active 
female 
readers and viewers 
and 
simultaneously 
challenged 
notions 
of 
high 
and 
low, 
good and 
bad 
taste. 
In 1988, 
reflecting 
on 
Mulvey's 
feminist 
attack 
on 
the 
popular 
pleasures 
of 
film, 
Gamman 
indicted 
this 
position since 
it 
66never 
explains 
why women 
who are notfeminists 
should want 
to 
engage 
in 
this 
process 
" 
(Gamman, 
1988, 
p. 
24). 
Feminist 
research 
with women and popular cultural 
texts 
in 
the 
1980s 
and 
1990s 
unequivocally 
overhauled 
the 
Images 
of 
Women 
and 
Mulveyian 
notions of 
objectification 
that 
dominated 
feminist 
theory 
from 
the 
1970s: 
"In identifting 
the 
niches 
in 
dominant 
culture, 
feministfilm 
scholars 
have 
shown 
how 
mainstream 
cinema 
allows 
- 
be 
it 
often 
against 
the 
grain 
-female 
spectator 
positions, with 
women 
as 
well 
as menjunctioning 
as objects 
of 
thefemale 
gaze 
" (van Zoonen 
1994, 
p. 
150). 
-" 
Who have 
feared 
audience 
researchers 
winding up 
'failing 
in 
love' 
with 
their 
subjects 
and 
"writing 
apologiasfor 
mass 
culture 
and 
embracing 
its 
ideoloSy 
"(Modleski 
cited 
in 
van 
Zoonen, 
1994, 
p. 
117). 
35 
Dorothy Hobson's 
work 
identified 
the 
ways 
through 
which 
viewers used 
soaps, 
"to 
think 
and 
talk 
about 
their 
own 
lives. 
" 
(van 
Zoonen 
1994, 
p. 
118). Van 
Zoonen 
has 
cited 
Hobson's 
research 
as evidence 
that 
-watching 
soaps 
could 
contribute 
to 
the 
interpersonal 
relationships 
and 
the 
culture 
of 
the 
workplace 
" 
(van Zoonen, 
1994, 
p. 
118). 
Stacey's 
term 
for 
this 
in 
the 
context 
of 
film 
audiences 
is 
'self-narrativisation'. 
36 
"In 
the 
case 
of 
soap opera 
the 
pleasuresfor 
women spectators 
are 
legion. Addiction, 
anticipation, 
repetition 
and 
interruption 
are 
among 
them 
[ 
... 
I 
In dismissing 
the 
role of, 
41exis 
[Carrington, 
character 
in Dallas] 
as 
irrelevant 
tofeminism, 
the 
women 
watching 
are 
also 
dismissed 
"(Budge, 
1988, 
p. 
102). 
" 
Van 
Zoonen 
also 
cites 
examples 
of 
research 
by 
Morley 
and 
Gray 
who 
demonstrate 
that 
friendship 
and 
"an 
almost 
separate 
female 
culture 
" 
can surround 
women's video watching 
practices 
(van 
Zoonen 1994, 
p. 
116) 
and 
concluded 
that 
"the 
particular 
gendered 
pleasures 
of 
soaps 
are seen 
to 
originate 
in 
the 
centrality of 
themes 
and 
values 
associated 
with 
the 
private 
sphere 
"(ibid. 
p. 
12 1 ). 
14 
(iii) 
Music for 
women's 
pleasure 
Whilst 
feminist 
research 
on women 
as audiences 
for 
popular 
TV 
and 
film 
began 
to 
be 
theorised 
in 
the 
late 1980s, 
work 
on 
female 
audiences 
for female 
music 
performers 
only 
began 
to 
develop 
a 
decade 
later. 
The 
early 
Second-Wave 
generated 
no 
feminist 
canonical 
works 
on 
women 
and 
popular 
music, 
let 
alone analyses 
of 
women as 
fans, 
consumers 
or audiences 
for 
pop. 
38 
However, 
music 
performances, 
music 
reviews 
and 
ideological 
positions 
on 
both 
women's 
production 
and consumption 
of 
and 
access 
to 
music 
was 
an 
important 
component 
in 
the 
proliferation 
of 
Women's 
Liberation 
events 
and 
in 
the 
feminist 
media. 
39 
The 
relationships 
between 
gender 
and 
sexuality 
and 
contemporary 
popular 
music 
was 
first 
addressed 
by 
Frith 
and 
McRobbie 
in 
1978 (Frith 
and 
McRobbie, 
1990)40 This 
pioneering 
contribution 
began 
to 
distinguish 
forms 
of music 
production 
and consumption 
and 
made efforts 
to 
define 
for 
the 
pleasures 
of consumption 
on 
the 
grounds 
of gender 
for different, 
albeit generalised as young and 
white, 
audiences. 
41 
Consequently, 
a slew 
of 
feminist 
inspired 
anthologies 
of 
women 
in 
rock and pop were 
published 
in 
the 
1980s, 
and 
1990s (Cooper, 
1995; 
Whitall, 1998; 
O'Brien, 1995; Greig, 
1989; 
Whiteley, 
1997). 
42 
For 
over 
two 
decades, 
concurrent 
with 
the 
development 
of 
music 
and 
gender 
studies 
the 
white, 
American 
female 
music 
star 
Madonna 
provided 
a 
lodestone for 
feminist 
debates 
on 
the 
array of 
possible meanings of 
female 
music performers 
albeit 
largely 
theoretically 
for female 
music 
critics, 
and 
consumers. 
Feminist 
texts 
on 
Madonna 
mirrored 
the 
fracturing 
of 
debates 
discussed 
earlier 
on media 
texts, 
between 
'Images 
of 
Women' 
and 
'transmission' 
and 
'effects' 
models. 
Madonna 
was 
read as 
passively 
rehearsing and self-objectifying 
for 
the 
benefit 
of patriarchy and 
capitalism 
(for 
example, 
MAlthough 
feminist 
energies 
were gradually 
directed 
towards 
the 
recovery 
of 
lost 
(mainly 
white) 
women 
to 
the 
canon, 
leading 
to 
the 
restoration 
of 
figures 
such 
as 
Hildegard 
von 
Bingen 
and 
Ethel Smyth. 
39 
1 
discuss 
this 
later 
in 
this 
thesis. 
The 
analysis of popular 
music 
itself 
is 
a young, 
and, 
as 
Sheila 
Whiteley 
attests, an 
ill-defined 
discipline 
in 
academia: 
"there 
is 
no 
single methodological 
approach; 
there 
are no clearly 
demarcatedareas 
ofinvestigation 
[ 
... 
] 
it Is 
rebellious, 
contesting 
the 
established 
citadels ofiraditional 
musicology" 
(Whiteley, 
1997, 
p. 
xiii) and 
historically 
"relegated 
to 
the 
side-lines 
ofacademic 
debate 
" 
(ibid. 
p. xv). 
In 
an 
analysis 
of 
7he 
Guardian's Women's 
Page 
that 
forms 
part 
of 
the 
literature 
reviewed 
for 
this 
study, 
the 
lack 
of coverage 
and 
the total 
absence of 
reviews 
of 
popular 
music 
(or 
popular culture) 
in 
the 
1960s, 
a paradigm 
shift 
from 
US 
to 
British 
musical 
hegemony 
(Cooper 
and 
Cooper, 
1993, 
passim; 
Frith, 199 19p. 
263) 
indicates its disqualification 
as 
a serious subject 
for 
broadsheets 
in 
this 
period. 
40 
Debates 
on 
Women 
and 
Rock had 
peppered 
early 
issues 
of 
Spare 
Rib 
(for 
example, 
Fudger, 
1976) 
including 
a report 
on a 
conference 
held by 
music 
magazine 
Melody 
Maker 
in 
October 
1973, 
but 
these 
articles 
tended 
to 
be focussed 
on 
the 
patriarchal, 
pragmatic, 
issues 
of 
discrimination 
facing 
musicians 
such 
as 
Maddy Prior, 
Elkie 
Brooks 
and 
Marsha 
Hunt 
or 
highlighted 
radical 
feminist 
approaches 
to 
songwriting/performing 
in interviews 
with 
musicians 
such 
as 
Frankie 
Armstrong 
or 
the 
all-woman 
band 
Stepney Sisters. 
" 
Frith 
and 
McRobbie 
succeeded 
in 
problematising 
the 
notion 
of so-called 
naturalness either 
as 
a state 
of 
male 
sexuality 
or 
as a 
characteristic 
of 
rock. 
In 
'Afterthoughts', 
Frith 
reflected 
that 
the 
earlier 
article 
was conceived 
just 
as 
"cultural 
analysis 
became 
do-it-yourseo'structuralism " 
and 
that 
consequently 
the 
article 
was 
"charged 
with 
essentialism 
" (Frith, 
1990, 
p. 
420). 
Frith 
revised 
his 
decisive 
differentiation 
between 
male 
activity 
and 
female 
passivity since 
"once 
we 
start 
asking 
howpopproduces 
pleasure, 
then 
notions ofpassivitylactivity 
cease 
to 
make 
much 
sense 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
422). 
" 
In her 
contribution 
to 
the 
field 
of 
popular music and 
gender, 
Sexing 
the 
Groove, 
Whiteley 
illustrates 
the 
ways 
in 
which 
cultural 
studies 
and 
post-structuralist 
texts 
were 
appropriated 
and 
intersect 
the 
now 
burgeoning 
literature 
in 
this 
field; 
researchers 
on 
music and gender 
have 
used 
approaches 
from 
sociology, 
serniotics, 
cultural 
studies 
and 
film 
studies. 
is 
hooks, 
1992), 
whilst more 
redemptive 
readings 
discussed 
Madonna in 
terms 
of 
agency 
and 
masquerade 
and stressed 
her 
plural address, 
to 
different 
sexualities, 
genders, 
ethnicities and so 
forth (for 
example, 
Robertson, 
1996; Andermahr, 
1994; Schwichtenberg, 
1993). 
43 
Despite 
the 
subsequent 
lack 
of empirical 
data 
that 
would usefully 
contribute 
knowledge 
of what so-called 
real women 
think 
about 
Madonna, 
44 
her 
multi 
textuality, 
dexterity 
in 
referencing 
film, 
art, 
design 
and 
fashion, 
and 
her 
pervasiveness 
in 
global 
culture, made 
her 
a 
paradigmatic 
model 
for 
feminist, 
post-structuralist 
and 
deconstructive 
analysis 
in 
the 
field 
of 
popular 
MUSiC. 
45 
But 
as 
the 
recent 
trajectory 
of 
feminist 
writing 
on music and 
gender 
has demonstrated, 
a 
determining 
theme 
in 
any analysis 
of contemporary 
popular music 
is 
the 
recalcitrance 
of 
the 
dominant 
ideology 
of 
rock 
at 
the 
heart 
of 
popular 
music 
in 
Britain 
and 
the 
US 
from 
the 
1950s. 
Coates, following 
Frith 
has 
interpreted 
contemporary 
music as 
rehearsing 
the 
dichotomy: 
rock's 
'raw 
expressive 
power' 
versus 
soul's 
raw 
but 
paradoxically 
'manufactured' 
emotion. 
46 
Accordingly 
The Rock 
Masculinity 
stereotype 
"is 
still very 
much 
in 
play 
discursively 
andpsychically, 
is 
one 
in 
which any 
trace 
ofthe 
feminine'ls 
expunged, 
incorporated 
or 
appropriated" 
(Coates 
cited 
in 
Whiteley, 
1997, 
p. 
52). 
47 
Rock's 
bourgeois 
appeal, 
mythologised 
in 
the 
fabled 
route 
from 
art school 
to 
rock 
bands has 
necessarily 
informed 
the taste 
and style 
of 
British 
rock 
formS. 
48 
The 
synonymy 
of 
popular 
female 
performers 
with 
television 
may 
have further 
reduced 
the 
worth 
of 
female 
stars 
for 
serious musicological research 
given 
that, 
"thefirst TVgeneration 
ended up claiming 
like 
Frank 
Zappa, 
that 
'TV 
is 
slime 
"'(Frith, 
1988, 
p. 
213). 
49 
43 
An 
early, 
but 
prescient critique 
by 
Shelagh 
Young 
on an 
essay 
by Sheryl Garratt 
(1988) 
reflected 
related 
debates in 
cultural 
studies and 
film 
studies 
in 
its 
focus 
on 
the 
neglected 
consumers 
of 
Madonna's 
pop, 
and 
its 
critique 
of 
'feminist 
puritanism': 
"The 
problem posed 
by 
Madonna 
was 
that 
she 
neither 
looked 
nor 
spoke 
like 
a really 
'right 
on'woman. 
Infact, 
in 
order 
tojustify 
her 
lovefor Madonna, 
Sheryl Garrett 
had 
to 
turn to 
thefictional 
narrative 
ofthefilm 
Desperately 
Seeking Susan 
which 
towards 
the 
end, 
has Madonna 
and 
her 
co-star 
Rosanna, 
4rquette 
holding 
hands 
together 
'in 
triumph. 
This 
was 
an 
image, 
says 
Garrett, 
'that 
meant we could 
relax and 
admit all along, 
we'd 
loved 
Madonna. 
'But 
isn't it 
interesting 
that 
Garrett 
should 
think that 
*e' 
were 
never 
relaxed 
about 
Madonna? 
Clearly 
thewe'of 
Garrett's 
text 
addresses 
aparticular group 
ofwomen. 
Garrett 
is 
really 
speaking 
to the 
semi-professionalfeminists, 
to 
women who 
have 
served 
their time 
as 
timid 
neophytes 
in 
a 
respectable number 
of 
consciousness-raising, 
therapy 
and women's studies 
groups 
... 
some women were 
always 
relaxed 
about 
Madonna 
simply 
because 
they 
were neverfamiliar 
with 
those 
strands offeminist 
thought 
which 
have 
contributed 
tojeminism's 
own 
brand 
ofPuritanism 
(Young, 1988, 
p. 
179). 
"A 
rare and 
illuminating 
non-academic 
text 
produced 
by 
Kay 
Turner, I 
dream 
ofMadonna., 
women's 
dreams 
ofthe goddess of 
pop 
hints 
at 
a rich 
field 
to 
be 
further 
researched. 
(Turner, 1993) 
45 
The 
absorption 
on 
Madonna's 
scif-production 
has 
somewhat 
obscured 
Frith's 
claim 
that 
all 
forms 
of musical 
production 
can 
be 
interpreted 
as 
'constructed' 
"My 
assumption 
is 
that 
no 
musical 
event, no way ofsInging, no 
rhythm 
comes 
naturally 
[ 
... 
] 
no one 
imagines 
that 
books 
orfilmsjust 
happen 
- 
but because 
ofrocksparticular 
ideology 
of 
'raw 
power'and 
'direct 
energy'. 
identtfying 
the 
actual mechanisms 
involved 
can 
be difficult 
" 
(Frith, 1988, 
p. 
4). 
Whiteley 
concurs 
that 
"music's 
abstract 
character allowsfor 
a 
mapping 
of 
individual 
experiences 
and 
meaning 
thalprovide 
a sense 
of 
identity 
and afluidity 
of 
engagement. 
" (Whiteley, 1997, 
p. xxxii). 
46 
"Rock 
is 
metonymic with 
lauthenticity'while 
?pcp'ls 
metonymic 
with 
'artifice. 
Sliding 
evenfurther 
down 
the 
metonymic 
slope, 
'authentic'becomes 'masculine'while 
'arificial'becomes 
feminine 
"'(Coates, 1997, 
p. 
57). 
47 
This 
theme 
is 
also addressed 
in 
Sara Cohen's 
interrogation 
of 
the 
mythic 
Liverpool 
music 
scene. 
Finding 
this 
an 
inhospitable 
territory 
for 
women, 
Cohen 
concluded 
that 
rock can 
be 
linked 
to 
the 
street, 
the 
road, 
male 
activity 
and rebellion, 
a 
"bourgeois 
bohemia" 
(Cohen, 
1997, 
p. 
57). 
Women 
are exiled 
to 
the 
bedroom 
and 
resigned 
to 
a 
passive 
consumption 
of pop. 
(ibid. 
p. 
30) 
42 
See 
for 
example, 
Alex Seago 
(1995) 
Burning 
the 
box 
of 
beautiful 
things: 
on 
the 
origins 
of, 
4rt 
School Pop 
Style 
in 
London 
1959-1965 
" 
Although 
as 
Frith 
has 
noted 
rock 
too 
was 
dependent 
on 
television, 
Dusty Springfield, 
the 
focus 
of a chapter 
in 
this 
thesis, 
has 
been 
recently 
homogenised 
with 
Cilia 
and 
Lulu into 
so-called 
Brit Girls. 
Cilia's 
reinvention 
as 
a 
hostess 
on popular 
television 
programmes 
has 
arguably unfavourably 
impacted 
upon 
the 
appraisal 
of 
her 
own 
and 
Dusty's 
work 
in 
the 
1960s. 
16 
Will Straw 
has discussed 
the 
historically 
gendered 
hierarchies 
that 
have 
gradually come 
to 
characterise 
record 
consumption 
itself. 
'Women's 
records' 
are 
compared 
with 
'men's 
collections' 
reflecting, 
"the 
higher 
prestige 
that 
has 
accrued, 
historically, 
to 
the 
sorts 
of objects amassed 
by 
men 
(Straw, 
1997, 
p. 
6). 
50 
In 
a 
move reminiscent 
of 
Stacey's 
recognition 
of extra-cinematic pleasures, 
Negus 
has 
expanded 
the 
possible 
pleasures 
of consuming 
popular 
music 
to 
include 
an 
acknowledgement 
of 
the 
importance 
of 
pop 
and 
rock ephemera 
in 
the 
relationship 
between 
consumer 
and star. 
51 
Whereas 
the 
partiality, 
obsolescence 
or absence 
of 
documentation, 
performances and 
recordings 
of 
popular 
musicianS52 
continues 
to 
pose specific 
challenges 
to 
academic work with primary 
sources, 
memories of 
media 
experiences, 
and 
work 
with extra 
musical, 
TV 
or 
film 
texts 
remain 
marginal 
in 
research activities. 
A 
further 
limitation 
exists 
in 
the 
types 
of performers 
discussed in 
recent 
53 
work. 
Alongside 
analyses 
of 
the 
problem 
of 
masculinity 
in 
British 
and 
American 
rock, 
the 
relationship 
of 
girls 
to 
boy bands 
and, 
more 
recently, 
to 
queer 
or 
radical 
singer 
songwriters 
or riot 
bands 
dominates 
the 
albeit narrow 
field. 
54 
There is 
as yet 
no counterpart 
to 
Stacey's 
Stargazing, 
no analysis 
of older 
women's 
tastes 
and 
pleasures 
in 
female 
popular 
stars, 
or 
those 
of 
black 
or ethnic minority 
women, or a 
thorough 
ethnographic 
scoping 
of girls 
pleasures 
in 
popular 
girl 
bands. 
Susan McClary 
(199 
1) 
in 
her 
pioneering 
feminist 
musicological 
text, 
Feminine 
Sentences, 
endorses 
an analysis 
of 
the 
embodied meanings 
of 
female 
musicians. 
She 
interprets 
the 
neglect 
of 
women's 
music as 
betraying 
'Year 
-fear 
oftomen, 
fear 
ofthe 
body 
" (McClary, 
199 1, 
p. 
4). 
Discourses 
of pleasurable 
transformation 
In 
the 
developing 
feminist 
literature 
on 
media 
texts, 
spectators/audiences 
and 
fashioning, 
the 
possibility of 
'pleasurable 
transformations' 
began 
to 
be 
analysed 
and 
theorised, 
informed 
by 
a 
(re)turn 
-" 
Comparisons 
might 
be 
made 
here 
with 
the 
auteurship 
designated 
to 
men's consumption of 
films 
compared 
with 
the 
perception 
of 
'movie-going' 
female 
audiences. 
Straw 
contributed 
to this 
debate 
and 
claimed 
that 
male 
practices 
of 
accumulation 
take 
shape: 
"In 
an ongoing 
relationship 
between 
the 
personal 
space ofthe 
collection andpublic, 
discursive 
systems of ordering or 
value 
... 
they lie 
each 
male's collection 
to 
an ongoing, collective 
enterprise 
ofcultural 
archaeology. 
" 
(Straw, 
1997, 
p. 
6) 
" 
For 
example, 
"Album 
sleeves 
also explain 
how 
the 
music contained 
within 
them 
should 
be, 
'understood, 
interpreted 
and 
appropriated 
[ 
... 
] 
the 
words 
andimages 
on 
them 
can serve 
and educational and 
agitationalpurpose; 
providing 
Wormation 
aboutparticular 
Issues, 
andencouragingpeople 
toparticipate 
in 
an activity or 
to 
adopt 
the 
lifestyles 
signoedby 
clothingand 
hairstyles 
" (Negus, 1997, 
p. 
186 ). 
Particularly 
for 
female 
and 
black 
artists 
as 
Whiteley 
argues 
(Whiteley, 1997, 
p. xxv). 
Even Frith's 
nuanced 
interpretation 
of 
Gracie 
Fields 
(Frith, 
1988) failed 
to 
inspire 
feminist 
work 
in its 
wake. 
Dolly 
Parton 
has 
only 
recently 
begun 
to 
be 
critically appraised 
from 
standpoints 
other 
than 
a 
feminist 
antipathy 
to 
her 
modelling 
of 
feminine- 
excess 
or via 
a gay male/queer 
appropriation. 
In her 
paper 
Dollyizin'Jeannic 
Ludlow 
(1997) 
reads 
Parton's 
vocal 
effects 
in 
the 
frame 
of 
French 
feminist 
theory 
and connects 
Luce 
Irigaray's 
theories 
of 
disruptive 
laughter 
and 
Mary Russo's 
theories 
of 
the 
Female 
Grotesque 
(1994) 
to 
assert 
that 
Parton is 
never 
merely 
subjected 
by 
her 
performance 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
but 
manages 
to 
"recover 
theplace 
ofher exploilation'through 
making spectfic 
soundsfrom 
underneath 
her 'encrustedJemininity" 
(Ludlow 
cited 
in 
Patrick, 
1997). There 
is 
a 
paucity of critical 
literature 
on 
female 
popular 
culture 
stars, 
particularly 
those 
who 
fashion 'to 
excess'. 
5' 
Gender boundaries 
are maintained 
in 
some 
significant 
territories. 
I have 
noted 
the 
reluctance 
in 
the 
perennial 
Beatles 
retrospectives of any 
claims 
to 
position 
them 
in 
a 
boy 
band 
trajectory, 
although 
research 
participant 
Sandy 
discusses 
them 
using 
this 
phrase 
in 
this 
study. 
17 
to 
empirical 
and ethnographic 
research. 
In Stargazing, 
Stacey 
proposed 
two 
specific 
forms 
of 
identification: 
identificatoryjantasies 
were 
(private) 
identifications 
that 
involved fantasies 
about 
the 
relationship 
between 
the 
identity 
of 
the 
star 
in 
the 
cinema and 
the 
identity 
of 
the 
spectator; 
identiflcatory 
practices were 
forms 
of 
recognition, 
perceived 
by 
and 
possibly 
involving 
others 
where 
spectators 
transformed 
some 
aspects 
of 
the 
their 
identity 
as 
a result 
of 
their 
relationship 
with 
a 
favourite 
star, 
55Drawing 
on work 
by 
Caroline 
Steedman, 
and 
the 
responses 
and 
memories of 
her 
respondents, 
Stacey 
extended 
the 
existing 
psychoanalytic 
consensus 
of 
the 
'impossibility 
of 
femininity' by 
recording 
the 
envy, 
failure 
and 
frustration 
experienced 
by 
women 
who 
had 
aspired, 
attempted and 
failed 
to 
achieve 
the 
idealised 
femininity 
of stars. 
56 
Stacey's 
close 
reading 
of audiences' 
'cinematic identiflcatory 
practices' also revealed 
their 
articulation 
of 
forms 
of 
desire 
and 
erotic 
pleasure' 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
175). 
57 
Similarities 
and 
differences 
in 
femininity 
inform 
audiences 
viewing 
pleasures and 
were seen 
to 
be determined by 
notions 
of 
high 
and 
low 
femininity 
(Gaines 
cited 
in 
Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
57) 
national 
identity, discourse 
of 
glamour 
and 
feminine 
abundance, 
sexuality, 
class, 
age and 
so on. 
Work 
on 
female 
spectatorship 
from 
the 
1980s 
on, proposed 
that 
female desire 
could 
be 
understood 
in 
more complex 
ways 
than 
a 
binary 
oppositional conceptualisation 
of gender allows. 
" 
McRobbie's 
early study 
of girls 
had 
anticipated 
these 
later 
readings of 
femininity 
as 
potentially 
'troublesome'. 
In Gaines' 
evaluation of 
McRobbie's 
work, she stated 
that 
what 
was significant 
for 
feminist 
theory 
and 
how 
it 
distinguishes 
itself 
from 
subculture 
theory 
"is 
that 
the 
counter-ideoloiD, 
is 
produced with 
the 
most 
despised 
signs of 
femaleness'and 
the 
accoutrements 
of 
femininity"' 
(Gaines, 
1990, 
p. 
8). 
59 
ss 
"Instead 
ofa rather 
static 
division between 
mortals and goddesses 
characteristic ofthe 
pleasures 
[of 
the 
former] 
it is 
the 
Imagined 
transformation 
ofsel(which 
provides 
the 
cinematicpkasure'(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
145). 
s' 
Stecdman 
(1989) 
fused 
autobiography, sociology and 
psychoanalysis 
in her 
account 
of 
her 
own 
and 
her 
mother's 
lives. Her 
memory of 
her 
working-class mother's 
longing 
for 
the 
New Look 
became 
a resonant 
source 
for 
future 
feminist 
research 
including 
Stacey's 
on 
the 
meaning 
of material 
culture 
in 
the 
lives 
of 
women 
in 
the 
post-war period: 
"7he 
cultural construction of 
feminine 
identity involvesfailure, 
not only 
at 
the 
psychic 
level 
but 
also at 
the 
material... 
hence 
the 
production ofparticularly 
intenseforms 
offeminine 
desire 
came 
through 
the 
experience 
ofmaterial 
constraint 
" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
217). 
57 
This 
was a significant 
move, 
from 
the 
delimiting 
positioning 
of 
the 
feminine 
in 
psychoanalytic 
theory 
and 
the 
pejorative 
reading 
of 
female 
identification 
in both film 
and cultural 
studies. 
Stacey discovered 
that 
female 
spectators 
could 
enjoy a spectrum 
of 
intensely 
pleasurable 
identifications 
with 
female 
stars 
in 
particular. 
"Indeed 
it Isprecisely in 
same-sex 
relations 
that the 
distinction 
between 
desire 
and 
identification 
may 
blur 
most 
easily 
and 
moreover, 
it 
might 
be 
suggested 
that therein 
lies 
their 
particular 
appeal 
"(Stacey, 1994, 
p. 
175). 
With 
the 
express 
aim 
to 
broaden 
feminist 
knowledge 
in 
this 
area, she 
identified 
a range 
of 
intimacies 
between 
femininities 
- 
an 
"intimacy 
which 
is 
knowledge 
"(Frith 
cited 
in 
Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
175). 
And 
simultaneously 
highlighted 
the 
limitations 
of earlier 
feminist 
debates 
focussing 
on 
Images 
of 
Women, 
fragmentation 
and 
objectification. 
Stacey's 
research 
revealed 
forms 
of 
feminine 
culture 
that 
evoked 
intense 
pleasure 
and 
delight: 
"7he 
recognition 
ofshared 
knowledge 
forms 
the 
basisfor 
such 
intimacy 
betweenfemininities 
which 
has 
tended to 
be 
ignored 
in 
existing 
accounts 
offeminine 
consumption 
" (ibid. 
p. 
195). 
" 
In 
1988, Belinda 
Budge 
proposed 
that 
"Analysing 
the 
nature 
ofthe 
relationship 
between 
representation 
andthepleasures 
ofan 
active 
audience 
provides 
a pathwayforfeminist 
analysis 
to 
tackle 
anew 
the 
notion 
ofthe 
erotic 
- 
and 
to 
enjoy 
and 
celebrate 
the 
wilder 
side ofwomen 
" (Budge, 
1988, 
p. 
I 11). 
" 
Budge's 
essay 
was 
included 
in 
Gamman 
and 
Marshment's 
The 
Female Gaze. The 
title 
indicative 
of 
its 
refuting 
of 
the 
18 
But 
reflecting 
on 
the 
empirical 
data 
gathered 
from 
women 
consumers 
and spectators 
in 
the 
post-war 
period, 
Hollows 
has 
acknowledged 
that 
such accounts 
frequently 
problematised 
canonical 
feminist 
interpretations: "The 
media 
images 
that the 
white 
middle class professional 
Betty 
Friedan 
interpreted 
as 
damaging 
to 
women 
in 
the 
1950s 
were 
the 
very 
same 
images 
offemininity 
which 
some 
working 
class 
women 
may 
havefound 
'liberating"' 
(Hollows, 2000, 
p. 
24). 
In 
1979, The Birmingham Feminist 
History Group, 
attempted 
to 
re-evaluate 
aspects 
of 
femininity, 
and 
the 
quiescence 
of 
feminism in 
Britain 
in 
the 
1950s. 
"Wherefeminism 
was 
[ 
... 
] 
bound 
byfemininity 
in 
such a manner 
that 
we asfeminists 
today 
do 
not easily recognise 
its 
activities 
as 
feminist" 
(Birmingham Feminist History 
Group, 
1979, 
p. 
48). 
A 
decade 
later, 
the 
orthodox 
feminist 
political 
critique 
of make-up, 
literally 
and metaphorically 
emblematic 
for 
many of 
the 
futile 
laborious 
reproduction 
of a rigidly proscribed 
masquerade 
had 
come under 
scrutiny 
by 
writers 
like Radnor 
who 
problematised 
such proscriptions 
by 
considering 
"the 
possibility ofan economy 
oftleasure 
articulated 
as 
repetition 
-that 
the 
verypleasure 
ofmaking 
-up 
is 
produced 
by 
the 
strictformulation 
of 
its 
practice" 
(Radner, 
1989, 
p. 
320). 
60 
The 
recent 
conceptualisation 
of 
fashioning femininity 
as 
potentially 
empowering 
or 
transforming 
can 
be 
read as 
a reversal of one 
of early 
Second-Wave 
feminisms 
core values. 
It 
has 
necessitated, 
as 
Gaines 
argues, 
re-evaluations 
of 
individual 
women's 
agency 
and reflections 
by 
some 
feminist 
academics 
on 
the 
importance 
of personal morals 
and 
tastes 
in forming 
theoretical 
views about 
others: 
For 
feminist 
scholars, 
confronting 
our own moralism 
and replacing 
it 
with 
acceptance 
has 
meant 
an extension 
of 
the 
horizon 
of 
our research 
[ 
... 
] Wearing 
high 
culture 
blinders, 
we 
are 
unable 
to 
appreciate 
the 
strength 
of 
the 
allure, 
the 
richness 
of 
the 
fantasy, 
and 
the 
quality of 
the 
compensation, especially 
if 
our 
analysis 
consists 
only 
of 
finding 
new ways 
to 
describe 
the 
predictable 
mechanisms of 
patriarchal 
culture 
(Gaines, 1990, 
p. 
6). 
inimitability 
of 
the 
Male 
Gaze 
and a 
further 
distancing 
of 
the 
Mulveyian 
standpoint 
Contributor 
Shclagh 
Young 
indicted 
the 
feminist 
policing 
of 
femininity 
and 
proposed, 
in 
a 
move away 
from 
McRobbie's 
early 
work, 
that 
girls 
could 
use 
feminine 
fashioning 
for 
radical 
transformation: 
"no 
needs 
tofeelpaironised 
by 
a sussed-out 
sister 
who 
has 'moved 
onfrom 
wearing 
cosmetics and 
skirts, 
whenfor 
thousands 
ofgirls, 
clothes 
and 
make-up are 
the tools 
oftheir 
teenage rebellion 
" (Young, 
1988, 
p. 
178). 
'0 
In 
a 
further 
departure 
Kuhn 
addressed 
the 
paradoxically 
dis/empowering 
processes 
of 
identification 
at work 
in 
the 
processes 
of 
a 
mother's 
investment 
"ofdesire, 
fantasy 
and 
identification 
" 
whilst 
dressing 
up 
her 
female 
child: 
"The 
baby 
girl 
becomes 
Its 
mother's muse, 
its 
body 
her 
canvas 
to 
be looked 
at, admired, 
photographed, 
hailed 
as 
a 
credit 
to 
her 
mother"(Kuhn, 
1995, 
p. 
52) 
19 
Fashion 
and 
fashioning 
Following 
the 
groundbreaking 
Resistance 
through 
rituals 
(Hall 
and 
Jefferson, 1979) 
Hebdige's 
Subculture: 
the 
meaning ofstyle 
(198 
1) 
was 
the 
first 
of many studieS61 
to 
examine 
"the 
phenomenon 
ofoutrageous 
body 
display 
and 
ornamentations-as-social-offence 
" 
(Gaines, 1990, 
p. 
8). 
Subculture 
theory 
articulated 
its 
subjects 
through 
the 
language 
of style, 
the 
sociology of 
deviance 
and 
the 
(ab)use 
of 
commodities 
rather 
than 
fashioning 
or 
fashion. 
McRobbie's 
was perhaps 
the 
first 
critical 
voice 
to 
note 
that 
subculture 
theory 
was 
derived 
exclusively 
from 
the 
study of working-class 
male 
cultures, 
but 
subcultural 
theory's 
neglect 
of 
female 
fashion/ing 
also 
mirrored 
ambivalences 
to 
fashion 
in feminist 
theory. 
62 
Both 
so-called 
malestrearn 
interpretation 
of 
the 
field 
as 
irredeemably 
ferninised, 
and 
paradoxically 
the 
taste 
or proscriptions 
of 
feminism 
stymied 
its development. 
63 
Gaines, 
in her 
groundbreaking 
collection 
noted 
that 
Fabrications 
was 
"conceived during 
one phase 
offeministfilm 
theory 
and criticism 
and 
hasfinally 
come 
together 
in 
a 
different 
one, 
a 
time 
more 
hospitable 
to 
costume 
as 
an 
area ofinvestigation 
... 
from 
a 
moral stance... 
to 
a 
less 
proscriptive one" 
(ibid. 
). 
64 
In 
the 
late 
1980s, in 
the 
wake 
of 
the 
first 
wave of subcultural 
research, and 
the 
onset 
of 
poststructuralist 
and 
postmodernism, 
fashion's 
outcast, 
fugitive 
status 
was ripe 
for 
critical appraisal. 
For 
Evans 
and 
Thornton 
amongst 
others, 
the 
challenge 
of 
fashion's 
liminality 
was 
its 
appeal 
whereby, 
the 
practices which 
a 
culture 
insists 
are 
meaningless or 
trivial, 
the 
places 
where 
ideology 
has 
succeeded 
in becoming 
invisible, 
are 
practices 
in 
need of 
investigation 
... 
Fashion has 
always 
existed 
as a 
challenge 
to 
meaning where 
meaning 
is 
understood 
to 
involve 
some 
notion 
of 
coherence, a 
demonstrable 
consistency 
(Evans 
and 
Thornton, 199 
1, 
p. 
4 
8). 
Emanating 
from 
Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural 
Studies, 
'2 
Walkerdine 
also 
found 
research on subcultures 
alienating: 
"Idreanit 
ofglamour, 
readcomics 
listened 
topop 
music, worked 
hardat 
school 
andmyfather 
diedearly. 1couldn'tfindin 
my 
history 
any ofthe exotic 
subcultural 
resistance 
that 
culturalstudies 
wanted 
to 
me 
tofind" 
(Walkerdine, 
1997, 
p. 
19). 
As 
Gaines 
points 
out, 
whereas subcultural 
theory 
tended to 
exoticise and 
mythologise 
the 
fashioning 
of 
young male rebels 
"Feminists 
In 
the 
Second-Wave 
originally 
explained 
the 
danger 
offashion 
culture 
in 
terms 
of 
the 
patriarchy 
in 
league 
with capitalism" 
(Gaines, 
1990, 
p. 
4). Indeed, 
critical 
literature 
on 
fashion/ingper 
se 
has 
developed 
only recently, and 
most 
often 
in 
the 
fissures 
and 
margins 
of academia. 
Design 
History 
and 
Theory 
as a 
discrete 
discipline has 
only 
recently 
found 
its 
way 
into 
academia; 
the 
first 
peer-rcviewed 
journal 
on 
fashion 
Fashion Theory 
was 
not 
roduccd 
until 
the 
late 
1990s. 
Evans 
and 
Thornton, 
as 
late 
as 
199 
1, 
stated 
that 
"The discussion 
ofwomen'sfashion 
has 
tended 
to 
reproduce 
unthinkingly 
preconceptions 
aboutfemininity 
" 
(Evans 
and 
Thornton 
199 
1, 
p. 
49). 
Gaines 
has 
observed 
that 
"Early 
in 
the 
Second-Wave, 
beauty 
culture 
andjeminism were 
seen as antithetical" 
(Gaines, 
199 1, 
p. 
3). 
" 
Gaines 
acknowledged 
Elizabeth 
Wilson 
as a significant 
early 
feminist 
contributor 
to 
debates 
on 
fashion. Wilson 
provided 
insightful 
accounts 
of 
the 
role of 
women and 
fashion 
in both 
historical 
and 
contemporary contexts, 
notably 
Adorned 
in 
Dreams: 
Fashion 
andModernity 
(1985) 
Wilson 
also was 
an occasional 
contributor 
to 
Spare 
Rib, 
where 
her 
articles 
avoided 
an 
overly 
reductive 
reading 
of 
fashion. 
In her 
attention 
to 
historicity 
and 
the 
cultural 
genealogy 
of 
fashions, 
Wilson 
opened up 
new 
debates 
within 
feminism, 
for 
example 
in 
her 
conviction 
that 
"Thepolitical 
subordination ofwomen 
is 
an 
inappropriate 
point 
of 
departure, 
if 
as 
I 
believe, 
the 
most 
important 
thing 
aboutfashion 
is 
not 
that 
it 
oppresses 
women 
" 
(Wilson 
cited 
in 
Gaines, 
1991, 
p. 
7). 
20 
Consequently, 
accounts of 
fashion 
as 
communication 
became 
more widespread 
from 
this 
period 
(Barnard, 1991; Wilson 1985; Craik, 
1994; 
Ash 
and 
Wilson, 
1992; Gaines 
and 
Herzog, 1990; 
Buckley 
and 
Fawcett, 2002). 
65 
Fashioning 
lesbianism, 
fashioning 
feminism 
The 
scant 
literature 
charting 
the 
history 
of 
feminist 
and 
lesbian fashion/ing frequently 
homogenises 
this 
multi-faceted 
field 
under 
the 
rubric 
ModerniSM. 
66 
From 
the 
mid 
1850s 
in 
Britain 
and 
America, 
feminist 
politics 
had intersected 
with and 
generated 
dress 
reforms. 
In 
America, 
this 
alliance 
was 
exemplified 
by 
the 
Bloomer 
costume 
introduced 
in 
1850 developed 
as a reaction 
to 
contemporary 
women's 
fashions 
that 
were considered 
widely 
by 
feminists 
to 
be inhibiting, 
unhealthy 
and 
"a 
badge 
of 
degradation" 
(Kesselman, 
199 1, 
p. 
498). 
Kesselman 
points out 
that the 
public 
responded rabidly 
to 
the 
"threat 
to 
gender 
distinctio? 
&' 
represented 
by 
the 
combination 
of 
reform 
dress 
and 
feminism, 
through 
social 
ridicule, 
harassment 
and 
press 
lampooning 
that 
decried 
the 
supposed 
'unsexing 
of 
women' 
(ibid. 
p. 
50 
1). 
67 
A 
later 
paradigm 
shift 
in 
modernist, 
feminist 
and 
lesbian fashioning 
occurred 
in 
the 
post 
WWII, 
Cold War 
milieu 
in 
Britain 
the 
US 
and 
France. 
Elizabeth Wilson has 
noted 
that 
"deviant 
identities 
were 
collapsed 
into 
one 
another so 
that 
bohemianism, leftwing 
radicalism 
and 
homosexuality 
seemed 
naturally 
and 
inevitably 
connected" 
(Wilson, 
1990, 
p. 
7 
1). 
She 
notes 
that 
by 
the 
early 
sixties, 
when 
she 
began frequenting 
the 
lesbian 
pub 
The Gateways 
in 
Chelsea 
"the 
two 
modes, 
the 
bohemian 
and 
the 
traditional 
butchlfemme 
coexisted 
but had 
a 
distinct 
class 
meaning 
[ 
... 
] 
The 
more 
casual 
bohemian 
style 
was 
associated 
with 
the 
middle class 
teachers, 
journalists 
and 
artists whom my 
lover 
" 
In 
addressing 
the 
debates 
over 
whether 
the 
wearer or 
the 
spectator 
over and 
above 
any 
intention 
of 
the 
designer 
conferred 
meaning 
on garments 
a 
key 
case 
was 
presented 
by 
Angela Partington in her 
investigation 
of working-class 
women's use 
of 
the 
New Look 
in 
the 
1950s. Partington 
claimed 
that the 
female 
consumer 
was not 
simply 
a victim 
of 
fashion 
and 
marketing 
industries 
that 
aimed 
to 
dress 
women up 
in 
garments appropriate 
to their 
class 
identity, 
rather, 
the 
consumer 
created 
new 
meanings. 
Reviewing 
Partington's 
contribution 
Bamard 
contrasted 
this 
form 
of appropriation 
against 
the 
ubiquitous 
adoption 
of 
jeans, 
'bra-buming', 
punk 
fashion 
and 
dress 
reform and suggested 
that, 
in investing 
fashion 
with 
new meanings, 
they 
were 
"articulating 
class and 
gender 
identities in 
a 
new way 
... 
it 
resists 
appropriation 
by 
the 
dominant 
Mien: 
by 
sampling and 
mixing 
Identities, 
rather 
than 
trying 
to 
escape or 
reverse 
identities 
" 
(Bamard, 1991, 
p. 
14 
1). 
Whereas 
the 
design 
and manufacturing 
industries 
had 
projected 
that 
the 
Utility inspired 
shirtwaist 
dress 
would 
be 
wom 
(demurely) 
by 
women 
labouring in 
the 
home, 
the 
New Look 
dress 
would 
be 
reserved 
for 
specific occasions 
demanding 
siren 
like 
glamour. 
Partington 
recognised 
that 
not 
only 
did 
women 
wear 
the 
New 
Look 
shaped garments 
'inappropriately 
and 
improperly'. but 
also 
hybrid 
versions 
were produced 
and 
concludes 
that 
working-class women 
"usedfashion 
to 
resist 
dominant 
ideologies 
offemininity" 
(Partington 
cited 
in 
Bamard, 
199 1, 
p. 
142). 
" 
Problems 
accumulate 
in 
the 
slippages 
and 
fusing 
of modemist 
aesthetics, 
so-called 
feminist 
and 
lesbian 
style and post 
nineteenth century 
bourgeois 
stylings 
of masculinity 
and 
in 
the 
paucity of 
information 
on 
working-class, 
feminist 
and 
lesbian 
patterns 
of 
consumption 
and 
fashion 
For 
example, 
in 
an essay 
examining 
the 
fashion 
stylings 
of 
British 
uber 
lesbians 
Radclyffe 
Hall 
and 
Una 
Troubridge, 
Katrina 
Rolley 
states 
that 
Radclyffe 
Hall's 
"whole 
aura 
[was] 
high-brow 
modernism 
" (Rolley, 
1990, 
p. 
58). Her 
signature 
"Tillan hair 
In 
close 
Eton 
crop 
" 
was ahead 
of 
the 
Modem 
garconne 
bobs 
that 
were 
to 
become 
popular 
some 
years 
later. 
Wilson 
notes 
that 
fifty 
years 
or so earlier: 
"manliness 
[ 
... 
] 
came 
to 
be 
associated 
with 
sober 
dress " Ergo, 
the 
fashionings 
that 
the 
aristocratic 
Hall 
was 
to 
adopt 
had become 
the 
"hallmark 
of 
the 
elegant 
man 
" 
(Wilson, 
1990, 
p. 
69). 
67 
But 
notions 
of 
taste 
appear 
to 
have 
also 
been 
an 
important 
component 
in 
the 
battle for 
reform. 
The 
Dress Reform 
association 
called 
for dress 
for 
women 
that 
was 
of, 
"refined 
taste, 
simplicity, 
economy 
and 
beauty " (extract 
from 
The 
Sibyl, 
9 September, 
1856, 
cited 
in Kesselman, 
1991, 
p. 
503) 
anticipating 
the 
rise 
of 
an 
international bourgeois 
adoption 
of modernism 
in design. 
21 
and 
I 
got 
to 
know, 
strict 
butchIfemme 
styles were 
working 
class" 
(Wilson, 
1990, 
p. 
7 
1). 
68 
Feminist 
debates 
on pleasures 
from 
the 
1980s did 
not remain 
focussed 
on 
the 
performances 
of 
femininity 
on 
the 
screen 
but began 
to 
extend 
into 
critiques 
on 
the 
prescriptiveness 
of 
residual 
feminist ideas 
about 
re/fashioning 
femininity. 
61 
The 
re-evaluation of 
the 
cultural 
significance 
of 
specific 
fashionings 
by 
so-called ordinary 
women, 
following 
Wilson's 
endorsing 
of 
fashion 
as a serious 
subject 
for 
feminism, 
was 
taken 
further 
by 
Attfield 
and 
Kirkham 
who 
co-edited 
A 
viewfrom 
the 
interior, 
women, 
fashion 
and 
design (1989). 
Rather 
than 
critiquing 
a range 
of gendered 
objects 
as 
semiotically 
indicative 
of 
patriarchal 
power, 
their 
contributors 
attempted a 
more 
historically 
and socially 
sensitive 
analysis 
of 
fashion. 
For 
example, 
whereas 
for 
many 
feminists, 
stiletto 
shoes 
were 
associated 
with 
(unwanted) 
male 
chivalry and 
female 
bondage 
contributor 
Lee 
Wright 
claimed 
they 
had 
had 
"unambiguous 
resonance as sexual 
signs 
"a 
symbol 
of 
'glamour' 
and 
'rebelliousnesSi. 
70 
Early 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
analyses 
of 
fashionings 
considered 
to 
be 
objectifying, 
became 
enmeshed 
in 
complex 
political 
discussions 
that 
collapsed 
into 
often 
contradictory messages 
for 
other or 
so-called 
ordinary 
women 
around 
(sexual) 
violence 
against women 
and 
the 
meaning 
of clothing 
for 
men where 
women's responsibilities 
remained unclear 
.71 
Feminists 
occasionally 
(un)consciously 
rehearsed 
commonplace 
discriminatory 
for 
working-class 
displays 
of 
fashioning 
excesses 
in 
linking 
this 
to 
sexual 
availability. 
72 
" 
She 
also noted 
that 
Mary Quant 
came 
from 
the 
bohemian 
Chelsea Set 
of 
the 
fifties 
and, 
like Yves 
St Laurent 
before 
her 
"built 
her 
style around 
the 
beatnik 
look" 
(Wilson, 
1990 
p. 
72). 
69 
In 
an early 
move, 
that 
identifies 
the 
by 
now over 
determined 
notion of 
feminist 
style 
connoting 
authenticity and 
naturalness 
versus 
the transgressive 
artifice 
of other 
women, 
Young 
stated 
that: 
"Nofeminist 
wants 
to 
corifine 
their 
rebellion 
to 
the 
limited 
realm 
ofpersonal 
appearance, 
but 
the 
strand 
withinfeminist 
discourse 
that 
stresses 
the 
'authenikity'andpoliticalpolentiaI 
ofa 
'naturai'look 
doesn't 
doJustice 
to the 
women 
who 
dare 
to 
dress 
up 
[ 
... 
] 
Mirroring 
thepathelicpatriarchalpractice 
ofassessing 
women not 
by 
what 
they 
say or 
do but 
by 
their 
appearance, 
the 
lauthenticfeminists 
areforgetting 
that the 
'natural'look 
is 
as 
carefully constructed 
and 
laden 
with 
meaning as any other style. 
Today, 
twofeatures 
ofthe 
'natural'female 
body 
- 
the 
absence 
ofmake-up and 
the 
presence ofbody 
hair 
- 
have become 
the 
over-simplifying signifters 
ofthefeminists 
subject 
" (Young, 
1988, 
p. 
179). 
Ardill 
and 
O'Sullivan 
critiqued 
the 
lesbian 
subculture 
in 
the 
1980s 
as 
"androgery, 
short 
hairfor 
all. 
and a clean 
scrubbedface 
" (Ardill 
and 
O'Sullivan, 
1990). 
" 
Consequently, 
Bamard 
argued all 
items 
of 
fashion 
and 
clothing 
must 
be 
considered 
as 
"undecideable 
objects" 
(Bamard, 1991, 
p. 
163). Barnard 
has 
claimed 
that 
on 
the 
basis 
of 
Wright's 
reading, 
where 
the 
stiletto 
can 
be 
seen 
as 
"inherentlyfeminine " 
(Wright, 1989, 
p. 
7) 
and 
"a 
symbol 
offemale 
subordination 
" 
and yet elsewhere 
been 
understood 
as 
symbolising 
forms 
of 
aggressive or rebellious 
womanhood, 
that the 
object 
is 
rendered 
"undecideable". 
Examining 
historically 
relevant 
texts 
including 
shoe 
trade 
literature 
and medical 
pronouncements 
Wright 
suggested 
that: 
"the 
stiletto 
was used 
by 
some women 
to 
represent 
dissatisfaction 
with 
the 
conventionalfemale 
image 
and 
to 
replace 
it 
with 
that 
ofa 
'modern'woman 
who 
was more 
active and 
economically 
Independent than 
herpredecessors" 
(ibid. 
p. 
14). She 
noted 
the 
paradox 
that, 
in 
retrospect, 
feminists had 
read 
the 
stiletto 
as 
a 
'shackling 
instrument' 
and, 
whilst conceding 
that 
stilettos 
add emphasis 
to 
breasts 
and 
bottoms 
stated 
that 
she 
considered 
it 
a more 
important 
"that 
the 
stiletto 
did 
not symbolise 
the 
housewife. [ 
... 
] 
From 
1957, 
the 
stiletto was 
associated 
with 
glamour, 
with 
rebellion: 
It 
represented 
someone who 
was 
in 
some 
waymodern'and up-to-date'and 
above allsomeone 
who 
inhabited 
a worked 
outside 
the 
home 
-a 
'go-getterl Therefore 
it 
may 
be 
more 
accurate 
to 
suggest 
that 
the 
stiletto 
symbolised 
liberation 
rather 
than 
subordination. 
" (ibid. ). 
71 
Such debates 
were 
sustained 
by 
the 
continued sexist 
treatment 
of 
women 
by 
the 
judiciary 
system 
where 
the 
clothing 
of 
the 
complainant 
in 
tape 
trails 
can 
still 
be 
considered relevant 
to 
whether 
or not 
the 
defendant 
was 
'led 
on' 
(Lees, 
1993, 
p. 
229). 
72 
The 
early 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
notions of genderless 
fashioning, 
and 
implied 
assumptions 
that 
only 
women 
fashioning 
femininity 
(to 
excess) 
triggered 
a sexualised gaze, are somewhat 
contradicted 
by 
Wilson in 
her 
observation 
that, 
because 
of 
its 
association 
with 
youth, 
and 
the 
prohibitions 
that 
preceded 
it: 
"androgyny 
was 
a 
highly 
sexualisedmode 
ofselfpresentation 
in 
the 
Sixties" 
(Wilson, 
1990, 
p. 
72). 
22 
Fashion, 
consumption and 
desire 
The 
normative conceptualisation 
in feminist 
theory 
of 
women's relationship 
to 
commodities 
is 
of women 
as objects and not subjects of 
exchange. 
73 
Stacey's 
reading of 
issues 
of consumption 
contested 
the 
prevailing 
focus 
of 
research 
(at 
the 
level 
of production) where 
consumers were 
homogenised. 
Her 
analysis 
revealed 
the 
interconnecting 
histories 
and pleasures 
for 
women 
gazing 
at 
shop 
windows 
and cinema 
screens. 
Stacey's 
challenge 
lay 
in 
her 
opposition 
to the 
notion 
of 
the 
inseparability 
of subjectivity 
from 
objectification. 
She 
cautioned 
that this 
"is 
not synonymous 
with 
the 
uses 
and meanings 
ofcommodities 
to 
consumers" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
185). 
74 
Stacey, 
like 
Partington, 
reviewed 
the 
process 
of 
consumption 
as 
implying 
the 
possibility 
of 
rejecting 
of 
self-sacrificing 
domesticity 
and 
motherhood 
75 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
230). Whilst 
concurring 
with 
the 
view 
that 
Hollywood 
was promoting 
images 
of 
femininity 
and 
female 
consumption, 
she 
argued 
that 
the 
dominant 
ideologies 
of 
the 
Hollywood 
producers 
did 
not 
inevitably 
square 
with 
that 
of 
female 
consumers. 
The 
consumer 
was not 
seen 
by 
Stacey 
as 
determining 
her 
relation 
to 
femininity 
solely 
through 
commodities, 
or 
that these 
processes 
were necessarily 
consumption 
as 
transgression, 
rather 
her 
view was 
that 
female 
consumers 
help 
produce 
different discourses 
in 
relation 
to 
consumption 
in 
a range 
of 
different 
contexts. 
76 
Empirical 
work 
on 
fashioning 
is 
frequently 
embedded 
in 
larger 
research 
projects 
on subcultures. 
In Sugar 
and 
Spice, (1990) 
Sue 
Lees 
conducted 
research with young girls 
and 
boys 
on 
the 
effect 
language 
has 
on girls 
in 
adolescence. 
Here, 
the 
identification 
and 
prohibitions 
on 
fashioning 
feminine 
excess 
were 
shown 
to 
be 
culturally 
widespread 
but 
paradoxically elusive, 
linked 
to 
imagined 
sexualities 
and 
subject 
to 
derogatory 
classifications 
. 
77 
Lees 
concluded 
that 
because 
of 
this 
lack 
of 
73 
Mulvey 
and 
others 
promoted 
this 
view 
in 
the 
field 
of 
film 
studies 
where 
women's objectification, 
fetishisation 
and 
display 
as 
sexual 
spectacle 
have 
now 
been 
critiqued. 
" 
The 
assumption 
that 
fashion 
was 
the 
enemy 
of 
women's emancipation 
in First-Wave 
feminism, 
is 
contested 
by Steven Zdatny 
who 
has 
argued 
that 
"what 
looks 
like 
repression 
in 
logic 
canfeel 
like liberation 
in 
10 
" 
(Zdatny, 
1997, 
p. 
3 87). 
7' 
For 
example, 
when 
connected 
with 
the 
exoticism 
of 
Paris 
or 
Hollywood. 
7' 
Gaines 
discussed 
the 
connection 
between 
narrative 
form, 
naturalistic 
detail, 
consumerism 
and 
the 
ideological 
production 
of 
female 
subjects. 
Relating 
her 
thesis to 
Radway's 
explanation 
of 
the 
pleasures 
of 
mimesis 
in 
romance 
novels, she 
claimed 
"Extravagant 
costuming, 
justified 
as 
history, 
coqfirms 
a 
woman's 
concerns 
and 
interests 
by 
elevating 
theinfrom 
ordinariness 
to 
the 
status 
ofthe 
exquisite 
ob/ect 
The 
elegant 
gown 
is 
an 
homage 
to 
woman's 
"preoccupations 
"' (Gaines, 
1990, 
p. 
19). 
In 
a 
further important 
contribution 
to the 
debate, McRobbie has 
critiqued 
recent 
scholarship 
on 
consumption 
and 
the 
fashion 
industry 
as 
a 
feminised 
sector. 
In 
an 
impassioned, 
polemical address, 
she 
stated 
that 
foregrounding 
the 
material 
pleasures 
of women's 
consumption 
of 
fashion 
in 
new 
feminist literature 
on 
fashion 
has 
meant 
that 
"poverty has 
dropped 
off 
the 
agenda 
" (McRobbie, 
1997, 
p. 
73). 
She 
critiques 
the 
lack 
of 
feminist 
scholarship 
on 
how 
women 
shop, 
finding 
little 
or 
no 
material 
apart 
from 
research 
concerned with 
the 
feminisation 
of 
poverty 
(ibid. 
p. 
8 1). 
" 
"Ae 
term 
'slag 
' 'can 
be 
used 
in 
a whole range ofcircumstances. 
It 
implies 
that 
a girt 
sleeps 
around, 
but 
this 
may 
infact 
have 
nothing 
to 
do 
with 
the 
case 
in 
point. 
A 
girl can 
be 
referred 
to 
as 
a slag 
Jfher 
clothes 
are 
too 
fight. 
too 
short, 
too 
smart 
Or 
in 
any 
way 
sexuallyprovocative, 
tfshe 
hangs 
around with 
boys, 
Ji'she 
talks to 
another girl's 
boyfriend, 
ifshe 
talks 
too 
loudly 
or 
too 
much" 
(Lees, 
1990, 
p. 
3 1). 
23 
clarity, 
girls were 
left 
in 
a permanent 
state 
of vulnerability 
(ibid. 
p. 
63). 
78 
In her 
study, 
the 
penalties 
and 
dangers, 
but 
not 
the 
pleasures, of performing 
forms 
of 
fashioned femininity 
are 
highlighted. 
7' 
In 
contrast, 
and 
drawing 
on 
the 
predominant 
memories of stars 
by 
respondents 
through 
an 
association 
with 
star 
clothes, 
hairstyles 
and 
make-up, 
Stacey 
demonstrated 
the 
ways 
such uses of 
images 
of 
femininity 
were 
defined 
by 
audiences 
in 
opposition 
to 
existing 
feminist knowledge: 
Close-up 
displays 
of 
parts of 
the 
female 
may 
have 
functioned, 
not 
to 
alienate and objectify, 
but 
to 
produce a 
fascination 
which 
was remembered 
as a 
form 
of 
intimacy 
by female 
spectators. 
Thus 
ironically 
the 
very 
fetishism 
and 
fragmentation 
criticised within 
feminist 
film 
theory 
seems 
to 
have had 
a 
rather 
different 
meaning 
for 
spectators 
whose memories 
of such 
effects can 
be 
understood as 
a 
form 
of 
personalisation 
of 
the 
Hollywood 
star otherwise 
kept 
at a 
distance 
on 
the 
screen 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
206). 
In Black 
and 
Sharma's 
research 
on 
women's 
uses of 
beauty 
therapy the 
findings 
included 
the 
recognition 
that 
neither 
clients 
nor 
beauty 
therapists 
interviewed 
for 
the 
research 
stated 
that their 
concerns 
were with achieving 
beauty, 
but 
rather 
'pampering', 
'treatment' 
or 
'grooming' 
(Black 
and 
Sharma, 
200 1, 
p. 
100). 
Similarly, 
Furman's 
intimate 
portrait of customer's uses of 
an 
older, 
Jewish 
women's 
beauty 
salon 
included 
descriptions 
that 
exceeded any 
commonplace understanding of 
fashion, 
gender 
and 
consumption, 
including 
as 
it did 
testimonies 
of enduring 
friendships, 
community, 
health 
and 
care-giving 
(Furman, 
1997). 
The 
Formations 
research project, 
(Skeggs, 
200 
1 
a; 
Skeggs, 200 1 
b) 
a 
longitudinal 
ethnographic 
study 
led by 
Beverley Skeggs 
represents 
a 
recent 
important 
departure in 
studies 
of 
fashion 
and class. 
Building 
on 
Bourdieu's 
Distinction, 
and work 
by feminist 
writers such as 
Steedman 
and 
Walkerdine, 
Skeggs 
highlights 
a 
desire 
for 
respectability 
as 
the 
prime motivation 
in 
working-class 
women's 
fashioning 
tastes. 
Her 
conceptualisation 
of 
the 
mis-recognition 
of 
the 
symbolism 
of working-class 
7' 
She demonstrated 
that 
although 
the terminology that 
linked 
feminine 
excess 
to 
notions 
of 
degraded 
dangerous 
sexualities 
in 
women was 
frequently 
cited 
in 
research on 
boys it had 
"received 
little 
serious 
analysis 
as 
a 
culturalform 
[ 
... 
] 
it 
has 
been 
taken 
for 
granted 
that 
everyone 
knows 
what 
the term 
refers 
to. 
It 
has 
been 
assumed 
that 
the 
terms 
'slag'or 
'easy 
lay'simply 
apply 
to 
certain 
identifiable 
girls. 
[ 
... 
I 
"ile 
everyone apparently 
knows 
a 
Islag'and 
stereolypically 
depicts 
her 
as a 
thick 
untidy, 
unfastefully 
dressed 
and made-up, 
loud-mouthed 
and, 
ofcourse, 
as someone 
who 
sleeps 
around, 
it 
seems 
that 
such a 
stereotype 
bears 
no 
relation 
to 
the 
girls 
(virtually 
any girls) 
to 
whom 
the term 
is 
applied" 
(ibid. 
p. 
36). 
79 
"This 
constant 
sliding 
means 
that 
any girl 
is 
always 
availablefor 
the 
designation 
'slag, 
In 
any 
number 
of wm. 
Appearance is 
cruciaL 
by 
wearing 
too 
much 
makeup; 
by havingyour 
skirt 
slit 
too 
high; 
by 
not combingyour 
hair; 
by 
wearingjeans 
to 
dances; 
or 
high heels 
to 
school,, 
by havingyour 
trousers too 
light 
oryour 
tops 
too 
low. 
Trudy 
referred 
to these 
as 
'sexual 
clothes 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
42). Nevertheless 
Lees 
followed 
Hall 
and 
Jefferson 
and 
McRobbie 
in 
a 
subcultural 
reading 
of 
fashioning 
as rebellion: 
"Femininity 
is 
often 
used 
by 
this 
group 
of girls 
as aform 
of 
rebellion. 
Girls 
dress 
up, wear 
make-up 
and 
short 
skirts 
and often 
flaunt 
their 
sexuality" 
(ibid. 
p. 
169). 
24 
women's 
fashioning 
to 
excess and 
its 
consequences 
on women's 
access 
to 
cultural 
capital, contributes 
new 
knowledge 
to 
feminism. 
Modernism 
and 
Visual 
Culture 
Feminine 
excess as 
Modernist 
'crime' 
The 
literature 
on 
Modernism 
in 
Design 
and 
Fine Art, 
can 
be defined 
as critical, 
pedagogical and 
historical 
texts 
generated 
in 
Europe from 
the 
early 
I 
800s 
but 
principally 
those 
generated at 
the 
end of 
the 
nineteenth century 
(Pioneer 
Modernism) 
until 
the 
onset 
of 
post-modcrn 
perspectives 
in 
the 
field 
around 
the 
mid-1980s. 
20 
In 
general 
terms, 
the 
literature 
can 
be 
critiqued as 
being 
both 
canonical 
and 
cschatological; 
it 
strongly 
endorses 
a 
trajectory 
of 
thinkers 
and 
makers, 
propelled 
by 
apparently 
uncanny 
forces 
that 
led 
design, 
architecture 
and 
fine 
art 
towards 
increasingly 
functional, 
autonomous, 
abstracted 
and utopian, 
anti-historicist, 
universal 
end point. 
" 
Although 
the 
absolute 
origins 
of 
Modernism 
in 
the 
visual 
arts 
are continually 
disputed, 
82 
Naomi 
Schor has 
linked 
Modernism 
with 
significant 
precedents 
in 
the 
history 
of art 
where 
the 
detail is 
set 
against good 
taste. 
83 
In 
her 
'archaeological' 
survey 
of 
the 
detail, 
Schor identified 
the 
consistent 
sexism of 
the 
rhetoric 
used and 
concluded 
that, 
The 
ornamental 
is 
inevitably 
bound 
up 
with 
the 
feminine, 
when 
it 
is 
not 
the 
pathological 
- 
two 
notions 
Western 
culture 
has had 
a 
great 
deal 
of 
trouble 
distinguishing. 
This 
imaginary 
femininity 
weighs 
heavily 
on 
the 
fate 
of 
the 
detail 
as 
well as 
of 
the 
ornament 
in 
aesthetics, 
burdening 
them 
with 
the 
negative connotations 
of 
the 
feminine: 
the 
decorative, 
the 
natural, 
the 
impure 
and 
the 
monstrous 
(Schor, 1987, 
p. 
45). 
" 
" 
Pioneer 
Modernism 
coined 
by 
Greenhalgh (1990, 
cited 
in 
Julier, 1993) developed 
between 
1900 
and 
1930 in 
Europe. Ile 
term 
is 
in 
part an 
acknowledgement 
of 
Nikolaus Pevsner's 
influential, 
Pioneers 
ofthe 
Modern 
Movement 
(1936) 
the 
text that 
canonised 
Modernism. 
Hebdige 
has 
cornmented 
that 
"The 
austere patrician values 
ofthe 
Continental Modern 
Movement 
were 
perfectly 
compatible 
with 
the 
dejinitions 
of 
'good 
laste'which 
were 
then 
becoming 
prevalent 
in 
[British] broadcasting 
circles 
" 
(Hebdige, 
198 1, 
p. 
47). 
Pevsnees 
Pioneers 
and 
Bcrtram's Design 
were published as 
Pelican 
specials 
and 
"soonfoundfavour 
and 
support 
amongst 
the 
dominant 
[British] 
taste-making 
eliles"(ibid. 
). 
11 
A 
belief 
in 
minimalism 
is 
still 
widespread as 
I discuss in 
'Qucening It'. The British 
star 
architect 
John Pawson defines 
it 
as 
"theperfection 
that 
an 
artefact 
achieves when 
it is 
no 
longerpossible 
to 
Improve 
it 
by 
subtraction" 
(Pawson 
cited 
in Irving, 
2001, 
p. 
77). 
As 
my 
tentative 
introduction 
above 
illustrates. 
Schor 
acknowledged 
"an 
ancient 
association ofdetails and 
decadence, 
which 
runs 
in 
an 
unbroken 
continuityfrom 
the 
critique 
ofrealisin 
to the 
critique 
ofmodernisin 
" (ibid. 
p. 
42). For 
example, 
Reynolds, 
in 
his Discourses 
on 
Art 
del ivcred 
to 
the 
Royal 
Academy 
between 1769 
and 
1790 
stated 
that 
"7he 
whole 
of 
beauty 
consists, 
in 
my opinior4 
in 
being 
able 
to 
get 
above 
singular 
forms; 
local 
customs. particularities 
and 
details 
ofevery 
kind" 
(Reynolds 
cited 
in 
Schor, 
1987, 
p. 
11). 
" 
Schor 
argued 
that 
as 
early 
as 
the 
start of 
the 
nineteenth 
century 
the 
association of 
the 
ornamental 
with 
feminine duplicity 
or 
degradation 
was couched 
in 
terms 
"as 
though the 
ornament-femininity 
equation were 
an 
establishedfiact. 
As 
though 
it 
were, 
in 
a 
word, 
natural 
- (ibid. ) 
As 
if in 
anticipation of 
the 
future 
ambivalences 
written 
through 
the 
literature 
of 
feminism 
on 
femininity 
Schornoted 
"Tofocus 
on 
the 
detail 
and 
moreparticularly 
as 
the 
detail 
as negativity 
is 
to 
become 
aware, 
[ 
... 
I 
of 
itsparticipation 
in 
a 
larger 
semantic 
network 
bounded 
on 
the 
one side 
by 
the 
ornamental, 
with 
its 
traditional 
connotations 
of effeminacy 
and 
decadence 
and 
on 
the 
other 
by 
the 
everyday, whose 
1prosiness'is 
rooted 
in 
the 
domestic 
sphere 
ofthe 
social 
Ij(e 
presided 
over 
by 
25 
Fashion 
historians have 
revealed 
how 
the 
gradual gendering 
of 
the 
detail 
characterised 
European 
bourgeois 
apparel 
in 
the 
nineteenth century, 
for 
example 
"high 
heels became female 
'footwear 
and 
were 
disallowed 
in 
a male sartorial 
code" 
(Wright, 
1989, 
p. 
8)'s Towards 
the 
end of 
the 
nineteenth 
century 
"... 
the 
general 
adoption 
ofsimple, 
plain, 
dab 
and sober 
garments and 
the 
wearing of 
trousers 
in 
particular, 
had 
effectively 
established 
a separate 
and 
distinct 
identityfor 
men 
" (Bamard, 199 1, 
p. 
109). 
86 
With 
this 
move, 
fashion 
was 
reflecting 
the 
views of 
Pioneer 
Modernist Adolf Loos. 
Schor has 
critiqued 
Loos's 
views 
on 
the 
detail 
as 
'Darwinian' 
citing 
his 
belief 
that 
"Cultural 
evolution 
is 
equivalent 
to 
the 
removal 
ofornamentfrom 
articles 
in 
daily 
use" 
(Loos 
in 
Schor, 1987, 
p. 
53). 
97 
Modernist 
design hegemony 
Pioneer Modernism 
was 
to 
finiher 
codify 
the 
Modem 
as 
morally, spiritually 
and politically 
uplifting, 
and, as 
a conceptual 
foil 
"the 
detail 
as negativitity 
". Towards 
the 
end of 
the 
1920s 
until 
around 
1933, Pioneer 
Modernism 
suffered 
a 
demise 
with 
the 
closure 
of 
the 
seminal 
Fine Art 
and 
Design School 
the 
Bauhaus. 
Subsequently 
the 
"simple, 
undecorateg 
utilitarian" 
(Grcenhalgh 
cited 
in 
Julier, 1993, 
p. 
98 ). 
'International 
Style' described 
the 
aesthetics 
of 
the 
diasporic 
modem movement. 
88 
Its 
influence 
on 
the 
British 
liberal 
middle classes 
is 
amply 
illustrated 
in 
the 
ongoing promotion 
of 
such 
work and attendant 
philosophies 
in 
The Guardian 
newspaper 
from 
at 
least 
the 
end of 
the 
1950s. 
89 
The Modernist 
project 
was curtailed 
by 
the 
eruption of mass and popular 
culture 
and 
the 
vernacular 
into fine 
art, 
design 
and architecture, 
the 
ultimate 
failure 
of, 
for 
example, utopian 
Modernist 
public 
building 
projects 
and 
the totalising 
Greenburgian 
view 
of 
modem 
art. 
Modernism 
remains 
women... 
77te 
detaildoes 
not 
occupy a conceptual space 
beyond 
the 
laws 
ofsexual 
difference: 
the 
detail 
is 
genderedanddoubly 
gendered 
asfeminine 
" 
(Schor. 
1987. 
p. 
4). 
Wright 
points 
out 
that 
platform 
heels 
are 
the 
sole exception 
to this 
rule. 
Barnard following Flugel 
defined 
this 
as 
"The 
Great 
Masculine 
Renunciation" 
(ibid. 
p. 
122). 
As 
men's 
affire was 
Modemised, 
women's 
garments 
became 
more elaborate, more 
decorative 
and restrictive. 
Barnard 
has 
noted 
that 
in 
cultural 
terms 
masculinity 
became 
the 
spectator 
or voyeur, 
femininity 
became 
reduced 
to 
appearance 
or spectacle. 
(Bamard, 
1991, 
p. 
123). 
Berger's 
germinal 
text 
Ways 
ofSeeing 
is 
considered 
the 
first 
to 
develop 
this theme, 
which would 
become 
a central paradigm 
for 
feminism: 
that 
"Men 
look- 
women 
appear"(Berger, 
1972. 
p. 
47). 
" 
In 
a 
mythologised moment 
the 
Bauhaus 
alumna 
staff 
including 
Walter 
Gropius 
and 
Mies 
van 
der Rohe 
emigrated 
to 
Britain 
and 
the 
US. 
Juliet 
amongst 
many others 
has 
charted 
how 
'Many 
ofthe 
designs 
that 
they 
had 
developedduring 
the 
19201 
and 
which 
expressed 
their 
aesthetic 
aims went 
into 
wider 
mass production 
during 
the 
1930s 
- 
7honet, 
Pet 
Knoll Herman 
Miller 
and 
ljokon 
were all 
important 
producers 
offurn 
iture 
by 
torchbearers 
of 
Pioneer 
Modern 
ism 
- 
th 
us 
dissem 
inating 
its 
style 
" Qu 
Iier, 
1993, 
p. 
105). 
"Alongside 
Modem Scandinavian 
design, Bauhaus 
style 
architecture, 
intcriors, 
furniture 
and 
other 
products 
became 
the 
housc- 
style 
of 
the 
broadshect 
particularly 
on 
the 
Women's 
Page 
under 
the 
enthusiastic 
patronage 
of 
Mary 
Stott. 
Caroline 
Cox 
has 
noted 
that 
Vidal 
Sassoon's fascination 
with 
Bauhaus 
philosophies, particularly 
after 
meeting 
Mies 
van 
der 
Rohr in 
New 
York 
in 
the 
early 
1960s 
led 
to 
his 
re-visiting 
of 
the 
'first* 
functional 
hairstyle, 
the 
1920s 
bob 
and 
henceforth 
declared 
his 
goal 
"to 
be 
the 
ridding ofthe 
superj7uous 
in 
hair 
design (and 
working with] 
the 
innate 
properties 
of 
the 
hair'? 
In 
contrast 
to the 
arti 
f 
ice 
that 
typified 
1950s 
stylings 
(Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
123). 
26 
powerful 
and pervasive 
to 
say 
the 
very 
least, 
in 
visual and consumer 
culture and 
education and remains 
the 
preferred model 
in 
the 
continued 
ministering 
of 
the 
middle 
classes on 
issues 
of 
taste. 
90 
Modernism 
had 
always 
sustained 
an evangelical 
tone, 
that 
design had 
a 
moral 
dimension 
and 
had 
the 
ability 
to transform 
consciousness 
(Greenhalgh 
cited 
in 
Julier, 1993, 
p. 
132). 
91 
Monumentally 
successful, 
with 
truly 
global 
penetration: 
"The 
look 
ofthe 
modern environment 
is 
unthinkable 
without 
it" 
(Whitford, 1984, 
p. 
200). 
Although 
there 
have 
been 
some 
critiques 
of 
the 
gender of 
ModerniSM, 
92 
literature 
that 
deals 
with 
how 
feminism, 
gender, 
class, 
taste 
and 
Modernism 
intersect 
are scant, 
for 
example, 
there 
is 
no empirical 
data 
to 
illustrate 
the 
possible 
ways 
that 
Modernism 
was 
adopted or 
rejected 
by 
feminists 
in 
terms 
of 
fashion, 
interior 
design, 
typography, 
and, 
as 
McRobbie 
has 
indicated, 
there 
is little in 
the 
way of 
detail 
on 
working-class 
women's 
tastes 
and 
habits 
of consumption 
to 
indicate 
their 
relationship 
to 
it. 
However, 
feminist 
critics, 
notably 
Schor, 
have begun 
to 
map what 
might 
be 
at stake 
for 
some 
women 
and 
minority 
ethnic 
groups 
in 
the 
relentless promotion 
of 
first 
avant- 
garde 
then 
institutionalised 
Modernist 
style 
where 
the 
decorative, 
the 
detail 
and 
the 
ornament are 
synonymous with 
the 
vulgar, 
the 
uncivilised 
and 
crime. 
93 
Fashioning 
feminism, 
lesbianism 
and 
modernism 
Women 
were amongst 
the 
Modernist designers 
committed 
to 
dress 
reform 
as 
Second-Wave 
feminist historians have 
re/discovered 
94 
and, as 
this 
thesis 
argues, 
alliances 
between 
Modernist 
style 
and 
feminism 
are ubiquitous. 
In Britain 
during 
and after 
the 
Second 
World 
War, 
the 
government 
sanctioned 
Modernism 
through 
the 
Utility 
system 
emphasising as 
it 
did 
'fiunction 
above 
any other 
design 
criteria, 
equating 
'good 
design'with 
a non-ornamental 
style 
"?- 
and 
the 
masculinisation 
of 
design 
(Wright, 
1989, 
p. 
9). Wright 
has 
discussed 
how 
simultaneously a new 
femininity 
was 
forged. 
" 
Lucy Lippard 
noted 
a sea 
change when, 
in 
the 
early 
1960s 
"the 
male artist 
moved 
into 
women's 
domain 
andpillaged 
with 
impunity. 
The 
result 
waspop 
art, 
the 
mostpopular 
American 
art 
movement 
ever 
... 
Ifthefirst 
majorpop artists 
had been 
women, 
the 
movement 
might 
never 
have 
got 
out ofthe 
kitchen " 
(Lippard 
cited 
in Whiting, 
1997, 
p, 
1). 
Greenberg's 
influence 
on 
Modem 
Art 
and 
Art 
criticism 
cannot 
be 
overestimated. 
His 
contempt 
for 
low 
culture 
and 
kitsch in 
particular 
can 
be 
gleaned 
from his 
1961 
essay, 
Avant 
Garde 
and 
Kitsch 
in 
Art 
and 
Culture. 
The Bauhaus's 
pedagogical model 
is 
still 
in 
widespread use 
in 
British Fine 
Art 
and 
Design 
institutions 
as 
is 
Gombrich's The 
Story 
ofArt, an 
often mandatory 
Art 
School 
textbook 
that 
baldly 
states 
that 
Modernism "'helped 
us 
to 
get 
rid ofmuch unnecessary 
and 
tasteless 
knick-knackery... 
"(Gombrich, 
1972, 
p. 
445). 
Cecile 
Whiting 
has 
demonstrated 
how 
the 
proliferation 
of 
Interior Design 
and 
homemaking 
advice 
targeted 
at 
the 
middle 
classes 
in 
the 
1950s 
in America 
had disseminated 
aspirational messages 
endorsing 
Modernist 
style 
typically 
that 
"understatement 
is 
always 
the 
greatest 
taste 
- 
the 
avoidance ofgaudyjunk or spurious 
values 
in 
everything. 
Real 
taste 
despises 
the 
vulgar 
in 
anything" 
(Pahlmann 
cited 
in 
Whiting, 1997, 
p. 
58). 
She has 
also 
noted 
that 
the 
bourgeois 
apogee of 
the 
dream 
of a modernist 
interior 
was 
realised 
in 
the 
design 
of 
the 
Playboy 
Weekend Hideaway: 
glass 
walls, 
Charles 
Eames furniture 
and 
Abstract 
Expressionism 
(Whiting, 
1997, 
pp. 
91-93). 
This has 
an enduring 
resonance 
and 
is 
currently 
the 
house 
style 
of 
the 
deeply fashionable 
lifestyle 
and 
design 
magazine 
Wallpaper. 
9' 
Its 
utopianism 
made 
it 
the 
style of choice 
for 
the 
rising 
Fascism 
in 
Germany, Soviet 
regimes 
and 
US 
corporate 
capitalism. 
92 
For 
example, 
Andreas 
Huyssen's'Mass 
Culture 
as 
Woman: 
Modernism's Other' 
in'(fier 
the 
great 
divide, 
Modernism, 
mass 
culture 
postmodernism 
(1986). 
9' 
One 
of 
the 
touchstones 
for 
the 
Modernist 
canon 
is 
Adolf 
LA)os's 
essay 
Ornament 
and 
Crime 
(1908). 
" 
For 
example 
Djuna 
Barnes 
and 
Mina Loy (Goody, 
1999) 
Sonia 
Delauney 
and 
the 
Bauhaus's 
Annelise 
Albers 
(Whitford, 
1984, 
p. 
209). 
27 
Producers 
deployed 
foreignness 
or 
exoticism 
in 
their 
address 
to 
consumers, whether 
'Paris 
fashions' 
or 
litalianess' 
as 
in 
the 
case of 
the 
branding 
of 
the 
stiletto 
in 
the 
mid-1950s 
(Wright, ibid. ). 
The 
snapshots 
presented 
of 
Britain 
in 
this 
period 
in 
contemporary 
texts 
and 
in 
analyses 
by 
feminist 
researchers 
illustrates 
the 
dichotomy 
of 
idealised 
demure, 
middle-class 
British 
reserve 
in 
all aspects 
of 
fashioning, 
contrasted 
with 
a 
burgeoning 
world of 
feminine 
glamour epitomised 
both by 
Hollywood 
stars 
and 
notions 
of 
'Catholic' 
European 
exoticism 
(Stacey, 
1994; Kirkham, 
1995, 
p. 
19; Wright, 
1989). 
95 
Parisian 
haute 
couture 
had 
embraced 
Modernist 
taste; the 
early 
work 
of 
Chanel 
had 
come 
to 
exemplify 
Modernist Fashion. 
96 
Evans 
and 
Thornton 
have 
pointed out what was 
at stake 
in 
Chanel's 
approach 
and 
by 
extension 
broader 
applications 
of 
Modernism: 
"thefunctionalist 
or 
anti 
decorative 
move 
in 
art 
and 
design 
may 
indicate 
a cultural 
rejection ofthefeminine 
infavour 
ofan 
exclusively 
masculine 
model 
ofpower" 
(ibid). 
It 
is 
this 
will 
towards the 
apparent 
functionalism/ 
authenticity 
of 
the 
masculine 
model 
inherent 
in 
Modernism 
that 
appears 
to 
be 
mirrored 
in 
at 
least 
the 
interpretations 
of 
accounts 
of 
Second-Wave feminist fashioning: 
"In 
the 
rejection 
oftertain 
items 
belonging 
to the 
women's 
sartorial 
code, 
adoption ofthose 
thought 
inherently 
masculine 
has 
been 
sought: 
examples 
of 
the 
1970s 
areflat-heeled 
shoes and 
dungarees 
" (Wright, 1989, 
p. 
7). 
Barbara 
Creed 
(1995) has 
written about 
the 
lesbian body/community 
of 
the 
1970s 
and 
found 
a 
constituency 
"obsessed 
with 
[masculinised] 
appearance 
" (Creed, 1995, 
p. 
10 
1) 
fearful 
of marking 
in 
any way 
an 
association 
with 
heterosexual 
femininity 
or 
capitalism: 
The 
proper 
lesbian 
had 
short 
hair, 
wore 
sandshoes, 
jeans 
or 
a 
boiler 
suit, 
flannel 
shirt and 
rejected 
all 
forms 
of make-up. 
In 
appearance she 
hovered 
somewhere 
between 
the 
look 
of 
the 
butch 
lesbian [ 
... 
] 
and 
the tomboy. 
She 
was a 
dyke 
- 
not a 
butch 
- 
whose 
aim 
was 
to 
capture 
an 
androgynous 
uniformed 
look. 
Lesbians 
who rejected 
this 
model were 
given 
a 
difficult 
time 
97 
(Creed, 
1995, 
p. 
102). 
" 
Such 
excessive 
fashionings 
are 
antithetical 
to the 
stylings 
of 
International 
and 
later 
Scandinavian 
Modernism. 
The 
moralising 
inherent 
in Modernism 
can 
be linked 
to the 
post war 
political 
and 
social 
climate 
in 
that 
"The 
underlyingfear 
ofthe 
guardians 
of 
national andpublic 
morality was 
that the 
desires liberated 
during 
the 
war 
might 
be 
refuelled 
andfanned 
in 
a period 
ofrelative 
affluence 
- 
that 
the 
working class, eager 
to 
consume 
after 
a 
decade 
ofdeprivation, 
would 
not 
be 
able 
to 
discern 
'goodfrom 
'bad'. 'Good 
taste'wasposed 
against 
'bad 
taste'not 
least 
in 
terms 
oftlothes 
" (Kirkham, 
1995, 
P. 
19). 
" 
Her 
aim was 
"to 
dispense 
with 
superfluous 
detail 
and 
decoration, 
and 
to 
espouse 
the 
cause 
offunctionalism 
" (Evans 
and 
Thornton, 1991, 
p. 
50). In 
an 
article 
discussing 
the 
complex 
history 
of 
the 
boyish 
bob hairstyle, 
Steven 
Zdatny 
notes 
that 
Chanel's first 
works 
as 
a 
couturier were 
dubbed 'poor 
boy' 
designs, 
illustrating 
an 
aspect 
of 
Modernism, 
that 
still 
thrives 
in 
Conran's 
empire 
and 
beyond, 
where 
bourgeois 
taste 
apes an 
idealised 
ascetic 
'taste' 
of 
the 
rural, 
Poor. 
97 
Faderman 
suggests 
disingenuousness 
at 
work 
in 
the 
field 
of 
feminism, 
lesbianism 
and 
fashioning 
in 
the 
1970s 
when 
she 
stated 
"although butch 
andjemme 
were 
?polifically 
incorrect'in 
the 
lesbian-feminist 
community, 
everyone 
looked 
butch. 
"(Faderman 
cited 
in 
Ainley 
and 
Cooper, 1994, 
p. 
43). 
28 
In 
a 
fascinating 
appraisal of 
the 
work 
of 
Susan 
Sontag, 
McRobbie 
examined 
both 
the 
styling 
and 
the 
oeuvre 
of 
the 
author. 
McRobbie begins 
her 
essay 
with 
a 
description 
of an 
individual 
symbolising 
a 
paradigm 
for female 
Modernist/Left 
self-fashioning: 
It 
is 
an 
image 
formed 
in 
the 
early 
sixties, 
immune 
to 
and 
perhaps 
beyond 
fashion (no 
earrings, 
no 
hairstyles) 
and sustained 
twenty, 
almost 
thirty 
years 
later. 
The 
picture 
is 
inevitably in 
black 
and white 
[ 
... 
] 
It 
is 
an 
image 
which 
combines 
sinewy 
female 
strength with casual elegance. 
Thick 
dark hair, 
same 
style 
at 
varying 
lengths, dark 
eyes, 
olive complexion, square 
jaw, 
virtually no make-up. 
On 
the 
cover 
of 
the 
collection 
of short 
stories 
L 
Etcetera 
(1978) 
she 
is 
shown 
full length, 
in black 
trousers, 
black 
polo neck and 
wearing 
Chelsea 
boots 
At 
home, 
with 
books, 
wearing 
black 
(McRobbie 
199 1, 
p. 
1). 
McRobbie 
interprets 
Sontag's 
scholarship 
and 
personal style 
as signifying 
her 
(Sontag's) 
taste 
for 
the 
European high 
art 
culture 
and 
her distain 
for 
American 
mass and 
popular culture, which 
"serves 
thefunction 
ofreminding 
us 
we 
have 
ofthe 
value 
of 
'mind 
as passion 
"'. Sontag's 
style 
is 
ultimately 
interpreted 
as 
being 
outmoded, 
her 
commitment 
to 
"... 
abstraction and 
clean, 
fluid 
lines, 
uncluttered 
by 
the 
detail 
and 
messiness 
ofeveryday 
life, 
were 
soon swallowed 
up, not 
by 
corporate 
culture, 
but by 
a 
dawning 
recognition 
that 
it 
was 
increasingly 
the 
messiness 
of everyday 
life 
which 
provided 
the 
richest source 
ofraw 
materialsfor 
art andpop 
alike" 
(McRobbie, 
199 
1, 
p. 
18). 
However, 
Sontag's 
image 
is 
one 
minted 
in 
a classical 
mould, 
whilst 
the 
cultural 
challenges 
to 
abstraction 
have 
arguably resulted 
in 
few 
figures 
moving 
into 
the 
academic 
limelight 
fashioned 
as 
Modernism's 
other. 
9' 
98 
McRobbie 
reads 
the 
garments 
of 
Sontag 
as 
black, 
and yet 
is 
aware 
that the 
photograph under 
scrutiny 
is 
a 
black 
and white 
image. 
This 
thesis 
does 
not allow 
for 
a 
thorough 
discussion 
of 
the 
Modernist 
dis/approbation 
for Hollywood Technicolor 
and 
monochrome 
New Wave 
cinema 
for 
aspirant working-class 
and 
middle-class 
audiences 
respectively 
but I 
would argue 
that 
these 
cinematic 
tastes 
may 
have influenced 
sartorial choices 
in 
the 
post war period. 
Little 
research 
has 
been 
conducted 
on 
the 
links between 
the 
British 
music 
and sartorial 
movement 
of 
Mods from 
the 
1960s 
on 
the 
broader 
Modernist 
design 
and 
fine 
art 
fields. 
Hcbdige devoted 
only 
two 
pages 
to 
Mods 
in his 
influential 
Subculture (1979, 
pp. 
552-54). However, 
Weller 
and 
Hewitt have 
made 
a case 
for 
Mod 
style 
being 
principally 
a 
working-class 
phenomenon 
and, 
in 
ways 
that 
are 
reminiscent of 
Partington's 
claims 
re. working-class 
women 
and 
the 
New 
Look, 
a 
look 
appropriated, 
then 
fused 
and 
mixed with 
an array 
of 
'inappropriate' 
sources; 
the 
fashioning 
of 
black 
soul 
heroes, 
Italian 
and 
American 
Ivy League 
style, 
vernacular and upper-class 
Engl ish 
tailoring... 
" 
that taxi 
driver 
look, 
all 
bright 
colours and 
tomfoolery 
6ewellery)... 
like 
a goffier 
or 
Bruce 
Forsyth 
or 
something" 
(Sampson 
cited 
in Hewitt, 2000, 
p. 
149). Significantly, 
the 
early 
years 
of 
Mod(cmist) 
fashionings do 
not 
reflect consumer 
bondage 
to 
big fashion 
houses, 
although 
this 
may 
have 
been 
the 
case 
following 
the 
success 
of 
Ready 
Steady 
Go 
which, according 
to 
Hewitt "nationalised 
mod 
"(Hewitt, 
2000, 
p. 
69) 
but 
the 
production 
of 
a complex 
hybrid 
take 
on 
the 
strictures 
of unadorned 
high Modernism, 
juxtaposing 
classic 
linear, 
pared-down 
forms 
with 
dandy-like 
eruptions 
of 
colour, 
texture 
and where 
"Detail 
is 
all" 
(ibid. 
p. 
73). Like 
their 
counterparts 
in 
fine 
art, 
design 
and 
architecture, 
the 
little 
literature 
that 
exists 
charting 
the 
development 
of 
Mod 
fashionings 
focuses 
on 
men, 
women 
in 
Mod 
culture 
"remained 
on 
the 
periphery" 
(ibid. 
p. 
16). 
29 
Black 
perspectives 
on 
fashioning femininity 
This 
thesis 
has benefited 
from insights 
concerning 
fashioning, 
identifications, 
expressions of 
fashioning 
to 
excess and 
style 
politics 
from 
scholarship 
on 
Black 
cultures and 
Black 
music, 
the 
testimonies 
of 
Black 
stars 
and 
specific 
texts 
by 
white 
writers, 
in 
particular popular music 
critics who 
have 
been 
in 
the 
vanguard 
in 
acknowledging 
and examining 
the 
impact 
of 
Black 
cultures 
on white 
British 
life 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
The 
importance 
of 
issues 
of 
ethnicity 
to 
historical, 
social 
and 
cultural 
accounts of 
fashioning 
glamour 
has 
only 
recently 
begun 
to 
be 
charted. 
Barbara 
Trepagnier 
has 
stated 
that 
Black 
women 
are 
inextricably 
linked 
to 
white women 
in 
the 
complex phenomenon 
of 
women's 
identities 
being 
defined 
"primarily 
through 
their 
relationships 
with 
their 
bodies " (Trepagnier 
1994 
p. 
199). 
99 
The 
relationship 
of 
notions 
of 
the 
exotic 
and otherness 
to 
constructions 
of glamour 
is 
absolutely 
indissoluble 
from 
both 
mainstream 
and counter-cultural 
fashion; 
however, 
empirical 
accounts 
of 
cross- 
ethnic 
self- 
fashionings 
are 
rare. 
Insofar 
as audience 
research 
is 
concerned, 
its 
partiality 
is 
evident; 
the 
(dis)pleasurable 
identifications 
between 
Black 
audiences 
and media 
remain 
largely 
untheorised. 
100 
Similarly, 
the 
literature 
on 
fashioning 
and 
women of colour, 
for 
example 
the 
Black 
British 
experience 
of 
fashion 
consumption 
and negotiation, 
has 
yet 
to 
be 
adequately 
addressed. 
101 
Quest (1985) 
have 
suggested 
that 
consciousness-raising, 
an 
important 
component 
in 
the 
development 
of 
individual 
feminists 
and 
feminist inspired 
research, 
failed 
to 
accommodate 
the 
voices 
of 
black 
women. 
102 
Both 
feminist 
film 
studies and cultural studies 
have failed 
to 
expand 
to 
any extent 
feminist knowledge 
on 
audiences 
of women 
of colour, an exception 
being 
the 
work of 
Jacqueline 
Bobo 
(1995) 
103 
Romance, 
glamour 
and 
whiteness are 
inextricably bound 
in 
the 
media. 
Although 
work on 
" 
"Veryfew 
women 
can 
satisfy 
the 
requirements 
of 
'beauty'perpetrated 
In 
Western 
societies, 
however, 
since 
the 
standard of 
beautyportrayed 
In 
the 
mass 
media 
designates 
whiteness, 
black 
women 
are presumably at 
a 
disadvantage. 
For 
that 
reason, 
black 
women 
are 
likely 
to 
play 
a role 
In 
the 
construction ofwhile 
women's 
'body 
identified 
Identities 
"' (Trepagnier, 
1994, 
p. 
199) 
Stevi Jackson 
has 
stated 
that 
"in 
orderfor women 
to 
reach 
theplace 
where she 
takespleasure 
as a woman, 
a 
long detour by 
way ofthe analysis 
ofthe various 
systems ofoppression 
brought 
to 
bear 
on 
her 
is 
assuredly 
necessaiy" 
(Jackson, 
1996, 
p. 
82). 
The 
unrcmarkability 
of 
whiteness 
and 
its 
relationship 
to 
forms 
of 
femininity has 
occluded 
its 
own undeniable relevance 
to these 
debates. Whiteness 
has 
only 
begun 
to 
be 
interrogated 
and 
theorised 
at 
the 
end of 
the twentieth 
century, 
see 
Richard Dyer's 
1997 
volume 
"ife. 
100 
Although 
'real' 
audiences 
voices are not 
incorporated, 
Nataf 
has 
usefully 
added 
to 
debates 
on 
Black 
lesbian 
spcctatorship 
in 
Fopular 
cinema. 
(Nataf, 1995, 
pp. 
57-8 
1) 
MA 
useful 
exception 
here is 
Inge Blackman 
and 
Kathryn 
Perry's 
article 
on 
lesbian 
fashion 
in 
the 
1990s 
that 
includes 
empirical 
material on 
Black 
lesbian fashionings, 
confronting 
racist expectations 
of 
'what lesbians 
look 
like' 
(Blackman 
and 
Perry, 
1990). 
'"' 
"It 
is 
a valuable 
cornerstone 
offeminist 
theory 
andpractice. 
But 
as 
a verbal exercise 
in 
setiC-examination 
andgroup 
sharing, 
it is 
also an 
approach 
with 
a class 
and 
race 
bias. 
"ite 
middle-class 
women 
are 
comfortable 
with 
aform 
that 
relies 
on mainly 
verbal skills... 
theformality 
ofusing 
CR 
as a 
techniquefor 
communication 
is 
stifling 
and 
intimidating 
to 
women 
who 
are 
accustomed 
to 
expressing 
themselves 
in 
many 
less 
defined 
and 
directedforms " 
(Quest 
cited 
in Kramarac 
and 
Treichler, 
1985, 
p. 
105). 
Researchers 
including 
Gloria 
Joseph 
and 
Jill Lewis have 
undertaken 
empirical 
work 
and 
in 
her 
analysis 
of 
Black 
beauty 
salons 
Joseph 
reports 
that 
they 
have 
"long 
been 
a strongholdfor 
the 
dissemination 
offacts 
about 
men 
and 
about 
women's 
involvements 
with 
men. 
Comments 
about 
mistreatmentfrom 
men 
the 
sweetness 
ofmen, 
two-timing 
men 
andfaithful 
women 
are 
topics that 
typically 
elicit 
animated 
conversations 
"(Gloria 1. 
Joseph, 
cited 
in 
Kramarae 
and 
Treichler, 
1985, 
p. 
68). 
I 
Stacey 
and 
Radway's 
studies 
focussed 
on white audiences 
and white 
"fantasises 
of 
becoming 
are 
based 
on a 
sense 
ofpossible 
inclusion 
within 
while 
ideals 
ofromance, glamour 
and 
sexualio? 
- (Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
239). 
30 
Black 
audiences 
for 
music 
in 
the 
post war 
period requires 
attention, 
the 
importance 
of 
Black 
music 
stars 
for 
white 
audiences 
is 
apparent 
in 
many 
post-war accounts. 
In 
her 
summary of 
the 
impact 
of 
Black 
culture on 
British 
tastes 
in 
this 
period, 
Craik (1994) has interpreted 
the 
impact 
of 
Black 
fashion 
as 
a 
fusion 
of 
difference 
and 
allure 
for 
white 
British 
youth, rehearsing 
Modernism's 
paradoxical 
relationship 
with 
the 
other. 
The 
historical 
frame 
of 
the 
1940s 
to the 
1990s 
constructed 
in biographical, 
journalistic 
and musical 
texts 
are 
imbricated 
with 
references 
to 
both 
Americanness, 
and 
Blackness 
spanning 
the 
development 
of 
Black 
music 
in 
Britain from 
race music 
to 
soul and rock. 
Val Wilmer 
remembered 
the 
1960s 
as 
the 
point 
when 
Black 
music, popular 
in 
Britain 
for 
over a century 
in forms 
, 
tailored 
for 
whites' was 
superseded 
by 
the 
experience 
of 
"the 
authenticity 
ofAfrican- 
American 
vernacular 
performance'by 
blues 
and 
gospel 
artists 
'changing 
the 
musical 
climatefor ever 
"(Wilmer, 
1995, 
p. 
62). 
Embodying 
as 
they 
did 
an 
unequivocal 
affront 
to the 
fashioning 
of 
demure 
British 
femininity, 
it 
is 
significant 
that 
it 
was 
a 
Motown 
girl 
group, 
the 
Marvelettes 
who with 
Please 
Mr Postman 
who were 
to 
pioneer 
the 
pop girl 
group, 
(Black 
to 
white) 
cross-over 
record 
that 
"totally 
seduced 
the 
white 
record 
buyingpublic" 
first 
in 
America 
then 
in 
Britain 
(Whitall, 
1998, 
p. 
51). 
104AIthough 
such 
fascination 
can 
be 
discredited 
as racist, 
this 
research 
is 
an attempt 
to 
begin 
to 
understand 
how 
such 
memories 
of 
difference, identification 
and 
cross-cultural 
fascination 
can 
be 
considered 
as 
yielding positive evidence 
of 
intimacies, despite 
contemporary 
racist and 
misogynist 
discourses, 
between 
femininities. 
'05 
Wilmer's 
vivid account 
of 
first 
encountering 
konking 
and 
processing can now 
be 
contextualised 
by 
theoretical 
and empirical 
research 
that 
reveals a spectrum 
of meanings 
of 
such 
hair fashioning 
for 
African 
Americans. 
106 
Craig's 
work 
is 
part of a 
broader 
fleld 
of scholarship on 
the 
meanings 
of 
Black 
hair following 
a germinal 
text 
by 
Kobena 
Mercer Black 
hairl 
Style 
politics 
(1994). Mercer 
called 
for 
'" 
Soon 
after 
to 
be 
covered 
on 
the 
Beatles 
second album. 
Ile 
glamour, abundant 
femininity 
and 
otherworldliness 
British female 
cinema goers 
associated 
with 
American female 
stars 
is 
linked 
in 
Wilmer's 
memories 
with 
both female 
and 
male 
Black 
American 
musicians 
from 
the 
late 
1950s: "7he Claytonites' 
[touring Britain 
in 19591 like 
other, 
4mericans, 
seemedalmost 
like 
peoplefrom 
anotherplanet, 
with 
theirfine 
clothe.? 
and 
jewellery 
and 
the 
smell of cologne 
that 
wafted around 
them 
[ 
... 
] 
Racism 
was 
temporarily 
shelved 
in 
theface 
ofgenuine 
wonderment at 
the 
gods 
being 
here 
in 
our 
midst" 
(Wilmer, 
1989, 
pp. 
3440). Forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
have 
of course 
been 
developed in 
an almost 
canonical 
fashion in 
voice, costuming 
and 
self-fashioning 
by 
blackjazz 
and 
male soul performers 
from 
this 
period on, 
for 
example, 
Little 
Richard, 
Smokey 
Robinson, 
Michael 
Jackson, 
Bootsy Collins, 
George 
Clinton, Prince 
and 
Puff 
Daddy. 
103 
Wilmer 
remembered 
the 
glamour, 
or 
feminine 
excess 
embodied 
by 
Black 
(male) 
artists 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
and 
its 
troubling 
effect on 
normative gender 
assumptions. 
The 
appeal 
such 
forms 
of 
femininity 
might 
have 
had 
is 
evoked 
in 
this 
extract: 
"[Jimmy 
Cotton] 'konked'his hair 
too, 
and wore 
it 
'high' 
in 
a 
black 
tradition 
oftersonal 
adornment 
[ 
... 
] 
splendid 
enough 
to 
impress 
English 
people who 
has 
never seen 
the 
effect 
outside 
publicitypholos 
oftittle 
Richard 
With 
hisfingershe 
moulded 
Marcel Waves 
deep 
In 
his 
Paselined 
?procesj', 
keeping 
It in 
place 
at 
night 
with a 
head-wrap.. 
There 
Was 
Something 
distinctly 
feminine'ahout 
these 
hlues-men 
who 
preferred 
the 
soft-waved 
look 
and manicured 
hands. 
11puzzled 
white 
male 
writers, 
who 
got 
hung 
up on 
theories 
ofsexual 
ambiguity and 
were rather 
embarrassed 
by 
this 
apparently 
less 
than 
macho 
streak 
in 
their 
idols. 
Yet 
I 
understood 
it 
when 
such men 
talked 
about 
'keeping 
themselves 
pretty 
'for 
women; 
it 
was 
a 
reaction 
against 
the 
calluses ofthefield-hand 
and 
the 
grimy, 
broken 
nails of 
the 
assembly 
line 
" (Wilmer, 
1989, 
p. 
69). 
" 
Such 
fashioning 
has been 
variously 
interpreted 
as 
indicating 
hustlers, 
entertainers, 
intimidating respectability 
"a 
badge 
of 
street 
masculinity" 
effeminacy, 
dissidence 
and oppression 
(Craig 
1997, 
Mercer, 1994; Akuba, 
1997; 
hooks, 
1997). 
31 
the 
depsychologising 
of 
the 
question 
of 
hair 
straightening 
in favour 
of recognising 
hair 
styling, 
'fior 
what 
it 
is, 
a specifically cultural 
activity 
andpractice 
" 
(Mercer, 
1994, 
p. 
101). 
107 
He 
defined 
two 
logics 
of 
black 
hair 
stylisation: 
"one 
emphasising 
natural 
looks, 
the 
other 
involving 
straightening 
to 
emphasise 
artifice. 
"108 
The 
forms 
of radical 
femininity 
performed 
by 
music 
stars 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s, 
that 
provided 
a model 
for 
British 
stars 
Dusty 
Springfield, 
Lulu, 
Mick Jagger 
and 
the 
Beatles 
amongst others 
were 
generated 
by 
African 
American 
vocalists 
of 
the 
1960s including 
Martha 
Reeves 
and 
Ronnie 
Spector 
(who 
claims 
black, 
Cherokee 
and 
Irish 
heritage) 
leader 
of 
the 
girl 
group 
the 
Ronnettes. Ronnie 
fashioned 
herself 
on 
feminine 
forms 
that 
were 
pleasurably consumed, 
and 
remembered 
iconically 
by 
her, 
as working- 
class 
and ethnic: 
I 
grew up 
in 
a 
family 
of 
different 
races. 
And I 
loved 
my 
look, 
even 
though 
I 
got 
beat 
up a 
lot 
and 
my 
braids 
were cut 
off 
in 
school... 
And 
when 
I 
got with 
the 
Ronettes, 
we 
didn't 
do like 
the 
Supremes. 
Our 
hair 
would 
be 
up 
in 
those 
big 
bee- 
hives, 
with 
intentions 
for it 
to 
fall down during 
the 
show. 
I 
always made 
sure 
the 
pin wasn't 
tight. 
I 
loved 
getting messy 
... 
I 
got all 
my 
ideas by 
looking 
out of 
my 
Grandmother's 
window 
on 
Amsterdam 
Avenue 
[New York] 
seeing 
all 
the 
Spanish 
girls 
with 
cigarettes 
and 
big 
hair. 
I 
loved 
that 
tough 
look; 
that's 
what 
I 
wanted 
(Spector, 
1997). 
And 
Greig 
has 
pointed 
out 
that 
cross-ethnic 
identifications 
were 
to 
become 
a component 
in 
the 
burgeoning 
of 
TV 
pop 
in 
America 
where 
dancers 
in 
the 
audience 
for 
shows 
like 
Bandstand 
were 
a 
source 
of pleasures and 
fascination for 
(female) 
viewers, 
who 
noted 
their 
hairstyles, 
clothes and 
dance 
routines. 
109 
By 
the 
1970s, 
the 
critical attention 
to the 
rise 
of white 
rock overshadowed 
many other 
forms 
of 
popular 
music 
that 
nonetheless 
continued 
to 
sell well. 
According 
to 
Greig 
"Nowhere 
were 
the 
'" 
Mercer 
contested 
that 
the 
processing of 
hair 
sociallised 
it 
"making 
it 
the 
medium 
of significant 
statements about 
selfand 
society 
and 
the 
codes ofvalue 
that 
bind 
them 
or 
do 
not 
" (Mercer, 
ibid. ). 
1" 
This binary 
opposition, 
where 
artifice 
occupies 
the 
degraded 
or 
negative 
instance, 
is 
rhetorically 
linked, in 
this 
thesis 
to 
the 
paradigmatic 
definition 
of 
Modernist 
taste 
(versus 
populu/feminine 
taste) 
and 
the 
analysis 
of 
(good) 
feminist 
taste 
versus 
(bad) 
feminine 
artifice 
to 
be 
found 
in 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
politics. 
Mercer's 
research 
sought 
to 
interrogate 
hair 
meanings 
beyond 
a 
political 
impasse 
that 
endorsed 
such 
binary 
oppositions 
with 
respect 
to 
Black 
hair. 
Significantly, 
Robin 
Morgan 
used 
the 
Black 
hair 
processing 
analogy 
to 
address 
women who 
have 
not 
had 
their 
consciousness 
raised 
(Morgan, 
1970, 
p. 
xvii). 
But Robin 
D. 
G 
Kelley 
(1997) 
following Mercer 
rejected 
the 
simplistic 
'taming 
of 
the 
bush' 
narrative 
demonstrating 
how hair 
fashioning 
can 
have 
political 
and 
social meaning, 
for 
example 
"More 
than 
dashikis. 
platform 
shoes, 
black 
berets 
and 
katherjackels, 
the 
4fro 
has 
clearly 
been 
the 
mostpowerful 
symbol 
ofbIack 
style 
politics 
"(Kelley, 
1997, 
p. 
339) 
but 
that 
its 
power 
is both 
mobile 
and 
subject 
to 
historical 
reinterpretations 
and 
glossing. 
Kelley 
recorded that 
"The 
afro 
has 
partial 
roots 
in 
bourgeois 
highfashion 
circles 
in 
the 
late 
1950s 
and 
was 
seen 
by 
the 
black 
and 
white 
elite 
as a 
kind 
ofnewfemale 
exotica 
" (Kelley, 
1997, 
p. 
34 1). 
Angela 
Davis 
has 
written about 
her 
own 
iconic 
status 
as 
'The 
Afro' 
(Davis, 1998). 
109 
"They 
seemed 
to 
represent 
a 
channel 
ofcommunication 
between 
the 
performers 
and 
the 
viewers, 
black 
or 
white, 
promising 
an 
easypassage 
between 
the two 
worldiforfuture 
generations 
" 
(Grieg, 
1989, 
pp. 
28-29). 
32 
consequences 
ofwhite rock's 
imperialism 
more 
devastating 
thanfor 
women 
involved 
in 
the 
music 
business 
either 
asfans or 
as artists. 
For 
thefirst 
time, 
women, particularly 
black 
women 
were 
being 
pushed 
out 
to the 
picture altogether" 
(Greig, 
1989, 
p. 
13 0). 
110 
Greig has 
interpreted 
the 
timing 
of 
the 
excommunication 
of 
women 
from 
serious 
music 
criticism 
as 
'ironic', 
mapping over as 
it did 
the 
first 
surge 
of 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
activism 
in 
America. 
Black 
female 
stars 
were 
subordinated 
despite 
the 
phenomenal 
success of 
Diana 
Ross 
and 
the 
volume 
of sales attributable 
in 
the 
main 
to 
her 
young 
female 
fan 
base. 
Here, feminist 
music 
criticism 
and 
politics 
can 
be 
said 
to 
have held 
a consensual 
stance 
to 
mainstream, 
left-leaning 
music 
critics 
who 
interpreted 
such consumption as 
false 
consciousness, 
or 
tasteless, 
performed 
by 
unreconstructed 
agents 
of capitalism 
(and 
patriarchy). 
According 
to 
Greig, 
the 
achievements 
of 
female 
performers 
through 
the 
1950s 
and 
60s 
was 
lost 
on 
the 
feminists 
of 
the 
1960s 
and 
1970s 
who 
saw 
in 
girls groups 
only a reflection 
of 
society's 
expectations 
of women: 
subservience 
to 
a 
male 
ideal 
of 
female 
sexuality, 
intellectual 
dependence, 
and 
a 
foolish 
romanticism 
that 
hid 
not 
the 
longing 
for 
real equality 
and 
love 
between 
man 
and 
women 
but 
a pernicious 
ideology 
of 
patriarchy 
(Greig 1989, 
p. 
13 
1). 
The 
racism 
of 
the 
music press 
might not 
be 
the 
only 
reason 
why 
Janis 
Joplin 
and 
Diana Ross 
be 
read 
as good 
and 
bad 
respectively. 
Their 
performances 
of specific 
extra 
musical 
forms 
of 
in/appropriate feminine 
excess, 
and 
Ross's 
popularity with working-class audiences 
(of 
women) 
are 
also 
likely 
factors. 
Greig 
cites 
Barbara 
Ehrenreich's 
pronouncement 
on 
Joplin: 
"There 
were 
no other 
female 
singers 
during 
the 
sixties who 
reached 
her 
pinnacle ofsuccess 
" 
(ibid. 
p124) as 
typifying 
feminist 
denial 
of 
the 
popularity 
Black 
star's 
achievements. 
"' 
She has 
also 
pinpointed 
the 
neglect 
by 
feminists 
of 
the 
agency 
in intimacies 
between 
the 
femininities 
shared 
between 
popular 
female 
stars 
and 
"' 
Despite 
the 
significance 
of 
their 
contribution 
to 
popular 
music, girt groups who 
made 
hits 
in 
the 
1960s 
are 
now 
involved 
in 
litigious battles 
to 
be 
remunerated 
for 
and gain ownership of 
their 
work. 
Their 
efforts 
are 
being 
led 
by 
the 
Ronnettes. 
In 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
"it 
was 
the 
exception rather 
than the 
rule 
if 
they 
[girl 
groups) 
were 
paid 
" 
(Krum, 
1998). 
111 
In 
fact 
the 
Supremcs 
had 
thirty 
hit 
singles 
during 
the 
1960s 
and 
1970s, Jopl 
in 
had 
one, 
in 197 
1. 
In 
his 
obituary 
of 
Judy Clay, his 
prodigiously 
talented 
partner 
in 
the 
first 
racially 
mixed 
duo 
in 
the 
US, Billy 
Vera 
notes 
the 
significance of 
their 
precedent 
for 
Black African 
Americans 
and 
the 
disdain 
they 
encountered 
from 'limousine 
liberals': "Given 
today's 
unfortunate 
state 
ofrace 
relations 
in 
the 
US 
it is 
hard 
to 
imagine 
what 
an act 
like 
ours 
meant 
to 
an 
older 
generation 
of 
black, 
4mericans, 
to 
whom 
integration 
and 
assimilation 
were 
goals. 
I 
recall 
coming 
offstage 
one 
night 
after we 
had 
stopped 
the 
show 
-and 
beingforcedto 
do 
an encore of 
Storybook 
Children 
- 
andseeing 
Judy 
Is launt'Cissy 
Houston 
crying 
tears 
ofjoy and 
hope 
in 
the 
wings, 
with 
herfouryear 
old 
daughter 
Whitney 
in 
her 
arms 
[ 
... 
I 
We 
were 
never 
taken 
up 
as a cause 
by 
the 
limousine 
liberals 
ofthe 
day. 
This 
may 
have 
something 
to 
do 
with 
thefact 
that 
our 
audience 
was 
mostly 
everyday 
blacks 
and 
working-class 
whites. 
Our 
music 
wasjustplain 
old 
soul, so 
the 
hippie 
culturefound 
nothing 
in 
us 
to 
connect 
with. 
We 
didn't 
wear 
leather 
fringe 
vests and 
bell-bottom Jeans. Judy 
went 
Infloor 
length 
gowns 
and 
my ouYns 
were 
mohair 
continental 
suits. 
We 
played 
the 
, 
4pollo 
in 
Harlem 
not 
the 
Fillmore 
East. 
. 
4nd 
that 
wasjustfine 
with 
the 
un-chic 
bridge 
and 
tunnel 
crowd 
and 
the 
Harlemites, 
who 
gave 
us standing 
ovations, even as 
bloody 
riots were 
takingplace 
across 
the 
Hudson 
River 
in 
Newark, 
New Jersey 
" (Vera, 
200 1. 
p. 
24) 
33 
their 
fans: 
"There 
was a period when almost 
every girl, 
black 
or 
white, saw 
something ofher 
aspirations 
towards 
hip 
sophistication 
in 
the 
Supremes. " (ibid. 
) 
112 
Camp 
and 
the 
queering 
of 
femininity 
Wilson 
has 
stated 
that 
"by 
the 
end 
ofthe 
nineteenth 
century, 
flamboyant 
clothingfor 
men 
was 
coded 
as 
irredeemably 
effeminate, 
and 
associated 
with 
homosexuality 
" (Wilson, 1990, 
p. 
69). But 
Whiting 
identifies 
the 
rise 
of 
Warhol, 
Pop 
Art 
and 
an attendant 
critical 
article 
by Vivian Gomick 
in 
1966, 
as 
the 
moment when 
camp 
came 
out 
of 
the 
closet. 
' 13 
A 
year 
later 
Sontag's 
Notes 
on 
Camp 
was 
published. 
McRobbie's 
reading 
of 
this 
germinal 
text 
situates 
Sontag's 
analysis 
in 
relation 
to 
the 
subsequent 
camp cultural 
hegemony. 
McRobbie 
stated 
that, 
for 
her 
"Camp 
can never 
be 
confused with 
realism 
or with 
the 
searchfor 
authenticity 
[ 
... 
] 
everything 
is 
done 
with a 
nuance 
or 
an 
edge or, 
as 
Sontagputs it 
'in 
quotation 
marks"' 
(McRobbie, 
199 1, 
p. 
11). 
114 
McRobbie 
detected 
the 
note of 
condescension 
so 
palpably 
present 
in 
the 
'nouveau 
drag' 
of queer 
culture, 
playing with 
low 
cultural 
forms 
of 
femininity 
and 
'trash 
culture' 
when she 
concluded 
that 
"The 
driO 
ofthis 
[Sontag's] 
essay 
[ 
... 
] 
is 
to 
reward campfor 
all 
its 
striving, 
with 
the 
seal ofapproval, 
from 
'the 
high 
ground"' 
(McRobbie, 
ibid). 
115 
By 
the 
mid- 
sixties, 
camp was 
indubitably 
the 
preserve of gay 
men 
and 
both 
Sontag 
and 
Steinem 
had 
anointed 
'homosexuals', 
specifically 
Warhol's 
brand 
of gay 
bohemianism, 
as 
the 
vanguard 
(Whiting, 1997, 
p. 
179). 
After 
the 
resurgence 
of 
feminist 
political activity 
in*the 
1970s 
in 
Britain 
and 
America, 
the 
debates 
on 
the 
feminist 
or 
feminine fashioned 
body in 
Women's 
Studies 
was 
subsumed 
in 
the 
proliferation 
of 
theory 
on, 
for 
example, women's 
language, literature 
and 
space. 
Coincident 
and 
intersecting 
with 
the 
rise 
of 
the 
Second-Wave, 
lesbian 
and 
gay 
politics established 
a 
more mainstream 
"' 
The 
exploitation 
of 
Black 
performers, writers 
and 
labels, in 
the 
explosion 
of 
the 
popular 
music 
industry in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s, 
makes 
it 
problematic 
to 
read white 
women performers 
work with 
forms 
originated 
by Black 
performers 
in 
anything 
other 
than 
a critical 
light. Whilst 
acknowledging 
that 
racism 
has been 
and continues 
to 
operate 
on 
all 
levels 
of 
the 
music 
business, it is 
important 
that 
pleasurable and 
I 
would 
argue 
here, feminist 
and 
radical 
identifications 
for 
both 
Black 
and 
white performers and 
audiences are 
acknowledged, 
and 
interrogated 
in 
their 
specific 
historical 
contexts, 
particularly 
in 
the 
light 
of 
the 
continual 
relegation 
of 
both 
white and 
Black (female) 
soul 
performers 
under 
the 
authenticity 
of 
(male 
white) 
rock stars. 
Black 
feminist 
insights 
contribute 
much 
to 
debates 
on 
femininity 
and 
feminism 
and offer 
up perspectives 
that 
challenge 
normative approaches 
to 
research 
in 
this 
field: "Most 
Black 
women still 
do 
not receive 
the 
respect 
and 
treatment. 
mollycoddling 
and condescending 
as 
It 
sometimes 
is- 
afforded 
while 
women. 
So 
when 
these 
Black 
women 
complain about 
not 
wanting 
to 
lose 
theirfemininity, 
they 
are 
referring 
to 
something 
quite 
different" 
(Joseph 
cited 
in 
Kramarae 
and 
Treichler, 
1985, 
p. 
157). 
1" 
Gomick's 
article 
'It's 
a 
queer 
hand 
stroking 
the 
campfire' 
in 
7he Village Voice, 
7 April, 
1966, 
cited 
in 
Whiting, 
1997. 
Gomick's 
traced, 
in 
a misogynistic 
and 
homophobic 
manner 
the 
rise 
of an art 
form 
that 
threatened 
to 
"undermine 
the 
standards 
ofhigh 
art 
- 
Gomick 
casts camp 
as, 
"a homosexual 
aesthetic 
based 
onfeminine 
bad 
taste 
" (Gomick 
cited 
in Whiting, 
1997, 
p. 
179). 
McRobbie 
noted 
that, 
camp 
"sponsorsplayfulness. 
Camp 
is 
the 
other ofModernism 
" (McRobbie, 
ibid. ). 
This 
message 
is 
rehearsed again 
in 
the 
camp 
and 
queer 
literature 
that 
flourished 
from 
the 
late 
1980s, 
for 
example, 
in 
his 
guide 
to 
camp 
films 
Paul 
Roen 
stated 
"The 
truly 
cultivatedare 
thefortunalefew 
who 
are 
able 
toperceive andsavour 
the 
virtues 
of 
'bad'tasie 
as 
well 
as 
'good"' (Roen, 
1994, 
p. 
9). 
34 
visibility. 
By 
the 
1980s 
in 
Britain, 
in 
part as a reaction 
to the 
extremes 
of 
Thatcherite 
attempts 
to 
suppress 
lesbian 
and gay 
representations and 
so-called pretend 
family 
relationships, and 
in 
the 
States, 
the 
radicalism 
of 
ACT UP 
and 
Queer Nation in 
the 
face 
of 
UK 
and 
US 
government 
complacency on 
HIWAIDS, 
camp 
developed 
a strident, 
queer 
political 
dimension 
where 
camp 
instances by 
the 
'un- 
queer' 
were regarded as 
"examples 
ofthe 
appropriation 
ofqueer 
praxis 
" (Meyer, 1994, 
p. 
1) 
and 
fashioning 
femininity became 
a queer 
debate 
onfemme. 
116 
In 
cultural 
terms 
feminine 
excess 
subsequently 
became 
somewhat 
paradoxically, 
an 
endorsement 
of 
the 
so-called authenticity of 
drag 
queens, 
rather 
than 
any 
form 
offemale agency. 
The 
musical and 
perfornative pleasures 
and 
consumption 
by female 
fans 
of 
performances 
of 
femininity 
by 
Dusty 
Springfield, 
Shirley Bassey, 
Donna 
Summer, 
Judy Garland 
or 
Dolly 
Parton 
were vigorously 
claimed 
by 
gay male culture. 
In 
the 
initial 
stages 
of 
this 
research, 
attempting 
'to 
name 
the 
something 
that 
feminine 
excess 
expresses' 
I 
had 
unsuccessfully 
attempted 
to 
examine 
femininity 
from 
the 
perspective 
of camp. 
I 
concluded, 
on 
the 
basis 
of 
the 
literature 
and 
on 
routine responses 
to the 
research project, 
that 
camp was 
irretrievably 
over-determined 
as a gay 
male 
trope. 
Its 
function 
in 
academic 
literature by 
the 
mid 
1990s 
held 
no reasonable promise 
for 
the 
analysis 
of, 
for 
example, 
working-class 
women's 
pleasures 
in 
self- 
fashioning. 
' 17 
In 
her 
subsequently 
published 
project 
to 
define 
the 
positive 
effects 
of 
feminist 
camp with 
the 
telling 
title, 
Guilty 
Pleasures, 
Pamela 
Robertson 
noted 
'Yeminist 
camp 
tends to 
speakfrom and 
to 
a 
working-class 
sensibility" 
(Robertson, 
1996, 
p. 
18). 
Robertson's 
commitment 
to the 
project 
of 
recuperating 
camp 
from 
the 
domain 
of men rather 
obscures 
the 
fact 
that 
fashioningfeminine 
excess 
in 
the 
post-war 
period, 
insofar 
as 
British 
visual 
culture 
is 
concerned, 
had 
unquestionably 
been 
principally 
the 
'work' 
of women. 
' 18 
Stem 
discovered 
an 
historical 
consistency 
in 
objections 
to 
artifice 
that 
were 
a paradigm 
for 
both 
patriarchal 
and 
feminist 
rhetoric against 
the 
cosmetic acts. 
"9 
This 
condition, 
where 
feminine 
116 
David 
Bergman 
has 
articulated 
a commonplace 
understanding 
that 
it is 
"a 
style 
of objects 
or 
the 
way 
objects 
are perceived 
thatfavours 
'exaggeration, 'arliflce'and 'extremity'. 
in 
tension 
with 
popular 
culture, and 
that 
the 
person who recognises 
camp 
or can camp 
is 
aperson 
outside 
the 
cultural mainstream 
" 
(Bergman, 1993, 
p. 
5). Moe 
Meyer, 
in 
an anthology 
that 
captured 
the 
zeitgeist? spoke 
of reclaiming 
the 
discourse 
of 
camp, 
and unambiguously 
defines 
it 
as outside 
the 
ken 
of 
those 
who 
don't 
self- 
identify 
as 
queer: 
"Camp 
Ispolifical; 
camp 
is 
a solely a 
queer 
(andlor 
sometimes gay and 
lesbian) 
discourse 
[ 
... 
] 
in 
other 
words 
the 
un-queer 
do 
not 
have 
access 
to 
the 
discourse 
ofCamp, 
only 
to 
derivatives 
constructed 
through 
the 
act ofappropriation 
(Meyer, 1994, 
p. 
I). 
117 
Rather, 
for 
critics 
like 
Carole 
Anne 
Tyler 
"and 
many 
theorists 
on 
the 
left" 
camp 
and 
masquerade 
were 
advocated 
as 
a 
consciously 
entered 
into 
"postmodern 
strategyfor 
the 
subversion 
ofthallogocentric 
identities 
and 
desires " (Tyler, 
199 
1, 
p. 
32). 
1" 
Guilty Pleasures 
was 
in 
essence an attempt 
to 
retrieve stars 
"from Mae 
West 
to 
Madonna" 
from 
the 
gay 
male pantheon 
and 
recognise 
these 
figures 
as 
important 
for female 
audiences, 
in 
this 
case, 
without 
recourse 
to 
empirical 
research 
with 
women. 
Notwithstanding 
Roberston's 
work, 
the 
fashioning 
of a spectrum 
of 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
performed 
routinely 
by 
a 
significant number 
of women, collapsed, 
in 
cultural 
terms, 
into 
a gay male prerogative 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
1" 
Stem illustrates 
the 
mainstream subordination of 
femininity 
by 
citing 
Bloch 
and 
Sohm, 
Bloch's 
study of medieval 
misogyny 
sees 
femininity 
in 
the 
detail 
and 
the 
decorative 
and ultimately 
in 
all symbolic 
activity. 
Although 
Stem's 
project 
questions 
the 
notion of 
femininity's 
absolute synonymy with 
false 
consciousness, 
her 
perspective 
suggested 
that 
there 
could 
be 
no 
real 
claims 
35 
excess 
appears 
validated 
within 
academia 
as at no earlier 
time, 
opens up questions 
for 
research 
as 
Schor 
has 
suggested 
Has 
the 
detail 
achieved 
its 
new 
prestige 
by being 
taken 
over 
by 
the 
masculine, 
triumphing 
at 
the 
very 
moment when 
it 
cease 
to 
be 
associated 
with 
the 
feminine, 
or 
ceasing 
to 
be 
connoted 
as 
feminine 
at 
the 
very 
moment when 
it is 
taken 
up 
by 
the 
male 
-dominated 
cultural 
establishment? 
(Schor, 
1987, 
p. 
8). 
120 
Stem's 
arguments 
in favour 
of 
men and women's right 
to 
play 
in 
the 
powder-room, 
appeared 
contingent 
on an 
ironic 
knowingness 
of 
making up. 
There 
is 
no 
recalling of 
the 
continuity of validation 
of working-class 
femininity 
as recalled 
by 
Wilson's 
memories of 
The Gateways, 
when 
middle-class 
would-be 
Bohemians 
had little 
to 
do 
with 
'anachronistic' 
butch 
and 
femmes. 
And 
Barbara Creed 
has 
noted 
that 
in 
the 
political 
lesbian 
communities of 
the 
1970s: 
"there 
was certainly no 
placeforfemme or 
older 
style 
butch 
lesbians 
" 
(Creed, 1995, 
p. 
102). It 
was working-class 
lesbians 
in 
the 
1950s 
who 
sustained 
a 
dissident 
femininity, 
but 
the 
representation 
of 
lipstick 
lesbianism from 
the 
early 
1990s 
privileged 
an 
academic, 
post-modem, 
play 
with signifiers 
of 
femme 
and 
where 
class 
had 
apparently 
evaporated. 
121 
Constructions 
of 
fashioned femininity 
and 
feminism 
in 
post-war 
feminist 
and 
mainstream 
media 
The 
use 
of 
fashioning 
to 
produce 
an 
image 
of self 
on 
a 
desired 
point 
on 
the 
spectrum 
of 
femininity 
can 
be 
said 
to 
be 
a 
compelling 
drive 
"a 
state 
to 
be 
constantly 
sought" 
for 
women 
in 
the 
post-war period 
(Black 
and 
Sharma, 
2000, 
p. 
100). 
The 
analysis 
of 
texts 
on 
fashioning 
and 
femininity, 
directed 
specifically 
at 
girls and 
women, 
reveal orthodoxies 
of 
both 
idealised 
and 
inappropriate 
forms 
for 
the 
importance 
of 
femininity 
disengaged 
from 
the twinned 
form 
of 
effeminacy. 
Stem's 
article, 
although welcome 
in 
that 
it is 
a rare example of 
an 
attempt 
to 
resuscitate 
a 
discussion 
of 
femininity 
in 
contemporary 
feminist 
scholarship, 
reflected 
a 
broader 
tendency 
to 
attempt 
to 
privilege 
men's 
Butlerian 
performances 
of 
femininity. 
Women's 
more 
widespread 
uses 
of 
femininity 
are 
invariably 
overshadowed 
in 
queer 
texts 
since 
men's performances 
are 
deemed 
more sexualised, 
radical 
and, well, 
queer 
to 
post- 
modem 
readers. 
110 
One, illustration 
will 
have 
to 
suffice 
here 
to 
stand 
for 
the 
ubiquity 
of 
this 
camp, 
queer 
turn 
and 
its 
easy absorption 
as a media 
friendly 
depoliticised 
trope 
in 
contemporary 
culture. 
Richard 
Corliss 
of 
Time 
states 
of 
the 
Miss 
America 
Pageant: 
"The 
Miss 
America 
show 
shares 
with 
those 
madefor 
TVspectacles 
the 
lure 
of unpredictable 
thrills 
andgaffes, 
adventure 
and 
ennui. 
It's 
2, 
faudy, 
itsfake, 
it's 
real, 
It's 
livel 
We hate 
It. 
We love 
it! 
"(Corliss 
cited 
in 
Martin 
and 
Wilson, 
2000). 
21 
Whilst Dusty 
and 
other 
female 
stars 
in 
the 
gay 
male pantheon 
performed 
political, 
social 
and 
cultural 
points 
of 
identification 
for 
gay 
men 
(and 
for 
the 
ultimate 
in 
this 
genre 
of 
Dusty 
hagiographics 
see 
Evans, 
1995) 
women's 
identifications 
whilst 
still 
inadequately 
represented 
in 
the 
literature 
remained 
inflected 
with 
the 
legacy 
of 
Freudian 
interpretations 
by 
which 
all 
forms 
of 
identification 
are 
interpreted 
as 
narcissistic 
processes, 
Complicit 
with 
patriarchy. 
Female 
tojemale 
identification 
of 
any 
kind, 
in 
circumstances 
where 
research 
on 
women 
identifying 
with 
other 
women 
is 
concerned, 
might 
be 
read 
as 
tending 
to 
reproduce 
"sameness, 
fixity 
and 
the 
confirmation 
ofexisting 
Identities 
" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
pp. 
132-133). 
36 
of 
femininity 
that, 
paradoxically, 
demonstrate 
their 
permeability 
and 
transience 
when read at 
different 
historical 
moments. 
Texts 
and 
images 
produced 
in 
the 
same 
historical 
timeframe, 
but 
addressed 
at 
readers 
of 
different 
ages, classes 
or sexualities 
reveal 
further 
multiple 
contradictions 
in 
any attempt 
to 
define 
or 
fix 
femininity. 
Representations 
of 
femininity 
are pervasive, 
a point well 
made 
by 
feminists in 
the 
early 
1970s. This 
thesis 
draws 
on 
diverse 
sources 
in 
order 
to 
attempt 
to 
understand and offer 
up 
some 
analysis 
of 
femininity 
and 
feminism, 
and 
to 
contextualise 
data 
generated 
by 
research participants. 
Arguably 
the two 
most significant 
popular 
feminist 
inspired 
texts 
whereby 
readers 
might 
have derived 
an understanding 
of 
feminist 
dis/tastes 
in 
fashioning 
in 
the 
post-war 
period are 
Spare Rib 
and 
The 
Guardian's 
Women's 
Page. 
122 
Since 
these texts 
are cited 
at 
intervals 
in 
the 
thesis 
I 
have 
included 
a 
brief 
review 
of 
them 
below. 
Additional 
texts 
examined 
for 
this 
thesis 
included 
primary sources 
on 
women's 
and 
feminist 
music, 
LP 
cover 
designs, 
pamphlets 
and 
songbooks 
from 
the 
Women's 
Liberation 
movement 
in 
Britain 
and 
other 
ephemeral 
texts. 
Mapping 
the 
period 
researched 
on 
The 
Guardian 
Women's Page 
and 
Spare 
Rib, 
I 
have 
attempted 
to 
analyse 
constructions of 
femininity 
as 
they 
appeared 
in 
comic, 
music, 
dance, 
film 
and 
TV 
and 
Royal 
and 
beauty 
annuals. 
Spare 
Rib 
The 
key 
British 
Women's 
Liberation 
newspapers/magazines 
were 
Shrew 
(1969) 
WIRES 
(1975) 
and 
Spare 
Rib (1972) 
(Humm 
1995, 
p252) 
123 
Shrew 
was a sparky, 
hand-typed 
and occasionally 
hand- 
written 
and 
illustrated 
polemical 
feminist 
newspaper 
produced 
by 
a 
different 
women's 
liberation 
group 
each 
issue. 
Occasional 
issues 
were 
themed. 
WIRES, based in 
Leeds, 
was 
a 
twice 
monthly 
newsletter 
established 
to 
facilitate 
communication 
between 
sister 
groups and 
individuals. 
Both Shrew 
and 
WIRES 
were 
distributed 
in 
small 
and 
sporadic 
numbers, with 
a 
hand-crafted 
fonnat 
and 
means 
of 
reproduction, 
and 
had 
alternative, 
open editorial 
approaches. 
In 
contrast, 
Spare 
Rib 
had 
an ambitious 
agenda 
to 
appeal 
to 
"women 
ofall 
age groups 
and 
classes 
". 
I" 
Its 
mission 
was 
"to 
put women's 
liberation 
on 
the 
news 
stands" 
(Spare 
Rib 
collective, 
no. 
80, July, 1987, 
p. 
6). Initially 
"Influenced 
by 
women's 
liberation 
but 
not necessarilyfeminist 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
3 8) 
it 
took 
four 
years 
before 
the 
collective 
"' 
Challenging 
what 
she 
has 
nominated, 
'The Myth 
of 
Women's 
Lib', Polly Toynbee has 
stated 
"We 
were 
not 
the 
masses: we 
were 
The 
Guardian 
women'spage, 
Spare 
Rib 
magazine anda 
clutch ofsmall alternative print. 
'(Toynbee, 2002, 
p. 
8). 
"' 
A 
rash 
of 
feminist 
magazines, 
journals 
and newsletters 
were 
launched 
in 
the 
late 
1970s 
and 
early 
1980s 
including 
the 
long 
running 
Edinburgh 
Women's Liberation Newsletter (1979) 
and 
UsPrint (1978) 
A 
Scottish 
feminist 
magazine 
Nessie, "The 
radical 
raddishfrae 
Scotland 
"was 
a 
rough 
hewn 
newsletter 
launched in 
1979. In 
the 
same 
year 
the 
scholarlyjournal 
Feminist 
Review 
was 
launched 
whose 
aim 
in 
Issue I 
was 
"To 
develop 
the 
theory 
of 
Women's 
Liberation 
and 
debate 
the 
political 
perspectives and 
strategy 
ofthe 
Movement. 
To 
be 
aforumfor 
work 
andprogress and 
current 
research 
and 
debates 
on women's 
studies". 
A 
further 
radical academic 
journal Trouble 
and 
Strife 
followed 
in 
1983. 
124 
Notwithstanding 
editor 
Marsha Rowe's 
statement 
to 
Retail 
Newsagent 
to 
promote 
the 
launch that 
it 
was 
aimed at 
"married 
women 
aged 
30 
with 
two 
children 
" (Spare Rib 
collective, 
no 
80, 
July, 1987). 
37 
called 
itself 
'a 
women's 
liberation 
magazine' 
(ibid. 
p. 
39). Its 
forinat 
consciously 
attempted 
to 
both 
attract 
readers 
by 
appropriating and 
critiquing 
the 
format 
of 
mainstream 
women's 
magazines. 
125 
Its first 
issue, 
a 
run 
of 
20,000, 
sold 
out and although 
its 
sales slumped 
in 
the 
first few 
years 
by 
1976 
it 
had 
grown 
steadily 
again 
to 
over 
20,000 
and 
remained 
the 
most widely 
read 
feminist 
magazine until 
its 
demise 
in 1992.126 
Michelene 
Wandor had first 
suggested 
a 
Women's 
Liberation 
magazine 
but it 
was 
journalists 
Marsha 
Rowe 
and 
Louise 
Ferrier 
who 
convened 
a meeting 
to 
activate 
it. 
127AIthough 
initially 
co-edited 
by 
Rowe 
and 
Rosie Boycott, 
the 
magazine 
was 
soon 
run 
by 
a collective. 
It 
featured 
music, 
art, 
film 
and 
literature 
reviews, and 
dealt 
with 
diverse 
issues 
that 
were 
radical 
for 
their time, 
including lesbian 
motherhood, 
self-examination 
by 
speculum, 
schoolgirls 
in 
trousers, 
abortion, 
violence against women, 
political 
journalism 
including 
left 
political 
perspectives 
on 
union 
activism, 
Northern 
Ireland, Anti- 
apartheid 
campaigns, 
Palestine 
and so 
forth. 
Advertising, 
principally 
for 
music 
but 
also 
women-made 
products 
appeared 
throughout, 
alongside 
interviews 
with prominent 
women, 
from 
Simone 
de 
Beauvoir 
to 
Siouxsie 
Sioux 
although 
heroine 
worship 
was 
notionally 
frowned 
upon 
by 
editors 
and readers 
alike. 
Several 
articles 
addressed 
femininity, 
historical 
representations 
of 
the 
female 
body 
and women's 
'looks'. 
128 
Early 
issues 
featured 
discussions 
between 
women 
involved 
in 
the 
music 
industry 
and 
interviews 
with 
alternative 
stars. 
Latterly, Spare 
Rib 
events or 
'bops' 
are publicised 
and 
reviewed 
in 
the 
magazine. 
In 
the 
first 
decade 
at 
least, 
Spare Rib 
had 
an undeniably 
London-based, 
white, educated, 
middle-class 
address, 
129 
but 
also, 
to 
the 
credit of 
the 
many 
women 
who were 
to 
constitute 
the 
collectives 
throughout 
its 
run, critiques of 
this 
standpoint are raised 
and 
made 
visible 
by 
its 
readership 
which 
inevitably 
extends 
far 
more 
broadly 
than the 
scope of 
experience 
of 
its 
editors. 
In 
fact, 
the 
letters 
page 
of 
Spare 
Rib became 
mythologised 
for 
many 
Rib 
readers and 
non-Rib 
readers 
alike as a site 
in 
the 
years 
immediately before 
its demise for in 
many 
cases 
unresolved, 
frequently 
passionately/aggressively 
couched 
battles 
on 
issues including 
racism, 
anti-Semitism 
and 
Zionism, 
homophobia, 
class 
issues 
and 
pornography. 
i's 
By 
including 
cooking, 
knitting 
and 
dressmaking 
patterns, 
make-up 
advice 
and 
the 
like 
but 
putting 
a 
Spare Rib 
spin on such 
features, 
for 
example, 
how 
to 
make 
home-made 
sanitary 
products. 
Mainstream 
women's magazines 
were routinely 
disparaged 
by 
feminists 
on 
the 
grounds of 
sexism 
and profiteering 
through 
the 
objectification of 
women. 
126 
Spare 
Rib's 
direct American 
counterpart, 
in 
terms 
of content 
and 
longevity 
was 
Ms. 
magazine, 
also 
launched in 
1972. By 
the 
end of 
1973 
Us. 
had 
monthly circulation of 
350,000 
and 
has 
been 
critiqued 
as 
"the 
voice 
of 
mainstream, 
liberal, 
4merican, 
feminism" 
(Tuttle, 
1986, 
p. 
2 
10). 
12'Those 
invited 
were 
women already working on 
magazines 
and 
newspapers 
"of 
the 
counter 
culture 
" (Parker, 
1979, 
p. 
6). 
12' 
For 
example, 
articles 
appeared 
on 
long 
versus short 
hair, 
corsets, 
high heels 
and 
bras. 
12' 
An 
article 
by 
the 
collective states 
that 
before 1977 
"the 
women 
were all while, 
mostly 
middle-class 
background, 
young and 
heterosexual" 
(Parker, 
1979, 
p. 
6). 
38 
The 
Guardian 
Women's 
Page 
The (Manchester) Guardian, launched 
in 
May 1821 
was 
from 
the 
outset avowedly 
liberal, 
the 
paper's 
intention being 
"the 
promotion 
ofthe 
liberal 
interest 
in 
the 
aftermath 
ofthe 
Peterloo 
Massacre. 
" 
130 
After 1959, 
when 
the 
paper 
changed 
its 
name 
to 
The Guardian 
a 
further 
expansion of 
its 
national 
readership 
followed. 
In 1964 
the 
editor 
of 
the 
paper 
moved 
to 
London. 
Whilst 'Guardian 
reading' 
is 
frequently 
used 
in 
a 
derogatory 
or self-critical 
way as a 
description 
of woolly 
liberalism 
or 
the 
politically 
correct, 
The 
Guardian's 
Women's 
Page 
itself 
became 
a 
British 
institution, 
and, 
like 
its 
Radio 
4 
counterpart 
Woman's 
Hour is 
regarded as a 
loved 
or 
loathed 
British 
media 
phenomenon. 
Launched 
in 
the 
1920s 
131 
under editor 
Madeline 
Linford 
the 
Women's 
Page 
was 
abandoned 
for 
10 
years 
during 
the 
paper 
shortages 
of 
wartime, 
reappearing again 
in 
195 1. 
Reflecting 
an 
anxiety about 
separatism 
that 
has 
been 
a recurrent 
featured 
debate 
with and outwith 
the 
paper 
itself 
the 
post war 
(1952) 
incarnation 
was 
re-titled, 
'Mainly for 
women' 
and was 
intended 
to 
imply 'also 
for 
men' 
(Stott, 
1963, 
p. 
4). 
The 
Women's 
Page in 
its 
various guises 
typically 
appeared 
every 
week, 
frequently 
twice 
a 
week, 
in 
a 
distinctive 
format 
with 
regular 
features 
such as 
'Talking 
to 
Women', 
launched 
in 
January 
1962, 
where 
female 
staff 
writers 
at 
The Guardian 
had 
a column 
to 
spotlight 
their 
concerns. 
Many 
Guardian 
readers 
and 
non-readers 
alike 
have 
views 
on 
the 
Women's Page, 
consequently 
it has 
connoted: 
the 
exemplar 
of 
liberal 
feminism, 
man-hating 
hokum, 
a 
fiercely 
contested 
'women's 
place', 
a patronising 
acknowledgement 
that 
world 
issues 
are not women's 
issues, 
a 
window 
on 
bourgeois feminism, 
and 
a 
rare 
space 
for 
pioneering 
feminist 
journalism 
for 
and about 
women 
in 
an 
otherwise 
barren 
masculinised 
broadsheet 
landscape. 
There 
is 
evidence 
that 
The 
Guardian Women's Page 
phenomenon, 
a mythology 
whereby 
articles 
that 
subsequently scandalise 
the 
tabloids 
are routinely misattributed 
to 
it, 
seems 
to 
have 
been 
well 
established 
by 1962.132 
The 
following 
13' 
And 
the 
growing 
campaign 
to 
repeal 
the 
Com Laws 
that 
flourished in 
Manchester 
during 
this 
period. 
(http: //www. 
guradian. 
co. uk/pardian/article/0,5814,211600,00. 
htmi) CP Scott 
embedded 
this 
philosophy 
in 
his 
57-year 
editorship, 
typified 
in his 
article 
written 
for 
the 
paper's 
centenary 
issue in 
which 
he 
stated 
"Comment isfree. 
Factr 
are sacred.. 
7he 
voice 
ofopponents 
no 
less 
than 
offriends 
has 
a right 
to 
be 
heard" (ibid. ). 
131 
The BBC's 
Woman's Hour 
was 
launched in 
October 
1946. 
112 
Fiona 
MacCarthy 
has 
written 
that 
Guardian 
Women 
had 
entered 
the 
national 
consciousness 
by 
the 
end 
of 
the 
1960s 
soon 
to 
spawn 
the 
less 
respectful 
'Guardian 
Wimmin' (MacCarthy, 
2002). 
Long-time 
editor 
Mary 
Stott 
(editor 
1957-1972) 
was 
strenuously countering 
Women's 
Page 
myths 
at 
this 
time. 
For 
example 
"Ifthere 
Is 
an 
impression 
abroad 
that 
educated women 
find 
domesticity 
a 
trail 
it 
will 
inevitably 
be 
assumed 
that this 
applies 
to the 
educated 
woman 
who 
read 
The Guardian, 
for 
all 
I 
know, 
it 
may 
indeed 
apply 
to the 
majority, 
though 
I 
have 
better 
grounds 
than 
mostfor 
doubting U. 
All 
1 
ask 
is 
that 
when 
sociologists 
and 
others 
discuss 
the 
uneasy 
situation 
ofthe 
highly 
educated 
housewife 
and 
mother 
they 
should 
not 
quote as 
evidence 
of 
her 
discontent floody 
of 
letters'appearing 
In 
The 
Guardian's 
womens 
page, 
because 
THIS IS NO T TRUE 
" 
(S 
tott 
1962a 
). In 
the 
same 
month, 
in 
a 
theme 
that 
would 
run and 
run, 
Stott 
was 
made 
to 
debate 
whether 
the 
page should exist at all,: 
"We 
can 
get 
information 
about nest-buildingfrom 
the 
magazines? 
Certainly, but 
can 
we 
get 
what 
Intelligent, 
educated women 
&rbA 
about 
It? 
"(Stott, 
1962b). 
39 
year editor 
Stott 
appealed 
to 
readers 
to 
comment 
again on 
whether 
the 
Page 
was 
redundant. 
1'3 
The 
debate 
on 
the 
fate 
of 
the 
Women's 
Page 
recurred 
at 
regular 
intervals 
until a 
hiatus 
in 
1974 
when 
for 
a 
period 
it 
metamorphosed 
into 
the 
neutral 
or 
neutered 
'Miscellany'. 
The 
name change 
was 
a 
bid 
by 
the 
then 
editor 
Linda Christmas 
to 
make 
it 
appear 
'less 
separatist' 
(Shaw, 
1974) 
- 
after 
which 
it 
was 
reinstated. 
The 
Women's 
Page facilitated 
the 
launch, 
through 
its 
editorials 
and readers 
letters 
slot, 
of 
several 
national campaigning 
groups 
for 
women 
including 
the 
Housewives 
Register 
(1960) 
established 
to 
link 
intelligent, 
Guardian 
reading, 
housebound 
wives and 
the 
anti-nuclear-testing 
Voice 
of 
Women 
in 
the 
early 
1960s. 
The Women's 
Page's 
address 
through 
the 
1960s, 
reflecting 
that 
of 
The Guardian 
as 
a whole 
is 
to 
white, 
middle-class, 
left-leaning 
'women Re 
us' 
or, 
as 
Polly 
Walker 
put 
it, 
differentiating 
her ideal 
lodgers 
(from 
unsatisfactory, 
foreign 
ones): 
"They 
are 
us. 
'Guardian'types 
ifyou 
like 
to 
put 
it 
that 
way, 
professionalpeople, 
teachers, 
civil 
servants, 
doctors 
and 
the 
like 
" (Walker, 
1963). 
In 
many 
ways 
the 
mythologizing 
of 
the 
'Guardian 
reader' 
is 
a 
phenomenon 
of 
the 
readers' 
making, clearly 
endorsed 
by 
the 
editorials 
on 
the 
Women's 
Page. 
In 
an update 
in 
1962 
on 
the 
progress 
of 
the 
Housewives 
Register, 
launched 
via 
the 
Women's 
Page 
readers 
letters 
slot 
two 
years 
earlier, 
the 
new 
national 
organiser 
Mrs 
Brenda 
Pows 
clarified 
that 
in 
the 
organisations' 
call 
for 
new 
members 
that 
'like- 
minded' 
in fact 
meant 
'Guardian 
readers'. 
She 
spoke 
on 
behalf 
of 
the 
groups' 
founder 
Maureen 
Nichols 
who 
had 
originally 
put 
the 
call 
out 
to 
"housebound 
wtves 
with 
liberal 
interests 
" (Nichol, 
1962). 
For 
the 
purposes 
of 
this 
thesis 
I 
researched 
The Guardian 
Women's Pages 
over 
the 
period 
of 
Mary 
Stott's 
editorship 
(1957- 
72) 
when 
the 
Women's 
Page 
became 
enshrined 
as 
the 
voice 
piece of 
liberal 
feminism. 
133 
Stott 
notes 
that 
readers 
dislike 
its 
tide 
and 
asks 
"Is 
it 
the 
only 
section women 
will read?, 
41so, 
men 
will 
beput 
offreading 
it 
or 
distinguished 
contributors with 
something 
to 
say will 
be 
put offas 
they 
assume 
only 
halfthe 
readers 
will read 
it. 
" She 
then 
invites 
readers' 
comments. 
(Stott, 
ibid. 
) 
40 
Methodology 
Feminist 
qualitative and 
interpretative 
approaches 
It 
is 
not only 
the 
voices 
of 
the 
consuming 
masses 
that 
are 
missing 
from 
[ 
... 
] 
studies of 
fashion. 
People 
themselves, 
in 
all 
their 
conflised 
volition 
are 
absent 
as well, 
and 
their 
absence 
from 
text-based 
analyses 
has 
two 
very political 
implications, 
pessimistic 
and 
elitist. 
First 
human 
actors 
are 
denied 
any 
effective 
power 
to 
make 
their 
own 
history. 
Individuals, 
caught 
in 
a 
web 
of signification 
that 
determines 
meaning, 
without 
a residue 
of 
free 
will, 
lack 
the 
quality 
of 
rational 
self-consciousness 
necessary 
for 
authentic 
political 
activity. 
That 
is 
why 
they 
'waste' 
their time 
at amusement 
arcades 
or 
beauty 
salons. 
Second 
in 
a world 
where 
the 
masses 
respond 
to 
dancing 
shadows, 
efficacious 
politics can only come 
from 
those 
with 
an 
ability 
to 
deconstruct 
and 
therefore 
to 
neutralise 
the 
effects 
of 
culture. 
Thus 
the 
conservative 
effect 
of consumerism 
and 
false 
consciousness can 
be 
mitigated 
only 
by 
the 
cognoscenti 
(Zdatny, 
1997, 
p. 
385). 
Reviewing 
the 
literature 
on 
fashioning 
femininity 
I became 
aware 
of 
the 
lack 
of 
empirical 
accounts 
of women's experiences 
and 
histories 
of 
fashioning. 
Identifying 
this 
lack 
as 
important 
to 
address, 
I 
examined relevant 
mainstream 
and 
feminist 
methodological 
models 
in 
preparation 
for 
work 
in 
this 
field. 
Intrinsic 
to 
the 
development 
of a 
feminist 
approach 
to 
research 
in 
cultural studies 
and 
sociology, media 
and 
latterly 
film 
studies 
has 
been 
an 
interrogation 
of normative 
data 
gathering 
methods. 
The 
scarcity 
of empirical 
research 
on 
female 
audiences 
and 
consumers 
can 
be interpreted 
as 
to 
some 
extent 
symptomatic 
of 
the 
problem 
for 
feminists 
of 
the 
traditional 
methodological 
positioning 
of 
the 
researcher 
and 
the 
researched. 
' 
This 
vexed 
question, 
centred 
on notions 
of power, 
reflects 
broader feminist 
concerns 
with 
individual 
women's 
agency. 
Feminist 
ethnographers 
have been 
concerned not 
to 
replicate 
or add 
to the 
inequalities 
between 
the 
researcher 
and 
the 
researched, 
where 
such a 
dichotomy 
has 
traditionally 
defmed 
the 
binary 
oppositions 
civilised/native, 
adult/child, 
teacher/pupil, 
powerful/powerless 
and 
the 
historical 
relationship 
in 
anthropological 
colonialism 
between 
the 
explorer/other. 
2 
The 
feminist 
quest 
to 
uncover 
the 
hidden 
histories 
and 
silenced 
voices of 
women, 
and 
to 
gather 
new 
understandings 
of 
personal, 
social and 
political 
lives 
from 
a woman's 
perspective 
(as 
generated 
in 
Consciousness 
Raising 
groups) was 
to 
translate 
into 
a 
dissatisfaction 
with 
'The 
psychoanalytic 
approach, 
a 
paradigm 
for feminist film 
studies 
has 
tended 
to 
cast 
the 
researcher 
in 
the 
role of 
the 
analyst 
whilst 
ethnographic 
research 
"has 
ignored 
the 
unconscious" 
(Fcueur 
cited 
in 
Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
76). 
2 
This 
dichotomy 
has been 
debated 
in 
much 
feminist 
sociology, 
(for 
example, 
Roberts, 198 
1; 
Oakley, 
198 
1; Birch, 
1998; 
Edwards 
and 
Ribbens, 
1998; 
Alldred, 1998; 
Crawford 
et 
al, 
1992) 
and 
in 
work across a range 
of 
disciplines. 
41 
the 
shortcomings 
of 
the 
positivist 
tradition 
and 
the 
limitations 
of 
quantitative 
research 
for 
this 
purpose. 
Consequently, 
'interpretative 
research 
design' became 
a so-called 
natural 
choice 
for 
feminist 
scholars 
(van Zoonen, 
1994, 
p 
134). 
3 
Further 
feminist dilemmas 
and 
insights 
have 
arisen 
through 
the 
relatively 
recent participation 
of 
working-class 
women as academic 
researchers, 
articulated 
by 
Stanley 
as 
the 
'sinful, 
condition 
of 
being 'a 
native' 
(Stanley, 1995, 
pp. 
183-194). 
As 
I 
approached 
my 
own work 
in 
the 
field 
I 
felt 
I 
experienced 
and 
embodied 
the tensions 
discussed 
by 
Skeggs (1997), 
Stanley (1995), 
Plummer 
(2000), 
Walkerdine 
(1997) 
and 
Edwards 
and 
Ribbens 
(1998) 
amongst 
others, 
straddling 
academic and non- 
academic, 
public 
and 
private worlds. 
Feminist 
critiques 
of 
research 
methods, 
however 
painfully 
wrought, 
have 
been 
unequivocally 
productive, 
but 
these 
new 
perspectives 
remain at 
odds with 
even 
some 
of 
the 
more recent 
benchmark 
texts 
for 
qualitative 
researchers. 
Silverman 
suggested 
that 
participant 
observation 
is 
virtually 
invalidated 
if 
"The 
observer 
[ 
... 
] 
'goes 
native, 
identifying 
so 
much 
with participants 
that, 
like 
a child 
learning 
to talk 
(s)he 
cannot 
remember 
how 
(s)hefound 
out 
[how 
to] 
4 
articulate 
theprinciples 
underlying 
what 
s(he) 
is 
doing" 
(Silverman, 
1993, 
p. 
157). 
In 
sharp 
contrast 
to 
these 
recommendations, not only 
have 
feminist 
researchers 
acknowledged 
their 
relatedness or 
otherwise 
to the 
research 
context 
but 
degrees 
of 
equivalence 
have 
been 
sought. 
5 
A 
further 
way 
that 
recent 
(feminist) 
qualitative 
research 
has 
differed 
from 
more 
traditional 
data 
gathering 
and 
analysis 
in 
the 
field 
is in 
the 
perception 
of neutrality. 
Historically 
neutrality 
has been 
a universal 
aim 
in 
research 
endeavours 
but 
more 
recently, 
researchers 
have 
come 
to 
broadly 
acknowledge 
the 
subjectivity 
of all accounts, 
and 
the 
futility 
of 
claims 
to 
neutrality 
in 
qualitative 
research 
such 
that, 
"Neutrality 
is 
probably 
not a 
legitimate 
goal 
in 
qualitative 
research. 
Even 
ifa 
'The 
interpretative 
model offered 
feminist 
researchers a 
more 
equitable 
model 
between 
researcher 
and researched 
than 
positivist 
approaches as 
well 
as generating 
complexity rather 
than 
static 
data 
and analyses. 
Interpretative 
research 
is 
often equated with 
doing 
qualitative 
research, 
however, 
van 
Zoonen has differentiated 
them 
thus, 
"I [ 
... 
] 
think 
of 
'interprelative'as 
referring 
to 
a 
particular 
inductive 
research 
strateV anddesign, whereas 
'qualitative'concerns 
aparticular, 
qualitative way ofgatheringand 
analysing 
data. 7his 
distinction 
is 
necessary 
to 
credit 
the 
differences 
ofpurpose 
between 
the 
'qualitative'research 
carried out 
by 
market 
researchers 
and 
the 
'qualitative'research 
conducted 
byfeminist 
and other 
critical 
scholars 
" (van 
Zoonen, 1994, 
p. 
135). 
Nevertheless, 
adopting 
these 
approaches 
has 
entailed a 
recognition 
to 
an extent, 
that 
"qualitative 
research 
is itselfa 
marginalised 
methodological 
discourse 
" 
(Edwards 
and 
Ribbens, 1998, 
p. 
3). 
Edwards 
and 
Ribbens have 
pointed 
out 
that 
in 
the 
context of 
the 
currency 
of quantitative 
and 
positivist methodologies and 
traditions 
(feminist) 
qualitative research 
appears relatively and 
inevitably 
unconvincing 
because 
concepts of validity, reliability 
and 
representativeness 
"areposed 
within a numerical rather 
than 
aprocessframework 
"(ibid. 
p. 
4). 
4 
The 
use 
here 
of 
a perennial 
association 
of 
'native/woman/children 
with 
badness 
and 
incoherent 
subjectivity runs counter 
to the 
aims 
of 
this 
research 
and 
of earlier 
feminist 
approaches 
where 
identification is 
an 
important 
component 
in 
the 
research processes. 
Silverman's 
position 
reiterates 
the 
division 
between 
the 
researcher/ 
researched 
in 
that 
it 
allows 
no 
possibility 
of 
the 
researcher 
being 
native 
to the 
field, 
by 
way of 
their 
own 
social, 
cultural 
or 
historical 
experiences. 
5 
This in 
turn 
generates 
ftirther 
dilemmas 
as 
I 
experienced 
preparing 
for 
work with 
participants, 
as 
both 
researcher 
and 
researched 
(and 
one may 
be 
both) 
may 
disagree 
on 
the 
appropriate 
levels 
of 
'openness'. 
42 
neutral 
were 
possible, 
it is 
not 
desirable, 
because 
it 
does 
not equip 
the 
researcher 
with 
enough 
empathy 
to 
elicitpersonal stories 
or 
in-depth 
description" 
(Rubin 
and 
Rubin, 
1995, 
p. 
13). 
6 
Despite (or 
perhaps 
because 
of) 
the 
radical 
departures 
in 
feminist 
research 
methods 
in 
the 
Second 
Wave, 
tangible 
studies 
in 
film, 
media, 
music 
and cultural 
studies, 
using 
feminist 
qualitative 
methodologies 
are still 
small 
in 
number. 
7 
Few 
indicate 
how identifications, 
in 
fashioning 
and 
forms 
of 
femininity, 
pleasurable or otherwise, 
operate 
between 
women 
or girls 
and 
women 
beyond 
screen/audience 
interpellations. 
However, 
as 
van 
Zoonen 
has 
suggested, 
what 
feminist 
research 
has 
added 
to 
interpretative 
research 
strategies 
is 
significant: 
"a 
notion 
ofpower, 
an 
acknowledgement 
ofthe 
structural 
inequalities involved 
in 
and 
coming 
out 
ofthe 
process 
ofmaking 
meaning" 
(van 
Zoonen, 
ibid. ). 
Adopting 
feminist 
qualitative 
research 
methods 
on 
fashioning 
femininity 
Frequently, 
feminist 
qualitative 
research 
has 
elected 
to 
make 
the 
vernacular 
and 
the 
mundane 
and 
subjects' 
"(un)conscious 
construction 
ofmeaning" 
(van 
Zoonen, 
1994, 
p 
135) 
the 
focus for 
research, 
to 
illuminate 
'subjugated knowledges's 
as 
is 
the 
case 
in 
this 
study. 
In 
such 
work 
the 
qualitative 
techniques 
of 
in-depth 
and 
open-ended 
or semi-structured 
interviewing 
and 
participant 
observation 
have 
been 
effective. 
Since 
this 
approach 
has 
also 
enabled 
feminist 
researchers 
to 
elicit 
specific 
information 
from 
participants 
I 
adopted 
this 
methodological 
approach. 
I 
was concerned 
to 
elicit 
some 
specific 
information 
and 
therefore 
used 
a 
focused 
forinat 
(Meron, Fiske 
and 
Kendall, 
cited 
in 
Rubin 
and 
Rubin, 
1995, 
p. 
5) 
and 
grounded 
theory 
was 
deployed 
since 
it is 
a method 
" 
based 
on 
exchanges 
in 
which 
the 
interviewees 
can 
talk 
back, 
clarify 
and 
explain 
their 
points 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
4). 
Feminist 
ethnographic 
audience 
research 
has 
produced accounts 
that 
are 
difficult 
to 
group 
honiogenously 
as 
identification 
but include 
': 
forms 
offeminine 
desire" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
135) 
and 
qualitative 
methods 
have 
enabled 
accounts 
that 
express 
these 
identifications. 
9 
Using 
ethnographic 
6 
Walkerdine 
suggests 
that 
"it 
Is 
an 
Impossible 
task 
to 
avoid 
the 
place of 
the 
subjective 
in 
research, 
and 
that 
instead 
ofmaking 
futile 
attempts 
to 
avoid something 
that 
cannot 
be 
avoided, 
we 
should 
think 
more 
carefully about 
how 
to 
utilise 
our subjectivity as 
afeature ofthe 
research 
process" 
(Walkerdine, 1997, 
p. 
59). 
7 
For 
example, 
van 
Zoonen 
notes 
that 
"Work 
in 
bothfilm 
and 
cultural studies 
has 
until recentlyfailed 
to 
offer 
up 
methodological 
models 
that 
could 
accountfor 
(the homoerolic) 
pleasures 
betweenfemale 
(or 
male) 
spectators 
andfemale 
(or 
male) stars, or 
fascinations between 
women on 
the 
screen. 
" (van 
Zoonen, 1994, 
p. 
88). 
' 
Edwards 
and 
Ribbens 
note 
that 
this 
Foucaultian 
concept 
has 
been 
useful 
in 
feminist 
efforts 
to 
elaborate more 
fully, 
"knowledges 
that 
have been 
disqualified 
as 
Inadequate 
to their task 
"(Edwards 
and 
Ribbens, 1998, 
p. 
12). 
They 
read 
the 
"routinised 
aspects of 
women's 
lives... 
the 
dailiness 
as an everyday 
knowledge 
thatprovides 
the 
epistemological 
basefor 
women's 
lives " (ibid. ). 
9 
Rubin 
and 
Rubin 
(1995) have 
stated, 
"With 
cultural 
interviews 
researchers ask 
about 
shared 
understandings, 
takenforgranted 
rules 
ofbehavlour 
andstandards 
ofvalue, 
andinutual expectations. 
Cultural 
interviewers 
are 
lookingfor 
whatpeople 
have 
karnt 
through 
experience 
andpassed 
on 
to the 
next 
generation. 
" 
(Rubin 
and 
Rubin, 
1995, 
p. 
6). 
Their definition describes 
in 
general 
terms 
the 
approaches 
used 
by Furman 
(1997), 
Langhamcr 
(2000), 
Black 
(2002) 
and 
Black 
and 
Sharma 
(2001) 
to 
examine 
women's 
relationships 
to 
fashioning 
and 
beauty. 
Some 
continue 
to 
acknowledge 
that 
their 
research 
in 
such 
fields 
can 
be 
43 
methods 
Stacey 
in 
her 
ground-breaking 
text 
Stargazing: 
female 
spectators 
ofHoh?vwood 
cinema, 
gathered 
audience responses 
which revealed complex 
new 
knowledges 
about 
how female 
pleasures 
in 
media 
are 
(re)constructed 
according 
to 
an 
individual 
subjects' 
(transient) 
class 
positions, 
ethnicity, 
and 
historical 
and 
cultural shifts 
in 
attitudes 
towards 
notions of 
femininity 
and 
sexuality. 
Her 
respondents 
were 
evoking memories 
of pleasure. 
10 
These 
precedents 
inspired 
my own 
initiatives. 
In 
order 
to 
prepare appropriately 
for 
discussions 
with 
women 
in 
the 
field, 
and 
to 
allow 
for 
the 
possibility 
of 
women 
discussing 
pleasures 
and 
forms 
of 
feminine 
desire, 
I 
examined 
an array 
of 
feminist 
methodological 
approaches 
and 
committed 
myself 
to 
'reflexivity' 
that 
is, 
reflecting 
upon 
and understanding 
our own 
personal political 
and 
intellectual 
autobiographies 
as 
researchers and 
making 
explicit where 
we are 
located in 
relation 
to 
our 
research 
respondents. 
Reflexivity 
also 
means 
acknowledging 
the 
critical 
role we 
play 
in 
creating 
interpreting 
and 
theorising 
research 
data 
(Mauthener 
and 
Doucet, 
1998, 
p. 
121). 
Autobiography 
and memory 
work 
Interrogating 
my autobiography 
required 
an 
appropriate 
methodology 
and 
in 
the 
findings 
and 
approaches 
of 
memory work collectives 
I 
found 
a 
feminist 
approach 
that 
both 
challenged 
the 
researcher/researched 
paradigm and 
validated 
the 
role of memories 
in 
the 
social constructions 
of 
femininity. 
" 
Crawford 
reported 
that 
in 
work undertaken 
by 
the 
SPUJJ 
collective 
"We 
were our 
own 
subjects; 
the 
distinctions 
between 
researcher 
and 
'subject' 
disappeared" 
(Crawford 
et al, 
1992, 
p. 
43). 
Crawford's 
description 
of 
Haug's 
praxis/practice 
suggests 
the 
potential 
of 
the 
methodology: 
"Her 
ideas 
transcend 
traditional 
boundaries 
and 
distinctions... 
between 
psychology 
and 
sociology, 
Marxism 
andfeminism, 
leaching 
and research, 
theory 
andpractice, 
subject 
and object 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
3). Indeed, 
Haug's 
contention 
that 
experience 
articulated 
via 
memory 
should 
be 
acknowledged 
as 
the 
basis 
of 
theory 
and 
research 
was a 
vital 
and radical 
departure 
for 
feminist 
interdisciplinary 
research. 
Exponents 
developed 
the 
methodology of 
'memory 
work' 
to 
enable 
the 
empirical 
but 
not 
empiricist 
investigation 
of 
the 
social 
construction of selves. 
They 
interpreted 
identity 
as 
being 
continually 
constructed 
from 
an 
construed as a 
betrayal 
of 
feminism. 
Black 
states 
"before I 
began 
research 
into 
beauty 
therapy, 
I 
had 
never 
entered 
a 
beauty 
salon. 
I 
had 
no 
idea 
of 
the 
extent ofsalon 
usage, 
I 
held 
an 
image 
of 
beauty 
salons 
as 
highlyfeminised 
spaces, where pink 
ddcor 
andfloral 
patterns 
would 
dominate. Ifell 
that 
I 
would somehow 
betray 
my sense 
offem 
in 
Ist 
politics 
to 
succumb 
to the treatments 
offered 
inside 
" 
(Black, 200 
1, 
p. 
3). 
" 
Nostalgia 
itself 
was recognised 
as, 
"clearly 
one ofthe 
pleasures 
ofremembering 
1940s 
and 
1950s 
Hollywood 
cinema 
" (Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
66). 
This 
revealed 
much about 
the 
mechanisms 
of 
memory 
itself 
and 
contributed 
knowledge 
about 
the 
psychological and 
material 
investment 
of audiences 
in images 
of 
the 
female 
star: 
"Women's 
memories 
of 
the 
cinema 
in 
thisperiod 
offer 
the 
opportunityfor 
the 
presentation 
ofpast 
andpresent 
subjectivities 
through 
processes 
ofself-narrativisation 
"(ibid. 
p. 
68). Self. 
narrativisation was 
also 
used 
by Hobson 
in 
her 
research 
on 
female 
soap viewers 
(Van Zoonen, 
1994, 
p. 
118) 
and 
is 
clearly one of 
the 
'compensatory 
strategies' 
employed 
by Radway's 
romance 
readers 
(see, 
for 
example, 
Radway, 
1984, 
p. 
113). 
" 
Memory 
work 
was 
originated 
by Frigga 
Haug 
et 
a] 
(1987). 
44 
individual's 
relationship 
to 
shifting social 
and cultural contexts: 
"Our 
basicpremise 
was 
that 
anything 
and 
everything 
remembered 
constitutes a relevant 
trace 
- 
precisely 
because 
it is 
remembered 
-for 
the 
formation 
of 
identity 
"(Haug 
et 
al, 
1987, 
p. 
50). The 
process 
revealed 
how 
individual 
accounts of, 
for 
example, 
the 
fabrication 
of an 
un/acceptable 
appearance, can 
be 
seen 
to 
be 
social, 
that 
is, dependent 
on 
com. 
mon 
recognitions 
of un/acceptable appearances 
in 
specific 
social and 
cultural 
contexts, and on such 
factors 
as 
gender 
and age. 
12 
In Haug's 
germinal 
work, 
Female 
Sexualisation, 
a 
collective 
work of 
memory, 
memories 
or stories written 
by 
participants 
triggered 
by banal 
words 
13 
were analysed as 
texts 
indicative 
of an 
individual's 
relationship 
to 
shifting 
social and 
cultural 
contexts, 
"as 
written signs 
of 
the 
relations 
within 
which 
identity 
isformed" 
(ibid. ). 
14 
In Family 
Secrets, 
Annette Kuhn 
amalgamated 
the 
methods 
of 
Spence 
and 
Martin, 
memory 
work 
and 
psychoanalytic 
criticism 
in 
order 
to 
generate 
personal 
narratives 
from family 
photographs 
and 
film 
extracts 
(Kuhn, 
1995). 
15 
In 
such 
texts, 
notions of 
gender 
difference 
rested 
on 
the 
specificities 
of 
clothing 
and 
the 
forms 
of 
relationship 
inherent in 
all 
forms 
of adornment. 
For 
Kuhn, 
"Dressing 
up 
- 
like 
its 
cognate 
activities 
making up and 
doing 
one's 
hair 
- 
suggest[ed] 
a relation offabrication, construction 
andproduction 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
5 
1). 
11 
In 
addition 
to 
providing 
an 
initial 
pathway 
for 
the 
research, 
the 
methodology 
highlighted 
the 
dyad 
of 
individuated 
and collective processes or 
"centrality 
ofintersubjectivity" 
(Crawford 
et al, 
1992, 
p. 
54) 
as participants 
frequently 
demonstrated 
their 
capacity 
to 
articulate 
pleasurable 
identifications 
that 
drew 
on 
an 
unexpected 
amalgam of remembered 
traces to 
imaginatively 
re-construct 
images 
of 
feminine 
selves. 
17 
In 
adopting 
memory 
work methods 
in 
the 
initial 
stages 
of 
the 
research 
my 
aim 
was 
to 
prepare 
myself 
for 
work 
with 
other participants, 
for 
example 
undergoing 
the 
process 
of 
generating 
shameful, 
12 
A 
further 
important 
insight 
for 
this 
thesis 
was 
Haug's 
understanding 
that 
"learning 
a way 
of 
looking 
can 
he 
pleasurable 
(Haug 
et al, 
1987, 
p. 
169). 
" 
For 
example 
legs, 
or 
hair. 
14 
Recent 
feminist 
autolbiographical 
work 
on 
British 
visual culture offers 
further 
models 
for 
interrogating 
social constructions of 
self, allied 
to 
or utilising 
directly 
the 
memory 
work model 
(Steedman, 1989; J. Spence 
and 
P. 
Holland, 
1991; V. Walkerdine, 
1990; Kuhn, 
1995 
Crawford 
ct al, 
1992). 
The 
work 
of 
Jo Spence 
(1986,199 1) 
expanded 
feminist 
knowledge into 
new 
territories 
in her 
work 
using 
photography 
to 
interrogate 
the 
complex 
interstices 
of class, sexuality, memory, 
body, 
gender, 
through the 
photographic 
(selo 
portrait, 
notably 
snapshots 
and 
family 
photographs 
in 
the 
historicized 
constructions 
of self 
(Spence 
and 
Holland, 199 
1; 
Spence, 
1986). In 
her development, 
with 
Rosy Martin, 
of 
Phototherapy, 
the 
traditional 
paradigm 
of muse or 
modcl/ 
artist 
or 
photographer 
was 
rejected 
as 
freighted 
with an 
equivalent, 
if 
not wider, power 
imbalance 
as 
that 
of 
researcher/researched 
paradigm. 
13 
Kuhn's 
work 
was 
a 
further important 
model 
since, 
unlike 
Haug 
et 
al and 
the 
SPUJJ 
collective, 
Kuhn demonstrated 
that this 
qproach 
could 
be 
undertaken 
individually 
rather 
than 
collectively. 
` 
Utilising 
and 
expanding 
upon 
the 
memory 
work methods 
developed by Haug 
et al, 
the 
SPUJJ 
collective provided 
traces 
of 
their 
personal 
(and 
collective) self-construction. 
Their 
emphatic 
conclusion 
is 
that 
emotions, 
rather 
than 
being'naturally 
occurring', 
linked 
as 
they 
were 
in 
common-sense 
understandings 
to 
physiological and/or 
psychological 
truths, 
can 
be 
unpicked 
from 
conceptual 
confusion 
and 
interpreted 
as 
both 
acculturated and gendered. 
Further, 
their 
deployment 
of 
memory 
work 
methods 
to 
understand 
the 
'gendering 
of 
emotion' provides 
a 
model of psychology within 
a 
collective 
rather 
than 
individualistic 
frame (Crawford 
et 
a], 
1992, 
p. 
195). 
17, 
'SelVej 
are 
the 
creation ofthe collectivities 
in 
which 
they 
live 
andact, 
Selves 
are able 
through 
their 
reflective powers 
ofself- 
intervention 
to 
re-create 
themselves. 
Identities 
are 
notformed or 
maintained 
through 
imitation or 
through 
any simple 
reproduction 
ofpre-determinedpatterns. 
7he 
human 
capacityfor 
actionforcespersons 
to 
attempt 
to 
live 
their 
own meanings and 
find 
some means 
ofself-fuYlIment alheit 
within 
a pre-determined 
and circumscribed 
social 
space 
" 
(ibid. ). 
45 
5. 'A' 
failed 
as a 
bridesmaid 
due 
to 
'inadequate, 
small 
hair'. 
painful 
or 
banal 
episodes. 
18 
On 
reflection, 
the 
memory 
work process 
and 
corpus 
of 
texts 
facilitated 
reflexivity; 
proved useful 
in 
generating 
'triggers' 
for 
discussion 
with 
participants; 
provided 
an 
appropriate 
research 
tool 
for interpreting 
social 
and 
historical 
accounts; 
minimised 
the 
dichotomy 
of 
the 
researcher/researched; 
and 
highlighted 
the 
subjectivity 
of my 
own 
accounts 
of 
self-fashioning. 
19 
Although 
they 
constituted 
the 
precursor 
to the 
empirical 
research, 
extracts 
of 
memory 
work 
are 
incorporated 
at 
intervals 
in 
this thesis 
since 
they 
have 
a collective 
resonance, 
and 
I 
hope 
demonstrate 
my 
own 
willingness 
to 
be 
'open'. A 
will 
to 
adorn 
in 
tension 
with 
desires 
to 
identify 
with often-distinct 
communities 
was 
reflected across 
the 
body 
of memory 
work 
texts. 
Perhaps 
unsurprisingly 
given 
the 
memory 
work 
findings 
of 
Haug 
et al, 
Crawford 
et al, 
Kuhn, 
Spence 
and 
others, 
many 
of 
the texts 
I 
generated 
constructed 
the 
notion of 
a 
female 
body, 
my 
own, 
subordinated 
by, 
or 
embattled 
in 
social 
and 
cultural 
contexts, 
what 
might 
be interpreted 
as 
classed 
and 
patriarchally 
determined 
spaces 
and 
places: 
at 
school 
('A"s 
humiliating, 
confrontation 
with 
a 
headmaster 
over 
inappropriate, 
or 
dissident, 
in 
this 
case 
dyed, 
hair 
remembered 
as 
'unjust') family 
occasions 
(for 
example, 
'A' 
failed 
as a 
bridesmaid 
due 
to 
'inadequate, 
small 
hair') 
and so 
on. 
Perhaps 
less 
predictably, 
other 
texts 
that 
also 
recorded 
what 
I 
remembered 
as 
failures 
to 
perform 
appropriate 
fashionings 
of 
femininity, 
were 
stories 
of 
subordination 
and 
disdain 
experienced 
within 
the 
context 
of 
feminist 
or women-centred 
spaces 
(women's 
groups, 
conferences, 
reading 
groups, 
alienation 
on 
first 
consuming 
Spare 
Rib, 
and 
on 
first 
witnessing 
Birkenstocks 
etc. 
) 
on 
the 
basis 
of 
'A"s 
excessive 
and 
disdained 
make-up, 
hair 
fashionings, 
and 
jewellery. 
Significantly, 
memories/stories 
of 
failure 
and 
contingent 
success 
to 
enact appropriate 
forms 
of normative, 
patriarchally 
endorsed 
femininity 
were 
matched 
in 
number 
by 
'A"s 
failures 
in 
affecting 
an 
appropriate 
feminisl 
fashioning, 
experienced 
through 
specific encounters and 
the 
routinised 
policing 
of 
desired 
but 
repressed 
forms 
of 
fashioning. 
These 
critiques were read as 
judgements 
of 
'A"s (lack 
of) 
morality, 
respectability, 
sexuality 
and 
feminist 
consciousness, 
the 
tensions 
between 
perceptions 
of 
feminist 
versus 
class 
betrayals. 
These 
memory 
work 
texts 
were 
indubitably 
episodes 
where 
class 
was 
significantly 
foregrounded. 
This 
intensified 
my 
desire 
to 
work 
in 
fields 
where 
I 
could 
discuss 
fashioning 
with 
working-class 
women 
and 
consolidated a 
feminist 
sociological 
imperative 
to 
illuminate 
subjugated 
knowledges. 
Women's 
fashioning, 
cosmetic acts and 
the 
places associated 
with 
them 
remain 
the 
lg 
I 
used 
triggers 
including 
Hair, Beauty, Black 
fashioning, 
Glamour, 
Taste 
and 
Royalty. 
19 
1 
used 
the 
pseudonym 
'A' 
and, using 
Haug 
et al's model 
wrote 
texts 
in 
the third 
person 
facilitating the 
aim 
that 
"The 
gaze 
we 
cast 
today 
on ourselves 
ofyesterday 
becomes 
the 
gaze 
cast 
by 
one 
stranger on another 
" (Haug, 
1987, 
p. 
46). 
46 
antithetical 
to 
serious 
scholarship 
and are 
considered 
irrelevant 
to 
high 
culture. 
Conversely, 
they 
remain 
of 
significant 
importance 
to 
communities of 
women 
including 
female 
audiences of 
pop culture, 
fashion 
and 
star 
systems. 
Feminist 
theorists 
have 
suggested 
that the 
activities 
of women 
(and 
men) 
that 
centre 
on 
the 
construction 
of 
identities 
are of critical 
importance 
to 
theory, 
however 
few 
feminist 
research 
projects 
have 
focussed 
empirically 
on 
the 
fashion 
and 
beauty 
industries 
or women's 
personal 
fashioning 
regimes. 
20 
Combining 
methodologies 
Stargazing 
provided 
a model 
of research 
that 
fused distinct 
methodological approaches 
and 
drew 
upon 
models 
of 
psychoanalytic 
and 
cultural studies 
feminist 
scholarship. 
Subsequently, 
empirical 
research 
on 
stars 
and 
fashioning, 
for 
example, 
Rachel 
Moseley's Growing 
up with 
Audrey Hepburn 
(2002) 
have 
demonstrated 
how 
useful 
inter-methodological 
approaches 
are 
to 
interrogating 
identifications 
and 
constructions 
of 
(fashioned) 
identities 
and subjectivities 
and 
the 
resonance 
between 
star/fan. 
Moseley 
goes 
further 
in 
stating 
that 
attempts 
to 
study only 
text, 
or solely 
audience 
or 
consumer 
is 
problematic; 
a 
key 
finding 
in her 
ethnographic research 
was 
"the 
uselessness ofattempting 
to 
separate 
the 
idea 
ofa 
'text'from 
one 
of 
'audience. " (Moseley, 
2002 
p. 
216) 
Consequently, 
Moseley's 
process 
of 
mapping 
the 
consumption pleasures 
in 
and uses 
of 
the 
text 
'Audrey Hepburn' 
by 
women 
growing 
up 
in 
the 
1950s, 
1960s 
and 
1990s 
was 
"a 
kind 
of 
cultural 
studies 
offilm, 
film history 
as 
personal 
history 
and 
through 
that 
social 
history, 
a 
history 
that 
is 
interested 
in 
ephemera. 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
220) 
In 
order 
to 
examine 
women's 
tastes, 
consumption, 
dis/pleasures in 
texts 
and 
the 
relationship 
of 
their 
construction 
of 
(changing) 
dispositions 
and 
fashionings 
within 
a matrix 
of 
broader 
cultural, 
historical, 
social 
and 
political 
contexts 
I 
drew 
upon methodological 
tools 
and 
approaches 
that 
could 
enable 
research 
beyond 
a 
linear, 
arguably 
myopic 
perspective. 
Consequently, 
my 
aim, 
following 
the 
generation 
of 
a personal 
memory-work 
corpus 
and 
an 
initial 
sketching 
of 
the 
proposed research 
territory 
was 
to 
freely 
combine 
media 
analysis 
with 
ethnographic 
interviews, 
acknowledging 
the 
inseparability 
of 
text 
from 
audience/consumer 
accounts. 
20 
Exceptions 
include 
Chapkis, 
1988; 
Craik, 
1989; 
Delinger 
and 
Williams, 
1997; 
Furman 
1997; 
Black 
and 
Sharma, 2001 
47 
6. Atlantic 
City, 
1968, 
first 
mass 
demonstration 
by Women's 
Liberation 
movement. 
'No 
more 
Miss 
America', 
in Sisterhood 
is 
powerful, 
1970, 
Robin 
Morgan, 
unpaginated. 
Documents 
Although 
the 
Literature Review 
provides 
an account of my survey of 
relevant 
texts 
I 
want 
to 
briefly 
account 
for 
my selection 
and exclusion 
of specific 
documents. 
At 
an early stage 
I 
chose 
to 
examine 
feminist 
texts 
on 
fashioning 
and 
embarked 
on a 
fascinating 
trawl 
through the 
history 
of 
The 
Guardian's 
Women's 
Page. 
21 
Although 
Women's 
Page 
commentaries 
are used 
to 
contextualise 
specific 
passages 
I 
chose 
not 
to 
foreground 
my 
findings 
in 
this thesis. 
22 
However, 
this 
survey 
greatly 
informed 
my 
knowledge 
of 
the 
construction 
of 
forms 
of 
feminist 
taste 
and 
fashioning 
and 
provided a useful 
tool 
for 
reflexivity 
since 
I 
had 
been 
a 
Women's 
Page 
reader 
over a 
significant period. 
I 
also 
chose not 
to 
examine 
publications 
generated 
by 
the 
beauty 
industries 
per 
se 
after noting 
that 
few 
texts 
were 
assiduously 
used 
by 
participants. 
In 
this 
sense 
this 
project 
is 
consciously 
dislocated 
from 
feminist 
critiques 
that 
accord 
a 
monolithic 
role 
to 
advertising 
and 
beauty industries in 
discussions 
of 
femininity. 
In 
contrast, 
I 
use 
many 
hagiographic, 
ghosted 
and 
academically 
'untouchable' 
texts, 
mainly 
popular, 
auto/biographies 
of stars. 
I 
make no claims 
for 
their 
veracity 
but 
recognise 
their 
popularity 
and possible 
importance 
in 
constructing 
ideas 
and 
models of 
star systems, 
identifications 
and 
'stories 
about self. 
" 
Further 
sources 
that 
are not 
routinely archived 
in 
academic 
collections 
are used 
throughout 
this thesis 
including 
girls' 
annuals, 
feminist 
pamphlets 
and 
song sheets, 
fan 
memorabilia 
and 
fanzines 
culled 
from, 
for 
example, 
the 
national 
Lesbian Archive 
and 
Glasgow 
Women's Library. 
24 
Specific 
documents 
and 
'iconic 
images' had 
a galvanising 
effect at early 
stages 
in 
the 
research 
process. 
For 
example, revisiting 
the 
second-wave 
feminist 
anthology 
Sisterhood 
is 
Powerful (Morgan, 
1970). 
1 
was 
intrigued 
by 
a photo of 
the 
first 
mass 
demonstration 
by 
Women's 
Liberation 
in 
Atlantic 
City 
New 
Jersey 
in 
1968.25 
In 
the 
foreground is 
a 
white woman 
with 
large 
elaborately 
coiffed 
bleached 
and 
excessively 
ferninised 
pompadour-type 
hairstyle, 
panda eyes 
and 
conspicuous 
jewellery. 
She 
is 
chanting 
and 
stridently 
giving 
a 
two 
fingered 
victory 
sign. 
The 
bouffanted 
woman 
plays an 
ambivalent 
role 
here 
visible 
as a 
demonstrator 
against 
and 
witness 
to the 
Trashing 
of 
Miss 
America, 
the 
germinal 
21 
1 
am 
grateful 
to 
Simon 
Frith for 
this 
suggestion. 
Since, 
as 
Toynbee 
recently 
'confessed' 
--; 
I'e 
[feminists] 
were not 
the 
masses: 
we 
were 
The 
Guardian 
Women's 
Page. 
Spa" 
Rib 
magazine 
and 
a 
clutch 
of 
small 
alternative 
prints, 
though 
mass marketed 
magazines 
took 
up 
the 
chic issues" 
(To)nbec. 
2002, 
p. 
8). 
An 
examination 
of 
both 
the 
Women's 
Page 
and 
Spare Rib 
seemed 
a 
critical exercise 
in 
tracking 
the 
development 
of notions 
of 
feminist 
fashioning. 
22 
1 hope 
that 
this 
may 
provide 
the 
basis 
of 
a 
future 
research 
project. 
Early 
Spa" Ribs 
are critiqued 
more rigorously 
at 
intervals 
in 
this 
thesis. 
23 
Ghosted 
and/or 
hagiographic 
autobiographies 
and 
biographies 
constitute 
a 
(pleasurable) 
and 
popular 
genre 
for fan 
consumption. 
Ken 
Plummer's illustrates 
the 
historicity 
of specific 
groups 
of 
accounts, 
for 
example 
'coming 
out' stories, 
(Plummer, 
1995) 
and 
some 
star 
narratives, 
particularly 
'rags 
to 
riches' 
accounts 
may 
constitute 
a 
further 
socially and 
culturally 
constructed 
form 
" 
An 
unexpected 
body 
of material 
%%as 
found 
in 
illustrations, 
artworks 
and 
answers 
to 
questionnaires 
generated 
by 
readers 
and 
recorded 
in 
girls' 
annuals 
Some 
arc 
used 
as 
illustrations 
in 
this 
thesis. 
25 
An 
episode 
captured 
in Laura 
Cottingham's 
excellent 
documentary 
of 
US 
feminist 
art and 
activism 
of 
the 
1970s, 
Nolfor 
Sale 
(1999) 
48 
Women's 
Liberation 
protest, 
but 
I 
speculated 
on 
her 
arguably 
troubling 
presence 
to 
(revisionist) 
feminists 
who 
might 
have 
sought 
to 
suggest 
that 
liberation 
was 
fought 
for 
by 
women 
who 
styled 
themselves 
'naturally'. 
Locating 
fields, 
gatekeepers and participants 
Although 
I 
acknowledge 
in 
this 
thesis 
that 
self-fashioning 
is 
ubiquitous and 
that 
any and all 
knowledge 
that 
expands 
the 
empirical 
knowledge 
on 
women's 
fashioning 
dis/pleasures 
might 
be 
a 
useful 
contribution 
to 
feminist 
research, 
I 
was 
particularly 
interested 
to 
gain 
insights from 
women 
who 
26 
used 
disdained 
cosmetic acts 
and 
fashioning 
services, 
for 
example 
hairdressing 
salons. 
Some 
'dissimilarity 
sampling' occurred 
since some 
participants 
had 
relinquished 
working-class 
for 
middle- 
class 
tastes 
or 
identified 
themselves 
as 
from 
middle-class 
backgrounds. 
Based 
on my 
'iconic 
memories'27 
of 
music, 
film 
and 
TV 
stars who 
fashioned 
to 
excess 
I 
was 
keen 
to talk 
to 
women who 
had 
their 
own 
such 
memories, women 
who 
did 
not qualify as 
the 
fanatical 
connoisseurs 
or collectors who 
might 
be 
the 
focus for 
studies 
of 
fanship. 
Through 'snowballing' 
methods 
I 
identified 
women 
salon- 
goers, 
hairdressers, 
trainee 
beauty 
therapists 
at a 
College 
of 
Further Education 
and 
their 
customers 
along 
with 
women 
already 
in 
my network 
that 
agreed 
to 
discuss 
their 
fashioning 
regimes, 
tastes 
and 
identifications. 
Just 
as geographic 
zones of 
the 
city are 
frequented 
and populated 
by 
specific 
groups 
and 
communities, 
salons 
in 
the 
affluent 
West/South 
and 
poorer 
East/North 
differ 
physically 
and 
architecturally, 
in 
the 
fashioning 
of personnel 
and 
in 
other 
ways 
that 
suggest 
dispositions 
of class, 
taste 
and gender. 
23 
I 
identified 
salons 
in 
the 
East/North 
as 
more 
likely 
to 
be 
sites 
for 
prospective 
participants. 
one 
journey 
to 
identifying 
a 
research 
site 
began 
with an 
obscure memory 
of 
fleeting, 
past 
pleasures 
in 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
Ta Paris' 
salon was 
on 
the 
bus 
route 
I 
had 
often 
travelled 
along 
Marytown 
road 
in 
the 
North 
from Glasgow 
City 
centre 
to 
the 
Department 
of 
Social 
Security 
office 
to 
'sign 
on. 
It 
had be 
a pleasing 
landmark 
for 
me 
on an otherwise 
depressing 
journey. 
I 
had 
liked 
the 
signage, sixties 
36 
1 
discuss 
the 
demonisation 
of 
hairdressers 
in 
'Fashioning 
Hair'. 
" 
The 
concept 
'iconic 
memory'. coined 
by 
Stacey has 
been 
a 
valuable 
one 
for 
this thesis. 
Iconic 
memory, 
one of 
two 
new 
conceptual 
isations 
of 
the 
activity 
of 
the 
female 
audience 
viewing 
and 
remembering 
female 
stars 
defines 
a process whereby 
individual 
woman 
imagined 
a star/hcrself 
in 
a 
'frozen' 
or 
'treasured' 
moment. 
(Stacey 
provides 
a 
further 
conccptualisation, 
self- 
narrativisation). 
Stacey 
demonstrates 
how 
these 
conceptual 
isations 
enabled 
female 
spectators 
to 
construct 
themselves 
as'stars'of 
their 
own 
stories, 
linked 
with 
their 
own screen 
heroines 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
132). 
Is 
Many 
salons 
in 
the 
gentrified 
bohemian 
West End 
state 
that 
they 
are 
'unisex' 
or otherwise 
blur 
the 
gender 
of 
their 
target 
customer, 
for 
example 
in 
the 
names 
of 
salons 
themselves. 
Ilie 
more 
expensive 
(West 
End 
and 
South 
Side) 
salons 
have 
frequently 
modcmised/masculiniscd 
their 
physical 
environment, 
shop 
front 
and 
appellation; 
for 
example, 
Alan 
Edwards, 
Scrimshaws, 
Biyoshi, 
Broornfields, 
Cabello, 
Capellini, 
Christopher 
Bond 
Hair 
Design, 
Coia 
Hairdressing. 
Crush 
hairdressing, 
Cutting 
Club, 
DLC 
etc. 
Salons 
located 
in less 
affluent areas 
are more 
routinely 
women 
only 
(although 
this 
is 
never 
made explicit 
in 
signage 
or 
advertising) 
indicated 
by 
fcminised 
appellations, 
for 
example: 
11c 
Beauty 
Box, 
Elcanor's, 
Goldilocks, 
Hair by 
Angie, 
Hair 
by 
Norma, 
Jackie's, 
Mamie's 
Salon, My 
Fair Lady, 
etc. 
49 
cursive 
letters 
on 
a 
high 
relief 
background 
of a 
tricolour 
and noted a paradoxical 
familiar incongruity, 
a 
'French' 
salon 
in 
the 
middle of an unreconstructed 
Glaswegian 
council 
housing 
estate, 
the 
commercialisation 
of a promise 
of glamour 
in 
unglamorous 
surroundings. 
I 
interpreted it 
now 
as 
reflecting 
mythologised 
working-class women's 
tastes 
for 
salons, 
parodied 
in 
mainstream 
and 
queer 
performances, 
but 
acknowledged 
it 
as a 
landmark for 
me 
on at 
least 
two 
registers: 
nostalgia 
for 
myself 
as 
a 
working-class 
girl 
typically 
arrested 
by 
such glamorous 
incongruity 
oscillating 
and 
in 
tension 
with 
my 
Art 
School 
gaze, 
consuming 
Ta Paris' 
from 
the 
perspective 
of a 
lecturer 
on 
'Gender, 
Art 
and 
Culture' 
and 
'Kitsch, 
Vernacular 
and 
Outsider 
Arts'. 
Approaching 
Ta 
Paris' 
now 
as a researcher 
intensified 
my 
perception 
of 
the 
distance 
between 
Art 
School 
tastes 
and values 
and 
those 
of 
salon-goers 
and 
workers 
but, 
significantly, 
its 
remoteness 
too 
from forms 
and 
tastes 
of 
feminist 
academicism. 
I 
felt 
that 
the 
legacy 
of 
feminist 
disdain for 
cosmetic 
acts and 
feminine 
excess 
might 
present 
as 
much 
of 
a potential 
barrier 
to 
my 
research with staff and customers 
in 
salons 
as any 
knowledge 
prospective 
participants 
might 
have 
of patriarchal 
or 
'arty' 
contempt 
for 
their 
field. Although 
I 
was 
committed 
to 
elucidating 
my approach 
to 
both 
gatekeepers and 
prospective 
participants 
in 
all 
fields, I 
chose 
not 
to 
foreground 
my 
feminism in 
most 
initial 
meetings 
other 
than 
with 
women 
whom 
I 
knew 
identified 
themselves 
as such. 
29 
My 
concerns 
to 
bridge 
the 
boundary 
between 
myself 
and other 
research 
participants 
was 
to the 
best 
of my 
ability 
carefully 
negotiated. 
I 
attempted 
to 
follow 
Rubin 
and 
Rubin 
in 
assuming 
that 
"the 
interviewer 
is 
no1justiflied 
in 
keeping 
all uncomfortable 
things to 
herselfwhilst 
asking 
others 
to 
reveal 
what 
is 
personal 
andprivale. 
Feminist 
researchers argue 
that 
being 
open about 
themselves 
to their 
research 
collaborators, 
[ensures) 
interviewers 
[are] 
bothfair 
andpractical 
" 
(Rubin 
and 
Rubin, 
1995, 
p. 
37). 
1 
felt 
prepared 
to 
reveal 
something 
of 
myself when soliciting 
information 
from 
interviewees, but 
less 
comfortable 
in 
preparing a checklist of 
boundaries 
of what 
exactly 
I 
would/not 
or should/ not 
reveal 
. 
30 
Although 
I 
adopted 
an 
approach of 
'openness' I 
appreciate 
that 
this 
was 
on 
my own 
terms 
having 
found 
no 
specific 
guidelines 
for 
openness 
other 
than 
a notion 
of 
equivalence 
in 
qualitative 
" 
To 
counter 
any 
concerns 
that 
my 
intension 
was 
to 
critique or 
disdain 
I 
attempted 
to 
demonstrate that 
I 
sought otherwise 
in 
my 
introductory 
letters 
and 
phone 
contact. 
(See 
Appendix 
ii 
- 
letter 
to 
manager 
of 
Ta Paris') 
" 
For 
example, 
I 
was 
unprepared 
for 
the 
hesitancy 
and/or shyness of 
Ellen 
the 
first 
research 
participant 
I 
spoke 
to. 
Rubin 
and 
Rubin's 
is indubitably 
a 
feminist 
approach, 
but it 
is 
also generally 
the 
way 
I behave 
in 
embarking 
on 
new 
friendships 
with 
new 
people. 
Reflecting 
on 
the 
research process 
I feel 
that 
although 
I 'got 
on' 
with 
all 
the 
participants, 
this 
was 
just 
as well 
since 
I had 
no 
contingency 
other 
than 
common sense 
for 
it being 
otherwise. 
50 
methods 
texts. 
This 
is 
a problematic area as 
researchers 
and researched 
may 
disagree 
on appropriate 
levels 
of 
openness 
in, for 
example, 
the 
context 
of a 
salon. 
31 
Negotiation 
with gatekeepers 
in 
this 
research 
project was 
one of 
the 
most significant 
factors in 
enabling 
and 
directing 
the 
research process. 
The 
support 
of 
some, 
notably 
Mrs. Martin, 
manager 
of 
the 
salon 
Ta 
Paris' 
ensured 
that 
I 
had 
an 
illuminating, 
at 
times thrilling 
experience. 
The 
decisions 
or 
lack 
of responses 
of others curtailed, 
informed 
and altered 
the 
course 
of 
the 
research. 
32 
I 
learnt 
that 
salon 
managers could 
be 
model gatekeepers 
and 
research 
facilitators 
exercising 
judicious 
and 
cffective 
interpersonal 
skills. 
For 
example, 
having 
arrived 
at 
Ta 
Paris' 
an 
unknown, 
English, 
eager 
but 
potentially 
in 
the 
way, 
'person 
from 
University', 
I 
felt 
the 
staff 
had 
agreed 
on a 
mildly 
humouring 
stance 
(for 
which 
I 
was 
grateful! 
). Having 
begun 
the 
interviews 
rather precipitously 
with 
Ellen 
whilst 
she 
had her 
head in 
a sink, 
manager 
Mrs. 
Martin deftly directed 
me 
to 
Mrs 
Lochead 
who 
had 
just 
arrived, ahead 
of 
the 
several other customers already settled 
in 
the 
salon. 
Only 
after 
reflection 
on 
my 
field 
notes 
did 
I 
appreciate 
that 
she 
had directed 
me 
to 
the 
single, 
self-consciously 
, 
cultured' 
and politically conservative 
person 
in 
the 
salon, 
the 
only middle-class 
customer and 
the 
most 
loquacious. 
33 
Paired 
with 
someone 
thought 
to 
be 
more 
'on 
my 
wavelength' 
the 
hairdressers 
could get 
on 
with 
their 
work 
and, 
indeed, 
I 
could 
'warm 
up' with a voluble, 
articulate and 
confident 
participant? 
raising 
my 
confidence about 
approaching other customers. 
34 
31 
Would 
'Ellen' 
have 
been 
more 
forthcoming 
if I had 
positioned 
myself 
in 
terms 
of my 
sexuality 
or 
my 
feminist 
views or other 
potentially 
controversial 
subjects? 
Or 
been 
open about 
my anxieties 
about whether 
she 
read 
me 
as an 
academic 
with a 
patronising 
aim or 
approach? 
Or 
confessed 
that 
this 
was my 
first 
ever 
intervicwl 
" 
Originally, 
I 
had 
hoped 
to 
research 
the 
expansive 
and 
highly 
fashioned 
culture 
of amateur 
disco 
dancing. 
Gatekeepers 
signalled 
that 
this 
was 
an 
already 
over researched 
territory 
and 
otherwise 
deflected 
my 
enquiries. 
Although 
I 
discuss 
jewels 
and 
jcwcllcry 
in 
this thesis 
approaches 
to 
discussing 
and even 
photographing 
independent East End jewellers 
was 
fraught 
with 
difficulties. I 
was 
concerned 
not 
to 
be 
read as cithcrjudging 
or 
threatening, 
My 
anxieties 
about 
salon gatekeepers 
had 
been 
assuaged 
by 
Mrs 
Martin's 
confident and 
mischievous 
response. 
After 
contacting 
the 
salon 
by 
phone 
(and 
speaking 
to 
ajunior 
worker) 
and 
then 
by 
letter 
I 
called 
again 
and a memo 
records 
that 
Mrs 
Martinjoked, 
"We 
didn't 
think 
it 
[the 
research] 
sounded 
too 
sinister" 
and 
then 
hummed 
the 
Twilight 
Zone 
theme 
tune. 
33 
Mrs 
Lochcad 
was 
the 
sole 
participant 
who made 
any critical 
suggestions 
about who 
I 
should 
interview 
and 
how, 
although 
it 
occurred 
to 
me 
that 
this 
was a 
'front': 
"Aftont [first 
coined 
by 
Goffman 
in 
1959] 
is 
an 
image 
given 
off 
to 
communicate an 
acceptable 
impression 
to 
an audience 
outside 
the 
culturalarena 
" (Rubin 
and 
Rubin, 
1995, 
p. 
24). 
And 
was 
the 
only 
customer 
not 
to 
be 
referred 
to 
by 
her first 
name 
by 
staff and 
salon-gocrs. 
Manager 
Mrs. Martin 
was also 
always 
never referred 
to 
by 
her 
first 
name 
even 
by 
her 
co-workers. 
34 
The 
transfer 
was 
managed 
as 
follows: 
AP: 
[concluding 
discussion 
with 
Ellen] 
Okay, I'll 
just 
leave 
it for 
now, 
then 
I'll 
think 
about 
other 
things 
I 
want, 
because 
I 
feel 
I'vejust- 
Mrs. Martin: 
[to 
customer 
entering 
the 
salon] 
Mrs Lochead, 
Adele's 
asking 
some customers a 
few 
questions 
about 
different 
things, 
do 
you 
mind 
terribly 
if 
she asks 
you a 
few 
questions? 
She's 
doing 
an essay 
on 
hair. 
Mrs. Lochead: 
I 
just 
hope 
that 
I'm 
able 
to 
answer 
thM 
I hope 
it's 
nothing 
intellectual. 
[General 
salon 
laughter] 
AP: 
I hope 
not, 
I 
don't 
think 
I'm 
capable 
of 
that 
Mrs. Martin: 
[encouraging 
me 
to 
move 
to 
another Part 
of 
the 
salon] 
Is it 
all right 
if 
Mrs. Lochead 
has 
a wee 
seat 
down? 
AP: 
yeah, 
just 
relax, 
and 
I'll 
come 
and 
talk 
to 
you, 
thank 
you 
very 
much. 
Mrs. Lochead: 
Shall 
we 
sit over 
here? 
AP: 11at 
would 
be 
lovely, 
that's 
really 
helpful. So is 
this 
your 
regular 
hairdressers? 
51 
The 
look 
and 
sound of 
the 
researcher 
Although 
many 
feminist 
and other 
researchers 
have been 
concerned 
to 
analyse 
the 
relationship 
between 
the 
researcher 
and 
the 
researched 
in 
terms 
of power 
few 
theorise the 
ways 
in 
which 
the 
appearance 
(self-fashioning) 
of 
the 
researchers 
themselves 
might problematise 
or encourage 
the 
levels 
of 
openness 
on 
both 
'sides'. 
In 
some 
of 
the 
texts 
included in 
the 
Literature Review 
the 
appearance 
of 
women 
as audiences, stars 
and 
participants 
in 
memory 
work 
is 
critical, 
however 
the 
appearance 
of 
the 
researcher 
is 
rarely 
alluded 
to 
or 
documented. 
35 
In 
work with 
research 
participants 
I 
considered my 
own 
appearance 
to 
be 
significant, 
particularly given 
the 
research 
topic, 
and potentially perceived 
differently 
by 
different 
interviewees. 
Texts 
on qualitative research 
methods argue 
that the 
appearance of 
researched 
and 
researcher 
is 
significant 
but fail 
to 
offer advice. 
I 
approached 
the 
interviews 
from 
the 
standpoint 
that 
class, ethnicity, 
age and self-fashioning 
determine 
the 
ways 
that 
participants read 
themselves 
and 
others. 
After 
considering 
the 
difficulties both 
practical and ethical of 
dressing 
for 
the 
interview based 
on any 
anticipation 
of 
the tastes 
of women 
I 
might encounter 
in 
the 
field 
I 
decided 
that 
at 
the 
very 
least 
a 
level 
of 
openness might 
begin 
with me 
dressing 
as 
I 
would 
for 
work 
in 
academia, and 
that this 
fashioning 
would 
arguably signal a seriousness of 
intent. 
" 
I 
was anxious 
enough 
about what 
my 
self-fashioning would 
say 
to 
participants 
that 
my 
first 
contact 
with unknown 
gatekeepers was 
always 
by 
phone or 
letter. 
Although 
the 
voice 
is 
an 
important 
epistemological 
concept 
for 
feminist 
theory, 
in 
qualitative 
methods 
it is 
almost exclusively 
the 
voice of 
the 
researched 
that 
is 
under 
scrutiny, 
for 
example 
its 
vulnerability 
in 
the 
course 
of 
data 
collection 
(for 
example, 
Ribbens, 1998; 
Mauthener, 
1998; 
Parr, 
1998). The 
researcher's voice 
is 
somewhat 
idealistically 
presented 
as without 
class, 
ethnicity or 
gender. 
My 
preparation 
for interviewing 
involved 
reflecting 
on 
the 
possible 
meanings 
of my 
own voice/accent 
35 
Haug 
et a] reported 
that they 
found 
it 
'easy' 
to 
differentiate 
themselves 
from 
women 
who 
dressed 
to 
(feminine) 
excess: 
"In 
our 
group 
the 
question 
ofthe wM 
in 
which women constitute 
themselves 
as slave 
girls 
was 
discussed initially in 
a 
seminar 
in 
Hamburg. At 
this 
stage 
we 
were 
still contemplating 
the 
process 
ofsubjection simply 
in 
terms 
of women's 
disp&y 
of 
their 
bodies, 
in 
other words, 
in 
terms 
of 
what 
seemed 
to 
us 
to 
constitute 
unambiguous 
sexual 
invitations 
- 
the 
wearing 
ofshort skirts, or see- 
through 
blousesfor 
example. 
it 
seemed 
relatively easy 
toplace 
ourselves 
at a 
distancefrom 
such 
things; 
we ourselves 
dress 
diffe 
re n 
Ily 
in 
any 
case 
- 
in 
jeans 
andjunipersfor 
the 
most part 
" 
(H 
aug et 
al, 
19 8 
7, 
p. 
7 9). 
Rubin 
and 
Rubin 
suggest rather 
vaguely, 
"In 
interviews 
one 
mark 
ofrespect 
is 
to 
dress 
appropriately... 
In 
our 
research 
done 
in 
offices andpeople's 
homes 
that 
often 
means 
dressing 
somewhatformallyfor the 
interview 
(generally 
ajackt 
and 
a 
fiefor 
men 
and 
dress 
or 
skirt 
with 
blouse 
and 
nylonsfor women. 
" 
(Rubin 
and 
Rubin, 1995, 
p. 
102). 
To 
my 
surprise 
immediately 
prior 
to 
my 
first interviews 
I had 
been 
advised on a 
university methods 
course 
to 
use 
relevant 
dressing 
up 
clothes 
to 
'pass' in 
specific 
fields, for 
example 
white 
coats could 
be 
used 
when 
interviewing 
participants 
in 
medical 
contexts. 
'I 
have 
not 
included 
speculation 
here 
on 
the 
possible 
effect 
my 
appearance 
had in 
the 
field 
but, 
for 
the 
record 
I 
always 
wore a 
combination 
of expensive 
and 
cheap 
jewellery, 
I 
never 
wore 
make-up 
although 
I 
deliberated 
for 
some 
time 
about 
this, 
my 
hair 
was continually 
dyed 
blonde 
and 
gripped 
inexpertly 
into 
a 
French 
pleat. 
I 
always 
wore 
trousers, 
raincoat 
and 
flattish 
shoes. 
I 
am 
a white, able-bodied 
women. 
Although 
I have 
experienced 
episodes 
of 
fashioning 
dissidence 
I 
had 
also 
during 
the 
research 
period 
been 
read, 
in 
the 
context 
of 
my own 
council 
block 
lift 
as 
a 
'social 
worker'. 
7bis 
process 
of reflection 
intensified 
my awareness 
that 
my 
normative 
fashioning 
for 
work 
was 
a 
conscious 
process 
of 
'passing'. 
a 
fashioning 
that 
sublimated my will 
to 
adom. 
52 
uncovering 
a 
ftu-ther 
locus 
of 
tension. 
37 
1 
began 
to 
consider 
the 
question, 
how does 
the 
social and 
cultural 
voice 
of 
the 
researcher 
operate 
in 
the 
context of 
the 
interview? 
Unable 
and unwilling 
to 
adopt 
another 
dialect, I 
decided 
that 
listening, 
demonstrating 
a shared 
knowledge 
of 
habitus, 
cultural capital 
and related 
dispositions 
and avoiding 
the 
more 
rhetorical 
or academic 
terms 
of 
feminism in 
the 
field 
was 
imperative 
to 
dispel 
perceptions generated 
by 
my 
own 
voice. 
Data 
gathering, 
recording 
and 
coding 
In 
work with research 
participants 
I 
used 
a semi 
structured 
interview 
forma% 
that 
is, 
I 
introduced 
the 
topic 
and 
then 
guided 
the 
discussion 
by 
asking 
specific questions 
(Rubin 
and 
Rubin, 
1995, 
p. 
5). 
1 
used 
an 
open-ended 
interviewing 
technique 
that 
yielded 
knowledges beyond 
specific 
topics, 
allowing 
information 
to 
flow from 
an opening 
theme, 
for 
example 
hair, 
into insights 
about 
body 
and 
class, 
feminism 
and 
other aspects 
of 
fashioning. 
My 
approach 
to 
the 
data 
gathering 
journey 
was 
that 
it 
was 
iterative, 
that 
is, 
repeating 
the 
exercise 
of 
data 
gathering 
in 
meetings 
and 
interviews: 
"analysing 
it, 
winnowing 
it 
and 
testing 
it 
[to] 
come closer 
to 
a clear 
and 
convincing 
model 
of 
the 
phenomenon" 
(ibid. 
p. 
46). 
This 
approach 
begins 
with 
broad 
questions, 
for 
example 
in 
this 
study 
"Tell 
me 
about 
your 
history 
of 
hairstyles" 
or 
"When did 
you 
first 
hear 
or see 
Dusty 
Springfield? ". 
Later 
interviews 
became 
more 
focussed 
(in 
theory! 
) 
as 
themes 
came 
together 
and 
began 
to 
form 
theories 
(ibid. 
p. 
46). 
38 
1 
was anxious 
that 
I 
was never 
fully 
prepared 
to 
ask 
technical 
questions 
about 
hairdressing 
and 
other 
cosmetic acts, 
however 
I 
felt 
that 
keeping 
questions 
open 
ended 
and using main 
questions 
merely 
as 
a 
prompt 
would allow me 
to 
ask 
participants advice on 
the 
terms 
they 
used. 
My 
aim was 
to 
gather 
'cultural interviews' 
-where 
researchers 
"ask 
about 
shared 
understanding, 
takenfor 
granted rules 
or 
behaviour 
and standards 
ofvalue 
and 
mutual expectations. 
" 
(ibid. 
p6). 
Although 
I 
began 
with 
the 
idea 
of 
interviewing 
individuals 
I 
frequently 
had 
to 
adapt my 
approaches 
in 
the 
field 
due 
to the 
physical 
space 
of 
salons, 
institutions 
and 
even 
family homes 
where 
a 
one-to-one 
discussion 
might 
become 
more 
like 
a 
focus 
group, 
or 
hairdresser/customer 
or 
37 
1 
am 
English 
with 
a predominantly 
Yorkshire 
accent although 
I have lived 
in Glasgow for 
over 
twenty 
years. 
Outside 
the 
context 
of 
research 
I have 
perceived 
my voice 
as 
inappropriately 
classed 
as 
not middle class 
enough 
in 
a 
Scottish 
academic 
institutional 
context 
and 
too 
middle 
class 
in 
some 
non 
academic 
contexts, 
for 
example 
with 
English 
relatives 
who 
have 
also read 
my voice 
increasingly 
as 
humorously 
cod-Glaswegian. 
In 
my 
hometown 
of 
Glasgow 
I 
am 
routinely 
read 
as 
a 
tourist. 
3' 
As 
prompts 
for 
myself 
I 
used 
index 
cards with 
the 
'main 
questions' 
hand 
written 
on 
them, 
for 
example, 
"How 
long have 
you 
been 
coming 
here? 
"[ 
to 
salon 
customers] 
"Tell 
me aboulyourfirst 
hairstyle", "Haveyou 
ever 
styledyoUr 
hair 
like 
afilm 
star or 
modelled 
it 
on anyone 
else? 
" 
In 
interviews 
with 
women 
who 
I knew 
to 
be 
interested in 
Dusty 
or 
music 
more 
generally 
I 
prepared 
open-ended 
questions 
including: 
"Can 
you 
remember 
thefirst 
time 
thalyou saw 
Dusty 
or 
heard 
her 
voice? 
". "Doyouremember 
discussing 
or 
listening 
to 
Dusty 
with 
any 
otherfamily members 
orfriends? 
", -Did1dayou 
have 
a 
record 
collection? 
" 
53 
mother/daughter 
dialogue. 
Although 
I 
estimated 
the 
length 
of 
time 
to 
be 
spent 
with a 
participant or 
group, 
sessions 
interviews 
were 
generally 
significantly 
longer. 
39 
As 
a rule participants 
were 
not routinely 
asked 
to take 
time 
out 
from 
their 
activities 
to 
be 
interviewed 
although some 
one-to-one 
sessions 
were 
arranged. 
The 
nature of some contexts where 
women 
were 
sitting, 
standing 
or 
having 
their 
hair 
or 
other cosmetic 
acts undertaken 
allowed 
for 
conversation 
without 
disrupting 
the 
normal 
course 
of 
the 
ViSit. 
40 
All 
interviews 
were 
tape 
recorded 
after 
gaining 
the 
participants' 
permission 
and 
they 
could 
stop 
and 
restart 
the 
recording 
at 
any 
time. 
" 
I 
introduced 
myself 
and 
the 
purpose of 
the 
interview 
on 
each 
occasion 
and 
gave 
full information 
about 
their 
shared ownership 
of 
the 
data 
generated and 
its 
possible 
uses. 
Participants 
could 
ask 
at any 
time 
during 
or after 
the 
recording 
for 
any 
and all material 
not 
to 
be 
used and 
I 
asked 
women 
to 
choose 
their 
own 
pseudonym 
. 
42Recognising 
the 
possible 
significance 
of 
context 
for 
the 
construction 
of 
femininity 
or 
the 
experience 
of 
pleasure 
I 
made 
photographs 
outside and 
inside 
some 
salons, 
with 
participants' 
permission. 
43 
1 
created 
field 
notes 
and 
memos 
throughout 
the 
research 
process. 
I 
attempted 
to 
approach 
the 
interview 
process 
from 
the 
standpoint 
of 
being 
a 
participant 
myself 
(a 
commitment 
rooted 
in 
the 
memory work 
process) 
but, like 
Birch, 
found 
this 
self-identification 
contingent 
since 
I 
acknowledge 
the 
difference 
of work 
undertaken 
, 
there', 
in 
the 
field, 
and 
'here', 
in 
the 
individuated 
work 
of 
data 
analysis, 
theorising 
and writing up 
(Birch, 
1998, 
pp. 
172-173). 
44 
With 
an awareness 
of 
the 
multiple 
concerns 
that 
feminist 
academics 
have 
raised concerning 
the 
particular 
vulnerability of 
the 
voices 
of 
participants 
in 
the 
data 
analysis 
stage 
(see 
for 
example, 
Birch, 
1998; Parr, 
1998) 
1 
embarked 
on 
the 
coding 
using 
domain 
analysis, 
a 
process 
first developed 
by 
Spradley 
(1979) 
whereby 
ideas 
and concepts 
are 
grouped, 
then 
related 
terms 
or processes are clustered 
to 
form 
a coding 
category 
within 
which 
ideas 
and 
terms 
became 
subcategories. 
I 
manually coded 
the 
data (after 
transcribing the tapes) 
maintaining 
a 
proximity 
to 
participants voices 
that, 
some 
have 
argued 
use of 
Nudist 
or other 
software 
disrupts 
(Birch, 
1998). 
1 
worked 
with 
the 
data 
until 
I 
felt 
I 
had 
reached 
"This 
was 
sometimes 
due 
to 
unanticipated 
levels 
of 
interest 
or 
delight 
(by 
myself or 
participants) 
in 
the 
process. 
Some 
sessions 
were 
baldly 
curtailed 
due 
to 
a 
participants' soap 
programme 
watching 
commitments 
or 
a participant 
having 
to 
go 
under 
a 
dryer 
etc. 
' 
Participants 
were 
willing 
to 
discuss 
their 
hair 
and other 
fashioning 
routines with 
me 
whilst 
in 
the 
process 
of 
having 
their 
hair 
dressed, lying 
awaiting 
massage 
or, 
in 
the 
case of 
workers, 
working 
with 
customers 
on various 
cosmetic 
acts. 
I 
was pleased 
that 
this 
occurred 
on 
several 
occasions 
demonstrating 
that 
participants 
had 
genuinely 
felt 
empowered 
to 
do 
so. 
Some 
women 
said 
that they 
were 
happy 
to 
have 
their 
own 
names 
used 
but I have 
changed 
them 
to 
ensure 
confidentiality. 
I 
bought 
a 
small 
easy 
to 
use camera 
for 
this 
purpose; 
I 
wanted 
the 
documentation 
process 
to 
be 
as unobtrusive 
and simple 
for 
me 
and 
for 
interviewees 
as 
possible. 
Birch 
notes 
that 
"allhoughfully 
integrated into 
the 
researchfieldasparticipant 
in 
the 
later 
stage 
Ofanalysts 
'of 
'being 
here' 
... 
I [she] 
realisedwe 
are 
all not participants 
of 
the 
same 
worldat 
the 
same 
time" 
(Birch, 
1998, 
p. 
177). 
54 
theoretical 
saturation 
and 
had 
an 
array of clusters 
to 
examine. 
Simultaneously 
a 
body 
of 
literature, 
memos 
and 
concerns were 
growing 
'outside' 
the 
corpus 
of empirical accounts 
that 
both 
resonated with 
the 
data 
from 
the 
field 
and shed 
light 
upon 
the 
patterns of 
elisions 
and gaps 
in discussion 
. 
45 
1 
consequently 
constructed a 
fiamework 
that 
allowed 
for both 
empirical 
data 
and relevant 
literature 
to 
be 
analysed 
and 
critiqued. 
The 
contributions 
from 
research 
participants 
are 
the 
most vital 
component 
in 
the 
thesis, 
the 
motor 
for 
theories 
and ongoing 
refiguring of 
ideas 
and structure. 
Timeframe/s 
The 
participants' 
accounts 
determined 
the timeframe 
for 
the thesis 
representing 
as 
they 
do 
views 
from 
women 
aged 
between 
late 
teens 
and 
eighty-three. 
They 
constitute 
mainly 
Glasgow-based 
women's 
memories 
of 
fashioning 
over a 
period of 
approximately seventy years. 
Further 
historical 
and 
conceptual 
frames, 
for 
example, 
'Early Mod Dusty' 
and 
'Late Queered 
Dusty, 
the 
run of 
The 
Guardian's 
Women's Page, 
the trajectory 
of my 
own 
lifespan 
as a consumer and 
so on, constitute 
a 
matrix 
of 
overlapping 
timefi-ames 
constructed 
from 
memories and 
texts 
that 
map 
the 
post-war 
period. 
46 
Some 
historical 
episodes are 
more sharply 
focussed 
on 
than 
others, 
for 
example, 
I 
argue 
that the 
period 
between 
the 
late 1950s 
and 
the 
early 
1970s 
was 
one 
where 
British femininity 
having 
reached an 
apotheosis 
of what 
I 
have 
termed 
"feminine 
excess 
without 
irony', 
with 
the 
New 
Look 
in 
the 
1950s, 
moved 
subsequently 
into 
crisis 
in 
part 
due 
to the 
critiques 
of 
feminine 
excess 
by 
high 
Modernism 
coupled 
with 
the 
rise of 
feminist 
critiques 
of 
femininity 
from 
the 
late 
1950s 
on 
-a 
polificisation 
of 
fi 
eMininity. 
47 
In 
the 
final 
chapter, 
'Queening It', 
my critiques 
centre on 
contemporary 
cultural 
phenomena, 
which 
I 
attempt 
to 
connect 
to 
historical 
precedents within 
the 
overarching 
post-war 
framework. 
The 
structure 
of 
the thesis 
This 
thesis 
represents 
the 
culmination 
of 
processes 
of accretion 
and 
elimination, 
editing 
and 
selection 
of 
a 
huge 
of 
volume of 
data. 
As I 
state 
earlier, 
themes 
and 
avenues 
for 
research 
(for 
example, 
" 
For 
example, 
I 
had 
extreme 
difficulty 
in 
articulating 
the 
question 
"Haveyou 
everfeltcriticised 
because 
of 
the 
wayyou 
look? " 
Participants 
routinely 
shrank 
from 
this 
and 
I 
yielded 
little 
or 
no 
data from 
this 
and 
related questions. 
Similarly, 
few 
participants 
furnished 
me 
with 
their 
perceptions of what 
feminists 
might 
look 
like. I discuss 
this 
point 
later. 
'I 
demonstrate 
in 
my 
introduction 
to 
'Fashioning 
Dusty' how 
this 
period 
was productive 
in 
constructing 
new 
consumers, 
politics, 
forms 
of 
femininity 
and 
identifications 
and 
identities 
as 
at no earlier 
time. 
47 
Following 
what 
the 
Birmingham Feminist 
History 
Group 
has 
called 
the 
quiescence of 
feminism 
in 
the 
1950s, 
the 
literature 
for 
and 
about 
women 
in Britain had 
presented: 
'no[t] 
one representation 
ofwomen, 
but 
the 
struggleforprimacy 
ofone 
set of 
representations 
concerned 
with 
marriage, 
home 
andfamily 
is 
systematically 
victorious 
throughout 
ourperiod 
The 
contradictions, 
however, 
werepresent, 
and 
by 
the 
end ofthefflies 
and 
beginning 
ofthe 
sixties 
were 
less 
successfully 
contained" 
(Birmingham 
Feminist 
History Group, 1979, 
p. 
64). 
55 
dance 
cultures) 
were 
abandoned 
and 
data 
generated 
through 
media analysis 
(for 
example, 
The 
Guardian 
Women's 
Page) 
were ultimately only 
tangentially 
referenced. 
Although 
many 
further 
and 
alternative 
themes 
might 
have been 
analysed 
and/or constructed 
49 
the 
foci 
and structure of 
the thesis 
was 
developed 
based 
on 
the 
following 
rationale. 
The 
three 
key 
chapters, 
'Fashioning Dusty', 
'Fashioning 
Hair' 
and 
'Queening 
It' 
represent, 
in 
my view, 
the three 
best 
ways 
to 
address 
and 
discuss 
the 
ethnographic 
and media 
data 
gathered 
in 
the 
field 
and 
from 
secondary sources as 
this 
relates 
to the 
intersection 
of 
taste, 
class, 
femininity 
and 
feminism 
in 
post-war cultures. 
After 
the 
discussion 
of 
the 
limitations 
and 
obfuscation around 
deflnitions 
of 
femininity 
in 
the 
Literature Review I 
provide 
a route 
from 
a 
clearly 
defined, 
personal crystallisation 
of 
feminine 
excess culled 
from 
memory 
work 
on 
Dusty; 
through 
the 
identifications 
of 
her 
as a 
model 
of excess collectively 
by 
participants 
and 
in 
an array of 
media 
texts; 
to 
a 
deeper 
exploration of 
the 
nature 
and 
individual/collective 
definitions 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
for 
participants 
themselves; 
to 
an analysis 
of 
the 
meaningfulness of 
hair 
(fashioning) 
- 
for 
many 
the 
most 
significant of cosmetic 
acts; 
through to 
a 
broader 
cultural analysis 
of excess, 
weaving 
ethnographic 
and 
media analysis. 
This 
final 
chapter 
focussing 
on 
the 
most 
culturally 
freighted 
trope 
of 
fashioned 
excess, 
jewels 
as 
it is 
discursively 
presented across 
the 
broad 
terrain 
of popular culture. 
Each 
chapter 
reprises 
significant, 
interrelated 
ideas 
concerning 
fashioning 
dissidence, 
disdain 
for 
excess, 
pleasures 
and 
intimacies between 
women 
in 
fashioning forms 
of 
femininities 
as well 
as attention 
to 
issues 
of 
cross-cultural 
dis/identifications 
and 
issues 
of class. 
Further 
themes 
are 
woven 
throughout 
the 
chapters 
notably, 
the 
impact 
of 
film, 
music and 
media 
in 
women's use of and 
disdain 
for 
feminine 
excess 
and 
the 
notion 
of 
routines, 
in 
cosmetic 
acts, 
in 
music 
consumption, 
jewellery 
wearing and 
so 
forth. 
These 
routines 
are 
themselves 
linked 
to 
the 
theme 
of 
'fashioning 
inertia'. 
Research 
aims 
In 
my 
efforts 
to 
learn 
more 
about 
neglected 
or 
disdained 
forms 
of 
fashioned 
femininity 
this 
thesis 
had 
to 
expand 
to 
include facets 
of 
fashioning 
and 
fashion, 
consumption 
and 
audiences, popular 
music and 
contemporary 
journalism, 
sororial, cross-class 
and 
cross-ethnic 
identifications. 
Femininity 
does 
not 
reside 
in 
one 
discrete 
discipline 
and 
as 
I 
have 
found 
cannot 
be 
interrogated 
easily using 
one 
methodological 
approach. 
" 
For 
example, 
I 
have 
written 
an 
essay 
on 
the 
theme 
of 
intergenerational 
fashioning 
based 
on 
the 
ethnographical 
material 
for 
the 
journal 
Studies 
in 
the 
Literary 
Imagination 
(forthcoming, 
January, 
2005). 
56 
The 
aims of 
this 
research are 
to 
validate 
and 
take 
seriously 
the 
complex 
and contradictory 
practices 
that 
women engage with 
in 
self-fashioning. 
Specifically: 
to 
acknowledge 
both 
the 
role 
of 
women's 
identifications 
with 
non-stars 
in 
construction 
of 
their 
fashioned 
selves, 
to 
explore 
the 
relationship 
of specific music, 
TV 
and 
film 
stars 
to 
audiences' self-fashioning 
practices, 
to 
interrogate 
the 
notion 
of 
feminist 
fashioning 
as a 
less 
fashioned/feminine/constructed 
mode of 
fashioning 
and 
to 
investigate 
episodes 
of 
disdain 
and 
dissidence 
in 
women's 
fashioning 
feminine 
excess, 
in 
particular 
where 
this 
might 
be 
interpreted 
as challenging 
rather 
than 
endorsing 
normative views on passivity. 
Finally, 
I 
hope 
that this 
thesis 
expresses my own 
pleasures 
in 
the 
research process. 
49 
"I 
should 
also 
say 
that 
participants 
in 
this 
study 
signalled 
and 
reported 
their 
pleasures 
in (or 
indifference 
to) 
the 
research 
process, 
an evaluation 
that 
researchers still 
rarely report, 
for 
example, 
participant 
Tttie's' 
son, 
'Padraig' 
who 
had 
acted 
as 
gatekeeper 
sent 
me 
this 
email 
message 
the 
day 
after 
out 
meeting: 
"'Ettle'hada 
grandda)% 
I 
visitedher 
this 
evening, 
she 
thought 
you were 
"lovely"and 
took 
great 
delight 
in 
recountingyour 
meeting 
in 
detail 
(as 
is 
her 
wont9 
I'm 
glad 
it 
worked out 
well 
". 
Stacey 
has 
made 
the 
point 
well 
that 
respondents 
or participants 
as 
in 
the 
case 
of 
her 
study 
Stargazing 
were gratified 
to 
have 
their 
routinely 
disparaged 
pleasures 
(for 
example, as 
film 
fans) 
validated. 
Stacey 
elicited 
that, 
far 
from 
being 
patronised 
as 
'merely' 
a 
subject of 
an 
academic 
study, 
their 
engagement was 
read 
by 
some 
as 
conferring academic 
validation 
for 
their 
pleasures. 
Without 
exception 
I 
enjoyed 
the 
time 
spent with 
the 
research 
participants, 
and 
had 
no really 
uncomfortable 
moments 
in 
the 
process 
of 
'data 
gathering' 
apart 
from 
a 
distressing 
failure 
of 
taping 
equipment 
in 
my 
recording 
of 
interviews 
at 
Tutz' 
salon. 
57 
4 Fashioning 
Dusty 
4.1 
Introduction 
At 
the 
outset 
of 
this 
project 
I 
found 
myself 
frustrated 
in 
my 
attempts 
to 
convey 
the 
&something 
that 
femininity displays'. 
In 
the 
process 
of 
researching 
relevant 
literature, 
I 
found 
few 
terms 
to 
adequately 
describe 
what 
I 
felt 
about 
aspects 
of 
femininity. 
What I 
could express with 
some certainty 
was 
that 
feminine 
excess was subjectively 
synthesised 
in 
my own 
iconic 
memory 
of 
Dusty 
Springfield. 
My 
instinct 
was 
to 
resist 
Dusty 
as 
a 
research 
model since, 
by 
the 
late 
1990s 
her 
principal 
association 
was 
with 
gay 
male 
audiences 
and performers. 
But, 
since 
I 
also owned 
these 
memories 
I 
began 
to 
pursue 
their 
relevance 
to 
questions 
of 
femininity, feminism 
and 
fashioning. 
I 
took 
pleasure 
in 
Dusty 
in 
at 
least 
two 
distinct 
ways 
that 
I 
linked 
to 
notions of class. 
' 
On 
the 
one 
hand 
I 
had 
treasured 
memories 
of 
consuming 
Dusty's 
voice, 
body 
and gestures 
as a white, working-class 
girl, 
on 
the 
other, 
I 
could 
consume, 
but 
took 
less 
pleasure 
in 
Dusty 
ironically, 
in 
a post-modem, queered 
sense 
and associated 
this 
reading 
with 
my ambivalent, 
inevitable 
movement 
into 
the 
middle-class 
in 
the 
process 
of 
acquiring 
higher 
education. 
2 
Whilst 
acknowledging 
which 
reading gave me most pleasure, 
and 
that 
a 
full, 
unadulterated 
wallowing 
in 
a 
treasured 
memory could 
not 
fully 
recuperate 
it, 
if 
it 
ever existed, 
I 
was 
also 
aware 
that 
these 
two 
positions represented 
a 
binary 
opposition of sorts 
whereby 
the treasured 
memories 
versus 
ironic 
consumption could 
be 
extended 
into 
the 
following 
opposed 
dyads: 
false 
consciousness 
/ 
playing 
with 
style, 
emotional 
excess 
/ 
playing with 
texts, 
the 
disdained 
vulgar 
playing 
with 
kitsch, 
feminine 
excess 
in 
the 
realm 
of women 
/ feminine 
excess 
couched 
in 
the 
language 
of 
drag. 
3 
1 
had 
noted 
Dusty's 
status as gay 
icon 
growing 
exponentially 
and 
intersecting 
with 
the 
rise 
of 
identity 
politics 
but 
where 
were 
the 
accounts 
of women's 
identifications, 
women's 
pleasures, women's 
fashioning 
themselves 
in 
life 
rather 
than 
play 
a la 
Dusty? 
Only 
ironic 
appreciation 
seemed permissible 
I 
In 
this 
chapter. 
despite 
the 
convention of 
referencing 
subjects 
and 
sources 
by 
surname, 
I 
use 
Dusty, 
for 
Dusty Springfield. 
Although 
it 
may 
be 
read 
as 
a subordination 
of 
Dusty Springfield, 
I 
am concerned 
to 
recognise 
'Dusty' 
as a construct. 
Mary 
O'Brien 
constructed 
'Dusty'. 
although 
the 
nickname was given 
to 
her 
by 
school 
friends 
because they 
thought 
it 
was an 
appropriate name 
for 
a 
tomboy 
(Evans, 1995, 
p. 
9). 
Although I do 
not 
have 
space 
in 
this 
chapter 
to 
chart 
O'Brien's 
ambivalent 
relationship 
to 
both 
the 
name 
(evocative 
as 
is 
of 
Country 
and 
Western 
genre) 
and 
the 
character 
'Dusty 
Springfield'. 
it is 
the 
construction of 
Dusty 
and 
the 
perception 
of 
Dusty 
by fans 
that 
is 
the 
principle 
focus 
for 
this 
research. 
'This 
point 
was 
brought 
home 
to 
me 
whilst 
attending a 
Dusty- 
themed 
benefit 
night at a 
West 
End 
Glasgow 
club 
in 
May 1999 
hosted by 
Amy 
Lamc. 
The 
young clientele 
wore 
Dusty 
masks. 
A 
small, 
number 
of cultured 
people 
crucified 
Dusty 
numbers 
in 
a 
self-conscious 
karaokc. 
Other ironic 
treats 
were make-up makeovers 
and 
'high-rise' 
Dusty 
hairdressing. 
I knew I 
did 
not 
love 
consuming 
Dusty 
in 
this 
way. 
31 
remembered 
Dusty 
in 
two 
periods 
of my 
own making, 
Early 
Mod 
Dusty 
and 
Late 
Qucercd 
Dusty. 
Participant 
Claire 
constructed 
her 
own 
two 
stages, 
unconnected 
to the 
chronology 
of 
Dusty's 
oeuvre. 
My 
aim 
here 
is 
not 
to 
deliver 
a 
biography but 
to 
interrogate 
the 
construction 
of and 
collective 
identification 
with, 
in 
the 
main, 
Early 
Mod 
Dusty. 
58 
and 
this 
was overshadowed 
by 
a gay 
male 
prerogative. 
Identifications, 
treasured 
memories and 
love 
of 
Dusty 
seemed 
to 
have been 
appropriated 
or 
superseded 
by 
more 
knowing 
connoisseurs, 
bolstered 
as 
many 
queer 
aficionados 
were 
by 
academic 
endorsement 
for 
their 
fan-ship. 
But if 
I 
had 
taken 
pleasure 
in 
Dusty 
and 
other 
encrusted 
female 
stars 
(and indeed 
neighbours, 
friends 
and 
family 
members) as a child 
in 
the 
1960s 
and 
1970s, 
had 
other 
girls 
and 
women? 
Did 
this 
merely 
signify 
that 
I 
too 
was 
a gay 
man 
in 
drag 
and all 
the 
other non-queered, 
working-class, 
non-ironic 
female 
fans 
of 
Dusty 
or 
Dusty 
style 
were 
hopelessly 
unreconstructed 
and 
beyond 
the 
reach 
of 
valid 
research? 
And 
what 
had 
my 
involvement 
with 
feminists 
and 
feminism 
offered 
me 
in 
the 
way 
of 
tools 
to 
analyse 
or 
talk 
about 
Dusty, 
or pleasures 
in 
female 
vocal and 
fashioned 
performances 
more 
generally? 
What 
might 
these 
pleasurable 
memories 
mean 
to 
my 
own 
research 
or 
to 
feminist 
knowledge? 
In 
shaping 
the 
broader 
project of 
work with 
research 
participants 
I 
felt 
compelled 
to 
ask 
about 
memories 
of 
Dusty, 
and 
other women 
performers 
with 
women 
prepared 
to 
talk 
to 
me about 
fashioning 
for 
my 
broader 
thesiS. 
4 
'Early 
Mod 
Dusty' 
In 
context 
Dusty's 
career 
and 
experiences 
as 
fan 
and 
star 
that 
fonn 
the 
loose 
historical fiwe for 
this 
chapter 
runs parallel 
to 
arguably 
the 
most 
volatile 
debates 
on 
feminism 
and 
the 
politics 
of 
femininity, 
sexuality and 
black 
political 
activism 
in 
both 
Britain 
and 
America 
when, as 
Stuart Hall has 
argued, 
marginality 
has 
been 
a 
productive 
space 
as 
never 
before 
(Hall, 
1992, 
passim). 
Whereas 
this 
period 
is 
considered 
significant 
in 
engendering 
feminist 
politics, 
crises 
in 
femininity 
and 
the 
roots of 
identity 
politics, 
the 
career of 
Dusty 
also 
frames 
the 
period 
of 
my entry, 
as 
a 
British 
white girl 
into 
consumption 
of stars 
and popular music, 
girls' 
and 
women's 
literature 
and 
television. 
Dusty's 
generation, 
growing 
up 
in 
the 
1950s 
a 
decade 
before 
me, 
were 
the 
first 
post-imperial 
generation. 
Although 
the 
importance 
of 
issues 
of 
ethnicity 
to 
historical, 
social 
and cultural 
accounts 
of self- 
fashioning 
glamour 
has in itself 
only recently 
begun 
to 
be 
charted, 
the 
normative 
nature 
of 
whiteness 
and 
its 
relationship 
to 
forms 
of 
femininity has 
occluded 
its 
own undeniable 
relevance 
to 
these 
debates. 
5 
In 
her 
surnmarising 
of 
the 
impact 
of 
Black 
culture 
on white 
British 
tastes 
in 
this 
period, 
Jennifer 
Craik 
interprets 
the 
impact 
of 
Black 
fashion 
as a 
fusion 
of 
difference 
and 
allure 
for 
white 
British 
youth 
that 
rehearses 
Modernism's 
4 
Following 
Stacey, 
whose work 
gave 
me 
the 
courage 
to 
approach 
such apparently 
prosaic 
questions, 
I 
embarked 
on 
this 
aspect of 
the 
research 
"not 
to 
condemn 
or 
to 
champion 
individual 
wome? 
k 
but 
rather 
to 
analyse 
[... I 
pkasures 
in 
order 
to 
understand 
them 
and 
to 
situate 
those 
individual 
viewing 
[and 
listening] 
practices 
within a 
broader 
context 
" (Stacey. 
1994, 
p. 
47). 
5 
The 
relationship 
of notions 
of 
the 
exotic and otherness 
to 
constructions 
of glamour 
is 
absolutely 
indissoluble from 
mainstream 
and 
counter-cultural 
fashion, 
however, 
accounts of cross- 
ethnic 
self- 
fashionings 
are under-researched. 
59 
paradoxical 
relationship 
with 
the 
other. 
6 
The 
historical 
frame 
of 
Dusty's 
life 
and career, 
constructed 
in 
biographical, 
journalistic 
and musical 
texts 
is imbricated 
with references 
to 
Americaness 
as 
is 
the 
case 
with 
many 
other 
white 
British 
music 
stars of 
the 
period 
.7 
However, 
an over-determined 
association 
with 
Blackness 
is 
also apparent. 
' 
Despite 
the 
pervasive racism 
in 
post-war 
Britain, African-American 
performers 
and 
the 
authenticity of 
their 
sound were 
positively mythologised 
by 
some 
white 
audiences 
as 
Wilmer 
has 
recorded. 
9 
However, 
few 
accounts 
by 
Black 
and minority ethnic 
women growing up 
in 
Britain 
at 
this 
time 
have been 
published, and 
the 
developing fascination 
with, and racism 
against 
Black 
and 
minority 
ethnic 
communities 
by 
white women 
has 
been inadequately 
researched. 
10 
Issues 
of racism 
surface 
in 
a range 
of registers 
in 
the 
literature 
on 
Dusty, 
intersecting 
a spectrum of 
issues 
of gender 
and 
class. 
Dusty's 
biographer Lucy O'Brien 
notes 
that 
Black 
culture 
and 
American 
music 
first 
came 
to 
Dusty's 
attention 
when she, 
the 
white, 
Catholic, 
middle-class girl 
Mary O'Brien, 
first 
started 
school. 
" 
There 
were 
virtually 
no 
Black 
performers on 
American 
and 
British 
television 
and usually 
Black 
artists 
were 
not 
pictured 
on 
record sleeves, particularly 
if 
they 
sold 
to 
a 
white market 
(Grieg, 1989, 
p. 
22). 
12 
American 
femininity 
and 
the 
broader 
Americanisation 
of 
British 
culture 
was ambivalently 
perceived 
in 
the 
immediate 
post-war period as self-assertion 
as opposed 
to 
self-sacrifice, 
characterised 
within 
a range 
of 
discourses 
as 
commercial, 
brash 
and 
lacking in 
moral 
value 
(ibid. 
p23 
8) 
but 
'idolised' 
by 
girls 
like Dusty. 
13 
The 
specificity of 
forms 
of 
Americaness 
and 
femininity 
that 
were 
to 
prove 
6 
She 
notes 
that 
as popular 
music 
became 
the 
focus for 
youth culture, 
a concomitant 
fascination 
for 
Black 
culture 
became 
more 
profound 
and 
impacted 
on white 
subcultural 
tastes 
and 
fashions 
(Craik, 
1994, 
p. 
40). Kobena 
Mercer 
discusses 
white 
ambivalence 
to 
otherness 
as paradoxical 
Negrophobia/Negrophilia: 
"Both 
positions, 
whether 
they 
overvalue or 
devalue 
the 
visible 
signs 
ofracial 
difference, 
inhabit 
the 
shared space ofcolonialfantasy" 
(Mercer, 1992). 
7 
Mary 
O'Brien 
was 
born 
in 
1939. 
1 
Dusty's 
career 
spans 
the 
expansion of popular music performed 
by 
Black 
artists, 
in 
particular 
soul and rock, as 
it 
emerged 
from 
under 
the 
rubric 
'race 
music' 
in 
Britain 
over 
this 
period. 
Wilmer 
notes 
that 
Black 
entertainers 
had 
been 
a significant part of 
British 
music 
for 
over 
a century, 
but 
that 
Black 
music 
had 
been 
'tailored 
for 
whites'. 
Listeners 
had 
to 
wait until 
the 
1960s 
to 
experience 
the 
authentic, 
live 
vernacular 
African American 
performance, 
that 
radicaliscd 
the 
British 
musical climate 
(Wilmer, 
1995, 
p. 
62). 
Wilmer 
met 
African 
people 
for 
the 
first 
time 
in 
1957 
as 
a 
Girl 
Guide 
attending 
the 
World 
Camp 
and 
Jamboree 
in 
Britain 
(ibid. 
p. 
12). 
Urban 
white 
women were 
to 
experience 
increasingly 
routine 
contact 
with 
Black 
people 
with 
the 
extension 
of 
minority 
ethnic 
communities 
concurrent 
with 
the 
gradual 
percolation 
of 
forms 
of 
Black 
music 
in 
Britain. 
Girls' 
annuals 
bear 
witness 
to 
the 
gradual 
visibility 
of 
Black 
performers 
in 
the 
mainstream, 
for 
example, 
pianist 
Winifred 
Atwell 
enjoyed popular 
success 
in 
Britain 
in 
the 
1950s becoming 
the 
first 
Black 
artist 
to 
sell 
I 
million records 
in UK 
(she 
features 
in 
the 
TVMirror 
annual 
of 
1956, 
Harry 
13clafonte 
was 
a star portrait 
in 
the 
Preview 
annual 
of 
1961 
alongside 
an 
article 
on 
'The 
Real 
Dorothy 
Dandridge'). 
'"The 
American 
musicians 
whoplayedin 
Britain 
during 
the 
dayspredating 
the 
affluent 
1960s 
and 
the 
rise 
ofBrilish 
Beat 
were 
treated 
reverentially, 
without 
exceptiom 
something 
I 
now realise 
was connected 
to 
the 
post 
warfeeling 
ofoptimism 
... 
Many 
British 
people 
have 
stressed 
the 
sheer 
physical 
impact 
of 
hearing 
Black 
musicJor 
the 
first 
time 
after 
?Vars of 
listening 
to 
pe ople 
who 
V learnt 
itfrom 
records. 
Local 
musicians 
did 
a creditablejob 
butfailed 
to 
assimilate 
the 
tension, 
power and 
excitement 
along with 
the 
technicalities 
" (Wilmer, 
199 1, 
p. 
40). 
An 
exception 
is 
Gail 
Lewis's 
account 
of growing up 
in 
Kilburn's 
West Indian Community 
(Lewis 
in Heron, 
1985). 
Post-war 
migrants 
from Jamaica 
and 
Trinidad 
had by 
this 
time 
settled 
in High Wycomb (O'Brien, 
1999. 
p. 
8). 
Memory 
work 
texts 
contained 
narratives 
of cross-ethnic 
identifications in 
the 
1960s 
of glamour and 
other 
pleasures 
between, 
A 
from 
aged 
4. 
her 
mother and 
their 
Jamaican 
neighbours. 
11 
In 1962, 
the 
year 
of 
Jamaican 
independence 
and 
the 
year ska 
crossed 
into British 
music 
black 
audiences 
could still not get 
into 
Ronnie Scott's 
club. 
"According 
to 
O'Brien, 
America 
was 
*a 
count? 
y 
Dusty 
had 
tdolisedsince 
childhood" 
she 
was 
*weanedon 
Hollywood 
movies"? 
Stacey 
suggests 
that 
?---whilrt 
it 
could 
be 
claimed 
that this 
Americanisation 
offemininity 
through 
commodity consumption 
in 
1950.1 Britain 
contributed 
to 
the 
sexual 
objectification 
of women 
in 
patriarchal 
culture, 
such 
an 
analysis 
ignores 
the 
ways 
in 
which 
this 
process 
alsofacifitated 
the 
production 
ofparticularforms 
offeminine 
subjectivity 
largely 
unavailable 
to 
women 
in 
60 
important 
in 
shaping 
Dusty's 
feminine identity 
in 
the 
late 1950s 
and early 
1960s differs from 
those 
enjoyed 
by British 
filmgoers 
in 
earlier 
decades: 
"Hen 
she 
began 
her 
solo career 
it 
was 
black 
American 
artists 
like 
Ray 
Charles 
and 
the 
emerging 
Motown 
sound 
thatfired 
her 
imagination 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
90). 
" 
As 
I 
began 
writing 
about 
Dusty 
for 
this 
project, she 
died 
aged 
59. If I 
had 
ever 
doubted 
the 
depth 
of 
feeling 
some women 
including 
myself 
might 
have had 
for her, 
it 
was palpably 
felt 
now. 
What 
I 
discovered 
is 
that 
the 
pleasures 
that 
women 
derive intimately 
and collectively 
from 
Dusty's 
and 
other 
women's 
performances, 
voice and 
fashioning 
of 
feminine 
excess 
do 
not 
rely 
on 
ever 
having 
seen or 
heard 
her live. Indeed 
the 
clichdd 
invocations 
on 
her 
death 
- 
that 
the 
work 
and 
image 
of stars 
like 
Dusty 
'will 
live 
on' 
- 
is 
a 
failure 
to 
acknowledge 
that 
Dusty's 
early 
fashioning 
of 
forms 
of 
femininity, 
voice, 
cosmetic 
acts and gestures were 
nostalgically 
and 
pleasurably 
consumed 
long 
before her death. 
4.2. 
Beyond 
Words: 
accounts 
of 
ineffable 
emotions 
and 
otherworldliness 
Jean: 
I 
don't 
know, 
it 
made 
me 
feel 
good, 
it 
made 
me 
-I 
always 
remember 
it 
being 
sunny. 
I 
don't know, 
there 
was 
just 
something 
about 
- 
it 
was 
maybe 
in 
the 
summertime 
I 
was 
listening 
to 
it, 
the 
sun shining 
into 
the 
living 
room, 
I don't 
know. 
There 
was 
just 
this 
feeling 
about 
it, 
and 
looking 
out and 
just 
going away 
in 
a- 
you 
know, 
away 
in 
another 
world. 
I 
just loved her 
music so 
much; 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
Working 
with research participants, 
I 
was 
frequently 
reminded 
of 
the 
difficulties 
I 
had 
encountered 
at 
the 
early stages of 
this thesis, 
namely, 
defining 
and 
expressing 
specific 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
It 
was 
reflected 
in 
participants' 
attempts 
to 
define 
their 
feelings 
about stars 
and 
loved 
ones who 
embodied 
forms 
of 
femininity 
and 
performances 
of popular 
music. 
When 
the 
research 
turned 
Britain 
previously. 
7he 
production 
ofafeminine self 
in 
relation 
to, 
4mericaness 
signified 
'autonomy'. 
'individuality' 
and 
independence" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
23 8). 
11 
Motown's 
Marvelettes 
were at 
the 
crest 
of a 
new wave of crossover 
pop 
following 
groundbreaking 
Black 
stars 
like Nat King 
Cole, Harry Belafonte 
and 
Lena Home 
(Whitall, 
1998, 
p. 
5 1). 
Dusty's identity is fused 
with 
an 
emergent social 
acknowledgement, 
by 
a minority of 
white 
British 
youth, of 
Black 
culture 
and white racism. 
She 
has been 
mythologised as 
the 
champion 
of 
Motown 
in Britain 
and, controversially 
became 
the 
first 
British 
star 
to 
insist 
on 
a 
'no 
apartheid' clause 
in her South 
African 
tour 
contract 
in 
1964 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
Chapter 
4, 
passim). 
Dusty 
was 
a 
promoter 
of 
Black 
music, 
but 
also unequivocally 
popular. 
In Britain, 
her 
popularity 
reached 
a climax 
in 
December 
1965 
when 
she was 
voted 
the 
most 
popular 
World Female 
Singer 
by 
the 
New 
. 
41usical 
Express, 
the 
first British 
female 
star 
to 
get 
this 
award 
record. 
Motown 
was 
started 
by 
Berry 
Gordy Junior 
in Detroit in 
1959. 
When 
the 
Black Disc 
Jockeys 
organisation 
was established 
in 
America 
in 
1956, 
Berry 
was given a 
platform 
to 
express 
his 
aims. 
With 
Tamla 
co-managcr 
Mable 
John 
he lobbied 
DJs 
to 
break 
his 
sounds across 
the 
States. 
Maryclate, 
Katherine 
Anderson 
Schaffner, 
has 
stated 
"We 
weren'tjustfor 
black 
audiences, 
but 
both 
while and 
black 'Please 
Mr 
Postman'was 
the 
one 
that 
broke 
down 
the 
colour 
barrier" 
(Schaffner 
in 
Whitall, 1998, 
p. 
561 
Despite 
the 
significance 
of 
their 
contribution 
to 
popular music 
and, 
as 
I 
will 
argue 
in 
this 
chapter, 
to 
shaping often 
liberatory 
and 
pleasurable 
forms 
of 
femininity in both 
voice and 
self-fashioning 
for 
women 
across 
ethnicities, 
girl 
groups who made 
hits in 
the 
1960s 
are now 
involved 
in 
litigious 
battles 
to 
be 
remunerated 
for 
and 
gain 
ownership 
of 
their 
work. 
Their 
efforts are 
being led by 
the 
Roncttes. 
In 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s "it 
was 
the 
exception 
rather 
than the 
rule 
Ifthey 
[girl 
groups] 
were 
Paid(Krum. 
1998). 
Currently, 
over 
two 
hundred 
artists, 
including 
The 
Ronettes, 
the 
Shirelles, 
the 
Vandellas, 
the 
Shangfi-Las, 
the 
Dixie 
Cups, 
Darlene Love 
and 
the 
Chantels 
have 
either 
sued or are engaged 
in legal 
proceedings 
against 
former 
record 
companies. 
61 
TRY 
yl, 
b-- 
hy 
g. 
-d 
h- h, 
y 
g" ? 
ad my 
.. 
%", 
I 
thk, 
I- 
. 
-. 
I. 
-d" 
I- 
R-Y 
(I. In 
ad 
th, 
T-t 
11 
that 
way 
th" 
m vay much 
d. 
ir 
- 
best 
ad 
mck'n' mU 
kW. 
thty 
400 
480 
-CEDO 
by 
Dusty 
Springfield 
MS 
dw(Uld 
10i, 
W, 
U--, 
man 
M. 
4D 
4rc> 
Beegaiie I'm 
older, 
and 
Wso 
became 
I 
was 
brought 
up 
with older people, 
and 
Ism 
worked 
an 
moll 
in 
ftort 
of 
older 
andiencea 
this 
ho 
a 
lot 
to 
do 
with 
my attitude 
toward, 
older, 
;; 
1ijeemes 
and my 
ability 
to W- to 
them 
I= 
stand up 
to thimp 
better. 
I 
remember 
how, in 
the 
early 
days, 
I 
used 
to 
dunk 
that 
if 
I 
did 
a 
whole 
doys 
work 
and . show 
or 
rim at 
night. 
I'd 
the. 
Noa, 
I do it 
regularly- 
yomr Bystem 
cm used 
to 
it Fint 
you 
do 
an 
8-minute 
-s 
than 
12; 
then 
w, 
then, 
; ?;; 
a while, 
CrCM VM -d to 
doing 
an 
hour. 
Does how 
buituarat 
Lifir 
change 
you 
mu6? 
1 hat" 
Oftrn 
here 
mW 
that, 
I 
think 
it duea. 
Some 
of it 
mmt mb off 
on 
y?. 
Y- j., 
g- ch-g,. 
Bt, 
. 
f. 
.Im 
??-d, 
my gencrW val? 
m 
hfe 
hm?'t 
cbwscd- 
This ho 
a 
kA 
to 
do 
witb my 
upbrirWng. 
As 
fm 
the 
hit 
.? 
-makmg 
? 
Of 
Cids, KsthY, 
md -dwy 
dcpmd 
w ?l 
f?un- 
Wt?her 
w mll 
., 
Ihm 
?m00?, 
' 
7. 
Tilla, 
Kathy 
and 
me', 
Dusty Springfield, 
Radio Luxembourg Record 
Stars 
annual, 
1965, 
pages 
14 
and 
15. 
to 
a closer 
examination 
of 
the 
role played 
by 
music 
performers 
and 
their 
relationships 
with 
female 
audiences 
in 
the 
accounts offered 
by 
research 
participants, 
none 
of 
the 
existing 
definitions 
seemed 
useful 
or appropriate. 
15 
In 
some 
instances 
their 
accounts 
resonated 
with, 
or 
triggered 
my 
own 
memories. 
16 
Notions 
of 
ineffability, 
of 
feelings 
exceeding 
words, 
of 
transportation 
into 
other worlds 
and 
of 
degrees 
of 
yearning 
were expressed. 
For 
some, 
like 
Jean 
and 
Sandy, 
who 
had been 
listening 
to 
Dusty 
for 
the 
first 
time, 
as 
I 
was, as 
girls 
in 
the 
early 
1960s, 
the 
ineffability 
of 
Dusty's 
voice, 
was 
respectively 
consigned 
to 
belonging 
to 
a radiant 
other 
world, 
beyond 
words, 
and 
an 
abstracted 
notion 
of 
excess: 
Sandy: 
and 
it 
was 
like, following 
that, 
I 
mean, 
I 
remember 
being 
-I 
know 
I 
was 
a 
little 
girl 
but 
being 
so 
attracted 
to 
Kathy Kirby 
and 
then 
when 
Dusty 
came 
after 
that, 
it 
was 
like 
[sharp 
intake 
of 
breath] 
... 
she 
was 
I ike 
sort of 
more 
- 
She 
was 
j 
ust 
I 
ike 
more 
... 
I 
can't 
-I 
don't 
know 
how 
to 
describe 
more 
but 
I 
do 
remember 
being 
struck 
by 
the 
whole 
image, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
like 
- 
you 
know, 
her 
eye make-up 
and 
her big 
hair 
and 
a 
long, 
sort 
of 
dramatic 
dress, 
and 
the 
way she 
sort 
of, 
[gestures] 
you 
know, 
when she 
was 
singing 
as 
well as 
the 
voice 
which was 
like 
the 
whole 
package 
she was 
just 
really... 
AP: 
So 
you were 
just doing 
gestures 
there 
weren't 
you? 
Sort 
of 
- 
[copies 
her 
own 
impersonation 
of 
Dusty's 
hand 
gestures] 
it 
was a 
sort of 
gestural 
thing 
that... 
Sandy: 
Absolutely, 
yeah, 
very much, 
yeah 
- 
Gabrielle's 
iconic 
memory 
is 
of 
the 
powerful 
impact 
of 
Dusty's 
use of eye 
make-up. 
AP: 
Can 
you 
remember 
where you 
heard 
her 
or 
saw 
her? 
Was it 
in 
your 
living 
room, 
or 
was 
it 
on 
the 
radio? 
Gabrielle: It 
was on 
the television 
in 
the 
living 
room. 
AP: 
And 
Ron 
[her 
husband] had 
some 
things 
to 
say 
about 
her 
? 
Gabrielle: 
Her 
make-up, 
yes. 
[ 
... 
I 
She 
always 
used 
to 
have 
-I 
don't know, 
I 
don't 
know 
whether 
it 
was 
black 
mascara, very 
dark 
mas- 
er, 
was 
it 
mascara? 
No 
not 
mascara, 
er... 
- 
AP: 
Was 
it 
- 
it 
was 
like, 
eyeliner, wasn't 
it? 
"I 
questioned 
whether 
'audiences', 
'connoisseurs', 'consumers' 
or 
'fans' 
described 
the 
processes 
and 
relationships 
that 
were 
being 
discussed. 
16 
1 had 
unexpected 
sources of 
support 
in 
my early efforts. 
I had 
created 
a 
treasured 
memory 
work: 
"A 
experienced 
pleasure 
in 
endlessplaying 
of 
the 
Isley Brothers'Summer 
Breeze 
ivith 
bestfriend 
Shaheen... 
" 
In 
the 
course 
of 
the 
research, 
Shaheen 
made 
contact 
after 
22 
years 
having 
and 
subsequently visited 
bringing 
with 
her, 
without 
knowledge 
of 
this 
research, 
music 
compilations 
that 
included Summer 
Breeze 
that 
she also 
had 
treasured 
memories 
of 
us 
listening 
to. 
62 
IL 
pr- 
41-, 
J". 
I 
.- 
. 
- 
W_?-2 
?d* 
'?, 
-, 
.., 
I 
_Ah16 
- 
AN 
- 
.. 
Ousto 
SpHogheld 
Among 
all 
the 
dollies 
and 
birds 
of 
the 
hit 
parade 
Dusty 
is 
an original. 
There's 
nobody 
like 
that 
gal. 
Her 
clothes, 
her 
hair, 
her 
songs-and 
herself. 
Intelligent, 
charmingly 
nutty, 
or goonish. 
She's 
a 
great prac- 
tical 
joker, 
at 
her 
best 
in 
the 
early 
hours 
of 
the 
morning 
after 
work. 
She 
spends 
a 
fortune 
on 
telephone 
calls and 
her 
big, 
white 
American 
car. 
She 
works 
like 
crazy, 
thinks 
deeply 
about 
a 
lot 
of 
things 
including 
the 
pop 
scene. 
She's 
a 
world-class 
star 
now 
but 
remains 
firmly 
the 
old 
original 
Dusty. 
8. Profile 
of 
Dusty 
Springfield in 
Valentine 
pop 
special 
annual, 
1966, 
page 
72. 
Gabrielle: 
Eyeliner, but 
eyeshadow 
- 
AP: 
Yes, 
it looked 
like 
eye 
shadow. 
Gabrielle: 
Eye 
shadow, 
yes. 
AP: 
Like 
black 
eye 
shadow, 
it 
was 
quite 
distinctive, 
wasn't 
it? 
Gabrielle: 
Yes, 
yes. 
" 
In 
the 
case 
of 
'Motown 
music' 
with 
which 
Dusty 
was 
frequently 
linked, 
although participants 
had 
favourite 
performers, 
they 
often 
spoke 
about 
the 
label's 
output 
as 
a whole, constituting a specific 
music 
'far-off, 
with 
the 
capacity 
to 
arouse 
strong 
feelings 
and 
actions, 
frequently 
couched 
in 
physiological 
terms: 
Jean: It 
did 
make 
me 
want 
to, 
oh 
I 
don't 
know, 
it 
sort of 
stirred my 
blood 
somehow, you 
know, 
made 
me want 
to 
dance 
and 
made 
me 
feel 
alive 
in 
a 
lot 
of ways, 
I 
just 
loved, 
I 
loved 
the 
sounds, 
you 
know, 
I 
loved 
the 
lyrics 
and, 
you 
know, 
and 
it 
made me 
think 
of 
far-off 
places, 
you 
know. 
[ 
... 
] 
It 
was 
the 
beat. 
The beat 
sort 
of got 
into 
you and make 
you 
start 
to, 
you 
know, 
start 
to 
- 
you 
could 
feel 
yourself 
becoming 
invigorated 
by 
this 
and 
start 
to 
surge 
and you 
know, it 
wasn't 
as 
laid 
back 
you 
know, 
like 
I 
was 
saying 
with 
Nat 
King 
Cole 
and 
things 
like 
that. 
18 
Sandy: I 
just 
think 
it 
was 
the 
whole 
different 
experience 
from 
the 
Beatles 
and 
it 
was 
a very 
emotional and 
evocative 
and very 
- 
you are 
getting 
in 
touch 
with yourself, 
with your 
feelings 
kind 
of, you 
know, 
and 
that 
kind 
of 
thing 
were 
less 
conscious 
an experience, 
because 
I 
think 
such 
as 
The 
Beatles 
stuff 
for 
me 
-and 
I 
remember 
bits 
about 
when 
I 
was 
growing 
up, 
was very, 
sort of, you sang 
along 
with 
it 
and 
the 
lyrics 
were very simple 
and 
everything 
and 
it 
was 
nice 
and 
it 
was singalong 
thingy 
music 
but 
this 
was, 
this 
was 
much 
more 
emotional 
music and 
it 
could sort of separate 
you, 
you 
know, 
separate-your-feelings-from-your-thoughts 
I 
suppose, 
" 
Being 
such 
a characteristic, 
not 
to 
say 
caricatured 
feature 
of 
her 
excessive 
fashioning, 
our 
failure 
to 
identify 
precisely 
what 
constituted 
this 
look 
was 
an 
illuminating 
moment, compounding the 
notion 
of 
Dusty's 
otherworldliness. 
An 
oft-used 
media 
compromise 
is 
to 
describe 
Dusty 
as 
'panda-eyed', 
a 
phase 
coined 
for 
and 
associated 
principally 
with 
Dusty 
thereafter. 
The 
methods 
by 
which 
Dusty 
achieved 
her look 
also 
mystified 
the 
otherwise astute and 
vigilant 
Ready 
Steady 
Go! 
audiences. 
Davies 
remarks on 
how 
girls 
once 
experimented 
with 
boot 
polish 
to 
achieve 
the 
Dusty 
effect 
(Davies 
in 
O'Brien, 1999, 
p. 
80). 
18 
Jean 
credited 
Nat King 
Cole 
with 
the 
power 
to 
evoke 
this 
notion 
of 
being 
transported 
"There 
wasiust 
something 
really, really 
nice and 
warm 
about 
this 
man 
and 
he 
was so 
laid 
back 
and 
hejust 
you 
know, 
the 
piano, 
it 
wasjust 
the 
sound 
andjust 
the 
lyrics 
and 
Ujust 
made 
you 
- 
andyou 
know, 
wouldjust wooooo, 
you'dfloat 
away, 
you 
know " 
[Laughter]. 
She 
used 
the 
same 
expression 
to 
describe 
the 
impact 
of 
hearing 
steel 
band 
music 
for 
the 
first 
time: 
"I 
remember now 
going 
to 
- 
to 
see 
a group 
called 
the 
Caribbean's 
they 
were 
a steel 
drum 
group 
[ 
... 
]- 
I'd 
seen 
them 
twice, 
they 
came 
to 
Glasgow twice 
and 
that 
was 
amazing, 
I 
really 
enjoyed 
it. 
Ijust 
loved 
the 
sound 
and 
they 
were absolutely 
alive 
and 
it 
was 
like 
woooo 
you 
know 
". 
63 
kind 
of 
music 
[ 
... 
] 
you could 
kind 
of 
lose 
yourself, 
lose 
yourself and 
sort 
of 
- 
Oh, 
and 
it 
was 
all 
about 
love 
songs, 
but 
sort of, not 
just 
about 
love 
songs, 
but 
about getting 
together, 
you 
know. 
Jean's 
concentration, and 
the 
seriousness 
with which 
she 
undertook 
the 
research 
process 
yielded 
detailed 
recollections 
and occasionally 
striking 
definitions. The 
amusement 
that 
this 
sometimes 
triggered 
I 
took 
as a mutual recognition 
that 
something was 
being 
newly 
minted, 
and 
therefore 
strange. 
Asked 
to 
describe 
the 
difference between 
Motown 
and other music, and after 
a 
long 
pause, 
Jean 
offered, 
Jean: 
-a 
warmer 
- 
there 
was 
just 
something 
warm and creamy about 
it. 
[Laughter]. 
AP: What 
a perfect 
description. 
Jean 
and 
AP 
[simultaneously] 
Warm 
and creamy! 
[Laughter]'9 
Ettie 
who 
recalled 
hearing 
a 
Dusty 
in 
a 
Glasgow 
salon 
in 
the 
mid 
1960s 
stated 
"Ohyes, 
[sings I 
don't 
knowjust 
what 
to 
do 
with-] 
Oh 
that 
was 
lovely, 
it infiltrates, 
there's 
no 
doubt 
about 
it. 
" 
Jean 
claimed 
that 
as a girl and young woman she 
had 
had 
no 
friends, 
no 
'best 
pal', 
no 
dancing 
partners, 
no peers with shared 
interests 
in fashion 
or music. 
She 
discussed 
how 
in 
such circumstances 
music 
was nostalgically remembered as a comforting 
and 
omnipresent 
soundtrack: 
AP: Did 
you 
share 
your 
enthusiasm 
for 
Dusty 
and 
Motown 
with 
any 
other 
female 
friends? 
Jean: 
No. 
AP: Right, 
right, 
so 
tell 
me 
a 
little 
bit 
about 
that. 
Why's 
that then? 
Jean: 
I 
don't know. 
I 
think 
mostly 
-I 
was mostly 
a 
loner 
and my 
world 
was 
music. 
That 
was my 
world 
so 
I did buy 
a 
lot 
of 
music at weekends 
with 
my pocket 
money, 
listen 
to 
music 
all 
the 
time, 
listen 
to 
radio 
all 
the 
time 
and 
where 
- 
in fact I 
started work 
at 
15 
and 
where 
I 
worked we 
had 
music piped 
through 
the 
place 
the 
whole 
time 
so 
-2' 
19 
Both Jean's 
parents 
had had 
an 
interest in 
music, 
bought 
records 
and sang 
about 
the 
house. 
Jean's 
mother 
had 
introduced 
her 
to 
the 
music of 
Dinah 
Washington 
and 
Ella 
Fitzgerald. 
" 
Now 
more 
gregarious she 
played 
music: 
Dusty, 
Doris 
Day 
and 
other 
cherished 
performers 
first 
heard 
as a 
girl when 
guests 
visited. 
Her 
currentjob 
as 
a 
driving 
instructor 
meant 
that 
she 
spent 
time 
at 
home 
during 
the 
day 
alone 
"When 
Igo, 
Igo 
in 
on 
a 
daytime, ]put 
the 
music on, 
I 
have 
music all 
the time 
round 
about 
me 
you 
know, 
its 
got 
to 
be 
on 
and 
itsjust 
kind 
offuelling 
me 
through the 
day 
and 
it 
sort 
of whisks 
me away 
to 
different 
place 
". Music 
transported 
her 
nostalgically 
"right 
back 
there, 
when 
I 
was younger, 
and 
I 
can sing 
and 
it 
carries 
me 
through the 
day 
really 
". 
For 
other 
research 
participants. 
includ 
ing El 
izabeth 
consumption of 
music 
and 
music 
and 
film 
stars 
was 
often 
an 
intensely 
private 
activity 
"I 
mean 
I 
did 
go 
to the 
cinema 
with pals 
to 
see 
Elvis'sfilms 
but 
I don't 
remember, 
I don't 
remember 
us say 
having 
like 
a group 
crush 
on 
him 
or anything 
like 
that, 
I 
tended 
to 
keep 
my 
heroes 
or 
heroines 
quite secret 
". 
64 
Although 
music 
itself 
was an 
important 
motor 
in 
the 
construction and maintenance 
of a 
'faraway 
place' 
for 
Jean, 
she 
discussed 
how, 
as a girl 
she adapted and 
decorated her bedroom 
to 
fashion 
a 
'wee 
world' 
where 
music achieved 
an 
added 
dimension: 
I 
never 
really, 
I 
was always 
very 
much a 
loner. 
I 
had 
sort of 
friends, 
if 
you could 
call 
them 
friends 
and 
I 
had, 
I 
was 
in 
my own 
wee 
world 
basically, in 
music, 
fashion, 
design, 
I 
mean, 
one 
wall of my 
bedroom 
was 
just 
like 
one 
big 
collage of clippings out 
of magazines and 
it 
was 
all 
plastered all over my wall, all 
different 
things 
as well and 
-[... 
] 
the 
first 
Motown 
album 
I 
bought 
was a silver cover and oh, 
I 
can't 
describe 
the 
design, it 
was 
silver 
but it had 
shades of 
silver 
going 
through 
it 
with 
all 
the 
names of 
the, 
you 
know, 
the 
singles 
on 
it, 
small 
you 
know, 
and what 
I 
had, 
I 
had 
covered my whole 
room 
in 
all 
Motown 
and 
Dusty 
albums 
because I 
had 
got 
these 
runners, 
like 
plastic runners which 
I 
put on, stuck on 
the 
wall 
and slide 
the 
album 
so 
all my wall 
was 
really 
covered with all 
these 
albums you 
know [ 
... 
] 
so 
I 
could 
then, 
like 
quite 
easily, 
lift 
them 
down 
and 
look 
at 
them 
but 
see, 
the 
designs 
on 
the 
cover 
were 
lovely 
[ 
... 
]I 
collected 
beads 
from 
old necklaces 
and 
I 
stripped 
them 
all 
down 
and 
I 
created 
lights 
and 
curtains 
and sort 
of 
things 
draping 
about and 
also 
I 
painted 
the 
whole 
of 
the 
ceiling 
in 
my 
bedroom 
which 
took 
me, 
oh, 
for 
ages 
and 
I 
hand 
painted 
a wall 
all, 
just different 
colours 
and 
you 
know, 
so 
I 
could 
lie 
there 
at night 
with coloured 
lights 
going 
round, 
listen 
to the 
music 
and 
look 
up 
at 
the 
ceiling at 
just 
all 
these 
lovely 
colours 
on 
the 
ceiling, 
in 
fact, I 
tell 
you 
what, 
it 
was, 
it 
was 
at 
the time 
iced 
polystyrene 
tiles 
do 
you 
remember 
them? 
[ 
... 
] 
My 
father 
had 
put 
them 
all round, 
it 
was 
insulate, 
to 
keep 
the 
house 
warm 
and 
I 
was, 
I 
wasn't 
really 
sort 
of, really 
into 
them, 
but 
I 
thought, 
I 
could 
do 
something 
with 
this 
to 
make 
it look 
a 
wee 
bit better. So I 
started 
hand 
painting 
them 
all 
you 
know, 
so 
that 
I 
had 
a 
design 
on 
the 
ceiling- 
When 
I 
asked 
about 
the 
role 
music played 
in 
Jean's 
fashioned 
space 
she 
stated: 
Jean: 
I 
think 
it 
completed 
the 
whole experience. 
I 
think the 
whole 
thing 
came 
together. 
It 
was 
just 
my 
away-from-it-world 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
Just 
a wee 
sort 
of 
Tardis 
and 
it 
was 
just 
like, 
completely 
different 
to 
anything else 
in 
the 
house, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
And 
it 
was 
my 
world, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
And 
it 
meant 
so much 
to 
me and 
with 
the 
music and 
the 
design, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
It 
was me, 
it 
was 
me, 
I 
was 
probably 
trying 
to 
create 
me, 
aye. 
21 
Many 
participants' 
articulations 
of yearning 
and 
bittersweet 
emotions 
associated with 
Dusty 
and 
" 
Asked 
about 
the 
importance 
of 
being 
able 
to 
fashion 
a space 
of 
one's own 
Jean 
was unequivocal: 
"Well 
I 
think 
it is 
really 
important, 
I 
think 
it is 
whoyou 
are, 
I 
think 
its 
everything, 
living, 
breathing 
the 
soul 
definitely, 
and 
whoyou 
are 
spiritually, 
I 
don't 
mean 
that 
In 
a 
religious 
way, 
Ijust 
mean 
that 
the 
environmenifeeling, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
You 
canprojeclyourselfin 
life 
with 
otherpeople 
". 
The 
music 
that 
completed 
this 
experience 
and played 
a 
part 
in 
the 
lives 
of 
many 
participants 
had 
the 
power 
to 
evoke emotions and 
feelings 
in 
ways 
that 
often 
exceeded 
commonplace assumptions 
of 
how, 
for 
example, 
girls growing 
up 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
consumed 
of 
popular 
music. 
Dusty 
was 
arguably 
pre-eminent 
in 
what 
has 
been 
described 
as 
"a 
new 
breed 
of 
[British) 
women 
singers 
who 
vocalisedabout 
anguished 
love " (Burton, 
1996). 
65 
Motown 
go 
beyond 
self-riarrativisation via 
lyrical 
content. 
Sandy 
suggested 
that the 
image 
and 
sound 
of 
Dusty 
combined 
in 
ways 
that 
articulated 
forms 
of 
ineffable homoerotic, identificatory 
and 
melancholic 
yearning: 
Yeah, 
it 
was 
like 
that, 
it 
was 
like, 
that 
sort 
of, well, 
I 
think 
there 
can 
be 
pleasure 
in 
evoking 
sadness 
if, 
something 
about 
making you 
feel 
a sort of 
'in 
loveness' 
and you can't 
- 
that 
kind 
of, 
almost 
deliciousness, 
I 
mean, 
there's 
different 
aspects 
of 
love 
aren't 
there? 
There's 
the 
sort 
of 
exciting 
and 
joyous 
bits, but 
there's 
also 
the 
can't 
have 
bits 
and 
things, 
I 
just 
remember 
sort 
of 
everything 
about 
her 
- 
really sort of 
- 
her 
sexiness 
and 
her 
gorgeousness 
and you 
know, 
how 
she 
looked 
but 
also 
the 
sadness of you 
know, 
well, you can't, 
you 
know, 
you can't 
have 
-I 
don't 
know 
how 
to 
describe it 
more 
than- 
For 
Claire, 
an aficionado, 
academic 
and 
feminist 
it 
was 
in 
the 
minutiae 
of 
vocalisations 
of 
specific 
lyrics 
that 
Dusty's 
emotional 
force 
was 
felt 
allowing 
opportunities 
for 
self-riarrativisation. 
Claire's 
account 
here is interesting 
in 
the 
effort 
she made 
to 
claw 
Dusty's 
performance 
of 
Breakfast in 
Bed 
out 
of 
the 
frame 
of 
feminine 
excess 
and 
into 
the 
realms 
of 
the tasteful: 
Claire: 
Yes, 
yes, 
notjust 
the 
voice 
but 
what 
she 
did 
with 
it, 
yes, 
it 
wasn'tjust 
that 
she 
had 
a 
great 
voice, 
but 
what she 
actually 
did 
with 
it, 
so she 
could 
sing 
a 
couple 
of 
lines, 
like 
she 
could 
sing 
a 
line, 
a 
few 
lines 
of 
Breakfast 
in 
Bed 
and 
her 
voice would 
crack, 
and 
that 
was 
quite 
deliberate, 
it 
was quite 
deliberate 
that 
her 
voice would 
crack 
to 
express 
- 
I'm 
trying 
to 
remember 
now 
what 
the 
line is, it's 
something 
about, 
Please 
don't 
eat and 
run, 
it's 
been 
so 
long 
since 
I 
hadyou 
here 
which 
is 
a 
double-entendre, 
but 
in fact, 
because 
of 
the 
cracked 
voice 
it becomes, 
it's 
absolutely 
desperate 
-[... 
]- 
absolutely 
desperate, 
but 
not 
overdone, 
you 
know, 
there's 
what 
I 
took to 
be 
an 
illicit 
affair, 
which perhaps 
somebody 
can, 
other 
people 
can 
tell 
me what 
it's 
about. 
AP: 
I 
hadn't 
had 
it 
as 
an 
illicit 
affair. 
Claire: 
I 
very much 
had it, 
very much 
as 
an 
illicit 
affair 
[ 
... 
] 
Please 
don't 
eat and run, 
that's 
absolutely 
classic. 
AP: 
Yes. 
Claire: 
Without 
revealing 
too 
much 
about 
myself. 
[Laughter] 
[My 
emphasis] 
66 
For 
some participants, 
hearing 
specific 
recordings evoked 
profound 
emotional 
resonances 
recalled 
in 
vivid 
memories articulated 
through 
the 
lens 
of 
intervening 
years. 
Jean 
reiterated 
the 
notion 
of 
music 
as a soundtrack 
for her life, 
where 
Dusty 
was 
cast 
as 
both interpreter 
and confidante: 
AP: Because 
quite a 
lot 
of 
Dusty's 
most 
well 
known 
songs 
are actually 
quite sad songs. 
Jean: Aha, 
that's 
right. 
AP: But 
you still 
enjoy 
Jean: Because I 
suppose 
I 
had 
a mixture of 
that 
sort of melancholy, 
all 
that 
kind 
of stuff, 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
I 
suppose 
in 
a 
lot 
of 
ways 
I 
was quite a 
lonely 
person and 
looking 
for 
love 
in 
a way, 
it 
was probably 
love 
that 
I 
could probably never 
get, 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
It 
was 
that 
kind 
of, 
it 
was 
in 
my 
head 
you 
know, 
so 
these 
songs 
kind 
of 
fuelled 
it 
in 
a way. 
AP: 
Did 
you 
- 
they 
have, 
did 
you 
have 
any 
sort of, 
like 
a 
fantasy 
world 
that 
-I 
mean, 
don't 
want 
to 
probe 
too 
deeply. 
[Laughter] 
Did 
you 
figure 
in 
fantasies 
when 
you 
were 
listening 
to this 
music or 
did 
she 
- 
was 
Dusty 
a 
fantasy 
figure for 
you 
at all? 
Jean: Personally, 
it 
wasn't 
like 
that, 
no, 
I 
liked Dusty, 
I 
liked her 
singing, 
I 
like 
to 
watch 
her 
singing 
and 
I 
loved 
the 
music, 
again 
it 
took 
me 
into 
this 
fantasy 
world 
of meeting 
somebody 
who was 
going 
to 
be 
there 
and 
they 
were 
going 
to 
share 
[ 
... 
] it 
wasn't 
the 
person, 
it's 
never 
been 
the 
person, 
the 
person 
I 
liked 
or whatever, were 
- 
there 
was 
never 
anything 
sexual 
orientated 
[Laughter]. 
Dusty's 
voice also 
became 
associated 
with 
ftirther 
adult, unspoken 
ideas, 
the 
soundtrack 
to 
other 
forms 
of 
intimacies 
between fernininities 
that 
Jean 
found 
it 
difficult 
to 
articulate 
even after many 
years 
living 
as an 
out 
lesbian: 
Jean: 
I 
remember 
that 
day 
we'd 
be 
listening 
to 
it [Dusty 
on 
her 
Mum's 
radiogram] 
and 
Teresa 
[her 
aunt's 
friend] 
was 
up and we were all 
sitting and 
I 
think 
that 
maybe 
because 
of my 
age 
my 
aunt 
didn't 
want 
to 
say, 
but 
she come 
away 
with some 
sort 
of 
like 
slang 
word 
for 
Dusty 
Springfield 
you 
know, 
to 
Teresa, 
so 
I 
wouldn't 
sort 
of clock 
what 
she 
was 
really 
meaning, 
but I 
had 
a rough 
idea 
of what 
she was 
talking 
about, 
you 
know, 
and 
I 
thought, 
Oh, I 
didn't 
think 
she 
was 
actually 
thinking 
about 
that, 
you 
know, 
but 
I 
can't remember 
now 
how 
she 
put 
it 
over, 
it 
was 
that 
terminology 
she 
was using 
but 
it 
was 
- 
67 
AP: 
So 
what sort of 
impression did 
that 
have 
on 
you 
then 
when 
that 
started? 
Jean: 
What 
she said about 
it? 
I 
thought, 
you 
know 
- 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
Well 
you're 
pulling 
a very 
alarmed 
face 
there, 
just 
for 
the 
sake of 
the tape 
- 
Jean: 
Well, I 
just 
thought, 
Oh 
my goodness! 
you 
know, 
because, 
I 
was 
- 
well, 
I 
was 
aware of 
it 
myself 
and 
I 
thought, 
Oh, 
how 
would 
she 
take 
it because 
I 
might 
be 
in 
Dusty's 
camp, 
you 
know. 
Claire 
revealed 
that 
Dusty's 
death 
changed, 
but 
in 
no way 
concluded, 
a relationship 
that 
had had 
the 
capacity 
to 
arouse 
a range of strong 
if 
ambivalent emotions. 
This 
from 
a participant who 
was 
at 
pains 
to 
dissociate 
herself 
from 
the 
'big 
weepies' 
and women 
who made 
'doormats' 
of 
themselves: 
Claire: 
I 
don't know if it's 
at 
all relevant 
because 
you 
haven't 
asked 
me, 
but 
I- 
maybe 
its 
not, 
but I 
certainly also 
found 
Dusty 
very 
frustrating 
and 
I 
suppose 
that's 
because 
you would 
write 
to 
her, 
although 
her 
secretary was very 
good at 
writing 
back, 
in 
the time 
I 
tried to 
communicate 
to 
her, I 
never 
heard 
anything and 
that 
was quite 
- 
she 
-I 
think 
again 
it 
was 
fear 
that 
she 
-just 
didn't, 
she 
just 
hid 
away, 
and 
I 
couldn't 
really get any 
-I 
got a photo, 
a 
signed photo, you 
know, 
but 
I 
never 
really 
- 
and 
I 
felt 
very, 
very sad about 
that 
because it 
was 
something 
- 
again, one 
having 
in 
a sense 
to 
say, 
you 
know, 
this 
is how 
you've changed my 
life, I'd 
really 
like 
to 
do 
that. 
I 
went 
to the 
grave and 
thought 
-I 
know 
I 
was 
overwhelmed with 
this 
sense of, 
damn 
it, 
she's 
cheated me again, 
although 
you 
know, 
I 
actually sat 
down 
there 
for 
a couple of 
hours 
but 
that 
was 
very 
disappointing 
and 
very sad, 
you need 
to 
be 
able 
to 
say 
to 
someone 
well, 
this 
is 
- 
so 
that 
was 
an aspect 
that, that 
I 
think 
you'll 
find 
quite a 
lot 
of 
fans 
-[... 
] 
she 
was very 
reclusive 
in 
the 
1990s, 
very, very 
reclusive 
and 
in 
the 
end 
it 
was 
too 
upsetting, 
I 
just 
didn't 
write 
any more 
because 
I 
thought 
this 
is 
-I 
will 
just 
probably 
write, 
to 
speak 
to 
her 
secretary 
and so on 
because 
she 
wouldn't 
really communicate, 
it 
didn't 
make 
-I 
felt 
quite offended 
until 
I 
met another 
fan 
who'd 
met 
her 
in 
the 
'90s 
and 
he 
said she shook 
from 
head 
to 
foot 
when 
he 
met 
her, 
she was 
very 
nice 
but 
she 
was 
shaking with 
fright 
at 
meeting 
people and 
that 
gave 
me a 
tiny 
insight 
into 
how 
difficult 
it 
must actually 
be 
so 
it 
wasn't all 
- 
so 
it's 
not, 
certainly 
not plain 
sailing 
to 
be 
a 
fan, 
it's frustrating 
and 
I 
don't know if 
that's 
relevant 
to 
anything 
you 
are 
doing 
at all. 
Dusty's 
Island 
ofDreams 
My 
first 
sighting 
of 
Dusty 
was when 
I 
saw 
her 
on 
TV 
singing 
Island 
ofDreams 
with 
the 
Springfields. 
I 
became 
an 
instant fan. 
I 
fell 
in 
love 
with 
that 
wonderfully 
evocative, soulful 
voice. 
With 
her 
dynamic 
delivery 
and 
powerful 
presence 
(Groocock, 
1999, 
p. 
49). 
68 
. 
 : 
Veronica 
Lake, 
filin 
st] 
I 
*11 
*11 
Film 
Portraits 3 
annual, 
1949. 
unpaginated, 
coloured-in 
by 
reader 
Fav. 
Although 
Coates has 
dubbed 
rock 
a 
"bourgeois 
bohemia 
... 
a space of respiteftom everyday 
life 
in 
the 
real 
world 
in 
which 
the 
rockformation 
is imbricated" 
(Coates, 
1997, 
p. 
57) 
notions 
of escapism 
for 
audiences 
of girls and 
women 
through 
pop 
and soul 
are 
routinely 
disparaged in 
the 
rock 
ideology. 
22 
Escapism 
via 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
whether 
performed 
by 
white 
female 
stars 
or 
Black 
soul and 
R&B 
performers of either 
gender 
has 
tended 
to 
be 
read 
as 
a condition 
of 
false 
consciousness and a 
vacuous 
assault on 
taste. 
23 
Jean's 
uses of star 
performances, 
can 
be 
understood as related 
to 
the 
imaginative 
refiguring 
of 
Hollywood 
stars 
by 
Stacey's 
respondents. 
Just 
as 
the 
literal 
vividness of 
the 
Hollywood 
mis 
en 
scene offered 
up a 
world of pleasures practices 
for female 
respondents, 
24 
so 
the 
sounds 
of 
America 
and 
the 
proliferation 
of pop, music and 
film 
texts 
were 
to 
appeal 
to 
the 
generation 
of 
female 
fans in 
this 
later 
period. 
The 
modes of music reception, 
typically 
on 
domestic 
radio 
equipment 
such as 
hand-held 
transistors, 
and 
the 
expansion 
in 
sales of record players 
such 
as 
that 
used 
by 
Jean, 
her 
mother 
and 
her 
aunt was critical 
to 
many 
fans in forming 
a 
pleasurable 
identification 
of 
difference 
as 
well as a 
new 
habitus 
of consumption. 
25 
Jean 
described 
a context 
where 
she 
was able 
to 
play a soundtrack 
again 
and 
again within 
a controlled, private context 
to 
construct 
to 
a sensory 
environment 
absolutely, 
"differentfrom 
anything 
else 
in 
the 
house 
". Her 
deployment 
of 
Dusty 
and 
Motown 
stars 
and 
her later 
fusing 
of 
Dusty 
with 
an epiphany regarding 
her 
own 
(and Dusty's 
and 
neighbour 
Teresa's? ) 
lesbianism, 
endorses 
McClary's 
call 
to 
address 
the 
neglected 
territories 
of music 
26 
and 
personal 
identities. 
Jean's 
'wee 
world' 
presents a model 
whereby 
the 
context 
of 
the 
domestic 
" 
Coates 
claims 
that 
(Early Mod) Dusty's 
feminine 
excess precluded 
her 
from 
serious consideration 
due 
to the 
rock 
ideology 
in 
America 
(Coates, 
1997). Significantly, 
Bob 
Dylan 
is 
the 
exception 
to 
Elizabeth's 
rule 
that 
her 
heroes 
and 
heroines 
were 
consumed 
in 
private. 
This 
was 
initiated 
when a 
friend 
revealed 
her 
own 
love 
of 
Dylan 
after 
which 
they 
went public. 
We 
agreed 
that 
this 
was 
arguably an eminently respectable 
crush 
to 
have 
publicly 
announced 
in 
1960. 
" 
As 
opposed 
to the 
meaningful 
assault on 
taste 
by 
punk. 
White 
male rock 
performers 
who 
have 
performed 
femininity 
(Bowie, Bolan 
to 
Alice 
Cooper 
and 
Aerosmith) 
can 
be interpreted 
as 
playing with 
the 
signifiers of gender 
in 
ways 
that 
are 
distinct 
from 
the 
Black 
male soul 
combos 
of 
Motown 
or 
Philadelphia. 
Although 
this 
may 
be 
only 
superficially 
addressed 
here, 
the 
former 
are considered 
to 
be ironically 
and 
knowingly 
referencing 
femininity 
and 
Black 
male 
precedents, 
in 
ways 
that 
blur 
to 
ultimately restore 
white 
male 
heterosexuality. 
The latter have 
historically 
used 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
distinct 
ways 
that 
are, again, 
too 
complex 
to 
discuss 
adequately 
in 
this thesis 
but 
may 
be linked 
to 
notions of 
respectability 
as 
Wilmer's 
comments 
cited earlier suggest. 
Contextualising 
Dusty's 
work, 
O'Brien 
has 
written 
"In 
the 
sixties 
[Charles Shaar) Murray 
was a 
counterculture 
writerfor 
the 
underground 
newspaper, 
IT Then, 
as a 
rule, 
he 
listened 
to 
Jimi Hendrix, 
blues 
andpsychedelic 
rock, 
not 
blandpop. 
'We 
regarded 
the 
big Itahanate 
ballad 
[Dusty's You 
Don't Have 
to 
Say You Love Me 
was 
originally 
Lo Che 
No 
Vivo 
Senza Te] 
as 
the 
worst"' 
(Charles 
Shaar 
Murray 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
249). 
Boys' 
rock 
consumption 
has become 
mythologised, 
caricatured 
and 
globalised, 
for 
example, 
in 
the 
annual 
World 
Air 
Guitar 
championships of 
'bedroom 
-mirror 
style 
guitar miming' 
(http: 
//www. 
omvf net/english. 
htmi). 
Girls' 
consumption of popular 
music, 
particularly 
performed 
by 
female 
stars 
is 
poorly 
represented 
in 
popular and 
academic 
literature. 
24 
Where 
life in Beverley Hills 
consumed 
in 
star magazines 
could 
be 
played 
out 
in 
the 
strikingly 
contrasted context of 
an open 
cast 
coal 
mine 
(Stacey, 1994, 
pp. 
159 
-160). 
23 
Carroll has 
noted 
that 
even 
the 
poor radio sound quality 
of 
pop 
broadcasts 
in 
the 
1960s 
is 
evocative 
of nostalgic 
yearning, 
"There 
was 
something 
about 
the 
interference 
that 
gave 
a rather 
dreadful, Americanised 
evening 
radio 
show a sense 
of 
mystery 
and 
distance, 
both 
physical 
and epochal" 
(Carroll, 
1997, 
p. 
40). 
26 
"Literature 
and 
visual 
art 
are 
almost 
always 
concerned 
[ 
... 
I 
with 
the 
organisation 
ofsexuality, 
the 
construction 
ofgender, 
the 
arousal 
and 
channelling of 
desire. 
So 
is 
music, 
except 
that 
music 
may perform 
thesefunctions 
even 
more 
effectively 
than 
other 
media. 
Sinceftw 
listeners 
know 
how 
to 
explain 
how 
it 
creates 
its 
effects, 
music 
gives 
the 
illusion 
of operating 
independently 
of 
cultural mediation. 
It 
is 
often 
received 
[ 
... 
I 
as 
a mysterious 
medium 
within 
which 
we 
seem 
to 
encounter 
our 
own 
most 
private 
feelings. Thus 
music 
is 
able 
to 
contribute 
heavily 
(if 
surreptitiously) 
to 
the 
shaping 
of 
individual 
identities: 
along 
with 
other 
69 
space, 
is 
re-constructed 
in 
ways 
that 
involved 
abstract 
and 
decorative 
fashionings 
and 
where popular 
music 
is 
both 
the 
motor 
for 
creativity 
and 
completes 
the 
personal 
habitus. 
In 
her 
consumption 
of albums, 
Jean 
might 
be 
construed 
as a 
collector 
but 
this 
is 
an 
inadequate 
description. The 
forms 
of 
appreciation, 
connoisseurship 
or 
fanship 
exemplified 
by 
Dusty Bulletin 
subscribers, 
"can 
be distinguished 
from 
the 
forms 
of 
identification 
available, 
for 
example via star 
representations 
on album 
covers 
(as 
Negus 
and 
Gilroy 
have 
pointed 
out) 
enjoyed 
by 
female 
fans 
of 
DUSty. 
28 
Rather 
ironically, 
given 
the 
proliferation 
of 
Dusty 
musical compilations 
in 
all 
format in 
recent 
years, 
the 
Bulletin 
defines 
the 
type 
of 
Dusty fan 
who collects 
all 
her 
material as a 
'completist. 
(Bulletin, 
Issue 
36)29 
Val 
Wilmer 
provides 
an 
alternative 
model 
with which 
to 
contextualise 
Jean's 
use 
of 
albums 
in 
her 
account 
of 
her 
own 
use of 
them 
as props 
to 
enhance 
the 
pleasures of music 
consumption 
in 
the 
domestic 
space. 
The 
sound 
of music, and 
the 
pleasures 
of album covers, shared 
with 
a 
West Indian friend 
created a 
treasured 
moment, 
insulated 
against 
the 
hostilities 
of 
the 
racist, 
urban 
environment 
of 
London 
in 
the 
1960s: "The 
quality 
ofAmericanpressings 
ofJazz and 
Blues 
records 
e. g. 
Blue Note 
and 
Riverside 
then 
was 
superb 
and 
the 
sound was 
recorded 
in 
a special way. 
US 
albums were especially 
popularfor 
their 
thick 
card 
covers 
too. 
We 
wouldprOP 
these 
up around 
the 
room as we 
listened" 
(Wilmer, 
1989, 
p. 
114). 
The 
trajectory 
of 
identifications 
that 
links 
Hollywood 
stars 
to 
black 
soul 
and 
Motown 
stars and 
Dusty 
to 
Jean 
and 
Sandy 
is 
evoked 
in 
the 
actions 
of recasting 
and 
reinventing 
through 
the 
production of 
dramatic 
and 
often 
private 
restylings 
of self and 
surroundings. 
This 
is 
arguably 
most easily 
achieved 
through 
the 
dyeing 
and 
styling 
of 
hair. 
For Dusty, 
as 
for 
many 
female 
spectators 
of 
Hollywood 
movies, 
the 
allure of stars 
lives 
is 
epitomised 
by 
the 
mythical 
Los 
Angeles, impossibly 
contrasted 
to 
her 
domestic life 
in 
the 
1950s. 
In 
an 
appropriately 
overblown 
introduction 
to 
her 
biography 
of 
Dusty, 
O'Brien 
uses 
the 
props 
of 
the 
mirror 
and 
the 
Hollywood 
star 
film 
Still30 
in 
the 
wee world of 
the 
'chubby 
influential 
media 
such 
asfilm, music 
teaches 
us 
how 
to 
experience 
our own emotions, our 
own 
desires, 
and 
even our own 
bodies. 
For better 
orfor 
worst, 
it 
socialises us 
"( McClary, 
199 1, 
p. 
53). 
" 
The 
Bulletin 
is 
the 
key 
publication 
for 
collectors 
of 
Dusty information 
and memorabilia and 
although 
female fans 
of 
Dusty 
contribute 
to 
it 
to 
Dusty 
Internet 
sites, 
theme 
nights, conventions, 
it 
primarily records 
the 
practices 
and 
interests 
of male 
fans 
of 
Dusty. 
Dusty 
contributed 
occasional 
letters from 
the 
early 
1980s 
to 
The 
Bulletin's 
precursor 
Dusty 
International. In 
the 
last issue 
before 
her 
death, 
all 
the 
letters 
in 
the 
letters 
page are 
from 
male 
aficionados. 
Claire 
was 
the 
only 
subscriber of 
the 
research 
participants. 
"A 
memory 
work recalled 
incidents 
of 
desire 
and 
identification 
triggered 
by 
album 
covers: 
"A 
wasfascinated 
Nina 
(with 
scraped 
back; 
long, blonde 
hair)from 
the 
singing 
duo 
Nina 
and 
Frederick 
on 
the 
cover 
of 
one 
of 
her 
Dad's 45s. 
A 
would also 
often 
look 
at 
the 
unnamed 
glamorous 
showgirls 
that 
surrounded 
Charlie 
Drake 
on 
thefull-colour 
glossy 
album 
that 
her 
Dad 
owned 
of 
'My 
Boomerang 
Won't 
Come 
Back. 'transfixed 
by 
the 
contrast 
between 
his 
body 
and 
the 
irs. 
They 
had 
bundles 
of 
?Ionde) 
hair, 
coiled andpiled 
and 
wore encrusted 
'circus-like 
costumes, 
had 
impossibly 
large 
eyelashes 
and 
stilettos 
". 
9 
Notwithstanding 
the 
diverse 
ways 
that 
subscribers 
to 
the 
Bulletin 
express 
their 
identification 
with 
Dusty's 
life, 
work 
or 
persona, 
the 
forms 
of 
fascination 
present 
themselves 
as 
characteristic 
of 
systems 
Cixous 
has 
termed 
'Economies 
of 
the 
Proper'; 
?ystems 
that 
prioritise 
propriety, 
order, 
systernisations 
and 
hierarchies 
(Moi, 1988). 
" 
June Haver, 
who 
"inhabited 
a 
world 
that 
was 
rich, 
glittering 
andforbidden" 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
P. 
I). 
70 
tomboy' 
Mary 
O'Brien 
to 
set 
the 
scene 
for 
her 
metamorphosis 
where 
"In 
a 
bedroom 
in 
1950s 
London 
she 
created 
a girl called 
Dusty 
" (O'Brien, 
1999, 
pp. 
1-2). 11 
'Dusty' 
was arguably 
created 
by hair 
bleaching 
and 
bouffanting. 
11 
For Jean 
and 
Sandy 
the 
Dustyisation 
of 
their 
hair 
announced 
their 
identification 
with 
dissident forms 
of 
femininity 
and 
an 
association 
with other 
worlds 
and sensations 
that 
could not 
be 
easily articulated. 
Identifications 
between 
Dusty 
and 
her 
fans include iconic 
memories, 
Sandy's 
state 
of 
inloveness, 
first 
with 
Kathy 
Kirby 
then 
Dusty, 
who was simply 
more 
and whose gestures were still 
rehearsed 
in 
an act 
of pleasure, 
was centred on 
the 
abundance of signifiers 
that 
both 
stars 
had 
to 
offer: 
red 
lips, 
big, blonde, 
bouffanted 
hair, 
eye make-up, 
long, dramatic 
dress, 
gestures, 
beauty 
spot, 
the 
33 
arresting 
voice... 
For 
the 
research participants and 
in 
my own memory work 
corpus, 
the 
notion 
of 
creatures 
of abundant 
femininity 
from 
another 
world 
included 
specific 
friends 
and 
family 
members, 
who 
fashioned 
themselves 
through 
more plural 
identifications 
or specific 
Dustyisation. 
(Sandy's 
aunt, 
A's 
Aunty Sue, Pat 
the 
rogue 
hairdresser 
... 
) 
Black 
stars of 
both 
sexes also 
epitomised 
both 
glamour 
34 
and 
ineffable 
otherworldliness 
for 
many participants. 
For 
Dusty 
and 
her 
fans 
"National 
difference 
[had] 
provided spacefor 
particularforms 
offantasy 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
118). 
33 
The 
white 
participants 
in 
this 
study, and 
Dusty 
too, 
demonstrated 
that their 
association 
of glamour/Americaness 
appears 
to 
have 
relatively unproblernatically extended 
to 
encompass models 
of 
African American 
and 
Black 
British 
glamour 
. 
3' 
For Dusty 
and 
many research 
participants 
pleasures 
in 
specific 
sounds 
allowed 
for 
an array 
31 
Cilia 
Black 
has discussed her 
transformation 
from 
mousy convent 
schoolgirl 
to 
auburn would-be 
star as a 
result 
of 
her first 
hair-dyeing 
experiments with 
Woolworths' 
Camillatone (Denton, 2003). 
The 
extent 
to 
which 
Dusty's 
hair 
fashioning 
came 
to 
be iconic 
can 
be 
measured 
in 
the 
routine 
use 
of 
images 
of 
Dusty 
to 
stand 
for 
fashioning in 
the 
1960s. For 
example, 
in 
a recent article 
in 
The Sunday Times 
magazine 
'the 
do's' 
of 
the 
decade 
were as 
follows: 
Dusty, 1960s, Farrah 
Fawcett, 
1970s, Joan 
Collins, 1980s, 
Meg Ryan, 
1990s (Moore, 2000, 
pp. 
36-7). 
" 
Stacey has 
demonstrated 
that 
for 
British 
women 
in 
the 
1940s 
and 
1950s "It 
was 
the 
'abundance' 
ofsignifters offemininity 
represented 
by 
Hollywood 
stars 
that 
was seen asparticularlypteasurable 
[for 
the 
British 
women 
in 
the 
audience]... 
[ 
... 
] 
the 
palpablyfelt 
difference 
of 
the 
wealth 
luxury 
and 
glamour 
of 
Hollywood 
stars 
to the 
deprivation 
and 
drabness 
of 
the 
lives 
of 
the 
spectators. 
Hollywoodstars 
were 
thought 
to 
live life 
as 
if 
'on 
anotherplanet... 
" (Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
235). 
She 
highlights 
the 
function 
of close 
up 
displays 
of women, 
producing 
a 
fascination 
"remembered 
as aform 
of 
intimacy 
[ 
... 
I 
as aform of 
personalisation 
ofthe 
Hollywood 
star" 
by 
female 
spectators 
and 
notes 
that this 
contradicts 
the 
feminist 
interpretation 
of 
close- 
ups as 
': 
fetishism 
andfragmentation 
" (ibid. 
p. 
206). 
14 
My 
interests 
and 
line 
of questioning 
clearly 
indicated 
an 
interest 
in 
soul 
music, 
however, I 
was 
frequently 
surprised 
by 
unprompted references 
to 
Black 
stars: 
the 
young 
Shirley 
Bassey 
remembered 
as 
admirably struggling 
for 
attention 
in 
a 
Working 
Man's 
club, 
Jean's 
recalling of 
the 
arrival 
the 
Motown 
stars 
to 
Britain 
in 
an otherwise 
bleak 
and 
forgotten 
vista 
of 
TV 
programming, 
Aretha Franklin 
inspiring Melanie 
to 
practise 
sax, 
Ettie 
remembering 
the 
Shirellcs, 
Bassey, 
The 
Supremes, 
Frankie Lymon 
and 
the 
Teenagers 
being 
played 
in 
the 
salon 
on 
Sauchiehall Street 
the 
impact 
of 
Black 
stars 
including Whitney 
Houston, 
Michael 
Jackson 
and 
Sheila Ferguson 
on 
the 
clients 
and 
trainee 
hairdressers 
at 
Northend 
College 
contributed 
an 
impression 
of 
the 
pervasiveness 
and 
noteworthiness 
of 
Black 
stars 
on working-class 
participants' 
lives 
from 
the 
late 
1950s 
on. 
It 
remains 
to 
be 
seen 
whether 
this 
would 
have been 
the 
case 
in 
research 
conducted 
with mainly 
middle 
class 
women 
(or 
men). 
Are 
Black 
artists principally 
attracting 
working-class audiences? 
Significantly in 
a 
memo after 
interviewing 
Claire, 
I 
noted 
she 
had 
felt 
it 
necessary 
to 
contextualise 
her 
fanship 
of 
Dusty 
within 
the 
frame 
of 
her interest 
in 
white 
rock 
bands 
Crecdence 
Clearwater 
Revival, The 
Stones 
and 
Little 
Feat. 
" 
However, 
identifications 
with 
the 
forms 
of 
femininity 
enacted 
by both 
male and 
female 
Black 
stars 
from 
the 
late 1950s 
noted 
by 
Wilmer, 
and 
extensively 
marked 
in 
texts 
on and 
by 
Dusty 
and 
the 
participants 
in 
this 
study, 
extends 
Stacey's 
account 
of 
the 
allure of 
white 
Americanness 
"Ken 
Duke 
Ellington 
and 
Count 
Basie 
brought 
theirpolished 
big 
bands 
over 
it 
was, 
said 
one 
observer, 
'like 
a 
dream. [... 
] 
Racism 
was 
temporarily 
shelved 
in 
theface 
ofgenuine 
wonderment 
at 
the 
gods 
being 
here 
in 
our 
midst... 
" (Wilmer, 
199 
1, 
p. 
40). 
36 
This 
is 
also 
cross 
cut 
with 
racism 
(see 
Sandy's 
accounts 
in 
the 
section 
'Sound 
of 
Musical 
Excess' 
concerning 
Madeline 
Bell) 
71 
of 
identifications, 
emotions 
and 
self-narrativisations, 
which 
can 
be 
interpreted 
in 
relation 
to 
ideas 
about 
Blackness 
and 
Black 
voices. 
Dusty frequently 
cited 
a 
treasured 
memory 
of 
hearing 
Black American 
popular 
music 
for 
the 
first 
time 
and 
emphasised 
'the 
immediacy 
of 
her love 
affair': 
I 
was passing 
a 
record 
shop 
in 
Times 
Square 
and 
the 
Exciters' 
Tell 
him 
was 
blasting 
out. 
The 
attack 
in it! 
It 
was 
the 
most 
exciting 
thing 
I 
had 
ever 
heard. 
The 
only 
black 
music 
I'd 
heard in 
England 
was 
big-band 
jazz 
and 
Latin 
Music, 
which 
I loved. 
But 
this 
was 
a revelation 
(Dusty 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
38). 
37 
Jean 
and 
Claire 
make clear 
the 
potential 
for 
pleasurable 
and 
bittersweet 
self-riarrativisation 
available 
via 
lyrical 
interpretation 
of 
Dusty's 
oeuvre, 
but 
Dusty herself 
relegated 
the 
role 
of 
lyrics, 
unequivocally 
linking 
the 
emotional 
investment 
of 
the 
performance 
in 
soundS. 
38 
Claire derived 
pleasure 
from 
performances 
by 
Dusty 
on 
two 
registers: 
via 
lyriCS, 
39 
and 
through 
Dusty's 
modulation 
of sounds 
to 
create 
powerful 
emotionally 
interpellating 
moments 
in her 
recorded 
performances, 
notably 
the 
'desperate 
cracking' 
of 
the 
voice 
in 
Breakfast 
in 
Bed. 
'O 
Dusty 
was 
notoriously 
fastidious 
and 
invariably 
dissatisfied 
with 
the 
sound recording methods 
available 
to 
her 
throughout 
her 
recording 
career, 
particularly 
in 
her 
early 
years 
as a solo perfonner 
when 
there 
was 
no access 
to 
double 
tracking 
or overlaying. 
41 
37 
This 
revelatory 
episode 
resembles research 
participants' accounts of 
hearing 
Dusty 
for 
the 
first 
time. 
For 
Whiteley, 
it is 
the 
sound 
component 
in 
popular 
music 
that 
allows 
for 
the 
broadest 
opportunities 
for 
identification 
"Whilst 
lyrics 
andsong 
title$ 
suggest 
apreferred 
reading, 
music's abstract character 
allowsfor a 
mapping of 
individual 
experiences and 
meaning 
that 
rovides a sense 
ofidentity 
andafluldity ofengagement 
"(Whiteley, 
1997, 
p. 
xxxii). 
Dusty: I don't 
pay any attention 
to 
lyrics 
until 
they 
are over. 
I'm 
more 
occupied 
with 
hitting 
the 
notes. 
Q: 
Surely 
that 
cannot always 
have been 
the 
case? 
Dusty: 
Yes. Lyrics 
mean 
very 
little 
to 
me. 
Q: 
But don't 
you 
have 
to 
be 
thinking through the 
drama 
of 
a 
song 
to 
sing 
them 
like 
you 
do? 
Dusty: 
No. The 
drama 
always 
comes 
from 
where 
the 
notes come 
for 
me: musical 
drama 
rather 
than 
lyrical 
drama. 
If 
they 
happen 
to 
coincide, 
it's 
wonderful 
(Dusty Bulletin No. 36, November, 
1998). 
3' 
Lyrics 
tell 
the 
story 
of emotionally charged aspects 
of 
her 
life, 
she admired 
Dusty's 
adoption 
of roles 
such 
as 
'hooker' 
and 
Imistress' in 
the 
performance of specific songs. 
' 
In his 
essay 
on 
Gracie 
Fields, Frith 
noted 
that 
in 
her 
emotionally 
invested 
performances she 
"knew, 
of 
course... 
that 
sounds and 
accents 
and 
tones 
ofvoicejust 
as much as words, 
have 
apublic 
andpolitical 
meaning" 
(Frith, 
1989, 
p. 
7 1). 
Claire 
contrasts 
this 
with 
the 
'crap' 
results of 
efforts 
to 
produce 
so-called 
feminist 
music 
endured 
on 
visits 
to 
a 
feminist 
friend. 
This 
genre 
that 
privileged 
the 
significance of 
lyrics 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
have derived 
from 
tastes 
in 
music expounded 
in 
influential 
feminist 
texts 
such as 
Spare Rib. In 1975, 
using 
Marvin 
Gaye, 
Dusty 
and other 
soul stars 
as 
illustrations, 
Liz Waugh 
and 
Terri 
Goddard 
critiqued 
the 
sexist-oricntated 
lyrics 
of contemporary 
music, 
indicting 
soul as sustaining 
misogyny 
and 
the 
"cult 
of 
femininity 
[which] 
persuades 
us 
that 
women are 
romantic, 
weak 
emotional, 
possessive, our 
lives 
revolving 
aroundlove 
andmost 
important 
ofall, 
'Every 
woman 
should 
bel 
what 
her 
man 
wants 
her 
to 
be'(Marvin 
Gaye) 
"'(Waugh 
and 
Goddard, 
1975). 
However, 
more 
recently 
a 
less 
monolithic 
approach 
to 
music 
has 
been developed 
by feminists 
involved 
in 
the 
study 
of 
popular 
music. 
For 
example, 
Whiteley 
has 
acknowledged 
that 
specific 
sound 
recording 
techniques 
are 
important 
determinants 
in 
an 
understanding 
of 
both 
style 
and culture, 
and 
"the 
sense 
ofa 
speciftphysical 
space 
that 
can 
be 
created 
that 
haspolentially 
enormous 
impact 
on 
the 
power 
and 
types 
ofgestural 
resonance 
which 
listenersfeel 
" 
(Whiteley. 
1997, 
p. xiv). 
41 
As 
a 
TV 
performer, 
Dusty 
was 
attempting 
to 
reproduce 
the 
exhilarating, 
elusive 
sound 
she 
had 
experienced 
as a 
fan 
of 
the 
newly 
emerging 
American 
soul 
music. 
Elvis 
Costello. 
notes 
that 
her 
covers of 
Motown 
hits 
I 
ikc 
Heatwave 
were 
"somewhat 
encumbered 
by 
the 
rockin'BBC 
band" 
(Pomphrey, 
1994). 
She 
found 
recording 
in 
Britain 
at 
Philips 
"an 
extremely 
deadstudio 
and 
notoriously 
recorded 
I 
close 
my 
eyes 
and 
count 
to 
ten 
in 
the 
studio's 
ladies 
toilets, 
where 
she 
had 
identified 
more effective 
acoustics. 
72 
Her 
efforts 
to 
project 
the 
levels 
of 
emotional excess, 
an 
'overblown 
extravaganza' 
that 
she 
desired 
were extreme 
and 
defy 
contemporary 
expectations 
of 
female 
performers: 
"She 
would 
gather 
her 
courage 
together, 
enter 
the 
studio, 
have 
the 
music cranked 
up 
high in 
her headphones 
to 
a 
decibel 
level 
6on 
the threshold 
of 
pain' 
and 
then 
sing. 
That 
is how 
she 
forced herself 
to 
perform at 
that 
level 
of 
exhilaration" 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
49). This 
emotional 
investment 
in 
sound, generating"the mysterious 
glamour 
of 
Dusty's 
voice" 
(Williams, 
1999, 
p. 
18) 
was 
in 
turn 
transmitted 
to 
many research 
participants 
and recorded 
in 
my own 
memory work 
texts, 
Dave Shrimpton 
confirms 
that these 
efforts 
to 
produce 
an abstract, 
inexplicable 
studio 
effect made 
Dusty's 
studio sound appealing 
to 
a spectrum of 
listeners: "That 
intense 
pitch, 
coupled with 
Ivor Raymonde's distortion 
techniques, 
contributed 
to the 
Spectorish 
sound 
on 
Dusty's 
sixties pop 
hits, 
and 
that 
appealed 
to 
the 
entire 
cross section of 
the 
market 
... 
everyone 
was 
buying 
her 
records. 
Not 
even 
the 
Stones 
or 
the 
Beatles 
had 
thaf' 
(Shrimpton 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
ibid. 
p. 
49). The 
ineffable difference 
in 
sound and 
image, 
paradoxically 
palpable 
and 
elusive 
in 
Dusty's 
oeuvre 
is 
noted 
by fans, 
including biographer 
O'Brien 
as richly 
connotative, 
thrilling 
and 
troubling. 
42 
The 
ubiquity 
and 
accessibility 
of popular 
sound recordings 
exceeds 
that 
of reproductions 
of 
classic 
films, 
multiplying 
the 
instances 
of repetition 
for 
audiences 
and 
fans 
of popular 
music, and 
allowing 
for 
powerful chance 
encounters, 
as 
in 
Dusty's 
treasured 
memory 
of 
first 
hearing The 
Exciters. 
43 
For Claire 
and 
Jean, 
exposure 
to 
repeated 
listenings 
of songs 
heard 
first 
more 
than 
twenty 
years 
before 
is 
virtually a 
daily 
event. 
Dusty's 
nostalgia, 
yearning and 
memories 
of 
identification 
with 
specific 
Black 
sounds 
and performers 
anticipates 
the 
(homoerotic) 
forms 
of 
identification 
that 
her fans 
later 
record 
about 
her 
own. 
Dusty's 
memories contain an 
auto-critique, 
a 
retrospective 
acknowledgement 
of 
failed 
femininity, 
and a confession of 
idealised 
identification. 
44 
However, 
for 
her 
fans 
and 
those 
who were arrested 
by 
her 
enactment 
of ambivalent, 
dissident 
and excessive 
femininity, 
Dusty 
offered 
up a 
new 
and 
ineffable, 
otherworldliness 
that 
contained, 
in 
the 
1960s 
at 
least, 
an as yet 
42 
"Ifirst 
becamefascinated 
with 
Dusty 
when 
I 
was 
In 
my 
teens. 
I 
remember seeing 
a 
monochrome 
picture ofa 
woman with 
peroxide 
blonde 
hair 
and 
heavily 
shadowed eyes. 
She 
exuded 
a sense 
ofmystery, 
of 
being 
distant 
and 
troubled, 
a woman 
with a 
complex past. 
All 
her 
vulnerability 
andpassion seemed 
to 
be 
expressed 
in 
her 
voice, 
an 
utterly 
distinctive, 
souW 
cry 
" (O'Brien, 
1999a, 
p. 
5 1). 
4' 
As 
Frith 
has 
pointed 
out even 
for 
those 
who are 
not 
fans 
or 
will 
ing 
audiences, 
music 
of 
al 
I 
forms 
is 
an unavoidable 
daily 
hazard 
(2003). 
Coupled 
with 
this, the 
industry 
of 
reproduction 
of 
iconic 
stars 
including Dusty 
ensures 
that 
reissued 
versions 
and 
compilations proliferate alongside 
nostalgia-driven 
thcmcd 
collections. 
It 
could 
also 
be 
argued 
that 
film 
audiences 
are 
less 
likely 
to 
be 
exposed 
to 
the 
whole 
work 
than 
listeners 
are 
to 
a 
three 
and 
a 
half 
minute 
record or 
even 
an 
album 
or compact 
disc. As 
Jean 
demonstrates, 
music can 
surround 
the 
listener 
all 
day. 
" 
Recorded 
as 
a 
failure 
to 
match 
Franklin's 
expertise. 
Dusty 
here 
illustrates 
Staccy, 
s 
central 
argument 
that 
"The 
extent 
to 
which 
femininity 
is 
defined by 
patriarchal 
culture 
as an unattainable 
visual 
image 
of 
desirability.. 
thus 
the 
sense 
of 
lossfor 
women 
evoked 
by 
nostalgic 
desire... 
is 
bound 
up 
in 
precisely 
this 
unallainability 
of 
the 
Idealfeminine 
image... 
77ius 
it is 
the 
particular 
designation 
offemininity 
as 
image 
which 
gives 
nostalgia 
such 
potencyfor 
women 
" (ibid. 
pp. 
66-67). 
73 
unspoken 
articulation 
of soulful, 
homoerotic, 
yearning 
that 
confounded parents and 
critics alike, 
her 
iconic 
excessive voice and 
fashioning 
pejoratively 
read as 
fonns 
of 
Blackness: 
Claire: I 
think 
it is 
something 
to 
do 
with 
the 
communication 
bit, 
is 
the 
essence 
of 
it 
and 
identifying 
- 
it's 
a 
question about 
why 
does 
some singer make you 
feel differently 
from 
others? 
And 
it's 
something 
to 
do 
with, 
in 
order 
to 
communicate 
the 
emotions 
that 
you 
have 
got yourself 
and not 
being 
able 
to 
express 
-I 
can't 
really put 
it 
any clearer 
than that. 
4.3. 
A 
touch 
of 
Dusty: 
expressing 
to 
excess 
Transformation, 
creative 
self-fashioning and 
dissident 
rites 
of passage. 
The 
kind 
of 
bittersweet 
passion she expressed 
in her 
singing was 
not 
anything 
that 
I 
had 
ever experienced 
in 
my relationships 
with men. 
And 
yet when 
she 
sang 
I 
was moved 
by 
every 
yearning 
note, every 
grand 
dramatic 
gesture 
(Groocock, 
1999, 
p. 
49). 
Dusty 
was emphatically and 
atypically 
excessive. 
Contemporary 
popular 
literature, 
academic 
criticism 
and research accounts suggest 
that 
my 
own 
iconic 
memory 
of 
her 
excess 
is indubitably 
a 
collective 
one. 
Her hair, 
make-up, 
encrusted 
garments, 
gestures 
and voice 
fascinated 
many 
girls 
and 
women 
in 
peculiar and enduring 
ways. 
However, 
Dusty's 
fashioning 
was 
frequently 
regarded 
as a 
joke 
by 
the 
media. 
45 
Paradoxically, 
the 
epitome 
of 
glamour 
for 
many, 
she 
became 
emblematic 
as 
a model of 
vulgar 
excess, 
to 
post-punk, 
queered 
sensibilities. 
Dusty 
cultivated 
an 
excessive, 
oddball 
profile. 
46 
She 
was 
thought 
excessive 
in 
her 
naYve 
but 
spunky refusal 
to 
stomach 
apartheid, 
for 
punching 
Buddy Rich, 
47 
(Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000) 
for 
her drug 
taking 
and 
for 
being, 
and 
coming 
out 
as 
lesbian. 
As 
far 
as 
her 
musical 
performances 
are 
concerned 
Dusty 
tellingly 
referred 
to 
herself 
"a 
method 
singe? 
'. 
(Pomphrey, 
1994) The 
trope 
of 
excess permeates 
the texts 
of 
Dusty 
including 
the 
array of research 
participants 
accounts. 
These 
contributions 
cross 
cut my 
early reading of 
Dusty 
with new 
definitions 
"i 
As 
early 
as 
1969 
the 
Pop 
Weekly 
annual 
stated 
"Jokes 
about 
Dusty's 
wigs 
and 
her 
mascara 
have kept 
comedians 
goingfor 
ages 
" (Hand, 
1969, 
p. 
23). O'Brien 
has 
noted 
that 
parodying 
Dusty's 
appearance 
became 
commonplace 
on 
British 
TV 
as 
her 
popularity 
rose: 
"Mak TV 
comedians mimicked 
her 
act, 
dressing 
up 
in 
wigs, 
gowns and 
massivefalse 
eyelashes, 
and 
calling 
themselves 
Rusty 
Springboard" 
(O'Brien, 1999, 
p. 
18 
1). 
' 
She 
was 
notorious 
for her 
alleged 
hobby 
of 
throwing 
food 
and 
crockery, 
her 
practical 
jokes 
and 
her 
obsessive-compulsive 
behaviour 
in 
and 
out 
of 
the 
studio 
(Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
22, 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
55). 
Resolutely 
self-deprecating 
she 
exceeded 
the 
limits 
of 
respectability 
arguably 
more 
than 
her 
contemporaries, 
other middle-class 
convent 
girls 
gone 
bad, 
Marianne 
FaithfUll 
and 
Cathy 
McGowan, 
refusing 
to 
entertain 
a 
so-called 
lavender 
marriage 
or 
indeed 
a regular 
male 
consort 
for 
the 
purposes 
of 
courting 
the teen 
media. 
" 
Polly Perkins 
was an 
out 
lesbian 
on 
the 
British 
pop scene 
in 
the 
1960s 
and 
"wasfamedfor 
speakingparlare 
(gay 
argot), 
wearing 
Carnaby 
Streetpin-striped 
suits and songs 
like 
'Superdyke "' 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
P. 
176). 
However, 
Dusty's 
popularity 
made 
her 
eventual 
outing 
an arguably 
more significant 
event. 
74 
that 
connect 
notions 
of 
excess 
with style, 
creativity, rites 
of 
passage 
and 
forms 
of what 
I 
have defined 
as 
'dissident 
femininity'. 
48 
Fashioning 
to 
excess 
Mary 
O'Brien's 
contemporary 
at school, 
Liz Thwaites, 
remembers 
the 
transformation 
of 
Dusty 
in 
a way 
that 
emphasises 
the 
dramatic 
impact 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
Britain 
in 
the 
1950s: 
Obviously 
she 
didn't 
like her image because 
when she 
left [the 
convent] 
school 
she 
changed 
it 
completely. 
You 
wouldn't 
have 
recognised 
her. 
We 
went 
back 
to 
a 
reunion 
a year 
after we 
left 
school. 
She 
walked 
in 
and we 
just 
couldn't 
believe 
it! 
Fully 
made-up, 
hair 
dyed 
blonde, 
all 
done 
up, 
dressed in 
high-heeled 
shoes. 
Nobody 
had 
seen 
her 
really since 
she'd 
left. We 
were 
whispering 
to 
each other, 
'Have 
you 
seen 
Mary 
O'BrienT It 
was 
as 
if 
she was 
in fancy 
dress!... 
That 
beehive image didn't 
appeal 
to 
me 
... 
It 
was 
very 
tarty. 
So 
much 
eye make-up 
it 
was 
extraordinary 
she 
had 
the 
ability 
to 
do it. 
You 
have 
to 
learn how 
to 
put 
that 
muck 
on. 
We 
were 
all 
in 
awe 
of 
her 
after 
the 
change 
(Tbwaites 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
19). 
The 
ambivalences 
in 
Thwaites' 
comments 
reflect 
the 
consensus 
on 
forms 
of 
in/appropriate 
femininity 
found 
in 
many contemporary 
texts 
such 
as 
girls' 
annuals, 
school 
rules, 
and 
the 
discourses 
of 
popular 
music 
lyrics 
over 
this 
period 
weighted 
towards 
a 
pejorative 
reading 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
Research 
participants' 
accounts 
of women's 
fashioning 
regimes 
in 
post-war 
Britain 
frequently 
generated 
an 
impression 
of 
seditious, 
mannered 
experimentation 
by 
girls 
and 
women 
with 
new 
forms 
of 
femininity, 
constrained 
by 
crude or scant 
fashioning 
tools 
and materials 
and 
social 
and religious 
disapprobation. 
Jean 
presented 
a picture 
of pervasive 
excess, 
in 
part 
inspired 
by TV 
representations, 
that 
has 
clearly 
infected female 
family 
members: 
Jean: 
"I 
think 
she 
[Mother] 
felt 
my 
hair 
was actually 
ok 
the 
way 
it 
was 
and 
I 
shouldn't 
be just 
following 
everybody 
else 
because 
they 
were 
dyeing 
their 
hair 
blonde, 
you 
know. 
I 
should 
think 
for 
myself and 
don't 
- 
you 
know 
- 
and 
you're 
watching 
too 
much 
television, 
you 
know. 
I 
mean, 
my 
sister-in-law 
had 
her hair 
a 
bit like 
Dusty's, 
she 
was 
dark 
haired 
but 
dyed her 
hair 
blonde, 
you 
know, 
and wore 
it like 
that 
with 
- 
4'Noliwe 
Rooks 
has 
used 
the term 
dissident hair 
to 
describe 
the 
effect 
on whites 
of 
African 
American 
vernacular 
hairstylings 
(Rooks, 
1997). 
41 
... 
After 
bleaching 
her 
hair 
at 
home 
using a 
toothbrush 
and 
Boots 
peroxide, 
aiming 
to 
create 
the 
effect 
of 
iconic 
bleached 
blonde 
girls 
at 
school 
fused 
with 
Dusty 
style... 
75 
AP: A 
bouffant? 
Jean: 
Oh 
aha, 
aha, 
I 
remember 
the 
French 
Roll, 
I 
mean she'd a 
French Roll, Christine, 
my 
sister- 
in-law 
and my 
mother 
had 
a 
French 
Roll, 
and 
a 
beehive. 
I 
... 
I 
AP: Did 
she 
have 
a 
beehive 
around 
the time 
you 
were 
dyeing it 
- 
or 
- 
describe 
her hair? 
Jean: 
Yes, 
aye, 
she 
was. 
Her hair 
again 
was 
my colouring, 
which 
is 
sort of 
dark 
and my 
mother 
started 
to 
dye 
her hair 
auburn. 
[ 
... 
] 
Aha, 
right 
up 
until she 
died 
her hair 
was getting 
lighter but 
it 
was 
a 
lot darker, 
you 
know, 
with no 
- 
it 
was sort 
burnt 
red 
in 
a way 
- 
and 
it 
was 
to 
see 
how 
high 
you could 
get 
your 
beehive, because her 
sister 
had 
the 
same 
- 
she 
had 
a 
lot 
of sisters 
and 
they 
would 
all 
meet 
up at 
the 
weekend 
and 
would 
see 
whose 
beehive 
was 
the 
highest. 
[Laughter] 
My 
mum's was 
the 
highest. 
Elizabeth 
also 
linked 
the 
development 
of 
her 
own 
confident 
fashioning 
of 
glamour 
to 
film 
and 
music 
stars: 
Elizabeth: I 
did feel 
glamorous. 
I 
would 
say when 
I 
got 
into 
my 
twenties 
when 
I 
used 
to 
wear 
a 
lot 
of eye make-up 
and 
the 
hair 
was still 
bouffanted 
or 
- 
yes, 
I 
did 
feel 
by 
that time 
I'd 
acquired 
the 
skills and would say 
that, 
[indecipherable] Elizabeth 
Taylor 
definitely, 
and 
later I 
felt 
that, 
you 
know, 
to 
be 
glamorous was 
to 
be 
- 
to 
look 
like 
an 
Italian 
film 
star 
and really 
I 
don't 
think 
Dusty 
Springfield 
was 
far from 
the two 
- 
as 
far 
as 
the 
eye make-up 
was 
concerned, 
it 
was 
kind 
of 
in 
the 
same 
- 
When 
asked, 
Elizabeth 
rejected 
the 
idea 
that the 
overblown 
fashioned 
look 
of 
the 
late 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
was, 
at 
that time 
understood 
as camp: 
Elizabeth: 
The 
idea 
of 
camp 
just 
wasn't 
ever 
in 
my 
mind 
and 
I 
don't 
ever remember 
it being 
mentioned 
ever. 
I 
don't 
ever remember anybody, 
anyone referring 
to 
- 
well even 
using 
the 
work 
camp 
and certainly 
I 
don't 
ever remember 
any of my 
female 
friends 
who 
also 
liked 
Dusty 
or 
modelled 
themselves 
on 
Dusty, 
in 
terms 
of 
make-up 
and 
hairdo, 
ever 
speaking 
about 
her 
in 
terms 
of camp 
or anything 
like 
that. 
No, 
she 
was 
just 
she 
was 
fanatically 
well groomed 
and 
think 
there 
was 
bit 
of 
a 
legacy 
of some 
sort 
of values 
that 
had 
been 
inculcated 
earlier 
but 
she 
was 
glamorous 
as opposed 
to, 
well, 
anything 
else. 
Yes, 
she 
was 
glamorous 
that's 
all 
I 
can 
say. 
Sandy's 
achievement 
of glamour 
is 
recorded 
as 
an 
iconic 
memory 
of 
a 
highly 
fashioned 
Dustified 
look: 
76 
Sandy: Yeah, I 
mean 
the 
one 
that 
stands 
out, 
it 
was 
like, 
me 
and 
Pauline 
in 
the 
salon when 
I 
was 
getting a 
bit 
older, 
because 
I 
was 
a schoolgirl when 
I 
was 
in 
there 
you 
know, 
when 
I 
was 
13, 
but 
I 
mean slightly 
older 
and we 
definitely 
had 
this 
- 
it 
was parted 
in 
the 
middle 
which 
was 
definitely 
one 
of 
Dusty's hairdos, 
it 
was parted 
in 
the 
middle 
up 
to there 
[gestures 
to 
middle of 
crown] and 
then, 
even 
though 
we'd 
got 
long hair 
we sort of got 
that 
and really 
backcombed 
it 
up 
and 
then 
smoothed 
it 
over and 
lacquered it 
and we 
had 
these 
sort of ringlet 
things 
here [gestures 
at side of 
face] 
and 
Pauline 
and 
1,1 
mean she was 
ten 
years older 
than 
me, 
but 
we 
had 
these 
identical 
hairstyles 
and at one stage we 
both had 
- 
and 
this 
was, 
I 
mean, probably 
when 
I 
was 
sixteen you 
know, 
so 
it 
was quite young 
in 
many 
ways, 
but 
we 
had 
one piece of 
hair from 
there 
[gestures 
to 
front 
of 
hair] 
that 
was 
bleached just 
one strand of 
bleached 
hair 
that 
we sort 
of 
tucked 
behind 
our 
ear 
[ 
... 
] 
Yeah, 
and 
fashioned, 
you 
know, 
to 
mean 
a sort 
of, every 
bit 
of 
it, 
you 
know, it's 
been 
done 
into 
a particular style, you 
know, it's 
not 
been 
left 
to 
be free 
and 
everything 
but 
a really 
fashioned hairdo, 
you 
knoW. 
50 
Working-class 
girls growing up 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
had 
accessible 
models 
of 
glamour: on 
TV 
and radio, 
at 
the 
cinema, 
in 
the 
proliferating 
literature 
for 
girls, and 
occasionally 
performing 
live 
in 
their 
neighbourhood: 
Elizabeth: Yes, 
yes, 
this 
was 
the time 
when working 
men's 
clubs 
were 
the 
venues 
like 
the 
training 
grounds 
for 
performers, 
they 
all 
did 
their 
apprenticeships, 
singers 
and 
comedians 
and so 
on, 
so, yes 
I 
remember 
in 
Eastland's 
club 
[seeing 
Shirley Bassey] 
as a 
young 
woman 
and 
her 
trying 
to 
get attention 
from 
the 
audience 
who were 
all chattering 
away 
and 
drinking, 
yes 
- 
so 
- 
but, 
but 
I 
thought 
of 
Shirley 
Bassey 
in 
this, 
the 
glamorous 
mould 
you 
know, like Dusty 
Springfield, 
like 
Sophia 
Loren, 
like 
the 
film 
stars 
it 
was, yes, 
it 
was 
a 
glamour 
thing. 
For 
Sandy 
the 
fashioning 
of 
music 
stars, over and 
above 
their 
vocal 
performances, 
created 
cherished 
iconic 
memories 
that 
had impacted 
upon 
her 
early experimentation 
with self-fashioning: 
I 
don't 
remember 
the 
first 
time 
I 
heard 
her 
[Dusty's] 
voice, 
but I 
do 
remember 
the 
first 
time that 
I 
saw 
her 
on 
television, 
which 
-I 
just 
remember 
her 
wearing 
a 
long 
dress 
and 
the 
hairstyle 
was 
probably 
different 
than 
it 
came 
later, it 
was 
more 
Kathy 
Kirby 
because 
she was, 
like, 
just 
coming 
-just 
after 
Kathy Kirby 
is 
probably 
my 
first 
memory, 
something 
I 
wanted 
to 
do, 
make 
" 
The 
excessive 
smells 
associated 
with 
feminine 
fashioning 
are 
remembered vividly 
by 
Sandy: 
"I 
remember 
very much 
strong 
smells ofhairsprayyou 
know, 
very 
sort ofplasticcY 
hairspray 
that 
was 
probably 
the 
. 
and 
I 
remember 
the 
smells 
of 
lipstick 
and 
so 
on, 
I 
don't 
-I 
can't 
remember, 
I 
mean, 
ifyou 
ifsomebody 
sort 
offlashes 
it 
under me 
nose 
I 
would 
be 
able 
to 
say 
that 
was 
it 
Vicky Wickham 
and 
lover 
Nona 
Hendryx 
used 
to 
have 
Dusty 
stay with 
them 
in 
New 
York 
in 
the 
early 
1970s 
and 
remembered 
the 
smell 
of 
Dusty's 
fashionings: 
" 
It 
would 
be 
a week 
after 
she 
left 
thatfinally, 
they 
could 
remove 
the 
traces 
ofherpresence: 
the 
fine 
coating 
offace 
powder 
and 
the 
thick 
smell 
ofhair 
spray that 
lay 
all over 
the 
spare 
room 
" (Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
75). 
77 
myself 
look 
a 
bit like, 
you 
know, 
when 
I 
was really, really 
little, 
I 
must 
have 
been 
about eight, 
so 
it 
was 
a 
bit 
after 
that, 
but 
I 
remember 
seeing 
Dusty 
and 
her hair, 
and 
how dramatic 
it 
was. 
So 
really, 
I 
think 
although 
I 
was 
probably 
interested in 
music, 
I 
was more 
interested 
in 
the 
visual. 
51 
Dissident 
femininity 
Fashioning 
femininity 
has 
been broadly 
read 
by 
feminists 
as a sign of co-option 
by 
women 
and 
girls 
into 
passivity 
under 
patriarchy. 
These 
views 
contrasted 
with and confronted 
the 
normative 
assumptions 
of 
femininity 
as 
natural and 
appropriate, 
not 
to 
say required of women. 
However, 
research 
participants 
discussed 
the 
ways 
that 
involvement 
in 
specific 
forms 
of 
fashioning feminine 
excess, 
modelled 
on 
'fanatically 
groomed' 
figures like 
Dusty, 
troubled 
authority 
figures 
and could often 
be 
interpreted 
as 
disruptive 
and 
dissident. 
52 
Here, Sandy's 
memory 
links 
Dusty's 
eye make-up 
with 
her 
sexuality, 
both 
of which 
had 
provoked 
her father's hostility: 
Sandy: 
I 
think 
at 
the time 
certainly, 
in 
my 
family 
- 
because 
I 
remember 
particular 
-[... 
]I 
remember 
my 
Dad's hostility 
towards 
Dusty, I 
remember 
that 
really 
vividly 
and my 
impressions 
were 
that 
she wasn't 
taken that 
seriously, 
it 
was 
like, 
popular music 
was 
certainly 
not what 
I 
kind 
of 
learned 
about 
after, about 
soul stuff and 
sort of, 
how her 
voice 
was 
compared 
to 
black 
women, 
but it 
was 
just Re, 
she was 
in 
the 
charts 
and 
she 
was 
in 
the 
hit 
parade, 
kind 
of 
thing 
and 
that 
my 
Dad 
was 
really 
angry 
about 
it 
with 
her black 
eyes and, 
you 
know, 
and now 
when 
I 
think 
back 
- 
because 
Carol 
[her 
current girlfriend] 
said 
to 
me 
that 
her 
Dad 
was 
also very 
hostile 
to 
Dusty 
it 
made 
me 
think 
that 
what we 
didn't 
know 
was 
about sort 
of 
things, 
about 
sexuality at 
the 
time 
that 
made 
them 
very anti 
her, but 
we 
didn't 
know 
that, 
we 
just 
knew 
that 
he 
was saying 
"black-eyed 
buggee' 
and 
all 
that, 
you 
know, because 
of 
her 
mascara 
and 
her 
eyeliner 
and 
everything. 
53 
Gabrielle's 
love 
of 
Dusty 
was 
not shared 
by her 
husband Ron 
who 
found Dusty's 
make-up 
difficult 
to 
tolerate: 
51 
The 
pleasures 
afforded 
by 
excessive models 
of 
fashioning 
and 
the 
proximity 
of 
materials 
with 
which 
to 
fashion 
to 
excess, 
within a generation 
of 
the 
deprivations 
and 
literal 
uniformity 
of 
war-issue 
garments 
in 
fabrics, 
detailing 
on 
garments, 
cosmetics 
and 
hair 
products 
is 
expressed 
by Sandy, 
in 
her 
memory of 
acquiring 
a garment, resembling 
those 
seen 
by her 
on a 
TV 
Summertime Special, 
bought for her by 
a much-loved, 
Dusty look-alike 
aunt: 
"Butyeah, 
and 
it 
wasJust 
like 
In 
white, 
but 
I 
think 
It 
hadpolka dots 
on, 
yellowpolka 
dots 
and 
these 
lilac 
things 
but 
they 
were 
- 
was a 
bit 
ofsmocking 
across 
here 
as 
I 
remember 
and 
it 
was, 
it 
was 
like 
- 
and 
I 
remember 
my 
Aunty 
at 
the 
time, 
I 
mean 
she was 
like, 
she 
wasn't 
very 
old, 
she 
was 
like 10years 
older 
than 
us, 
but 
she 
had 
the 
botiffant, 
you 
know 
she 
had 
a very 
Dusty 
- 
it 
wasn't platinum 
but 
it 
was 
like 
a strawberry 
blondey, 
bouffant 
thing, 
she 
was really 
into 
Dusty, 
my 
A 
unty and she 
had 
the 
eyelashes 
painted 
on 
you 
know 
- 
". 
" 
Dusty's 
femininity 
was never 
squared 
with patriarchal 
demands 
for 
subjection and 
was 
the 
subject 
of speculation 
and 
criticism: 
"Throughout 
her 
career 
Dusty 
has 
attracted 
the 
attention 
of 
the 
tabloidpress. 
Herperoxide 
bouffant, 
black 
make-up 
and 
convent-school 
education spelled 
trouble. 
The 
combination 
ofvulnerability 
and 
rebel 
glamour 
ensured 
that 
she 
was 
at 
the 
mercy 
ofthe 
headlines 
rather 
than 
controlling 
them 
" 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
11). 
11 
Sandy 
at 
first 
did 
not 
have 
access 
to 
a 
portable 
transistor 
radio 
to 
take to 
her 
bedroom. She 
was 
less 
able 
to 
consume 
Dusty 
privately 
but 
frequently 
watched 
Dusty 
performing 
on 
the 
TV 
with 
other 
family 
members. 
Moffitt has 
also 
recorded 
her 
memories 
of 
her father's 
distaste 
and 
her love 
for 
Dusty's 
mucky' 
eyes 
(Moffitt, 
1999, 
P. 
50). 
78 
AP: 
So 
- 
but 
Ron 
was 
saying 
that 
he 
thought 
the 
make-up was a 
bit 
- 
Gabrielle: 
He didn't like her 
eyes 
like 
that. 
No. 
[ 
... 
] 
Ron 
used 
to 
say, 
"What's 
with 
her 
eyes 
boy? 
" 
[mimicking 
Ron's Welsh 
accent] 
"It's 
as 
though 
she's 
had 
-got 
two 
black 
eyes. 
" 
[Laughter] 
Jean's 
memories of 
Dusty 
also 
conflate 
notions 
of 
dissident 
cosmetic 
acts 
(her 
mother 
considered 
make-up 
'a 
sin') 
and unnameable 
sexuality: 
AP: 
[ 
... 
]I 
wondered 
whether, 
thinking 
back 
to the 
Dusty 
stuff, 
did 
you 
ever 
identify 
or 
use 
the 
word 
about 
Dusty 
that 
she seemed 
to 
be 
camp? 
Jean: 
No. I 
used 
to 
visit 
my aunt, 
my mother's 
sister, 
who 
I 
was 
very 
close 
to, 
at 
weekends 
and 
things 
and she 
had 
a 
good 
friend 
of 
hers, 
a younger 
woman who 
used 
to 
come round 
and was 
friendly 
with my aunt and 
they 
would 
talk 
about 
Dusty 
Springfield 
and 
I 
overheard 
things 
about, 
you 
know, Dusty 
( 
... 
] 
and 
my 
aunt was 
saying 
things 
about 
Dusty 
and 
so was 
Teresa. 
AP: 
Right, 
were 
they things 
about 
her 
sexuality 
or were 
they 
things 
about 
her 
camp 
appearance? 
Jean: 
About 
her 
sexuality 
and also 
about 
her 
eye 
make-up. 
AP: 
Tell 
me. 
Jean: 
Because 
it 
couldn't 
have 
been 
good 
for 
her 
eyes, 
that 
was 
the 
worry, 
the 
worry was, 
too 
much 
eye 
make-up on 
her 
eyes 
and 
that 
would cause 
her damage 
in 
the 
way 
that 
it 
was used 
and 
that 
was 
what 
they 
spoke 
about. 
AP: 
And 
what 
did 
they 
say 
about 
her 
sexuality? 
Jean: 
Oh, 
that they'd 
heard 
that 
she was one 
of 
them. 
[Laughter] I 
mean 
I'm 
going 
back 
- 
AP: 
So 
they 
didn't 
actually 
use 
the 
word 
lesbian? 
Jean: 
No, 
no, 
no, 
no, no. 
AP: 
So 
did 
they 
actually 
use 
the 
word 
carnp? 
79 
Jean: 
No, 
no, 
they 
didn't 
use 
the 
word camp 
at 
all. 
Jean's 
mother 
told 
her 
"on 
and 
on and 
on and on" 
of 
the 
dangers 
of 
narcissism. 
3'. 
However, 
her 
will 
to 
adom 
and perform 
to the 
soundtrack 
of 
Dusty 
and 
Motown 
in 
the 
privacy 
of 
her 
'wee 
world' 
prevailed: 
My 
gran was 
a churchgoer, 
not a 
Momon 
or anything, 
[as 
Jean's 
mother 
was 
from 1962] 
but 
I 
think 
my mother 
picked up 
a 
lot 
of 
that 
you 
know, 
that, 
you've 
not 
to 
be 
too 
vain, 
don't 
look 
too 
long 
in 
the 
mirror 
because 
you'll see 
the 
devil, 
aha, aha, aye. 
I 
used 
to 
believe 
that 
when 
I 
was 
younger, 
I 
used 
to 
be frightened 
to 
look 
in 
the 
mirror 
because 
I 
would 
see 
the 
devil 
and pride 
comes 
before 
a 
fall, 
and 
don't be 
too 
proud, and 
don't be 
too 
vain 
and 
-[... 
] 
The 
other 
thing 
I 
used 
to 
love 
was actually, 
there 
was a 
long 
-a 
full-length 
mirror 
and 
I 
used 
to 
sort 
of, 
I 
think 
everybody probably 
had 
done 
this 
- 
is 
actually 
sing 
in 
the 
mirror 
and 
you 
know, 
sort 
of move 
and 
have 
your 
sort of 
false 
microphone 
which would 
be 
an 
old recorder 
I 
had, just 
the 
mike, 
you 
know 
[Laughter] 
It 
looked 
better. 
AP: So 
would you actually 
be doing 
your 
own 
type 
of performance 
to 
it 
or 
were 
you 
directly 
mimicking 
Dusty 
then? 
Jean: 
No, 
it 
was 
just 
my own 
stuff, aye, 
it 
was 
just 
my 
own 
stuff 
aha, 
aha. 
AP: 
And 
did 
you 
do 
that 
with 
the 
Motown 
Jean: 
Oh 
yes, ohhh, aha, 
definitely, 
definitely. 
Jean's 
mother's objections 
to 
'gaudiness' 
were 
being 
supplanted 
by 
a 
dissident 
femininity 
that 
took 
pleasure 
in 
excessive 
displays 
of colour, 
fabrics 
and 
fashionings, 
inspired 
by film 
and media: 
55 
Jean: 
I 
kind 
ofjust sort 
of adapted and 
did 
a 
lot 
of 
the 
stuff myself 
because 
my mother 
used 
to 
say, 
"You're 
a 
strange 
lassie". 
[Laughter] 
But 
I 
always 
thought 
like 
Mary 
Quant 
and 
all 
- 
all 
that 
Camaby 
Street 
and 
all 
that 
I bought 
- 
there 
was 
a place 
in 
Argyle 
Arcade 
and 
it 
was 
a 
branch 
of 
Carnaby 
Street 
that 
came 
up 
here 
and 
I 
bought 
a 
fantastic 
pair 
of 
green 
hipsters 
which 
were 
actually 
sort 
of 
thick 
velvet and 
this 
great 
big 
shiny 
- 
and 
I 
remember 
this, 
it 
was 
skinny 
54 
Jean 
implied 
that 
her 
mother 
had inherited 
these 
views 
on 
vanity 
from her 
gran. 
When 
asked 
how 
her 
Mother 
reconciled 
her fashioning 
of 
beehives 
and 
hair dyeing 
with 
her 
religious 
convictions 
Jean 
said, 
"Oh 
de/Initely, 
aha, 
but 
I 
mean 
within 
reason, she 
was always 
well 
dressed 
and 
things 
like 
that 
and 
she was 
never 
too 
sort 
of 
gaudy 
[Laughter] 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
And 
make-up 
wise 
and 
things 
like 
that 
you 
know, 
because it 
was a 
sin 
you 
know, 
everything 
like 
was 
a sin 
and 
she 
did 
go over 
the 
top 
a 
lot 
of 
the 
time 
which 
was 
bit 
wearing 
"I 
interpreted 
this 
as an 
illustration 
of 
Stem's 
dictum 
that 
"every 
would-be 
prohibitionist 
allows 
exceptions 
to 
his 
or 
her 
own 
rules 
and 
has 
a 
different 
notion 
of 
where 
to 
draw 
the 
line between 
a 
seemly 
degree 
ofelegance 
and 
excess 
" (Stem, 
1997, 
p. 
19 
0. 
80 
rib, 
deep 
orange, 
like burnt 
orange 
colour 
and 
that 
kind 
of 
thing, 
I 
mean 
that, 
at 
the 
time 
- 
then 
- 
and 
like 
wee 
Chelsea boots 
and 
things 
that 
I 
must 
say, 
I 
was 
influenced 
in 
that 
way 
by 
maybe 
just 
seeing snippets 
from 
- 
in 
a 
magazine 
or on 
TV 
at 
that time. 
56 
Working 
as a 
hairdresser 
from 
1969 
on, 
Sandy 
remembered 
Dusty's 
fame heralding 
an 
expansion 
in 
the 
styles 
of 
hair 
fashioning 
available 
to 
working-class women 
visiting 
the 
local 
salon, 
when 
only 
'four 
styles' 
had 
previously 
been 
available: 
Those 
hairstyles 
started getting 
copied 
that 
were 
like 
the 
Dusty 
hairstyles, 
when 
those 
started 
and 
when 
they 
wanted 
curls on 
top 
and 
like, 
when 
Dusty 
sort of 
had 
her 
curls on 
top, 
[ 
... 
] 
then 
I 
do 
think 
its 
probably 
true 
that they 
did 
get a 
lot 
more pleasure, and 
they 
did 
start 
making 
choices, more 
I 
mean. 
Notions 
of 
dissident femininity 
are 
linked 
in her 
memories 
of 
Dusty-style 
bouffanting 
and rebel 
hairdressing 
that 
could 
flourish 
because 
of 
the 
rudimentary 
equipment 
that 
this 
form 
of 
hair 
fashioning 
required: 
AP: 
-we 
were 
talking 
about 
the 
value of 
Dusty's 
voice, 
what about 
the 
value 
of 
this 
sort 
of 
styling, 
you 
know, 
and 
fashioning 
that 
you were 
doing 
? 
Sandy: 
I 
think 
really when 
-I 
do 
remember 
that 
change 
now, what 
we 
called 
it 
- 
bouffant, 
and 
bloody 
hell, 
we all 
had bouffants, 
you 
know, 
and 
it 
was 
like, 
a 
change, 
and 
Marjory 
[salon 
manager] 
certainly 
couldn't 
do 
these 
hairstyles 
you 
know, 
and 
there 
was 
a woman 
who worked 
part-time 
called 
Pauline 
and 
she 
was 
sort of 
learning 
these 
hairstyles, 
but 
there 
was 
this 
rival 
woman 
who 
was 
just, 
I 
mean, 
she was a rebel and 
she 
didn't have 
a 
salon 
or anything 
but 
she 
just 
did 
people's 
hair 
and 
she 
did 
all 
the 
back-combing 
and 
she 
certainly 
did 
- 
and 
I 
mean 
her 
hairstyle 
was 
like 
a model 
of 
Dusty's 
for 
sure, and 
it 
was platinum 
and 
it 
was 
just 
this 
great 
big 
bouffant 
and 
these 
great 
big 
curls up on 
top 
and 
I 
always remember 
- 
she 
was called 
Pat 
this 
woman 
- 
and 
of course she 
didn't have 
any overheads 
or anything, 
so 
she used 
to 
do 
them 
in her 
front 
room 
and really 
I 
suppose 
it 
was a 
time 
when 
Marjory 
was 
losing 
a 
lot 
of customers 
because, 
now 
I 
think 
about 
it, 
women were 
choosing 
to 
have 
those, 
what 
were 
then 
more 
modem 
hairstyles 
you 
know, 
bleach 
their 
hair 
and 
everything, 
and 
they 
were going 
to 
this 
Pat's 
' 
Asked 
if 
she 
could 
tell 
me about 
one 
iconic 
moment 
when 
she 
felt 
she 
had 
achieved 
a state 
of 
glamour 
Jean 
described 
a 
further 
example of 
excessive 
and 
defiantly 
gaudy 
fashioning: 
Jean: Probably, 
I 
think 
when 
I 
was 
roughly 
about 
19,20. 
AP: 
Right, 
and 
tell 
me what 
that, 
what's 
the 
image 
in 
your 
mind 
when 
I 
ask 
that 
question? 
Jean: I 
started 
buying 
a 
lot 
of, 
sort 
of, 
I 
remember 
having 
a 
trouser 
suit, 
it 
was plum 
velvet 
at 
the 
time 
and 
it 
was 
quite 
fitted 
and 
I 
bought 
this 
I 
remember 
in 
a wee 
boutique, 
they 
were 
boutiques 
[Laughter] in 
Burnside 
that specialised 
in 
certain 
things 
and 
I 
remember 
seeing 
this 
plum 
velvet 
trouser 
suit and 
going, 
and 
saving 
up 
for 
it 
and 
buying 
it 
and 
wearing 
that 
and 
feeling 
- 
and 
my 
hair had highlights 
and 
feeling, 
really 
you 
know, 
and 
wearing 
platforms 
if 
you 
can 
imagine. 
81 
front 
room 
for 
these 
bouffanty 
dos 
and 
it 
was 
like, 
in 
the 
end 
- 
Marjory 
- 
it 
was 
like, 
if 
you can't 
beat 
them, 
join 
them 
and 
Marjory had 
to 
ask 
this 
Pat 
woman 
if 
she would come 
and work 
for 
part 
of 
the 
week, 
I 
mean 
it 
was 
only 
like 
on 
Saturday 
mornings 
and 
Friday 
nights or something, 
to 
save 
her losing 
her 
customers 
you 
know, 
because 
they 
wanted 
the 
big hair 
basically. 
AP: And 
do 
you 
think 
that 
class 
was 
an 
issue 
there? 
Do 
you 
think 
that 
- 
is it 
possible 
for 
certain 
hairstyles 
to 
be 
like, 
working-class 
hairstyles 
in 
your view 
or 
is 
this 
just 
you 
know 
-? 
Sandy: It's 
an 
interesting 
one 
isn't 
it? 
I 
think 
that 
I 
could 
think 
of a split 
- 
but 
then there 
were 
time 
differences in 
between 
me 
going 
to 
Miss Pilkington's [middle-class 
salon] 
but 
I 
do 
think 
with 
the 
working-class 
women 
there 
was more 
bleached 
hair. 
[ 
... 
] 
Yeah, I 
do 
think 
so 
yeah, 
yeah, 
I 
really 
do. 
[ 
... 
] 
It 
was 
like, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
like 
permission 
to 
have 
Dusty 
hairdos 
and 
things. 
Probably 
the 
working-class 
women were more 
daring 
and 
I've 
never 
thought 
about 
that 
before. 
It 
was almost 
like, 
it 
was 
a 
bit like 
once 
the 
permission was 
there, then they 
went 
for it, 
whereas with 
the 
middle-class 
women 
it 
was more 
kind 
of 
chic 
than, 
you 
know, 
it 
was more 
chic and 
it 
might 
be like, 
a similar 
hairstyle but it 
might 
be like, big 
brown, 
bouncy 
curls or 
something 
that 
sort 
of 
fitted 
with, 
I 
don't 
know, 
something 
Vogueish. 
Negotiating 
the 
complex, constantly shifting, 
abstract 
landscape 
of 
appropriate 
and 
inappropriate 
forms 
of 
fashioning, 
where acceptability was 
measured 
in 
degrees, 
appears 
to 
have 
also 
mobilised 
forms 
of 
dissent in 
young women. 
57 
For Sandy 
and other 
young 
working-class 
girls and 
women, 
becoming 
a 
fan 
of 
Dusty 
and 
Dusty 
fashioning led 
to 
the 
all 
too 
accessible 
pleasures 
of 
bouffanting, 
and re-fashioning 
in 
an unequivocal mark of 
identification: 
Sandy: 
I 
rememberjust sort of all of a sudden 
it 
was 
sort of 
me and 
our 
Carol, [older 
sister] 
and 
we were 
really 
into 
Dusty 
by 
this time 
and 
we 
wanted 
the 
clothes and 
things 
and we couldn't 
have 
them, 
so we 
sort 
of 
tried to 
sew our 
own clothes up and 
that 
because 
- 
and 
the 
hair, 
I 
mean, 
it 
was 
like 
we couldn't 
have 
that 
hair 
but 
we 
could you 
know, 
back-comb 
our 
hair 
up and 
put sticky 
stuff 
on 
it 
and 
things 
you 
know. 
Sandy 
remembered 
the 
image 
of 
Dusty being 
used 
provocatively 
in 
the 
domain 
of 
the 
shared 
domestic 
space: 
" 
Ann: 
I 
was never 
allowed 
to 
a?v my 
hair 
at school. 
My 
mum 
wouldn't 
let 
me. 
She 
said 
-, Don't 
start 
that 
carry-on 
because 
you'lijust 
have 
to 
keep doing 
it. 
" 
and 
the terrible 
thing 
was, 
my 
Mum 
died 
and 
one 
of 
the 
worst 
things 
I 
did 
was, 
I 
dyed 
my 
hair, 
about 
a year 
later, 
which was 
very 
naughty 
and 
its 
been 
dyed 
ever 
since and, 
I 
always, 
always 
wanted 
to 
have different 
coloured 
hair f 
... 
] 
it 
was 
like 
tweezing 
eyebrows 
andshe 
let 
me 
do 
that. 
but 
she 
said 
"That's 
one 
ofthe 
thingsyou 
have 
to 
keep doing. 
Don't 
shave 
your 
legs " 
which 
I did 
immediately, 
as soon 
as 
she 
said 
that 
I 
shaved 
them 
the 
next 
day. 
[Laughter] 
So I 
wasn't 
allowed 
to 
dye 
my 
hair, but 
I 
was 
allowed 
semi-permanent 
colours 
and 
things 
like 
that 
82 
Sandy: 
That 
was part 
of 
the 
attraction, 
you 
know. I 
saw 
this 
such 
a 
powerful 
image, I 
mean, 
I 
couldn't 
have 
articulated 
that, 
I 
mean, 
this 
woman, 
there 
on 
the telly 
and she wasn't 
one of 
a 
four boy 
band. 
It 
was 
just 
her 
and 
this 
powerful 
image 
you 
know, 
of 
a 
woman 
in long 
dresses 
and 
this 
big 
eyes 
and 
hair 
and everything, 
and 
then 
me 
Dad 
saying you 
know 
"She's 
not 
being 
on 
our 
telly 
" 
and 
that 
was 
sort 
of, 
Yes! 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
just, 
Yes! I 
want some of 
that, 
you 
know. Me 
and my sister 
used 
to 
put 
this 
- 
and 
I 
don't know 
why 
we 
did 
it 
- 
but 
we put 
a 
poster 
of 
Dusty 
on 
the 
living-room 
wall 
over 
the table 
where we 
ate 
our meals 
and 
me 
Dad 
took 
it 
down 
eventually 
but 
I 
mean, we 
put 
it 
there, 
so 
- 
it 
was 
so provocative 
I 
mean, 
I 
wasn't 
aware 
of 
thinking, 
Oh, 
what 
will 
they 
say 
about 
that? 
in 
any 
way 
but 
we 
put 
the 
poster of 
Dusty 
there, 
you 
know, 
and 
I 
mean 
I 
can't 
imagine 
what 
he 
thought 
about 
it 
you 
know because 
it 
was such a 
bizarre 
thing 
you 
know 
it 
wasn't 
- 
we 
didn't 
have football 
things 
or anything 
like 
that 
that the 
lads 
would 
have had 
or 
anything 
like 
that 
in 
this 
living-room, itjust 
wasn't 
the 
done 
thing, 
so 
how 
we 
come 
to think 
that 
we could 
- 
listen 
to 
me 
Dad 
saying 
"We're 
not 
having 
her 
on our 
telly 
" 
and 
we'd 
put a poster 
up 
on 
the 
living-room 
wall, 
I 
just 
can't 
imagine 
how 
we 
did it. 
58 
The 
sound 
of musical excess 
Although 
arrested 
by 
her image, 
for 
Claire 
it 
was 
the 
emotional 
intensity 
of 
her 
performance 
that 
made 
encountering 
Dusty 
a 
profound 
experience: 
Claire: 
I 
think 
I 
first 
remember 
Dusty 
as 
this 
-I 
think 
it 
would 
be 
Top 
of 
The 
Pops, 
a small, 
slight 
figure 
with 
fair hair 
and 
these 
very 
black 
eyes, 
a 
long black 
dress 
and very 
high 
heels 
singing, 
Give 
me 
time 
which 
I've 
always 
had 
a 
soft 
spot 
for, 
I 
think 
- 
and 
I 
just 
remember 
this 
extraordinary 
performance 
and 
I 
felt 
absolutely exhausted 
after 
it 
and 
I 
had 
to 
sit 
down. I 
was 
absolutely 
exhausted 
by 
the 
emotion 
I 
remember 
and 
then 
I 
remember 
seeing 
her 
as 
a much 
calmer 
figure, 
very 
sophisticated, 
singing 
Son 
ofa 
Preacher Man 
in 
a 
very 
kind 
of 
- 
how 
surprised 
people 
were 
at 
that 
- 
with 
the 
sort of 
soul 
aspect of 
the 
song, 
which 
I 
found 
out 
later 
was 
really 
her first love. [ 
... 
] 
AP: 
Could I 
ask you, when 
you 
said you 
were 
exhausted, 
[ 
... 
] 
with 
the 
emotion, 
was 
that 
your 
emotion 
or exhausted 
on 
behalf 
of 
Dusty 
because 
Claire: 
No, 
I 
felt, 
I 
felt 
wom out 
by 
tremendous 
welling 
of 
emotions, 
because 
it 
was 
a 
tremendous 
outpouring, 
it 
was 
sort of a genuine 
emotion 
and 
perhaps 
it 
was 
a 
reflection 
that 
5' 
Sandy 
asked 
me 
to 
turn 
the 
tape 
recorder 
back 
on 
at 
the 
end of 
our 
interview 
after 
recalling 
a 
further 
anecdote 
that 
reveals 
the 
fusion 
of racism 
with 
dissident 
femininity, 
sexuality 
and 
fashioning 
at 
work 
in 
critiques of 
Dusty: 
"It 
leaked 
out 
that 
Dusty 
SprinSfIeld, 
you 
know 
she's 
having 
a relationship 
with 
a woman 
and 
soon 
and 
it 
was 
on 
the 
telly. 
andshe 
[Sandy's 
current 
girlfriend] 
said 
her 
Dadsaid 
'Well look 
at 
that 
woman'you 
know, 
they 
showedapktureofDustyandapictureofMadeline 
Bell 
and 
her dad 
said 
'Well 
that 
black 
woman's 
the 
ugliest 
woman 
in 
the 
world 
anyway'you 
know 
and 
it 
was 
as 
like 
we're not 
going 
to 
have 
any 
ofthis 
andyou 
know, 
they 
are 
horrible 
and 
ugly 
dykes 
and 
all 
that 
kind 
ofthingyou 
know, 
and 
they 
couldn't 
say 
that 
about 
Dusty 
so, 
because 
she 
was 
everything, 
ever other 
woman 
was 
walking 
around with 
some 
sort 
ofbit ofher 
influence 
in 
her 
and so 
they 
said 
about 
it, 
about 
this 
black 
woman 
you 
know,. 
?vah 
". 
83 
there 
wasn't other singers around 
at 
that time, 
she 
seemed a very 
alone 
figure 
which 
I 
use 
- 
not 
lonely 
but 
alone 
[] 
AP: 
So 
when 
you were 
watching, 
this 
is 
a moving 
image, 
this 
is 
on 
the 
TV, 
and 
you 
have 
got 
the 
visuals 
in 
there 
as 
well 
- 
can you 
remember where 
you were? 
Were 
you 
at 
home 
or 
-7 
Claire: 
I 
think 
I 
would 
have been 
at 
home, 
yes, 
I 
think 
I 
would 
have 
been 
at 
home 
watching 
it in 
the 
holidays 
or something 
like 
that. 
AP: 
And 
you 
don't 
remember 
anyone else 
-? 
Claire: 
I 
don't, 
I 
don't, 
I 
just 
remember 
being 
very 
affected 
by 
it 
and 
it 
was many 
years 
later I 
was 
extremely surprised 
that 
when 
I 
saw 
a 
film 
of 
Dusty 
that 
she was 
laughing 
all 
the 
time 
because 
to 
me 
the 
image 
was 
of someone very, 
very 
serious and very 
intense. 
AP: 
So 
they 
are 
sad songs, 
they 
are emotionally 
- 
you 
talked 
about 
being 
emotionally 
wrought 
by 
this. 
Why 
did 
you 
want 
to 
listen 
to 
songs 
that 
were 
having 
that 
effect? 
Claire: 
I 
couldn't pretend 
that 
I 
did 
at 
that 
time, 
I 
mean 
it 
was 
only 
later 
when 
I 
listened 
to 
Dusty 
a 
lot 
more, 
what 
I 
do 
remember 
was 
being 
struck 
with 
how 
powerful 
it 
was 
and 
how 
unusual. 
I 
suppose 
I 
was 
16 
and 
IS, 
it 
was very 
unusual 
for 
someone 
to 
put 
their 
heart 
into 
something 
like 
that. 
For 
Jean 
too, 
Dusty's 
voice 
was: 
Very 
distinctive, 
it 
was very, 
I 
don't 
know, 
it 
moved 
me a 
lot, her 
voice. 
I 
really 
feel 
that 
more 
than 
anyone 
else, 
thinking 
about singers 
at 
that time, 
I 
think 
it 
was 
very 
strong, 
very, 
you 
know, 
the 
way 
she came across, 
felt 
as 
though 
there 
was 
a very 
strong personality 
there, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
I 
really 
did love 
her 
music. 
The 
I big 
weeples' 
and 
Dusty's 
'mask' 
Claire 
and 
Jean 
interpreted 
the 
excessive 
fashioning 
adopted 
by 
Dusty 
as 
'a 
mask': 
59 
Jean: 
I 
thought 
och, 
it doesn't 
matter what 
she 
wears, 
or 
what 
eye 
make-up, 
or 
what 
she 
does 
to 
her 
eyes 
because it 
was 
just 
Dusty 
because, 
of course, 
that 
was 
her 
cover-up, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
That 
wasn't 
really 
her, 
that 
was 
just 
her, 
you 
know, 
performance 
and 
she was 
performing 
on 
stage, 
all 
these 
things 
were, 
just like 
a 
dress 
and 
fagade 
sort of, 
just 
to 
cover 
the 
real 
Dusty, 
59 
This 
reading 
concurs 
with 
interpretations 
of 
cosmetic 
acts 
to 
be 
found in 
mainstream, 
Modernist. 
feminist 
texts 
and 
is 
pervasive 
in 
the 
literature 
on 
Dusty. 
84 
you 
know, 
but 
I 
do 
always 
remember 
Teresa 
when we 
talk 
about 
Dusty, 
or when 
I 
hear Dusty 
or 
whatever. 
60 
Claire 
disparaged 
the 
'masquerade', 
the 
gestures, 
the 
popular 
iconic image 
of 
Dusty 
and 
believed 
that this 
had 
been 
a 
reason 
for 
her 
work 
not achieving a 
level 
of serious consideration. 
She 
connected 
this to 
the 
notion 
of 
Dusty 
and 
her 
lyrics 
being 
'doormat' 
- 
(her 
hair 
and eyes 
are symbolic 
of 
this), 
and 
that this 
doormat 
status/fashioning 
(and 
emoting) 
to 
excess 
lost her 
serious critical 
evaluation 
and 
feminist 
approbation. 
Although having 
testified to the 
impact 
of 
the 
emotionally 
arresting 
performances 
of 
Dusty 
that 
exhausted 
her 
as a young viewer, 
Claire, 
the 
only 
card-carrying 
Dusty 
fan 
amongst 
the 
participants, 
was 
keen 
to 
distance 
herself 
from 
both 
the 
'big 
weepies' 
and 
nostalgia 
more 
generally: 
Claire: 
One 
of 
the 
bitter ironies 
of 
Dusty's 
life 
is 
that 
she 
didn't 
succeed 
in killing 
herself I 
believe 
if 
she 
had 
she 
would 
have become 
this 
huge 
celebrity and 
part 
of 
this 
nostalgic 
nonsense 
that 
I 
hate, 
so 
I 
think 
she 
lacked 
that, 
also 
there 
was 
this 
image 
of 
her 
as a 
doormat 
with 
all 
the 
hair 
and 
make-up 
and she wouldn't 
have been 
seen 
at 
that time 
as 
a 
feminist 
icon, 
that's 
just 
me 
speculating 
but 
I'm 
sure 
that's the 
reason. 
Claire's 
confident 
articulation of 
her 
musical 
knowledge 
and 
taste 
included 
the 
nomination 
of 
good and 
bad, 
authentic 
blues 
and soul versus 
'big 
weepies' 
in 
Dusty's 
oeuvre: 
Claire: 
I 
became 
a 
blues 
and soul 
fan 
and 
I 
was 
like, 
I 
mean 
I 
never 
liked 
The Beatles 
or 
anything, 
I 
liked 
something a 
bit heavier 
and a 
bit 
more 
soulful, 
but 
at 
that 
time 
as 
I 
say, 
I 
wasn't 
really aware of 
Dusty's 
great repertoire 
in 
soul, 
I 
mean all 
you 
heard 
were 
the 
big 
weepies, 
big 
weepies. 
Claire's 
persistent 
description 
of 
her 
interest 
in 
Dusty 
as 
being 
'definitely 
in 
two 
stages' 
with 
'a 
huge 
gap' 
in between 
produced 
the 
following 
constructions; 
of 
Claire 
as 
a 
girl 
in 
the 
1960s, 
and 
from 
1990 
on as 
a grown-up; of 
life 
pre- 
and 
post 
university; 
before 
and 
after 
feminism 
and 
her 
unknowing 
" 
Jean 
made 
similar 
claims 
for 
the 
authentic 
Doris Day 
to 
be found 
under 
the 
mask 
of 
film 
representations: 
"Whereas 
maybe 
a 
lot 
ofteople 
see 
her 
as, 
A 
Miss Goody 
Two Shoes, 
because 
she's 
been 
portrayed, you 
know, 
these 
bigfillin 
companies, 
they 
take 
her 
on, and 
that's 
what 
they 
wanted 
her 
to 
be, because 
ofthe 
way 
she 
looked, 
but 
really 
deep 
down 
she 
was a 
really strong 
person and 
a 
survivor, 
afighter 
and 
that's 
what 
I 
admired 
and 
I 
admired 
her 
music 
which 
she 
really 
sang 
when 
she sang 
the 
jazz, 
I 
mean 
that's 
what 
I 
really 
like 
". This 
admiration 
verging 
on 
self-narrativisation 
was 
also 
expressed 
in 
relation 
to 
Tina 
Turner, "Well, 
again 
it's 
like 
this, 
a 
really 
dynamic, 
a really 
dynamic 
woman, 
survivorfighter 
that 
always 
impressed 
me 
being 
a 
survivor ofabusefrom 
an 
early 
age 
then 
Ijusifell 
that 
strength 
coming andlgot 
thatvirengthfrom 
women 
like 
that". 
Ile 
notion 
of 
cosmetic 
acts 
masking 
women's 
intelligence 
and 
talents 
is 
a 
theme 
in 
mainstream 
and 
feminist 
texts 
and 
music 
journalism 
as 
I have 
discussed. 
For 
example, 
Dolly 
Parton 
is 
a 
"bountifully 
endowed 
blonde 
singer, 
whose 
wigs, 
spiAy eyelashes 
andfull 
till 
sequins 
camoujIdge 
a 
mind 
as sharp 
as 
a steel 
blade 
" (Glassman, 
1978, 
p. 
261). 
85 
consumption 
and 
later 
connoisseurship 
of 
Dusty. 
She 
conceded 
that 
she 
had been 
moved 
by 
the 
'big 
weepies', 
but 
as 
here, 
preferred 
to 
conceptualise 
Dusty's 
address 
as 
a generalised one 
in 
'stage 
one' 
versus 
an 
intimate, 
personal, 
self-narrativised 
one 
in 
'stage 
two': 
AP: Right, 
ok, 
so 
you 
didn't 
have 
any 
women 
- 
young 
women 
friends 
who you would 
maybe 
dance 
to 
Dusty 
records 
with 
or perform 
in 
any 
sort 
of 
way or anything? 
Claire: As 
I 
say, 
she 
was 
just 
part 
of 
-I 
suppose 
we 
listened 
to 
the 
big 
weepies and were moved 
by 
them, 
yes. 
In 
this 
extract, 
to 
the 
soundtrack of 
Dusty, Claire 
relates a 
form 
of 
feminist 
epiphany, 
couched 
as consciousness-raising 
in 
the 
context of 
the 
university where 
Dusty 
and 
her 
powerful perfonnance of 
emotional 
excess 
is 
transformed 
into 
a 
'doormat' 
singing 
'big 
weepies': 
Claire: I 
mean 
I 
remember 
being 
at university, we'd 
listen 
and 
it 
would 
more 
be 
- 
looking 
back 
I 
think 
it 
was 
'70s 
and 
'80s, I 
thought, 
My 
god 
those 
lyrics 
were 
terribly 
doormat, 
and 
again, 
it 
was 
only 
later 
again 
that 
I 
discovered 
that 
she 
had 
sung 
things 
that 
were 
definitely 
[indecipherable] 
the 
big 
weepies and 
that 
came 
across, what 
I'd 
call 
doormat. 
Claire 
61 
was also 
at 
pains 
to 
diminish 
the 
importance 
of 
her 
dabbling 
with 
even 
middle-class 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
and, 
to 
a greater extent, 
the 
Dustification 
of 
fans. Although 
eloquent 
in her 
descriptions 
of 
Dusty's 
musicality 
and 
its 
effects, 
it 
was 
clear 
that 
she 
did 
not 
share 
the 
colloquial or 
technical 
language 
of 
fashioning 
articulated 
by 
Sandy: 
AP: 
I 
just 
wondered 
as well 
if 
you 
were aware 
of people 
fashioning 
- 
or 
did 
you see yourself 
fashioning 
yourself 
in 
any way 
influenced 
by 
music 
stars 
during 
the 
sixties? 
Claire: 
Oh, I 
suppose 
probably 
in 
the 
late 
sixties, 
the 
hippy 
thing 
and 
that 
was one of my 
interests, but 
not 
Dusty, 
but 
I 
was aware 
she 
had 
a very 
big 
fashion 
following. 
AP: Did 
you remember 
any 
friends 
at 
school 
or 
any 
other 
people 
that 
you 
knew 
attempting 
to 
fashion 
themselves 
in 
this 
way, or 
was 
it 
just 
a 
general 
-? 
61 
She 
defined 
her 
parents as 
"PrOfessional 
middle 
class 
without 
much money". 
86 
Claire: I 
think, 
you 
know, 
I 
have 
a vague 
memory of 
17,18-year-old 
girls 
with 
hairstyles 
like 
- 
and sort 
of 
eyes 
in 
the 
sixties. 
In 
her 
accounts, 
Black 
male 
soul 
stars 
were 
homogenised 
by 
Ellen 
and read as excessive. 
Ellen 
also 
suggests 
that 
some 
sounds 
can only 
be 
listened 
to, 
if 
at all 
'at 
a 
later 
stage': 
Ellen: I 
do, 
yeah 
I 
remember 
all 
the 
Hey 
girl 
don't bother 
me, 
The Tanuns 
and 
The 
ChiLites 
and 
all 
these 
- 
well 
to 
me 
they 
all melded 
into 
one 
because 
they 
all 
had 
that 
very 
sound, very sort of 
Motown 
sound 
and 
they 
were all men 
in 
the 
shiny 
suits 
dancing. 
Adele: And 
how 
would 
you, 
if 
I 
was 
to 
ask you 
to 
sort of 
try 
and 
describe 
that 
sound, 
because 
it 
is 
a 
distinctive 
one, 
what 
type 
of words would you use 
to 
describe 
-? 
Ellen: 
Well, 
a 
kind 
of a wall 
of sound, 
that's the 
standard way 
of 
describing 
it isn't 
it? 
I 
think, 
see, when 
it 
was all 
these 
lounge-lizardy 
sort of 
people, 
to 
me 
it 
was 
a 
kind 
of 
slinky sound, 
which 
I 
was not 
- 
it 
was 
not really what 
I 
was 
into. 
When 
you are 
older 
I 
think 
you 
can 
listen 
to 
it, but 
I 
never 
liked 
Barry 
White 
and 
he's back 
again 
now and 
I 
still 
can't, 
you 
know, I 
just 
- 
just 
-I 
just 
can't 
bear 
that 
very 
kind 
of 
intimate 
you 
know, 
all 
that, 
eeeugh, 
nah 
- 
[indecipherable] 
62 
Attending 
college 
to 
study photography 
in 
the 
1970s, 
Ellen 
found 
a 
peer 
group 
whose style 
and 
tastes 
reflected 
her 
own 
knowledge 
of serious 
film 
and 
music 
and whose 
clothing 
conformed 
to 
a 
uniform 
of cool, 
epitomised 
by 
David 
Bailey. 
63 
Nevertheless, 
for 
Ellen 
and 
Claire 
it 
is 
feminine 
excess 
' 
Ellen 
grew up 
in 
a 
working-class 
family 
in 
the 
1960s 
but 
absorbed 
at 
an early stage notions 
of serious/lightweight musical 
genres 
from her 
brother 
who ran an 
independent 
record shop: 
"Yes, I 
remember 
things 
like Roxy 
Music, Ijust 
loved 
that 
but 
thinking 
about 
it, 
It 
was 
- 
the taste 
I 
was getting wasfrom an older 
brother 
[ 
... 
] It 
wasfiltering 
out 
". 
Although 
her 
musical 
taste 
was 
eclectic and 
broader 
than 
mainstream, 
she noted 
that 
her 
taste 
was undermined, 
first 
by 
her 
husband 
who would 
take 
off 
her 
records 
and replace 
them 
with 
his 
own 
and 
now 
by her 
young 
son 
who 
does 
the 
same: 
"I 
mean, 
It 
didn't 
bother 
me 
because 
I 
always 
thought, 
ok, 
well music 
is 
- 
was 
his 
(her 
ex-husband's] 
hobby 
more 
than 
it 
was mine 
and 
- 
but 
when 
Robbie 
does 
it 
I kind 
ofthink 
- 
well 
he 
neverjust 
does 
it, 
he'll 
always 
be, 
'Oh Mummy 
can 
I 
listen 
to-'and 
changes 
it 
". 
Acknowledging 
her 
ex-husband's 
'superior' 
listening, 
Ellen 
noted 
"He 
was 
into 
everything, 
absolutely 
everything, quite 
afarce, 
and 
again, 
he 
wouldn't 
have 
taken 
-have 
taken 
mine offandput 
his 
on, 
but 
he 
would 
maybe 
leave 
it 
until 
the 
track 
wasfinished 
and 
then 
-I 
think 
I'Ilput 
on... 
'obviously 
his 
choice 
and 
It 
would 
be his 
choice 
rather 
than 
mine 
but 
I kind 
of 
let 
that 
go 
in 
the 
sense 
that 
he 
was a musicfan and 
I 
wasn't, 
I 
mean, what's 
a 
down 
gradefrom afan 
- 
an 
appreciator 
maybe more 
than- 
" 
Now 
something of 
a connoisseur, she 
regarded performances of 
musical 
excess 
such 
as 
that 
by Julie 
Andrews 
in 
the 
Sound 
ofMusIc 
as 
marking 
Andrews 
as 
a 
"blumming 
sap 
-I 
wanted 
to 
strangle 
her 
". She had 
preferred 
to 
construct 
her 
taste 
around 
"all 
that 
kind 
oftrotesty songs" 
performed 
by 
stars such as 
Joan Baez 
and 
later 
Emmylou 
Harris 
on whom 
she 
had 
modelled 
her 
taste 
in 
fashioning. Of 
all 
the 
female 
soul stars 
Ellen 
could only 
recall 
Diana 
Ross 
and 
the 
Supremes. 
Reminded 
by 
me of 
Tina 
Turner 
who 
in 
her 
early career crossed 
into 
a 
rock/serious 
music 
category 
found 
her 
style 
excessive 
"She 
wasfar 
too, 
eeuh, 
she wasfar 
too 
kind 
of over 
the topfor 
me, you 
know... 
" 
" 
She 
enjoyed 
wearing 
her 
frayed jeans 
and afghan 
coat 
that 
both 
required 
labour 
intensive 
treatment 
to 
appear 
casual 
and 
her 
hair 
long 
or 
feather 
cut. 
She 
had it 
dyed, 
but 
to 
look 
natural. 
College 
- 
"was 
like 
going 
home 
and 
there 
were 
lots 
of 
otherpeople 
like 
me 
too 
which 
was good, 
[ 
... 
] 
and even 
although 
we 
were 
cooler 
than 
cool, 
the 
photography 
students 
they 
-we 
actually 
laughed 
about 
them 
because 
they 
would 
come 
in 
quite 
normal, then 
after about 
three 
weeks 
ofpholography 
they 
wouldgradually 
adopt a sort 
ofDavid 
Bailey 
look 
[Laughter] 
we were 
so 
uppity 
andgo, 
[points] 
?photography 
student'you 
know, 
you 
could 
tell". 
Rather disingenuously, 
Jean 
Shrimpton, 
a contemporary 
of 
Dusty's 
and 
Bailey's 
muse 
claimed 
that 
her 'scrufry' 
'tousled' 
and 
'mongrel' 
look 
made 
fashion 
'more 
accessible' 
to 
all 
(Shepherd, 
2002). This 
runs counter 
to 
my 
own 
memories 
of 
consuming 
fashion images 
of 
Shrimpton 
who 
represented 
an absolute 
(middle-class) 
ideal, in 
part 
because 
her 
look 
did 
not 
appear 
constructed 
or 
excessively 
fashioned. 
This 
was 
a 
look, 
like 
Bardot's 
as 
Elizabeth 
points 
out, 
that 
was 
at odds 
with 
feminine 
87 
rather 
than 
the 
adoption of a 
Modernist 
style 
that 
is 
symbolic of a 
lack 
of 
free 
will, a masquerade. 
Claire 
emphasised 
what she 
regarded 
as a problematic 
disjuncture between 
the 
authenticity 
of 
Dusty's 
vocal 
accomplishments 
and 
the 
distraction 
of 
her fashioning: 
Claire: 
I 
think 
the 
appearance 
of 
her, 
people 
took that 
at 
face 
value 
because 
it 
was really 
just 
a 
big 
cover and 
you 
have 
to 
know 
Dusty's 
work a 
bit 
to 
appreciate 
that that 
was 
taken 
at 
face 
value 
and 
the 
big 
weepies were 
taken 
at 
face 
value 
so 
that, 
you 
know, 
when 
you 
-I 
know 
you 
were 
coming 
on 
to 
ask me 
about 
this 
but 
all 
I 
really 
knew 
until 
1990 
was 
the 
big 
weepies 
and 
the 
Preacher 
man 
so 
I 
think 
for 
a 
lot 
of people 
they 
didn't 
realise 
the 
music, 
the 
depth 
of 
the 
music, particularly 
even 
10 
years 
later 
came along, 
they 
didn't 
- 
she'd 
gone, 
they 
didn't 
know 
about 
that 
and 
the 
old 
clips 
they 
would see would 
be You 
don't 
have 
to 
say 
you 
love 
me, 
it 
was 
that 
image 
thing. 
AP: 
And 
could you 
describe 
exactly 
what you 
mean 
by 
cover? 
I 
mean, 
I 
know 
that 
quite 
a 
few 
people 
have 
given accounts 
that 
have 
described 
it 
in 
a 
similar way, 
this 
fashioning 
thing, 
but 
what 
do 
you 
take 
that 
to 
mean? 
Claire: 
Do 
you 
mean what 
she was 
wearing 
and 
how 
she 
looked? 
AP: 
Yes, 
but 
when you 
use 
the 
word cover, 
you're 
saying 
it's 
a 
cover 
for 
-? 
Claire: 
Well, I 
think that 
it's 
not 
original, 
but 
a 
lot 
of 
people 
who 
knew 
her better 
would 
say 
that 
this 
was 
to 
cover 
up 
her 
insecurities, 
to 
be 
somebody 
else, 
somebody 
different 
when 
once 
she 
had 
all 
this 
on, 
that 
she would 
put 
on 
even with 
friends, 
it 
was 
almost 
somebody 
else, 
it 
-I 
don't 
think 
it 
was exactly someone 
else, 
I 
think 
it 
was still 
her 
but 
I 
certainly 
mean 
that 
you 
can't 
look 
at 
her 
appearance 
and make 
deductions 
from 
this 
about 
the 
sort 
of 
music 
she sang or 
the 
person 
that 
she 
was 
from 
that, 
it's 
to 
my 
mind 
- 
it's 
very annoying 
when 
people 
make 
that 
deduction 
because 
it's 
very 
superficial. 
Dusty's 
expressive 
hand 
gestures 
are an 
iconic 
aspect 
of 
her 
perfonnances 
and 
have 
been 
routinely 
used 
in 
camp 
or 
mocking 
ways 
but 
Sandy, 
Gabrielle 
and 
others 
mimicked 
these 
to 
convey 
Dusty's 
dr=atic, 
ineffable 
excesses: 
Gabrielle: 
And 
I 
used 
to 
like 
the 
way 
she 
presented 
herself, 
you 
know, 
held 
herself, 
you 
know, 
her 
anns. 
[ 
gestures 
like 
Dusty 
] 
excess. 
The 
Shrimpton 
/Bailey 
clique 
included 
Bailey's best 
friend 
Mick 
Jagger 
who 
dated 
Shrimpton's 
sister 
and 
Marianne 
Faithfull 
(who 
did 
a 
Vogue 
spread) 
the 
epitome of 
what 
Gered 
Mankovitz 
dubbed 
the 
natural 
but 
erotic' 
look, 
Loog 
Oldman 
has 
claimed 
that 
"In 
Baileyyou had 
the 
visual 
image 
ofwhatyou 
(as 
Stones 
manager) were 
trying 
to 
do 
aurally 
" 
(ibid. 
). 
88 
AP: 
So 
you 
are 
doing 
a sort of gesture 
there 
with 
your arms, a very 
'Dusty' 
gesture. 
Gabrielle: Yes, I 
really 
liked her. 
I 
really 
liked 
her. 
64 
Dusty 
is 
linked in 
Gabrielle's 
account 
with 
what 
Frith 
has dubbed 
'the 
extravagance 
of 
emotion' 
(Frith, 199 1, 
p 
162) 
performed 
by 
Shirley 
Bassey, 
an exponent 
sans pared 
of 
'big 
weepies': 
AP: And 
do 
you 
remember 
- 
because 
around 
that time there 
was 
quite a 
lot 
of 
black 
soul 
singers 
as well, 
do 
you 
remember 
the 
impact 
of 
that 
on 
the 
radio and 
the telly? 
Do 
you remember 
when 
the 
Motown 
music started 
up, or any 
other stars or singers? 
Gabrielle: 
Shirley 
Bassey 
was one, 
but 
she 
wasn't 
Me 
Motown 
was 
she? 
AP: No, 
but 
did 
you 
- 
Gabrielle: But 
oh, 
I 
adored 
her 
yes, 
I 
thought 
she was 
fantastic, 
yes. 
AP: What did 
you 
particularly 
like 
about 
Shirley? 
Gabrielle: 
I 
liked 
the 
way 
she used 
to 
sing, 
the 
way she used 
to 
wave 
her 
arms about, 
the 
way 
she 
dressed 
and 
lovely 
long 
slinky 
dresses 
and 
I 
thought 
she 
had 
a 
beautiful 
face [ 
... 
] Yes 
she 
did 
and 
her 
eyes, 
her 
eyes 
sort of 
lit 
up and sparkled 
but in 
those 
days 
it 
was all 
in black in 
white, 
the telly 
at 
the 
time, 
we 
didn't have 
a coloured 
one. 
Claire 
read 
this 
aspect 
of 
Dusty's 
performance 
as reiterating 
the 
artificial 
versus 
natural, good 
and 
bad 
aspects 
of 
her 
work: 
Claire: The 
hand 
movements and 
so 
on are a 
bit 
of 
a 
distraction 
to 
me, 
again 
it's 
something 
that 
I 
think 
people 
take 
up, and 
Lulu 
has 
subsequently 
said 
that 
she 
had 
lines 
written on 
them, 
hilarious 
and 
wonderful 
to think, 
you 
know, 
that's 
very 
Dusty, 
but 
I 
much 
prefer 
to 
see 
her 
later 
on with 
what seem 
much more genuine 
movements 
in 
the 
'70s, 
'80s 
and 
'90s 
you see 
much 
more 
what 
seems 
to 
me, 
I 
don't know 
what 
the 
word 
would 
be, 
movement 
that tied 
in 
with 
what 
she was 
- 
AP: 
Expressing? 
" 
Marilyn 
Nance 
has 
stated, 
"It 
seems 
to 
me 
that 
soul 
is 
not 
somuch 
in 
the 
heart 
or 
the 
mind, 
but 
in 
the 
hands. 
The 
gestures. 
Maybe 
soul 
is 
a 
language 
ofpower 
that 
we speak 
with our 
hands 
" 
(Nance, 
1998, 
p. 
159). 
89 
Claire: More 
natural, much more 
natural, and 
I 
think 
it 
was 
to 
do 
with 
her 
nerves 
as well as 
having 
something 
written on 
her 
arms, so again 
I 
would see 
that 
as a 
bit 
of a 
distraction. 
Claire 
prefers 
Lulu's 
rather 
implausible 
testimony 
over 
acknowledging 
a 
further 
form 
of 
unnecessary 
gestural 
excess. 
Notwithstanding 
Claire's 
annoyance at 
her 
notorious 
fashioning, 
she saw 
Dusty 
as a radical 
performer: 
I 
don't 
think 
people 
realised at 
the time 
that 
Dusty 
actually 
said at 
the 
time to 
a microphone 
that 
she 
had 
changed 
Twenty-four 
hoursfrom 
Tulsa 
to 
be 
a 
hooker 
and 
I 
had 
this 
-1 
was 
completely 
taken 
aback, 
along 
with 
everyone 
else 
that 
what 
she 
did 
that 
she 
-I 
thought 
this 
was a 
very 
interesting interpretation 
indeed. 
Breakfast 
in 
Bed 
you 
see 
has 
always 
come across 
to 
me 
as 
somebody 
having 
an 
illicit 
affair 
and 
that's 
what 
I 
recognised 
it 
as, very 
vividly, 
but I 
didn't 
recognise 
the 
sexuality 
aspect 
of 
that 
song, 
Claire's 
ambivalence 
about 
Dusty's 
emotive performances 
is 
raised 
again 
in 
her 
account 
of 
rediscovering 
Dusty in 
1990. 
Her 
interest 
was 
reactivated 
by hearing 
tracks 
from 
The 
silver 
collection, 
notably 
'Colouring Book'. 
This 
is 
one 
of 
the 
most 
mannered 
of 
Dusty's 
slow 
numbers, 
Claire 
remembers 
it 
as re-kindling 
of 
her 
interest 
in 
Dusty but 
somewhat rationalises 
this 
by 
emphasising 
Dusty's 
musical eclecticism: 
Claire: For 
the 
first 
time 
ever 
I 
listened 
to 
a style 
that 
I 
hadn't 
listened 
to 
before, 
which 
she sang 
so well 
and 
so 
movingly, 
and 
I 
then, 
subsequently, 
would 
listen 
to 
her 
singing 
jazz 
and 
I 
would 
listen 
to 
her 
singing 
country 
and, you 
know, 
I 
thought 
actually 
I- 
one 
of 
the things 
I 
am 
grateful 
to 
her 
for is 
that, 
actually 
opening my eyes 
to 
all 
kinds 
of 
music 
I 
hadn't 
heard before, 
but 
again 
it 
was 
- 
at 
the 
root 
it 
would 
have been 
the 
emotion 
which 
she 
was 
expressing, 
not 
in 
a sort of 
soppy 
way, 
but 
conveying 
very powerfully 
in 
a song 
like 
that, 
which 
I 
would 
never normally 
have 
listened 
to, 
I 
can't 
really say more 
than 
that. 
Both 
Sandy 
and 
Claire 
regarded 
Dusty 
as 
a 
positive, 
disruptive 
feminist 
influence, 
ahead 
of 
her 
times; 
Claire, 
on 
the 
basis 
of 
her 
maverick musical 
interpretations, 
and 
Sandy 
as a model of 
dissident 
femininity 
for 
working-class 
women 
like 
herself- 
Sandy: 
- 
Oh 
yeah, 
I 
mean 
I 
don't 
see 
how 
that 
image 
of 
Dusty 
could 
have 
been described 
as 
anything 
other 
than 
an 
image 
of 
feminism, 
if 
- 
you 
know, 
if it 
was 
- 
if 
that 
image 
was 
sort of 
90 
copied 
by 
working 
-class 
women, 
I 
just 
don't 
see 
how 
it 
could 
have been 
anything other 
than 
feminist, 
you 
know, 
to 
me 
- 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
Dusty 
and 
dissident 
rites of 
passage 
Dusty 
was 
the 
object 
of 
an oddly 
furtive 
adolescent 
interest. 
Her 
image, 
like 
her hair, 
was 
brittle... Her 
songs 
hinted 
at unspoken, 
desperate 
truths 
about sexuality 
that 
weren't 
there 
for discussion 
by little 
boys 
(Frith, 
1998) 
Memories 
of 
Dusty 
were 
frequently 
linked 
by 
participants 
with moments 
of 
dissidence 
and 
indulgence 
in 
proscribed, 
cosmetic 
acts. 
"' 
For 
Sandy, 
the 
process of 
experimentation 
with 
excessive 
fashioning 
was modelled 
on 
stars 
like 
Kathy Kirby 
and 
Dusty, 
facilitated 
by her 
aunt. 
A 
process 
that 
required 
courage, 
and 
a period 
of private 
practice 
before 
public 
exposure. 
She 
noted 
that 
as well as 
being 
cheap 
to 
construct, 
bouffanting 
allowed 
the 
flexibility 
to 
modulate 
its impact: 
Sandy: 
I 
remember 
sort 
of 
having 
my 
hair 
cut 
in 
quite a 
bouffanty 
thing 
[ 
... 
] but 
it 
was 
one 
that 
could either 
be 
flat 
or, 
you 
know, if 
you really 
backcombed it 
up and 
then 
put 
the 
hairspray 
on 
- 
but 
really 
we 
didn't 
have 
- 
and 
I 
think 
I 
can 
say 
this 
about our 
Carol 
as well, we 
didn't have 
the 
courage 
to 
do 
that 
outside, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
much 
later 
on and 
it 
was 
a very 
scaled 
down 
version 
what 
we 
did 
to, 
you 
know, 
go out and 
you 
know, 
go out with 
boys 
and girls and 
that 
it 
was a much sort 
of 
softened 
version 
of 
it. 
This 
experimentation 
is 
often 
remembered 
as 
collective: 
Sandy: 
We 
used 
to 
sort 
of 
do 
this 
mimicking 
thing, 
leave 
the 
window 
in 
the 
living 
room open 
to 
play 
records so 
that 
the 
noise would come 
through, 
you 
know, 
and 
just 
sort 
of 
sing along with 
it, 
ohh and we 
loved 
it, 
and we used 
to 
roll our 
skirts 
up 
and you 
know 
and put 
-I 
mean we'd 
-I 
mean 
we were 
quite 
late 
really 
when 
I 
think 
about 
it 
- 
er 
having 
bras, 
like 
we used 
to take 
my 
Mum's 
bras 
and 
put 
socks 
in 
and 
things 
like 
that, 
you 
know, 
but 
like 
lipstick, I 
mean 
lipstick 
was a really 
big 
part 
of 
it 
you 
know 
that 
was 
really 
- 
putting 
lipstick 
on, 
you 
know 
over 
the 
edge 
of your 
lips, 
putting 
the 
Vaseline 
on 
to 
make 
it 
shiny- 
AP: 
-[... 
] 
are 
just 
girls 
involved 
in 
those 
at 
that time? 
" 
On 
hearing 
Dusty, 
Jean's 
mother 
is 
remembered as 
rehearsing 
the 
clichd, 
"Oh, 
oh god, 
I 
don't 
know, 
young 
'uns, 
nowadays". 
Whereas Claire's 
aunt, 
like 
Claire 
herself, 
was critical ofDusty's 
appearance. 
Claire's family 
critiqued 
the 
inappropriate 
fashionings 
of 
both 
male and 
female 
stars: 
"Oh 
well 
my aunt 
would 
say, 
'Oh, 
that 
dreadful 
looking 
woman'you 
know, 
but 
I 
think 
- 
rather 
like 
my 
mother 
said, 
'Oh Mick 
Jagger, 
that 
dreactful 
man, 
his 
lips 
are 
too 
thick'] 
don't 
suppose 
it 
was 
more 
than that. 
There 
were so many 
otherpeople 
who 
were more annoying 
to 
parents. 
" 
91 
Sandy: 
Oh 
they 
were only 
girls 
yeah, 
definitely, 
I'd 
never 
thought 
of 
that 
- 
Some 
salons 
in 
this 
period offered 
a 
virtually 
woman-only space 
where 
both 
the 
mysteries 
of 
sexuality 
were 
discussed 
and 
fantasies 
could 
be 
played out. 
Ettie 
enjoyed 
impromptu 
performances 
in 
the 
salon with other 
salon 
workers, 
modelling 
themselves 
on 
(Black) 
British 
and 
American 
stars: 
Ettie: You 
were 
modelling 
yourself 
on 
Diana 
Ross, Shirley 
Bassey 
I 
mean, music 
influenced 
- 
music 
played 
in 
the 
salon 
I 
worked 
in 
all 
the time 
as well 
[ 
... 
] 
that 
was your 
entertainment you 
see, 
but 
when 
it 
was 
quiet 
in 
the 
salon 
we 
used 
to 
all 
sing 
and 
do 
concerts and 
things. 
[ 
... 
] 
Oh 
yeah, somebody 
would 
be 
"Right, 
it's 
your 
turn 
Jane. 
You 
get up 
" 
and she'd sing 
and 
then 
I'd 
get up 
and 
I'd 
be 
[sings 
in 
an excellent 
impersonation 
of 
Shirley 
Bassey I 
will 
loveyou, 
as 
I've 
lovedyou 
... 
] 
you 
know, 
Shirley 
Bassey, 
and 
I 
loved 
drama 
too 
[ 
... 
] 
She 
was an actress. 
I 
just 
thought 
she 
was 
class, 
she was 
- 
Diana 
Ross 
was 
class 
as 
well. 
There's 
so 
many 
I'd 
fill 
up 
the 
whole 
tape 
because 
- 
Elvis, 
amazing. 
There 
was a 
dignity 
about 
them then, 
there's 
no 
dignity 
now, 
I 
mean, 
I look 
at 
the 
music 
and 
it's 
almost 
pornographic. 
66 
Having 
and 
making 
clothes 
reminiscent 
of 
those 
worn 
by 
female 
stars 
like 
Dusty 
and 
Bassey 
were connected 
in 
Sandy's 
memories 
with 
first 
considering 
herself 
a woman: 
Sandy: It 
was 
also 
a 
sensual 
kind 
of 
thing 
because 
I've 
never 
thought 
of 
it before, 
but 
I 
think 
putting 
these tight 
things 
on 
you 
know, 
and 
sort 
of, you 
know 
[ 
... 
]I 
think that 
I 
sort 
first 
- 
of 
realising about 
your 
body 
you 
know, 
and 
having 
curves and 
things 
even 
though 
we were 
certainly 
- 
only 
little, 
but 
being 
aware 
that 
having 
tight 
clothes 
on, 
it 
was gorgeous, 
I 
mean 
that 
feeling, 
I 
can 
remember 
that 
feeling 
was 
so 
gorgeous 
you 
know, 
being 
something, 
having 
something 
you 
know, 
having 
something 
womanly, 
but 
also 
being 
aware 
of sexualness, 
of 
sexuality 
you 
know, 
and 
womanliness 
and 
stuff, 
yeah. 
[Her 
aunt] 
bought 
me and 
Carol 
these 
outfits and we 
were 
only 
little, 
you 
know, 
and 
it 
was 
like, it 
was 
incredible 
because 
it 
was 
just 
like 
the 
first 
time 
of 
realising 
that 
little 
girls 
could 
have 
clothes 
you 
know, 
we 
were, we were 
quite 
young 
then, 
I 
mean 
it 
might 
be 
the 
wrong 
sort of 
time 
thing 
you 
know, because 
you were 
talking 
about 
when 
I 
was 
16 
or so 
because 
we 
were only younger 
and 
it 
was 
like 
realising 
that, 
you 
know 
you 
could 
have 
something 
Re 
your 
Mum 
wore or 
something, 
but 
my 
Mum 
wasn't 
fashionable but 
my 
Aunty 
certainly 
was 
but 
we 
loved 
- 
and 
we 
wore 
these 
- 
67 
66 
Pain 
implied 
that 
dcriving 
inspiration 
from 
popular 
music 
performances 
was as 
an activity 
only 
permissible 
to 
young people: 
"Ithink 
whenyou 
areyoungeryou 
always 
try 
a wee 
bit don'tyou? 
[Laughterj, 4ndyour 
writingYour 
ain songs andthat, and 
when 
you get older 
andyou 
look 
back 
and 
iijust 
looks 
stupid 
and 
at 
the 
time 
you're 
really 
enjoying 
it 
". 
6' 
The dramatic 
transition 
from 
New 
Look inspired 
garments 
and 
the 
shirtdress 
and 
tightly 
fashioned 
tube 
dresses 
of 
the 
1960s 
necessarily 
offered 
new 
haptic 
sensations 
for 
some 
women 
of 
the 
fashioned 
body. 
Sandy 
was 
involved 
as 
were 
many girls 
in 
this 
period 
in 
the 
process 
of 
re-fashioning 
garments 
from 
full 
to 
close 
fitting: "Oh 
well, 
we 
did 
this, 
what 
we were 
doing 
was, 
was 
had 
- 
at 
the 
time, 
Imeon, 
I'm 
going 
backyou know 
certainlyprior 
to 
when 
I 
was 
16, [ 
... 
]- 
the 
dresses 
then 
were 
generally 
- 
they 
were 
cotton and 
they 
came 
to 
the 
waist, 
but 
they 
were 
a 
bitj7ared 
but 
then 
all of 
a sudden 
theseflared 
dresses 
andpleated 
bottom 
halves 
went 
out so 
we 
used 
to 
- 
the 
most 
ambitious 
thing 
we 
did 
was 
to take 
- 
unpick 
the 
dressfrom 
there 
and 
Iron 
the 
pleats 
out and 
sew 
them 
down 
In 
a straight 
line 
you 
know, 
but 
I 
mean 
that 
was 
the 
most 
ambitious 
- 
but 
generally speaking 
we 
92 
In 
contrast, 
the 
performances of popular 
female 
stars allowed 
the 
adolescent 
Ellen 
the 
opportunity 
to 
make 
concrete 
her 
antipathy 
to 
low 
musical 
forms 
and performances, 
distinguishing 
herself 
from her 
working-class peers. 
According 
to 
her developing 
tastes, 
influenced by her 
aficionado 
brother, 
performers 
associated 
with specific 
forms 
of popular 
TV, 
as 
in 
the 
case of 
Lulu, 
meant 
for 
Ellen 
that 
they 
were 
likely 
to 
be 
'crap': 
" 
Ellen: 
I 
remember 
Lulu doing 
- 
because 
obviously 
Lulu, 
she was relevant 
to 
Glaswegians 
because 
she was, 
she was a 
Glaswegian, 
but 
to 
most 
people 
later, 
she 
- 
it's 
that 
Scottish 
thing 
of 
going 
"Oh 
who 
does 
she 
think 
she 
is? 
" 
you 
know 
"that 
uppity madam 
" 
and she's 
lost 
it, but 
I 
always 
thought 
she 
was crap. 
I 
don't 
think 
she 
is 
now 
actually, 
I 
think 
she 
- 
she 
- 
her 
potential 
was 
completely 
lost 
if 
she was 
- 
now 
she would 
have 
gone 
in 
a completely 
different 
direction. 
AP: 
So 
why 
do 
you 
think, 
why 
did 
you 
think 
'crap' 
at 
the 
time? 
Have 
you got 
any memories 
of 
thinking 
-? 
Ellen: 
Because 
it 
was all 
kind 
of 
like 
variety 
show stuff, 
it 
was 
kind 
of 
stuff 
that 
your 
parents 
would 
like, 
mines 
didn't, 
but 
I'm 
sure 
it 
was 
- 
she 
was 
young and 
yet 
she 
was 
catering 
to, 
to that 
kind 
of 
Val Doonicany 
set which was what 
you 
thought 
was 
all she 
could 
do 
and 
it's 
not 
fair 
because 
she 
has 
a 
huge 
potential. 
69 
The 
queering 
of 
Dusty 
Expressing 
to 
excess 
has, in 
recent years, 
in both 
theory 
and 
increasingly 
in 
popular 
culture, 
come 
to 
be 
something of a 
gay 
male prerogative, a 
ubiquitous 
flag 
of 
ironic, 
po?t-feminist 
queerness. 
Dusty 
has 
figured 
in 
queer 
literature 
and 
culture as 
both 
an 
inauthentic 
drag 
queen 
and 
medium 
for 
gay 
male 
identification. This 
interpretation 
is 
even used 
by 
Dusty's 
biographer, 
the 
feminist 
and 
former 
Spare 
Rib 
music 
writer, 
Lucy O'Brien: 
"With 
the 
invention 
ofDusty 
Springfield 
she 
[Mary O'Brien, 
adopted] a 
look 
modelled 
on 
drag 
queens, 
an 
over 
the top, 
larger 
than 
life, 
parody 
ofstereotypical 
femininity" 
(O'Brien, 1999, 
p. 
179). 
70 
Similarly, 
the 
broader 
musical 
and 
perfomative 
pleasures 
of, and 
just 
took them 
in 
and 
made 
them 
lighter 
wejust sewed 
- 
we 
turned 
them 
Inside 
out 
and we 
sewed 
them 
right 
in 
so 
that 
they 
were 
lightyou 
know, 
so 
they 
were 
light 
dresses 
". 
61 
In 
this 
extract 
Ellen 
comes 
close 
to 
undermining 
(as did her 
brother) 
her 
own 
taste 
for Top 
of 
the 
pops. 
" 
Ellen 
defines her 
taste 
as 
in 
two 
stages; youthful 
disdain 
for 
the 
old-fashioned 
televised 
Lulu, 
and, 
later, 
a 
connoisseur's 
acknowledgement 
of 
song-writing 
potential, 
beneath 
the 
'mask'. 
She 
had 
noted 
how 
TV 
programming 
from 
the 
1960s 
and 
1970s 
determined 
serious/lightweight, 
malelfemale categorisations: 
"Ohyes, 
we were 
into 
Top 
ofthe 
Pops 
andJohn 
f brother] 
was 
into 
the 
Old 
Grey Whistle 
Test but 
that 
wasiust 
[indecipherable] 
It'sfunny 
that 
I don't 
know 
if 
its 
a 
male, 
female 
thing 
but 
that 
was 
meant 
to 
be 
serious 
whereas mine was 
seen as 
like Top 
of 
the 
pops. 
" 
Dusty 
can 
be 
said 
to 
have 
disrupted 
to 
a 
degree 
such 
clear 
cut 
demarcations, 
duetting 
with 
Jimi Hendrix 
on 
Dusty, 
and 
in 
the 
eclecticism 
of 
her 
oeuvre. 
70 
According 
to 
critic 
Shaar 
Murray "She 
was 
as close 
to 
being 
a 
drag 
queen 
asyou 
can 
get 
Ifyou 
are a 
biological 
women" 
93 
consumption 
by 
female fans 
of 
femininity 
are 
often 
relegated 
in 
crudely 
reductive 
interpretations 
of 
Dusty 
and 
stars such 
as 
Bassey 
or 
Parton 
to 
forms 
of 
femininity 
that 
are 
fixed 
in 
gay male 
culture. 
71 
The 
imperative 
for 
Dusty 
to 
be 
above all, a 
figure for 
gay 
male 
identification is 
asserted 
by 
O'Brien, 
despite 
Dusty's 
stated 
lack 
of 
identification 
with 
'tragic' 
gay male 
icons 
Garland 
and 
Piaf. 
72 
The 
accounts 
of research 
participants 
suggest 
that 
more complex 
readings, ones 
that 
include identifications 
on a 
range 
of 
registers 
by 
women might 
be 
considered and where 
her 
'badness' 
at 
femininity 
are not 
raised. 
As 
a 
fan 
club 
stalwart, 
Claire's 
observations 
on 
differences 
in 
gender 
and sexuality 
in 
the 
consumption 
of 
Dusty 
are 
illuminating. 
Gay 
men are 
cast 
as 
tending to 
fiomogenise 
the 
pantheon 
of 
tragic 
heroines 
whereas 
Dusty 
offers a unique 
model 
for lesbians: 
Claire: 
Intermittently, 
I 
went 
through 
a 
phase 
in 
the 
90s 
when 
I 
was really, 
you 
know, 
gobbling 
up everything 
in 
sight, 
I 
spent a 
lot 
of 
time 
communicating 
with other 
fans, 
mostly men 
as 
it 
turns 
out, 
but it's 
very 
time 
consuming 
and 
they tended to 
write extremely 
long letters 
that 
took 
longer 
to 
write 
than, 
you 
know, 
to 
read 
and 
to 
write 
a reply 
and you 
do find 
that 
different 
people 
appreciate 
different 
aspects 
of 
her 
and 
a 
lot 
of gay 
men 
- 
icons 
- 
identify 
with sort of 
the 
construction 
they 
made of 
those tragic 
heroines 
and 
I 
also 
- 
I'm 
generalising 
on what people 
have 
said, 
but 
they tended 
to 
like 
sort 
of 
the 
music 
that 
I 
didn't like, 
what 
I 
call soppy music, 
(ibid. 
). 
Dusty's 
iconic look 
has been 
attributed 
to 
a range of 
disparate 
sources 
including: 
Juliette 
Greco 
and 
the 
heavy 
eye4inercd 
look 
seen 
by Dusty 
in 
Paris 
(and 
French 
Vogue), 
Monica Vitti, 
Hollywood 
glamour, 
Motown 
and 
Black 
women 
soul stars 
and 
the 
RSG! 
and 
Mod 
milieu 
of 
London in 
the 
early 
1960s. Late in her 
career 
after 
the 
mythologised 
rescue 
by 
the 
Pet 
Shop Boys, 
Dusty 
increasingly 
queered 
her 
own 
history 
(although 
remained 
enigmatic 
to 
the 
last 
about 
her 
own 
sexuality) and, 
by 1985 
in 
an 
interview 
with 
Gay 
Times 
claimed 
"I 
learned 
most ofmy 
tricksfrom 
drag 
queens... what 
kind 
ofmascara 
lasts longest, 
how 
to 
apply 
eye 
shadow 
- 
very serious 
decisions 
" 
(Dusty in 
Kirk, 1999, 
p. 
5 1). 
1 
read 
this 
as 
Dusty's 
typically 
mischievous 
(and 
somewhat 
desperate? 
) 
courting 
of 
the 
gay audience. 
Kane 
relinquishes 
Dusty's 
autonomy and 
agency 
to 
gay 
male 
authorship: 
"The 
Pet 
Shop 
Boys 
are 
the 
undisputed 
kingslqueens 
ofcamp 
rehabilitation; 
their 
electro-popjohs 
on 
Dusty Springfield 
andLiza 
Minnelli 
turned 
two 
show 
biz disaster 
areas 
into 
brittle 
monuments 
of 
twentieth 
century glamour, 
ifthey 
sounded awkward 
and 
cramped 
by 
their 
digital 
surroundings 
maybe 
that 
waspartly 
the 
point- a whiffofpathos, something 
excessive 
to 
snigger about? 
(Kane, 1994, 
p. 
13). 
71 
Parton 
has begun 
to 
be 
critically 
appraised 
from 
standpoints 
other 
than 
a 
feminist 
antipathy 
to 
her 
modelling 
of 
feminine- 
excess 
or a gay 
male/qucer 
appropriation. 
For 
example, 
Melissa 
Jane Hardie 
has interrogated 
the 
colonial 
ideology 
of 
Country 
Music 
and 
Parton's 
varied simulations 
of 
the 
'country 
way of 
life'. 
The 
theme 
of 
transformation 
(e. 
g., 
in 
Parton's 
use 
of 
fetishised 
prosthetics) 
is identified 
by 
Hardie 
as 
critical 
to 
her 
practice 
in 
the 
context 
of 
the 
1970s 
popular 
cultural 
developments, 
according 
to 
Hardie, 
Ivana 
Trump 
and 
Dallas 
changed 
the 
valance 
of 
big hair 
from 
low 
to 
high 
class, 
firom Jacqueline 
Suzanne 
to 
Onassis'(1-lardie 
quoted 
in 
Patrick, 
1997, 
p. 
33). 
O'Brien 
has 
claimed 
"Dusty 
gained gayfans early 
in 
her 
career 
because 
ofher musical style 
and 
her 
love 
ofMotown. 
Gay 
men 
have 
always 
been 
at 
theforefront 
ofdance music, whether 
as 
soul consumers 
or 
asperformers, 
and 
Dusty 
was seen as a 
bridging 
-point 
In 
terms 
ofter 
musical choices 
"(ibid. 
p. 
182). 
Notwithstanding 
the 
indisputable 
fact 
of 
soul 
being 
enjoyed and performed 
by 
many 
gay men, 
a survey of 
the 
British 
gay 
liberation 
press 
finds 
this 
claim, 
that 
soul 
has 
been 
the 
principle musical 
form 
of 
interest 
to 
gay 
men, 
to 
be 
largely 
unsubstantiated. 
7' 
" With 
her 
return 
to the 
pop world 
In 
the 
late 
seventies, 
Dustyfound 
that 
her 
most 
loyalfans 
were 
among 
the 
gay 
community. 
To 
them 
she 
was 
a showbiz 
heroine, 
a 
living 
legend 
in 
the 
mould 
ofa 
Garland 
or 
a 
Piaf 
In 
1964, 
Dusty 
had 
said, with prophetic 
irony, 
'I'm 
not 
a 
legendary 
type. 
You 
have 
to 
be 
a 
tragicfigure 
to 
become 
a 
legend- 
like 
Garland 
and 
Edith Piqf, 
I 
don't have 
that 
quality. 
I 
don'tparticularly 
want 
it 
- 
not 
ifyou 
have 
to 
slashyour 
wrists 
to 
get 
it. 
'However 
with 
her 
husAy 
vulnerability 
and 
dramaticprivate 
Itfe 
she 
embodied 
the 
camp 
sensibility 
in 
pop. 
Her 
career 
had become 
like 
an 
operalkplot, 
scaling extreme 
highs 
and 
lows, 
and 
thepain 
ofmisfit 
isolation 
with which 
many 
gays 
could 
identify 
" (ibid. 
p. 
157). 
In 
a 
revealing 
observation 
on 
Dusty's 
appeal 
for 
gay men, 
Kirk 
suggests 
that 
the 
"fashioning 
andperforming 
to 
excess" 
was 
a 
form 
of 
tragi-comic 
'bad 
taste', 
and 
that 
her 
emotional vocal 
address 
was, 
baldly, 
a 
'fix' 
for 
gay 
men 
"Dusty 
always 
stood 
out. 
She had 
terrible 
taste 
in 
clothes, she 
didn'tfit 
in 
with 
the 
glam 
things 
sixties 
girls 
were 
supposed 
to, 
and she 
modelled 
herselfon 
drag 
queens 
"(Kirk 
cited 
in O'Brien, 
p. 
18 1). 
In his hagiographic 
biography 
Kirk 
refers 
to 
Dusty's 
"vast 
legion 
ofdevoted 
(and 
primarily 
gay) 
superfans 
" 
(Kirk, 1999, 
p. 
44). 
Cilla 
and 
Lulu 
now 
solicit 
their 
own 
consumption 
as 
camp. 
For 
example, although 
not 
known 
for her 
views 
on 
lesbian 
and gay 
politics, 
Lulu headed 
the 
Stonewall's 
Equality 
Show 
bill 
in 
2001. 
94 
whereas 
I 
was 
into, 
as 
I 
say, 
blues 
and 
soul, so 
I 
couldn't 
always 
just 
by 
-I 
couldn't 
always 
necessarily 
identify 
the 
same 
emotions, 
yes. 
AP: So 
you are, 
if 
we 
are 
generalising 
a 
little 
bit 
there, 
are 
there 
associations 
that 
we could 
talk 
about generally 
for 
the 
women 
that 
you 
know 
that 
like 
her 
music? 
How does 
that 
differ from 
this 
general 
feeling 
that 
you 
get 
from 
maybe 
queer 
appreciation 
of 
Dusty? 
What 
is 
the 
difference 
between 
- 
Claire: 
I 
think 
that 
the 
woman 
I 
know 
that 
- 
do 
roughly 
what 
I 
do, 
they 
have 
the 
same emotional 
identification, 
but 
also 
lesbian 
women, 
I 
am 
straight, 
but 
I've 
got a 
large 
number 
of 
lesbian 
friends 
and 
I 
think 
they 
have 
a 
more 
realistic 
view 
than 
gay 
men, a 
perfectly realistic view of 
Dusty, 
as 
another 
lesbian 
woman 
they 
don't 
invent 
things 
about 
her, 
but 
I 
do 
think that they 
feel 
- 
you'd 
have 
to 
ask 
them, 
but it 
seems 
to 
me 
that 
although 
she 
was, you 
know, 
in 
some ways 
very open about 
her 
life 
and 
in 
other 
ways 
quite cagey, 
that 
they 
do 
appreciate, 
they 
do 
appreciate 
what 
she 
stood 
for 
and 
you'd 
really 
have 
to 
ask 
them, 
but 
I 
think 
they'd 
agree 
that 
she 
did 
stand 
up, 
at 
least 
to 
a 
large 
degree. 
In 
her 
memorialising 
of 
Dusty 
in 
the 
'lesbian 
lifestyle' 
magazine 
Diva, 
shortly after 
Dusty's 
death, 
the 
mythologised 
connection 
between 
Dusty 
and gay 
men/drag 
queens 
is 
again 
rehearsed 
by 
O'Brien "a 
host 
ofgayfans 
appreciated 
that 
she 
had 
modelled 
herselfon drag 
queens 
" (O'Brien, 
1999a, 
p. 
5 
1). In 
these 
typical 
accounts, 
forms 
of 
lesbian identification 
are 
strangely subordinated, 
supplanted 
in 
theory 
and 
popular 
criticism 
by 
a 
focus 
on 
Dusty 
as a 
drag 
queen 
with an 
ironic 
gay 
male 
following. 
" 
Modernism, 
rock 
Ideology 
and 
feminine 
excess 
Although 
Dusty's 
professional 
achievements 
have 
been 
recognised 
to 
a 
degree 
in 
contemporary 
music 
journalism (for 
example, 
George-Warren, 
1997) 
her 
feminine 
excess 
has 
arguably 
been 
the 
most 
significant 
factor, 
inextricably 
linked 
as 
it is 
with 
both 
gender and 
sexuality, 
in 
undermining 
her 
musical status. 
This disdain 
has 
marginalised 
her 
from 
both 
mainstream and 
feminist 
recognition 
on 
much 
the 
same 
basis. 
The 
risks 
posed 
by feminine 
excess 
for 
female 
stars 
in 
the 
developing 
Modernist 
context 
is implied 
in 
O'Brien's 
statement 
"Despite 
her 
houffant 
hairdo 
and 
drag 
artists 
mascara, 
73 
Despite 
an editorial 
tendency 
to 
attribute 
Dusty's fan 
base 
to 
gay 
men, 
Diva 
records 
by 
default 
lesbian fans 
enduring 
interest 
in 
the 
star who 
was 
claimed 
by lesbian 
communities since 
the 
1960s. 
In 
the 
December 
2002 
issue 
the 
events guide advertises 
the 
Manchester 
lesbian 
club 
'Dusty's' 
and 
Emma Wilkinson, 
the 
Dusty 
soundalike winner of 
TV's 
Stars 
In 
your ejws, 
is 
flagged 
as 
appearing 
at 
the 
London 
lesbian 
club, 
100% Babe (Diva, 
December, 
2002, 
p. 
72). 
95 
38 
Looking 
like 
yourself 
is 
water will 
double 
the 
life 
of your undies. 
a 
much 
better 
idea. 
How 
frequent is frequent? 
IdeaUy 
bra's 
and 
girdles, 
like 
pants and 
stockings, 
should 
be 
washed 
every 
day. 
III 
IlI 
t. 
"Ie 
Too 
much 
glitter 
makes you 
look 
like 
a 
Christmas 
tree. 
GOLDEN RULE 
NO. 
3 
Be 
yourself. 
So 
you're not 
a square. 
So 
you 
think 
all adults are 
strictly not 
with 
it. 
So 
the 
beatnik bug has bitten 
you and 
you 
want 
to 
express 
yourself. 
Fine. 
But 
make sure 
that 
in 
your 
attempt 
to 
he 
an 
individualist 
you 
haven't left 
one 
regimented group 
to 
join 
another. 
There 
are an awful 
lot 
of young girls 
going 
around 
today 
who 
have 
reacted 
violently against 
conforming---only 
to 
find 
they 
are now conforming 
to 
another 
set 
of 
laid-down 
rules 
just 
as 
stifling. 
Inevitably 
they 
wear 
black 
stockings, 
preferably 
with a 
ladder 
or 
two, 
black 
boots, 
preferably 
unpolished, 
black 
trews, 
preferably a 
bit dusty looking, handknit 
sweaters, preferably 
a 
bit 
tatty. 
Like 
sausages 
out of 
a machine 
they 
conform 
more rigidly 
than 
those they 
despise for 
being 
" 
square. 
" 
Beware 
the 
herd 
instinct. 
Be 
yourself. 
It's 
nicer. 
GOLDEN 
RULE 
NO. 
4 
A 
new 
fashion 
is introduced. 
It's 
pretty. 
It 
catches 
on. 
It 
goes 
too 
far. 
And 
so 
do 
you. 
Classic 
example: 
the 
fad 
for 
frills. 
One 
layer 
of 
frills 
is 
pretty; 
two 
layers 
of 
frills 
are 
festive; 
three 
layers 
of 
frills 
are 
a 
bit 
much; 
four 
layers 
of 
frills, 
and you'll 
look 
like 
a 
lamb 
chop or a 
Christmas 
crackerl 
Beware 
the 
fashion 
manufacturers 
who 
flood 
the 
shops 
with 
fashion fads 
aimed 
at 
the 
young 
and over-enthusiastic. 
At 
any 
age 
after 
the 
cradle 
there 
isn't 
a 
more 
valuable watchword 
than 
simplicity. 
A 
well-dressed girl 
knows 
this 
as 
instinctively 
as 
she 
knows 
her 
own 
name. 
10. 
'Top 
ten 
golden 
rules 
ofdress' 
in Helen 
Shapiro's 
New 
Bookfiv 
Girls, 1963, 
page 
38. 
? 
Ilk 
Springfield 
was as 
much part of 
the 
early 
mod scene, 
appearing regularly 
on 
the 
pioneering pop 
programme 
Ready 
Steady Go! " (O'Brien 
cited 
in 
Evans, 
1995). 
74 
Despite 
her 
popularity, 
Dusty 
at an early 
stage 
in her 
career, 
made 
unprecedented public 
identifications 
with 
both 
anti-racist and 
lesbian 
positions 
but her 
work 
has 
been disregarded, 
or at 
least 
only 
constructed 
as a guilty pleasure, 
by 
lesbian feminism. 
Dusty's 
paradoxically appealing 
and 
repulsive 
performance, voice and 
fashioning 
of 
femininity is 
illuminated 
by further 
consideration 
of 
the 
historical 
context 
of a 
contemporary 
construction 
of 
British 
and 
American, Modernist 
and 
masculine 
rock. 
The 
construction of 
a rock 
ideology 
and 
the 
masculine 
prerogative 
to 
perform 
it 
is 
the 
overwhelming 
dynamic 
in 
popular musical 
history 
that 
spans 
Dusty's 
pop career. 
75 
Unlike 
many 
rock 
stars 
fan 
memories whether 
invented 
or 
not, 
few 
fans 
of 
soul and 
pop remember 
the 
live 
performance 
of stars, 
but 
the 
authenticity 
of 
rock performers was 
increasingly linked in 
this 
period 
with 
the 
intensification 
of marketing 
that 
placed a premium 
on 
live 
gigs 
and 
tours. 
Un/natural 
women 
For Dusty's 
female 
fans from 
the 
early 
1960s, 
the 
proscriptive 
advice 
in 
a range of 
girl and 
women 
focused 
texts, 
which 
increasingly 
presented as natural, 
ideal bourgeois 
forms 
of 
femininity 
of 
barefoot Sandie 
Shaw, 
Jean Shrimpton 
and 
Marianne Faithfull 
was 
at odds 
with 
Dusty's 
performance 
of 
ferninin 
ity. 
76 
The 
discourses 
of advice 
for 
presented 
in 
girls' 
literature 
and 
women's 
magazines 
from 
" 
Elvis 
Costello 
makes a similar 
point 
after 
crediting 
Dusty 
as 
having 
"one 
of 
the 
greatest 
voices 
in 
pop music 
... 
I 
don't 
think 
she 
ever 
got creditfor 
that 
because 
people 
concentrate 
on 
the 
icon 
aspect 
of 
her 
you 
know 
the 
hair 
the 
eye 
lashes 
and 
the 
hand 
gestures 
" (Pomphrey, 
1994). 
Towards 
the 
end of 
her 
career 
Dusty's 
hair 
fashioning 
appears 
to 
have been 
significant 
in 
obstructing 
her 
efforts 
to 
create soul music. 
Valentine 
and 
Wickham 
suggest 
that 
her 
fashioning, 
by 
the 
mid 
1970s 
was 
read as 
being 
more appropriate 
to 
female 
country singers: 
"Audiences 
in 
Nashville 
were 
loyal 
to these 
women 
no matter 
if 
theyput 
weight 
on and 
wore 
outrageous clothes. 
All 
that 
counted 
to 
them 
was 
the 
authenticity of 
the 
experience 
usually expressed 
in 
bruised 
voices. 
For 
her 
old 
American 
manager 
Barry Krost, 
who 
considered 
Dusty's hair 
to 
be 
'a 
lethal 
weapon', 
country music 
had been 
the 
obvious 
answer 
to 
Dusty's lack 
of 
direction, 
but 
when 
he 
suggested 
it 
to 
her 
in 
Los 
Angeles 
she was still 
desperate 
to 
rekindle 
herpast 
success 
as a while 
soul singer and 
couldn't 
see 
how 
she could 
turn 
that 
around 
" 
(Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
249). In 
contrast, 
the 
iconographic 
stylings 
of masculinity 
from 
the 
1950s 
to the 
1970s 
by 
Dusty's 
male counterparts 
have had 
an enduring 
gravitas, evident 
in 
the 
fashioning 
of 
male 
stars 
in 
the 
Brit 
Pop 
revival 
e. g. 
Oasis, 
Blur, 
and 
Weller. 
" 
Dusty's 
association 
with 
Motown 
can also 
be 
seen 
to 
have 
ultimately 
diminished 
her 
musical 
credibility. 
Ironically, 
Motown's 
trailblazing 
success 
as a 
Black 
company 
breaking into 
white 
markets, 
placed 
them 
on 
the 
margins 
of critical consideration 
and 
made 
them 
white. 
The 
author of 
volumes 
on soul music, 
Guralnick 
writes 
"Perhaps 
I 
simply 
rejected 
Motown 
out 
of 
ideological 
considerations, 
for 
the 
very 
reason 
that 
it 
was so much 
more 
popular, so much 
more socially 
acceptable, so 
much more while 
". 
(Guralnick, 1999, 
p. 
250). Stax, 
Goldwax, Fame 
and other 
American, 
mainly 
white-owned 
labels 
that 
were successful 
in 
Britain 
in 
the 
mid 
1960s 
would retain 
their 
kudos 
of authenticity 
and 
Blackness 
due 
to 
their 
being 
relatively 
less 
popular. 
Motown 
aficionados 
I 
ike Brian 
Ward 
have 
criticised 
this 
tendency: 
"Even 
the 
usually 
sensible 
Arnold 
Shawfell 
headlong 
into 
this 
trap 
(in 
The 
World 
ofSoul, 
1970) 
describing Motown 
in 
lermswhich 
made 
it 
sound 
like 
a pale 
imitation 
ofsomething 
blacker, 
something 
more 
real, 
more 
substantial, 
lurking 
in 
the 
southlands. 
Motown 
songs, 
Shaw 
claimed, 
'are 
light 
andfluffy. 
It 
is 
hardly 
soulfood, 
but 
rather 
a 
dishfor 
which white 
listeners have 
acquired 
a 
taste 
"' Ward 
goes 
on 
to 
note 
"Motown's 
unparalleled 
popularity 
among 
black 
consumers 
suggests 
that 
the 
black 
masses 
shared 
little 
of 
the 
critics 
sense offakery 
andfraud 
" (Abbott, 
200, 
p. 
46). 
76 
As 
the 
advice 
metered out 
in Helen 
Shapiro's 
new 
bookfor 
girls, 
1963 (opposite) 
or 
the 
quiz 
in Sixteen 
annual 
(below) 
implies 
Question 
4: 
Your boyfriend 
comments 
crushingly 
on your 
eye make-up. 
What 
do 
you 
do? 
(a) 
Reply 
that 
you 
don't 
think 
much 
of 
his 
choice of 
ties. 
[surely 
the 
answer 
Dusty 
would 
recommend! 
] 
(b) 
Ask 
him 
what 
he 
likes 
girls 
to 
wear 
in 
general. 
[reader 
M 
had 
ticked 
this] 
(c) 
Give 
up 
wearing 
cosmetics. 
(d) 
Listen 
calmly 
and 
in future 
wear 
less 
make-up. 
[reader 
L 
had 
ticked this, 
which 
was 
the 
'right' 
answer] 
(Sixteen, 
1967, 
p. 
77). 
Biographers 
Valentine 
and 
Wickham 
have 
written 
"Yet 
while 
Dusty's 
contemporaries 
looked 
only at 
Vogue 
models 
like 
Twiggy. 
Jean Shrimpton. 
Jill 
Kennington 
and 
some 
of 
their 
own peer 
groupfor 
inspiration, 
Dusty 
was 
either 
in 
the 
cinema 
or 
devouring 
film 
magazines 
with 
theirfullpage 
pictures 
of alluringflIm 
stars 
" (Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
42). 
96 
ansotuteiy 
right at 
the 
moment 
tor anyone 
who's young. 
High heels, 
which 
can 
make 
young 
immature legs 
look 
like 
Minnie 
Mouse 
are 
our. So 
are winkle-picking, 
spiky 
toes. 
The best-shod 
feet 
around at 
the 
moment 
are wearing 
medium 
heels 
with 
gently 
rounded 
toes. 
The 
witches points 
that 
threw 
all 
the 
foot-care 
specialists 
into 
a 
frenzy 
about 
the 
future 
health 
of our 
tootsics 
have 
died 
the 
fashion death, 
and 
today 
you 
can't 
do better 
than to 
wear 
the 
youtig-looking 
shoes 
that 
used 
to 
be 
called childish 
and are now called 
chic. 
GOLDEN RULE 
NO. 10 
Ilow 
much 
make-tip 
sh"idd 
a 
young girl 
uRe? 
A littIc 
in 
the 
right 
place 
at 
the 
right 
time. 
And it's 
difficult 
to 
be 
more 
definite 
than that. 
By 
day 
a 
little 
foundation, 
plus a 
little 
powder 
if 
you 
like it, 
plus 
a 
little lipstick 
is 
still 
the 
best 
basic 
plan of 
all. 
But 
nowadays 
the 
shiny 
look 
with 
no 
powder 
and 
the 
natural 
look 
with no 
lipstick 
is 
more 
likely 
to 
be 
the 
look 
you 
like. 
Possible 
pitfall: 
too 
much 
eye 
make-up. 
Black-ringed 
eyes with 
spiky 
lashes 
and 
beetle 
brows 
turn 
a pretty 
face into 
a 
joke. 
At 
14 as 
at 
4o 
make-up 
should 
be 
applied 
with 
a 
fairy-light 
touch 
and 
not 
a 
trowel. 
And 
however 
much make-up 
you use 
by 
night-you 
need only 
half 
as much 
by day. 
Leave 
the 
ultra-rich cleansing 
creams, 
conditioning 
creams 
and 
moisturising 
crearns 
to 
your 
elders 
whose skin 
needs 
aiding 
and 
abetting 
more 
than 
yours 
does. 
<?n? 
Make-up 
needs 
a 
light 
hand. 
rT 
11. 
'Top 
ten 
golden 
rules 
of 
dress' in 
Helen 
Shapiro's 
New 
Bookfor 
Girls, 
1963, 
p 
41. 
unpaginated. 
Dusty 
rchcarsing 
l6r 
Ready, 
sleady, 
go! 
in 
1964, 
reproduced in 
Dusiy, 
1999, 
Lucy 
O'Brien, 
this 
period 
reveals 
this 
divergence 
between 
models 
of 
so-called 
natural 
femininity 
and 
those 
performed 
by 
Dusty. 
Ironically, 
such 
tastes, 
for 
understated, 
unadorned 
forms 
of 
femininity 
are 
somewhat 
unproblematically 
incorporated 
and 
re-stated 
in 
the 
early 
Second-Wave 
of 
feminism. 
As 
I 
will go on 
to 
argue, such 
proscriptions 
failed 
to 
account 
for 
the 
array 
of 
fernininities 
constructed 
by 
women 
from 
a 
range 
of 
texts 
in diverse 
cultural, 
social 
and 
historical 
contexts 
in 
this 
period 
Dusty described 
her 
own 
pleasures 
in 
and 
taste 
for 
the 
forms 
of 
excessive, 
Hollywood 
femininity 
experienced 
in 
marathon 
visits 
with 
her 
mother 
to the 
cinema. 
It 
[Hollywood 
movies] 
was 
sheer 
glamour 
and 
that 
really gaudy 
Technicolor, 
the 
Betty Grable 
red 
lips look, 
the 
slash 
of 
scarlet 
- 
it 
was 
absolutely 
marvellous. 
It 
was 
just 
the 
whole 
glitz 
of 
it, 
it 
was 
everything 
that 
I 
wanted 
to 
be 
and 
would 
never 
be. 
I 
wanted 
to 
be 
in 
there 
with 
them 
doing it, 
it 
was 
just 
sheer 
trashy 
glamour 
-I 
knew 
even 
when 
I 
was 
four 
I 
wanted 
trashy 
77 
glamour, 
its 
great 
(Dusty interviewed 
by 
Brian 
Lineham, 
1982). 
Dissident 
femininity 
Research 
participants' 
accounts 
of 
taking 
pleasure 
in fashioning 
or 
performing 
dissident forms 
of 
femininity 
including 
the 
model 
presented 
by 
Early 
Mod 
Dusty, 
contradict 
a passive process 
of self- 
78 
objectification, 
of 
simply 
fashioning 
in 
anticipation 
of 
the 
male 
gaze. 
Rather 
than 
reproducing 
an 
image 
that 
conformed 
with 
social 
and cultural 
expectations 
of 
women 
to 
be 
attractive 
to 
men, 
Dusty 
described 
her 
aim 
in 
self-fashioning 
at 
this 
point, 
to 
"try 
to 
be 
as 
unsexy 
as possible 
" 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
80) 
and 
of 
cultivating 
"an 
over 
the top 
parody 
ofstereotypedfemininity 
that 
didn't 
pose 
a 
threat" 
(Scotland 
on 
Sunday, 
15 
February, 
1998, 
p. 
15) 
Participants 
recorded 
being 
absorbed 
by 
Dusty's 
address, 
by her 
fashioning, 
gestures, 
voice and 
lyrics. 
Singer 
Billie Davies, 
who 
often shared 
a 
dressing 
room with 
Dusty 
on 
Ready Steady Go! 
suggests 
she 
Dusty 
was engaged 
in 
an 
active 
dialogue 
or 
discourse 
of cosmetic 
acts 
that 
both 
transgressed 
acceptable 
limits 
of 
femininity 
and was specifically 
In her 
autobiography, 
Sandie Shaw 
charts 
the 
dissimilarities 
between 
the 
grown-up 
Dusty 
and 
herself 
in 
terms 
of 
fashioning, 
suggesting 
that 
Dusty 
even 
in 
the 
early 
1960s 
was no slave 
to 
fashion: 
"Dust), 
used 
tofrighten 
me. 
I 
never 
knew 
what 
to 
say 
to 
her. 
She 
seems so 
much 
older 
and 
more sophisticated 
than 
me. 
[ 
... 
I 
She had 
oldfashioned 
make-up, 
high 
spiky 
heels, 
a 
bouffant 
hairdo 
that 
went out 
a 
decade 
before, 
and 
loved 
wearing 
those 
sparklyfrocks 
that 
made 
mejeel 
so 
uncomfortable 
" 
(Shaw, 1992, 
210). 
Dusty's 
consumption 
of 
fan 
magazines 
is 
significant. 
Although 
her 
life 
was 
frequently 
chaotic 
and 
included 
episodes of 
homelessness, 
attempted 
suicides and extreme 
drug 
and alcohol 
use, 
after 
her death friends 
found 
carefully 
preserved, 
in 
a 
lock- 
up 
in 
LA 
all 
her 
teenage 
film 
magazines 
from 
the 
1950s (Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
287). 
" 
This 
phenomenon 
follows Stacey's 
contention 
after 
Winship 
that, 
from 
the 
1950s, 
rather 
than 
preparing 
herself for 
her 
own 
consumption: 
"there 
is 
something 
'in 
excess' ofpatriarchal control 
which 
is 
produced 
though 
the 
discourses 
of 
consumption 
at 
this time 
" (Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
186). 
This 
move grants 
agency 
in 
that 
"the 
needs 
ofpatriarchy 
and 
of 
capitalism may 
be 
seen 
to 
be 
in 
conflict, 
rather 
than 
working 
harmoniously 
tofurther 
control 
women 
" 
(ibid. 
). 
97 
Do 
you 
kno-w 
where 
you 
are 
going? 
I When 
out with 
your new 
boy- 
friend 
you 
happen 
to 
and sonve 
friends. 
What 
do 
you 
do? 
(a) 
have 
a 
quick 
word 
and 
walk on 
(b) 
introduce 
him if 
you 
stay 
talking 
for 
awhile 
M 
W 
introduce 
Win 
MO-Und 
(d) 
leave 
him 
waiting 
while you 
talk 
about 
last 
week's 
dance 
2 
Your 
boy-friend Is 
always 
talking 
about 
his 
former 
girl-friends. 
How 
do 
you 
react? 
(a) 
take 
an 
interest 
(b) 
become 
annoyed 
with 
him 
(c) 
tell 
stories 
of your 
former boy- 
frien 
(d) 
listen 
rOyou 
learn 
about 
him 
through 
hearing 
about 
them 
L_ 
3 
How 
wouM 
you 
end 
a 
frkvWsWp? 
(a) 
write 
the 
boy 
a 
letter 
(b) 
give 
the 
message 
to 
one 
of 
his 
friends 
to 
pass 
on 
M 
(c) 
pretend 
to 
be 
out 
Ohed 
he 
calls 
(d) 
tell 
him 
yourself 
L__ 
4 
Your 
boy-frk-ad 
c(mnwnb 
cnob- 
Ingly 
on 
your 
W 
mke-uP. 
What 
do 
you 
do? 
Do 
you get 
top 
marks? 
(a) 
reply 
that 
you 
don't 
think 
much 
of 
his 
choice 
of 
ties 
(b) 
ask 
him 
what 
he 
likes 
girls 
to 
wear 
in 
gene?al 
M 
(c) 
give up 
wearing 
cosmetics 
(d) 
listen 
calmly 
a 
in 
future 
wear 
less 
make-up 
5 
What 
b free4ove? 
(a) 
sex 
outside 
marr 
iage 
(b) 
romance 
with 
anyone 
who 
has 
time 
to 
spare 
C- 
Your 
boy-friend 
tells 
blue Jokes 
which 
embarrass 
you. 
What do 
you 
do? 
7 Friends 
pow 
on gossip about 
yaw 
boy-friend. 
How do 
you read? 
(a) 
challenge 
him 
with 
the 
stories 
(b) 
get 
your 
father 
to 
have 
a 
word 
with 
him 
W 
ignore 
it, 
because 
you 
like 
him 
(d) 
tell 
him 
you're 
upset 
by 
the 
gossip, 
and 
give 
him 
the 
opport 
nity 
to 
clear 
the 
matter up 
V" 
B 
You 
feel 
Irritated 
because 
your 
boy-friend 
never 
gets off 
the 
bw 
before 
you, 
to 
help 
you 
down. 
What 
do 
you 
do? 
(a) 
tell 
him 
pointblank 
(b) 
be 
slow 
to 
leave 
your 
seat, 
thus 
(a) 
laugh 
to 
order 
forcing 
him 
to 
go 
first 
(b) 
say: 
'You 
should 
save your 
jokes 
W 
say: 
'After 
you getting off. 
I'll 
for 
the 
boys; 
I 
just 
don't 
need 
your 
help 
as 
I've 
got 
a 
appreciate 
them' 
weak 
ankle' 
(c) 
say 
1f 
you 
thought 
I 
was a 
lad 
you 
wouldn't 
Say 
such 
things 
; ?IfL 
(d)find 
another 
boy-friend 
Please 
turn 
to 
p. 
143 
for 
answers 
77 
12. 
'Do 
you 
know 
where 
you 
are going? 
' 
: 
Questionnaire 
in 
Sixteen 
annual 
filled 
in by 
readers 
M 
and 
L, 
1967, 
page 
77. 
female. 
She 
commented 
that 
she 
had 
understood 
her 
own 
and 
Dusty's 
relationships as performers 
with 
their 
audience 
as 
interactive. 
79 
Dusty 
disrupted 
the 
socially sanctioned 
and 
fon-nularised 
make-up advice 
found in 
a range of 
girls 
and women's 
literature 
with 
her 
pragmatic 
suggestion regarding mascara: 
"You 
have 
to 
spit 
in it 
to 
get 
it 
to the 
proper 
consistency" 
(Melody 
Maker's 
'Pop 
Think-in' 
in 
November 1965) 
this, 
and 
rumours 
that 
Dusty 
never 
took 
her 
make-up 
off 
or 
brushed 
through 
her hair (Grieg, 
1989, 
p. 
97) 
can 
be 
reasonably 
interpreted 
as 
running 
counter 
to 
the 
prevailing 
idealised 
representations of 
femininity 
and 
yet 
congruent 
with 
the 
perception 
of self experienced 
by 
women 
in 
this 
study. 
Dusty's 
iconic 
identification 
as a 
woman 
made-up with 
wigs, 
dyed 
and 
backcombed hair, 
lipstick 
and eye 
make-up, 
perversely 
at 
odds 
with, 
behind 
and 
ahead 
of contemporary 
icons 
of 
beauty 
and 
fashion, 
provided 
a point 
of 
identification 
between 
fans 
and 
star, couched 
in 
a 
discourse 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
For 
participants 
in 
this 
study, 
Dusty 
presented an 
almost 
timeless 
model of 
sophistication, 
separated 
from 
the 
prosaic 
pursuit 
of 
fashion 
and 
somehow 
beyond, despite lyrical 
imperatives, 
the 
limits 
of 
boy/girl 
love. 
'O 
For Sandy, 
Jean 
and 
Claire, 
Dusty's 
articulation of 
yearning, 
loneliness 
and other/worldliness 
distinguished 
Dusty from 
other 
female 
stars: 
Claire: 
She 
always 
struck 
me as 
very, 
very much alone and 
someone 
who, yes, 
they 
were very 
much 
part of 
that 
sixties 
scene, 
but 
they 
obviously stood above 
it 
and 
beyond it in 
a 
timeless 
kind 
of way. 
4.4 Intimacies 
between 
femininities: 
subaltern pedagogics 
of 
fashioning 
and 
identification 
In 
discussions 
with research participants 
about 
their 
memories of 
Dusty 
and other 
female 
" 
"Dusty 
and 
mysetf 
were 
able 
to 
communicate 
with what 
the 
kids 
were wearing, 
and 
the 
make-tip 
" 
(Davies 
in O'Brien, 1995, 
p. 
92). 
Interviewed 
in 
1995, Dusty 
commented 
"I 
think 
it 
was 
a great 
look... 
it 
took 
so 
much 
effort 
though. 
I 
still 
have 
a 
tendency to 
do 
that, 
sleeping 
in 
my eye 
make-up. 
You 
get 
such a marvellous 
build 
up. 
There 
was so 
much 
on 
that 
it 
would 
take 
an aujul 
lot 
to 
take 
it 
off 
What 
with 
that 
and 
the 
beehive... 
We 
used 
to 
get 
the 
tour 
bus 
at 
eight 
in 
the 
morning. 
We'dprobably 
only, 
got 
to 
bed 
at 
five, 
so 
I'd 
sleep 
boll 
upright 
with 
my 
eye 
make-up 
on 
" (Murray, 
1996, 
p. 
115). 
Dusty's 
methods 
reflected 
her 
pragmatism concerning 
cosmetics 
acts; a 
perception 
of 
slap 
that 
I 
discuss in 
more 
detail 
in 
'Queening 
It'. 
Dusty's 
use 
of make-up 
resembles 
the 
expedient 
drive 
to 
achieve 
excess 
discussed 
by Vernon 
in her 
documentation 
of 
The Tiller 
Girls: 
"Hot 
black 
was still 
used 
by 
the 
old 
timers 
but 
the 
younger 
set now 
spat 
into 
mascara 
blocks. 
A 
few 
adventurous 
ones, 
desperalefor 
a more 
dramatic 
effect, 
tried 
other 
tricks. 
Black 
paper 
was 
cut 
into 
the 
thinnes1fringe 
possible and 
stuck 
on 
their 
eyelids. 
This 
seemed 
the 
ultimate 
in 
glamour 
as 
theyfluttered 
their 
eyes 
across 
the 
stage 
at each 
other. 
Sonia 
Hurst 
Thomson, 
who 
had 
made 
her 
stage 
debut 
in 
Madame 
Beeton's Orange 
Pippins, 
had 
a 
more effective 
idea. 
She 
cut 
apiece 
of 
her 
hair, 
rolled 
it 
round a matchstick, snipped 
it 
along 
the 
middle 
and 
laid 
the 
tiqvftinge 
onto a slim 
strip of 
sticking plaster" 
(Vernon, 
1988, 
p. 
118 
). 
so 
"Dusty 
was 
the 
height 
of 
decadence; 
she was grown-up, 
but 
not 
in 
the 
boring 
way 
most 
adults 
were; 
Dusty's 
adulthood 
suggested 
all sorts 
of 
unknown 
indulgences 
andpleasures, 
including 
the 
intensely 
contradictory, 
confusing 
experience ofsex and 
romance 
" 
(Greig, 
1989, 
p. 
97). 
98 
music 
and 
film 
stars, a 
rich and 
broad 
sum of 
experiences 
accumulated 
that 
led 
me 
to 
refigure and 
revise 
my 
understanding of 
production and 
consumption. 
In 
addition, 
further 
layers 
of 
identifications 
required 
to 
be 
taken 
into 
account, 
intimacies 
between 
fernininities between 
girls and 
women, 
between 
white 
and 
Black, 
and 
the 
role of 
imaginary 
and 
real 
mentors. 
Some 
of 
the 
pleasures 
discussed 
by 
participants 
appeared 
to 
constitute 
what could 
be 
described 
as 
subaltern 
pedagogies, 
the 
paradoxically 
prodigious 
but 
neglected 
teaching 
and 
learning 
of specific social 
skills. 
Repeated 
Pleasures 
The 
proliferation 
and 
improvement 
of musical 
technologies 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
was 
evidenced 
in 
many accounts. 
Women described 
hearing 
music 
from 
this 
period on 
the 
wireless and 
gramophone 
radios, 
record 
players, 
piped 
into 
the 
workplace, 
on reel 
to 
reel, 
on 
TV 
and at 
the 
cinema: 
81 
AP: 
So 
what 
did 
you 
feel 
like 
when 
you 
were 
singing along 
with 
her? How 
would you 
describe 
that 
feeling? 
Jean: 
Felt 
good. 
[Laughter] 
It 
was 
a good 
feeling, 
I 
don't 
know it 
gave you a sort of 
- 
it 
was 
quite a powerful 
feeling 
it 
gave you, 
it 
made 
you 
feel 
good, 
I'd 
put 
it 
on again and 
play 
it 
over 
again. 
Jean 
had 
listened 
to 
some 
of 
these 
recordings 
on a regular 
basis for 
over 
forty 
years. 
The 
specific 
processes 
of 
record 
playing 
in 
her 
mother's 
living 
room 
was 
pleasurably 
recalled: 
"Records, 
yes, aha, she 
had 
a 
lovely 
big 
radiogram, 
it 
was 
walnut 
and 
like, 
the 
lid 
would 
go up andyou'dput 
the 
record on 
andyoujust 
let 
it 
go and 
it 
come 
down 
very, 
very slowly". 
In 
contradiction 
to 
the 
rock 
ideology's 
myth 
making 
she 
differentiated 
the 
democratic 
qualities of recorded 
music 
from 
the 
exclusivity 
of 
live 
performances. 
With 
a recording, 
the 
specific 
pleasures 
could 
be 
enjoyed 
ad 
infiniturn, 
privately 
and collectively: 
Jean: 
Oh 
aha, 
I 
mean 
I 
went 
last 
Year 
to 
see 
Celia Cruz, I 
mean 
I'm 
really 
into 
sort of 
Latin 
81 
Of 
course 
this 
was 
accompanied 
by 
a proliferation 
of extra-musical 
materials 
on music 
and 
film 
stars 
in 
annuals magazines 
and 
ephemera. 
Participants 
like 
Jane 
and 
Jcan 
enjoyed 
the 
apparent 
insights 
they 
contained 
into 
stars 
lives, 
work and 
homes: 
Jean: 
V 
loved, 
I 
loved 
the 
movie annuals 
because 
liust loved 
what 
was 
going on 
and 
about 
the 
stars 
themselves 
and 
the 
music 
albums again 
about 
the 
singersyou 
know, 
they'd 
do 
a 
wee sort 
ofpiece 
on each 
singer 
or 
group 
or whateveryou 
know, 
all 
that 
kind 
ofihing, 
yes 
". 
For 
many, 
the 
repetition 
of 
hearing 
favouritc 
songs 
and artists, 
readily 
accessed 
and controlled, 
triggered 
bittersweet 
pleasures. 
A 
memory 
work 
text 
focussed 
on 
'A"s 
ambivalent 
love/fear 
of 
a 
nursery 
school 
teacher, 
Miss 
Burton. 
Epitomising 
an 
ideal 
of 
femininity 
Miss 
Burton 
fashioned herself 
"like 
a 
ballerina 
with 
Iscraped-back'hairflamboyant 
garments andexcessive 
eyeliner 
whilst 
her 
house, 
in 
theposhpart 
oftown. smelt offacepowder 
andperfume 
". 
The 
memory 
of 
Miss 
Burton 
was always 
triggered 
when 
A 
heard 
Sinatra's 
Strangers 
in 
the 
Night 
as 
this 
song, 
inexplicably, 
was 
piped 
around 
the 
nursery 
daily. 
99 
American 
-I 
mean 
I 
just love it, 
I 
love 
-but 
quite 
honestly 
I 
just 
prefer 
just 
listening 
to 
-I 
mean 
it 
was 
good, 
it 
was a good 
night, 
but 
I 
quite 
like 
listeningjust 
to 
a cd and 
the 
music 
in 
my own 
home, 
with myself or with my 
friends 
really and sharing 
it. 
For Sandy, 
repeated 
playings of recordings 
by 
Dusty, 
in 
a 
range of 
locations from 
at 
least 
1964, 
the 
launch 
of 
the 
single 
Ijust 
don't know 
what 
to 
do 
with mysetf- 
during 
a 
period of 
personal 
transition, 
provide, 
in 
retrospect, 
a 
trigger 
for 
remembering 
ineffable 
yearnings: 
Sandy: 
Ijust don't 
now what 
to 
do 
with 
mysetf[expressing recognition], 
and 
I 
just 
remember 
going 
- 
and my 
Grandma 
had just, 
she 
was quite 
bedridden 
really 
but 
she 
used 
to 
have 
these 
sort 
of 
fleeting 
moments 
and 
she used 
to 
get out 
of 
her bed 
and 
she 
used 
to 
- 
she said 
"Right, 
I'm 
takingyou 
to 
Aunty 
Ethel's 
in 
Blackside 
" 
and she 
took 
me 
to 
Aunty 
Ethel's 
and 
I 
remember 
sort 
of wanting at 
this 
stage 
to 
play 
that 
record all 
the 
time 
and 
I didn't 
take 
it 
with me and we 
went 
to 
Aunty Ethel's 
and 
I 
was away 
the 
weekend 
and 
Aunty Ethel 
was 
just 
so 
kind 
to 
us 
all 
weekend and 
I 
came 
back 
and we'd 
had 
a 
lovely 
time 
and 
it 
was 
away 
from 
a 
lot 
of 
horrible 
stuff 
that 
was 
going 
on 
at 
home 
actually 
between 
my 
Mum 
and 
Dad 
and 
when 
I 
came 
back 
- 
oh 
my 
cousin, 
this 
young 
man 
David 
and 
he 
sort of said, 
"Oh 
well, 
I've 
got 
some 
Dusty 
Springfield 
songs. 
", 
and 
things 
and 
he 
played 
them 
for 
me and 
it 
was 
just like 
-I 
didn't 
-I 
sort of 
felt, 
I 
felt 
very 
close 
to 
him 
but 
I 
didn't feel 
like 
I 
fancied 
him 
or anything 
like 
that, 
but 
when 
I 
got 
home 
from 
this 
wonderful 
weekend 
I'd 
had 
I 
just 
cried 
and 
I 
kept 
playing 
this 
Dusty Springfield 
and 
it 
was 
just like, it 
was 
just 
like 
this 
sort of 
first 
feeling 
of 
sort of 
being 
in love 
and 
like, 
something 
you 
couldn't 
have, 
something 
you couldn't 
have, 
something 
you 
wanted 
so much, 
but 
you 
just 
couldn't 
have 
it, 
but it 
was 
just 
all 
like 
connected 
to 
Dusty 
and 
this 
record. 
AP: 
So, 
although 
that's 
sort of, 
like, 
talking 
about sad emotions, 
you're 
saying you wanted 
to 
play 
it ? 
Sandy: 
Yeah, 
again, 
you 
know 
- 
AP: 
Yeah. 
Sandy: 
-this 
song, 
again and 
again. 
Claire 
described 
her 
Stage Two 
of 
Dusty love, 
as 
a 
further 
moment 
of 
epiphany; 
coming 
across 
7he 
Silver 
Collection 
at a petrol station, 
and consequently 
enjoying 
an 
identification 
with 
Dusty 
sustained 
and 
developed 
through 
repeated 
consumption: 
" 
'2 
Indeed, 
despite 
Claire's 
insistence 
on avoiding 
sentimentality, 
her 
descriptions 
of 
Dusty 
and 
her 
work 
and 
her 
own 
fan-ship 
- 
100 
Claire: 
I 
thought 
from 
then 
on 
- 
1,1 
don't know, 
something really, 
really struck a chord 
in 
me 
and 
I 
started 
buying 
every 
album 
I 
could 
and 
from 
that 
date, 
I 
just 
really 
drank 
on 
everything 
I 
possibly 
could and 
it 
was 
really 
- 
because 
there 
wasn't 
much 
around 
and 
I 
can only say 
that 
it 
just 
really 
struck a chord 
with me 
and 
it 
wasn't 
until 
I 
met other 
fans, key fans 
that 
- 
they 
said 
exactly 
the 
same 
thing, 
I 
listened, 
I 
don't 
so 
much now, 
but 
I 
would 
listen for hours 
[indecipherable] 
just 
listen 
to 
her 
the 
whole 
time. 
AP: 
And 
where are 
you 
when 
you 
are 
- 
are 
you 
in 
different 
places 
with 
different 
songs or 
does 
it 
evoke 
one particular 
-? 
Claire: 
No. 
AP: 
-feeling? 
You don't 
have 
an 
iconic 
memory 
in 
your 
mind of 
her, it's 
a 
backdrop 
to 
something? 
Claire: 
You 
mean 
the 
songs? 
AP: Yes. 
Claire: The 
different 
songs? 
The 
different 
songs 
evoke very 
different 
moods. 
Dusty 
also 
figured 
as a 
medium 
for 
powerfully 
felt 
emotions. 
For Jean, 
Dusty 
and 
Teresa 
have 
become 
fused 
in 
memories of 
first 
(mis)hearinglexperiencing 
lesbian identification, 
triggered 
again at 
each 
subsequent 
playing 
of 
Dusty's 
music: 
Jean: The 
way 
she 
made 
that 
remark 
[about 
Dusty being 
'one 
of 
them'] 
it 
- 
to 
me 
it 
wasn't, 
it 
wasn't 
very 
nice, 
it 
wasn't 
in 
a 
funny 
way 
that, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
more 
derogatory 
of 
Dusty 
and 
I 
felt for Teresa, 
and 
I 
was very close 
to 
Teresa, 
I 
think, 
you 
know, 
sexually, 
I 
think, 
you 
know, 
she was 
sort 
of questioning 
her 
sexuality. 
[ 
... 
] 
Because 
she used 
to 
speak 
about 
Dusty 
a 
lot 
and 
that's 
how 
I 
started 
to, that 
always 
then 
stuck 
in 
my 
mind, 
anytime 
now 
I 
talk 
about 
Dusty, 
all 
that 
comes 
into 
play 
as well, 
you 
know, 
but 
that 
conversation, 
that 
day, 
you 
know 
- 
and 
I 
thought, 
well, 
she 
feels 
really 
strongly 
about 
Dusty 
you 
know, 
Teresa 
did, 
and 
it 
was 
like, for 
Dusty 
whereas 
my aunt 
was sort of, 
kind 
of 
bordering, 
kind 
of 
thing, 
but 
saying 
things 
that 
weren't 
very 
nice, you 
know 
[ 
... 
]I 
mean, 
I 
think 
Teresa 
was really, 
really 
liked Dusty 
and really 
for her, 
and 
I 
think 
my aunt 
liked her, but 
there 
was 
that 
underlying 
stuff, 
you 
know, being 
a 
lot 
"gobbling 
up 
" 
material 
on 
Dusty 
"drinking 
on everything 
lpossibly 
could". 
songs 
"hitting 
me 
like 
an 
express 
train 
as 
did 
hearing 
soul music 
more 
generally, 
Dusty 
producing 
a 
"tremendous 
welling 
ofemotions 
"a "tremendous 
outpouring 
etc. 
suggests 
both 
passionate 
levels 
of 
identification 
and 
kinaesthetically 
expressed 
emotions. 
101 
older and was 
putting 
in her 
tuppence 
worth, you 
know, 
and 
that's 
what she 
was saying, 
you 
know, 
whereas 
Teresa, 
you 
know 
- 
and 
every 
time 
I 
hear 
Dusty I 
think 
about 
Teresa 
and 
how 
my 
aunt stayed 
in 
Blantyre, 
you 
know, 
outside 
Glasgow, 
and 
I 
used 
to 
go 
and 
visit 
her 
and 
Teresa 
would come 
round 
and 
we 
would 
go 
into 
the town 
and 
that 
was a 
big 
thing 
for 
me and so 
we'd always 
listen 
to 
Dusty 
and 
I 
got 
excited 
because 
Teresa 
liked 
Dusty 
as 
well, so 
I 
put 
those 
two things 
- 
they 
came 
together 
for 
me, 
Teresa 
and 
Dusty. 
The 
replication 
of 
a 
pleasurable 
identiflcation, 
experienced 
in 
childhood, 
took 
place 
for 
some 
participants 
through 
a variety 
of mimicking 
practices 
that 
also 
extended 
into 
pleasurable 
identifications 
with 
girls and women, 
such 
as 
in 
Sandy's 
outdoor 
performances 
with 
friends 
and props 
to the 
soundtrack 
of 
Dusty. 
83 
Inspired 
by 
Dusty-style 
bouffanting, 
Pauline 
and 
Sandy 
experimented 
with and 
took 
pleasure 
in 
creating other 
hairstylings 
that 
anthropomorphised 
music stars: 
Sandy: Oh it 
was 
just 
- 
when 
I 
think 
of 
it 
now, 
I'd 
even 
forgotten 
about 
that, 
but 
Pauline 
she was 
the 
other 
- 
the 
hairdresser, 
she 
had 
very 
vivid 
red 
hair 
and 
even so she 
still 
had 
this 
one piece 
of 
bleached hair 
that 
she 
used 
to 
curl, she 
had 
all 
these 
heated 
rollers 
and 
all 
these 
bouncy 
curls 
but 
still 
this 
- 
and 
she 
called 
hers 
a 
Clodagh 
Rogers 
[ 
... 
] 
She had it 
all 
curly 
and 
bouncy 
and 
it 
was 
red so 
that's 
what 
she 
called 
hers 
and 
we 
did 
-actually 
now 
I 
think 
about 
it, 
we 
did 
say, 
oh a 
'Dusty', 
oh a 
'Clodagh', 
oh a 
'Cilia'. 
94 
, 
The 
pleasures appear 
to 
have 
been increased 
for 
girl 
fans 
in 
seeing 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
and 
glamour 
by 
Kathy Kirby, 
Dusty 
and 
the 
like 
literally 
multiplied 
in 
the 
proliferation 
of 
Black 
girl and 
boy 
groups, 
for 
example 
in 
synchronised 
choreography 
and matching 
excessive 
costuming, pleasures 
1`3 
In 
this 
extract, 
negotiating 
a new 
friendship 
was 
facilitated 
through 
a 
dialogue 
of 
pleasurable 
mimicking. 
Sandy: 
Well I 
remember 
that 
the 
first 
time 
I did 
that 
and 
it 
was 
on 
the 
stairs 
and 
the 
hall 
and 
this 
girl, 
this 
new girl 
had 
come 
into 
our 
street and 
she was my age 
but 
she 
was 
going 
off with 
- 
my sister 
and 
I 
were close, 
there 
was 
only 
a 
few 
months 
between 
us 
and 
we 
had been 
quite 
isolated 
in 
many ways and 
this 
new girl 
came 
into 
the 
street 
and 
her 
Mum 
was 
a singer, was a club singer, 
and 
she was 
called 
Terry 
Lee 
and she 
had 
big hair but 
it 
was sort 
of 
short, 
completely 
platinum 
blonde 
hair 
you 
know. So 
she 
sort 
of 
took 
her 
Mum 
off and 
she sort 
of said 
Yll 
show you 
my 
Mum's 
routine 
" 
and 
she 
knew 
all 
the 
language 
and 
the 
singing, and 
shcsaid 
"I'll 
show 
you 
me 
Mum's 
routine" 
And 
it 
was 
just 
like 
an 
instant 
thing 
well 
"I'm 
going 
to 
be 
Kathy Kirby" 
So Iran 
upstairs 
and 
I 
got 
these 
hairgrips, 
rolled a 
bit 
of 
hair 
around 
and 
stuck 
these 
hairgrips 
through, 
and 
I 
remember 
this 
young girl 
did 
this 
thing 
and 
I 
went 
to 
my 
Mum 
and 
I 
said 
"Can I haveyour 
lipstick? 
" 
and 
Ijust 
knew instantly 
what 
to 
do 
with 
it. 
I 
put 
the 
lipstick 
on and 
I 
went 
and 
got 
the 
Vaseline, 
nobody 
told 
me, 
but 
I 
got 
the 
Vaselinc, 
put 
it 
on 
top 
on 
the 
lipstick 
and 
it 
wasjust, 
and 
they 
were really 
like 
- 
my sister 
and 
Anita 
were 
laughing 
at 
me, 
but I 
think there 
were 
like, 
"Oh, 
how didshe do 
that? 
" 
you 
know, 
because 
I 
wasn't 
that 
kind 
of 
a girl, you 
know, 
I didn't 
-I 
think 
I 
was 
quite 
late 
at realising 
about 
fashion 
and 
things, 
I 
didn't 
cotton 
on 
to 
it 
very 
well, 
but it 
wasjust 
like, 
certainly 
like 
Kathy Kirby, 
I 
mean 
this 
big 
love 
thing, 
and 
then 
later 
on 
I 
sort 
of 
went on 
to 
do 
this 
little black 
mole, and 
Kathy 
Kirby has 
this 
little 
black 
mole 
there, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
like, 
the 
lip, 
and 
that 
little 
black 
mole. 
" 
Valentine 
and 
Wickham 
note 
that 
"One 
ofher 
[Dusty's1favourite 
tricks 
was 
to 
name 
her 
wigs 
Cilia, 
Lulu 
and 
Sandie 
after 
the 
other 
singers 
on 
the 
show 
" [RSG. 
? 
(Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
45). 
In 
the 
final 
years 
of 
Dusty's 
life, her hairdresser 
Debbie 
Danncll 
became 
a close 
friend. 
When Dusty's hair 
was 
thinning 
due 
to the 
effects 
of 
chemotherapy 
she used wigs she 
named, 
for 
example, 
Mavis 
and 
Doris 
and 
Maeve: 
"Just 
as she 
had 
named 
her 
wigs at 
Ready 
Steady 
Go! 
nearly 
thirtyyvars 
later 
she was 
still 
imbuing 
them 
with a 
lifeforce 
oftheir 
own. 
Maeve. 
/or 
instance, 
was 
a 
bad 
lot. 
the 
one who might 
get 
into 
a 
hotel 
minibar 
before 
Debbie had 
cleared 
it 
" 
(Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
274). 
102 
that 
could 
be 
enjoyed 
in 
the 
vogue 
for 
twin 
and copy-cat 
hair, 
make-up and clothes, 
fashionings 
worn 
by 
friends, 
sisters 
and other 
close 
female 
relatives, 
often regardless of age 
difference: 
Sandy: 
Oh I 
remember, 
again, 
I 
remember 
the 
images 
of 
the 
Ronettes 
because 
they 
were 
the 
Dusty-type 
hairstyles, 
you 
know, 
the 
sort of 
very 
fashioned 
hairstyles 
you 
know, 
they 
were, 
I 
mean 
that 
- 
that's 
what 
we 
called 
it in 
hairdressing 
actually, 
you 
know, 
that 
was 
the 
term 
that 
was 
sort of 
describing 
-1 
mean, 
but 
they 
wore 
the 
same 
clothes 
and everything, 
it 
was 
that time 
wasn't 
it, 
which 
was 
like, 
there 
was 
like 
- 
in 
that there 
was a 
hint 
of 
for 
us 
to 
copy, 
they 
were 
copying 
each other 
and copying 
other 
girl singers 
and 
everything. 
It 
was 
like, 
oh well 
something, 
some 
kind 
of a 
message 
in 
there 
to 
copy you 
know 
and everything, and yeah 
it 
was, 
oh, 
it 
was really 
exciting 
when 
I 
think 
of 
the 
Ronettes, 
and 
I 
loved 
some of 
their 
music 
but 
the 
whole package you 
know, 
the 
whole 
image. 
Mentors 
to 
girls, 
like 
Sandy's 
aunt, 
introduced 
new 
forms 
of 
pleasure 
in fashioning 
that 
were 
to 
become 
treasured 
memories. 
Fashioning 
linked 
to: 
sensuality 
and 
transgression, the 
glamour of stars, 
countering 
the 
proscriptions 
couched 
against 
excess 
(again here 
on 
health 
grounds) 
and 
the 
ridiculing 
of 
excess, pubescence and 
desirable 
womanhood: 
Sandy: Oh 
yeah, 
absolutely 
I 
mean, 
I 
just 
thought 
she was absolutely amazing 
because 
she was 
our 
link 
to that 
- 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
like, 
she 
brought 
that 
into 
our 
lives 
you 
know, 
my 
Dad 
said, 
"What 
the 
bloody 
hell 
haveyou 
brought 
us 
there, 
somepyjamas? 
" 
you 
know, because 
we'd got 
these 
things, 
"What 
are 
they 
bloody 
pyjamas? 
- 
you 
know, 
and, 
"They 
aren't 
wearing 
those they 
will 
slip and slide 
in 
those 
and 
they'll 
break 
their 
ankles", and all 
that, 
you 
know, but 
my 
Aunty 
gave us 
permission 
and, you 
know, 
and 
it 
was 
just 
like, 
We 
can 
be 
part 
of 
that, 
you 
know, 
and 
it 
was 
gorgeous you 
know, it 
was 
lovely, 
yeah. 
" 
Soul 
sisters: 
cross-ethnic 
Identifications 
Many 
participants 
remembered 
Dusty 
as a 
driving force 
of 
the 
soul 
explosion 
in 
Britain 
in 
the 
early 
1960s. 
For 
some, 
like 
Jean 
and 
Sandy, 
Dusty 
inhabited 
the 
aural 
landscape 
of 
Black American 
music 
that 
was 
beginning 
to 
dominate 
at 
proto-discos 
or specific 
'wee 
worlds': 
" 
"Sandy's 
fascination 
fused 
femininity 
and 
(homocrotic) 
sexuality" 
Oh 
yeah, 
I 
mean, 
I 
remember 
staring 
at 
her 
and watching 
herput her 
make-up 
on 
[ 
... 
] 
Yeah, 
and she 
let 
us 
do 
that, 
you 
know, 
and 
it 
wasn't, again 
it 
wasn't 
a verbalised 
thing, 
but 
she 
would 
let 
us go 
into 
her bedroom, 
she 
still 
lived 
at 
home, 
I 
mean, 
she 
was 
ten 
years 
older 
than us 
and 
she still 
lived 
at 
home 
and, 
and 
then 
she 
did 
get 
married 
and we went 
to 
her house 
but 
she, 
she 
used 
to 
let 
us go 
into 
her 
bedroom 
to 
watch 
herput her 
make- 
up on and 
sometimes 
she'd 
like, 
try 
it 
on us and 
that 
kind 
ofthing, 
but 
she 
also 
- 
we used 
to 
eat 
in 
her 
bedroom, 
we used 
to 
eat 
things 
hke 
cream 
and 
things, 
she used 
to take, 
you 
know 
- 
itsjust 
like 
a 
sensua4 
I 
mean, 
Im 
saying 
that 
because 
it 
was 
like 
a 
really sensual 
experience, 
like 
putting 
the 
make-up on ritual 
and 
watching 
her 
and 
us 
trying a 
bit 
and 
eating 
cream, 
I 
remember 
cream out ofa 
tin, 
I 
mean 
tinned 
cream, 
itsJust 
cra2y, 
but 
it 
was 
very, very 
sensual 
". 
" 
On 
the 
cusp 
of 
disco 
hegemony 
A 
had 
enjoyed 
attending 
a 
Saturday 
afternoon 
dance 
at 
Top 
Rank, 
(where 
the 
sound was 
Northern 
Soul) 
going 
on a 
regular 
basis from 
around aged 
II 
with 
her 
glamorous 
older 
cousin, 
Jennifer. 
A 
traced 
her 
awareness 
103 
Jean: I 
don't know, 
again 
it 
was 
that 
thing 
you 
know, 
when 
I 
heard 
Motown 
at 
the time 
I 
had 
to 
have 
it, 
I 
had 
to 
have, 
I 
had 
an 
old 
record 
player and 
I 
mean 
I'd 
go 
up 
to 
my 
room, 
I'd 
buy 
the 
singles, 
I'd 
buy 
albums 
and 
listen 
to 
Motown, listen 
to 
Dusty, 
you 
know. 
Sandy: 
- 
like 
we went 
to 
this 
place called 
Reggies 
which 
was 
- 
it 
was 
dance 
class 
place, 
it 
was 
a 
couple who 
taught 
ballroom 
I 
think, 
and 
dancing, 
but 
you 
know 
as a sign 
of 
the times, 
it 
wasn't 
called a 
disco, 
I 
don't 
know 
what 
it 
was 
called 
but it 
was where 
you went 
to 
dance 
and 
it 
was 
young people, 
there 
was 
a young 
people's 
night and 
we used 
to 
do 
this 
sort 
of square 
dancing, 
you 
know, 
this 
sort 
of 
'round 
the 
handbags' 
type 
dancing 
and 
that 
was, and, 
but it 
was 
like, 
I 
mean, 
I 
remember 
a 
real soul 
influence 
by 
this 
time 
because 
I 
remember 
-I 
think 
my clothes 
were 
much more 
old-fashioned 
but 
my sister 
at 
this 
stage, 
she 
had 
a checked shirt 
and 
it 
was 
like 
this 
skinhead 
you 
know 
coming 
time, 
so 
I 
mean, 
I 
don't 
know 
what age we 
could 
have been 
then, 
but 
I 
do 
remember 
it 
was 
a 
lot 
about soul 
music 
but 
there 
was certainly 
Dusty 
in 
there 
and 
it fitted 
you 
know 
in 
a 
very 
soully 
kind 
of 
way 
for 
sure, 
and 
black 
soul 
music 
-, 
and you 
know 
and certainly 
hearing 
a 
lot 
of 
Dusty 
at 
that 
time 
as well 
[ 
... 
]I 
mean 
I 
loved it 
and 
it 
was 
at 
that 
sort of 
time 
when 
you 
were 
-I 
mean, 
I 
remember 
it 
was 
the 
in 
thing to 
love, 
anyway, 
certainly 
at 
school, you 
know, 
in 
circles 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
Tarnla 
Motown 
girls coming 
to 
school 
with 
Tamla Motown 
and 
stuff. 
Many 
participants 
been, 
introduced 
to 
R&B, 
blues 
and, or 
soul 
by 
their 
parents 
and 
grandparents, as 
Dusty 
was 
herself: 
Jean: 
I 
like 
The 
Beatles, 
I 
didn't 
go overboard 
with 
it 
you 
know, but it's 
mostly 
like, 
Ella 
Fitzgerald, 
Dinah 
Washington, 
the 
older stuff, 
because 
my 
mother sang 
all 
these 
songs 
so 
she 
- 
AP: 
So 
your 
mum 
liked 
black 
Jean: Oh 
aye, 
she 
- 
yes, 
yes, aye, 
so 
I 
was 
influenced 
a 
lot 
by 
listening 
to 
it 
you 
know, 
on 
the 
radio 
and 
her 
singing 
all 
these 
songs and 
you 
knoW. 
97 
and 
longing for 
specific 
fashions 
from 
this 
period. 
" 
Michelle, 
bom in 197 
1, 
could 
not 
recall 
having 
seen 
Dusty 
and 
was apparently 
unaware of 
her 
iconic 
status, 
however, linked 
her 
to 
African American 
vocalists 
through 
her 
evocation of 
blues-type 
yearning 
AP: 
What 
do 
you 
like 
about 
her? 
When did 
you start 
liking 
Dusty? 
Michelle: 
About 
five 
years 
ago 
when my gran 
had 
some 
of 
her 
music. 
[ 
... 
]I 
didn't 
know 
anything 
about 
her 
politics. 
I don't 
know 
anything about 
her 
at 
all, 
I just liked 
her 
music. 
AP: 
What 
do 
you 
think 
about 
her 
voice? 
What did 
you 
think 
when 
you 
heard her 
voice? 
Michelle: 
Well, 
it 
was, 
at 
the 
time 
when 
I 
was 
kind 
of 
listening 
to 
like, 
Ella 
Fitzgerald 
and 
what's 
her 
name 
- 
the 
other woman? 
AP: 
Billie 
Holiday? 
Michelle: 
Billie 
Holiday 
and 
all 
that 
kind 
of 
stuff 
and 
I 
was 
listening 
to that 
AP: 
What 
did her 
voice 
make 
you 
feel 
like, 
can you 
remember? 
Michelle: 
Oh 
no. 
[Laughter] 
AP: What? 
Michelle: 
I don't 
know 
whether 
it 
was 
because I 
was 
listening 
to 
her 
as well 
as 
listening 
to 
the other 
ones 
but 
everythingjust 
seemed 
like, 
life 
is 
so 
tough 
kind 
of 
- 
104 
Sk 
experienoe 
1 
le 
7e- 
kI 
ds" 
talk 
l(Ud 
jaq 
pug 
. 
0, 
lj3. 
jgj4jojq 
13. Diana 
Ross 
in Top 
PopScene 
annual, 
1974, 
page 
42 
and 
43. 
For 
some 
participants 
born 
in 
the 
1940s, 
iconic 
memories 
of some 
Black 
performers 
fused 
the 
racist 
context 
for 
such representations 
with an exciting 
undercurrent 
of 
unnameable 
transgression 
and 
dissident 
femininity, 
troubling 
the 
context of 
family 
viewing: 
Elizabeth: 
Well, 
yes 
we're 
going 
back 
to 
the 
50s 
now when 
I 
was 
a 
teenager 
and 
I 
was 
still at 
home 
now we must 
have 
been in 
neighbours' 
houses 
watching 
TV because I'm 
not quite sure 
when 
mum and 
dad 
got 
a 
TV 
but it 
doesn't 
matter 
because 
I do 
vividly remember 
watching 
TV 
shows 
with 
Mum 
and 
Dad 
when 
Eartha 
Kitt 
was a 
huge, huge 
star 
in 
the 
UK 
and 
she was 
- 
well 
I 
know 
she 
shocked 
my 
Mum 
and 
Dad 
and 
I 
think 
we 
all 
thought 
of 
her 
as completely 
outrageous 
because 
she 
was so overtly 
sexy, 
now 
I 
don't 
think 
we, we 
didn't 
use 
the term 
sexy, 
sexy wasn't 
a word 
that 
was 
used 
then 
and 
I 
don't 
think 
it 
was 
, 
it 
was 
a 
word 
that 
came much 
later 
on and 
I 
don't 
quite 
remember 
the 
word 
that 
was used 
to 
describe her, 
but 
I 
know 
she 
had 
- 
yes, she 
had 
a 
tremendous 
impact 
and 
I 
think 
it did 
encourage 
the 
idea, 
you 
know, 
that 
black 
women 
were 
different 
from 
us 
and 
the 
way 
that 
Eartha Kitt 
performed, you 
know, it 
was 
like 
- 
like 
a- 
you 
thought 
of a 
tigress 
or 
something 
like 
that, 
I 
mean, 
obviously 
an 
image 
which 
she 
encouraged. 
By 
the 
1960s, Elizabeth, 
had 
noted 
the 
fashioning 
of 
both 
Black 
British 
performers and 
neighbours 
" 
and 
Sandy 
remembered 
herself 
and 
her friends 
as 
being 
unequivocal 
in 
their 
admiration 
for 
Motown 
star 
Diana Ross, linked 
again 
here 
with 
Dusty: 
AP: 
So 
can 
I 
ask 
you 
about 
- 
have 
there 
ever 
been 
any 
Black 
stars 
that 
you 
feel 
like 
you 
sort of 
thought 
were amazing 
or glamorous 
or attractive 
or, you 
know, 
have 
there 
ever 
been 
- 
Sandy: 
Oh, 
Diana 
Ross 
for 
sure 
-[ 
... 
] 
Diana 
Ross, 
that, 
I 
mean way 
back 
to then 
I 
remember 
being 
so 
into 
Diana 
Ross 
you 
know, 
I 
was 
like, 
introduced 
to 
Tamla 
Motown 
by 
a classmate 
who'd 
got 
money 
and could 
buy 
records and 
showed 
me pictures and 
everything, 
but 
I 
mean 
right 
back 
to the 
first 
stuff 
that 
Diana 
Ross 
did 
that 
was 
popularised 
and 
everything, she was 
I 
couldn't 
say as much 
as an 
icon 
really as 
Dusty but 
she 
certainly, 
I 
mean, 
by 
me and 
by 
friends 
appreciated 
as a 
really 
beautiful 
woman 
Oh 
yeah, 
a 
beautiful 
woman 
and 
beautiful 
music 
and everything. 
" 
a' 
Elizabeth: 
And 
the 
other 
woman, 
the 
other woman 
though 
that 
influenced 
me a 
lot 
was 
Shirley 
Bassey, 
because Shirley Bassey 
was 
a 
bit like 
our 
Jamaican 
neighbours 
in 
terms 
of 
you 
know 
she 
- 
her hair 
was 
like 
bouffant 
and 
very 
smooth and 
everything 
but 
she 
was obviously 
a 
Black 
woman. 
'9 
Diana 
Ross herself 
gravitated 
into 
the 
Motown 
family 
after 
studying 
cosmetology 
'to 
do 
hair' 
(Hirshey, 
2001, 
p. 
183). 
105 
Intimate 
Identifications 
with 
Dusty 
The 
advent 
of 
a white 
British 
star who 
had 
crossed and 
could 
articulate 
this 
otherworldly, raw 
and expressive 
musical 
form 
provided opportunities 
for fans 
to 
engage 
in identifications 
and self- 
narrativisation 
through 
Dusty's 
powerfully 
expressed 
soul performances: 
Claire: 
I 
was 
already 
listening 
to 
soul 
music, 
I 
mean 
I 
listened 
to 
a 
lot 
of 
black 
music, 
it 
really, 
really 
hit 
me 
like 
an 
express 
train, 
it 
really 
did 
and 
I 
did 
even 
talk to 
other 
fans 
who 
have 
said 
the 
same 
thing, 
because it's 
something 
to 
do 
with 
making an emotional connection 
with 
a song 
and 
a 
lot 
of 
it 
would 
just 
be 
that 
I 
loved her 
voice and she 
did it 
so well, 
but 
there 
were certain 
songs 
which 
I 
could 
name, which you 
absolutely 
double 
up and 
you say, 
'Oh 
God I 
did 
that. 
' 
and 
I 
think that 
men would 
probably say 
that 
as well, 
but it 
was something 
to 
do 
with a- 
I'm 
trying 
to think 
what 
I've 
written 
about 
it 
- 
ruthlessly, ruthlessly 
expressed 
her 
own 
- 
exposed 
her 
own 
weakness. 
The 
levels 
of 
identification 
enjoyed 
by 
Claire 
cast 
Dusty 
in 
the 
role of guardian, 
mentor 
and 
the 
musical 
interpreter 
of strong, 
often 
distressing 
emotions. 
These 
accounts 
seem 
all 
the 
more profound 
since 
Claire 
was 
at 
pains 
to 
distance herself 
from 
the 
'soppy': 
Claire: 
But 
the 
-I 
don't 
so much 
have 
a 
picture 
of 
her 
as a sense, and 
I 
think 
it's 
a very powerful 
extraordinary 
sense, of 
somebody 
not 
singing 
to 
you, 
but 
a very 
personal, 
a 
very personal 
communication 
and 
I've 
written about 
that 
and 
really 
felt 
that, 
both 
that 
she 
was 
singing 
almost 
within 
the 
room, 
but 
also 
that 
she 
was 
singing 
about 
things 
you 
know, 
that 
I 
thought 
very 
much, 
'Oh 
my 
god 
that 
happened 
to 
me. 
I 
did 
that. 
I 
did 
that. 
' 
AP: 
[ 
... 
] 
could 
you give me an example of a 
song 
that 
did 
that 
for 
you 
and 
describe 
a 
little 
bit 
about 
these 
associations and memories 
then? 
Claire: 
Aha. 
Well 
there 
were 
several. 
I 
suppose 
one 
would 
be 
Lose 
again 
which 
was 
a 
live 
performance 
in 
'79, 
you might 
have 
seen 
it, 
at 
the 
Royal 
Albert Hall 
and 
I've 
seen 
it 
and 
I've 
seen 
her 
doing 
it. 
AP: 
Have 
you? 
Claire: 
I've 
heard 
and seen 
the 
video 
where 
she 
sits 
down 
and 
does 
it, 
but 
I 
remember 
being 
- 
having 
a 
sense 
of 
being 
on a railway 
station and 
I 
can't 
remember 
the 
exact 
words, 
but 
- 
and 
being 
unable 
to 
release yourself 
from 
that 
and 
I have been 
in 
the 
past 
been 
dependent, 
been 
in 
very 
dependent 
relationships 
that 
I've 
hated 
myself 
for, 
but I- 
there 
were 
a 
couple 
of 
lines 
in it, 
106 
a 
few 
lines 
that 
I 
very 
much 
identified 
with 
personally, 
like, 
there 
was a 
he in 
Breakfast 
in 
Bed 
which, 
it just 
like hit 
me 
like 
a 
train 
and 
I 
knew 
that 
I'd 
been 
there 
similarly 
with 
this, 
but 
there 
were 
also some 
very, 
I 
suppose, 
some 
quite 
moving 
lines in it, 
it 
sounds 
very soppy, 
but 
when 
I 
sent a wreath 
I 
put 
the 
lines 
on 
it 
which 
was, 
'When 
the 
heart 
calls 
the 
mind obeys, 
oh, 
it 
knows 
better 
than 
me. 
'and I 
thought 
that, 
and 
the 
way she sang 
it just 
really summed 
up what a 
lot 
of 
us 
had found 
in 
our 
lives. 
90 
Claire 
became involved 
in 
the 
fan 
network 
in 
the 
early 
1990s 
through the 
Dusty Bulletin: 
Claire: 
[ 
... 
] 
I've 
toned 
that 
down 
a 
bit, 
I 
no 
longer 
write 
to 
lots 
of 
people, 
I 
just 
have 
a 
few, few 
people 
that 
I 
would 
ring 
up, 
like 
when 
I 
read 
the 
book [Dancing 
with 
Demons, 
the 
biography 
published 
just 
before 
the 
interview 
that 
had 
stirred 
up 
controversy 
amongst 
fans] 
you 
know, 
there's 
always somebody 
that 
you 
can 
-I 
think 
I 
have felt 
very 
much at points 
during 
the 
nineties 
and until 
she 
died 
that 
she 
was 
neglected 
and 
that's 
a 
feeling 
that 
a 
lot 
of 
fans have, 
that 
she 
hasn't been fully 
appreciated 
and only 
when 
she 
died 
was 
that 
really changed, so 
there's 
a 
certain sense 
of 
wanting 
to 
communicate 
with 
other 
people 
who 
felt 
the 
same, 
because it 
wasn't 
a general, you 
know, 
because 
in 
the 
sixties 
everyone 
would 
have 
known, 
in 
the 
90s 
it 
was, 
except 
at points, 
for 
example 
in 
the 
film 
what's 
it 
called 
again? 
AP: Pulp 
Fiction 
[Son 
ofa 
Preacher 
Man is 
featured 
in 
the 
soundtrack] 
Claire: 
Pulp 
Fiction, 
that 
film 
- 
people, 
young 
people 
were, 
'Oh Goodness'. 
But 
apart 
from 
that 
it 
would 
be 
a question 
of 
keeping 
in 
touch 
with 
people, you couldn't 
assume 
that 
other people 
would 
automatically appreciate 
her. 
91 
" 
Claire described 
the 
activities of 
the 
Dusty fan 
network as 
including: 
providing mutual 
emotional 
support when 
Dusty's 
work 
or 
life had been 
maligned, 
contributing 
to 
and consuming 
the 
Dusty 
Bulletin 
and various 
Dusty 
websites, 
participating as guests 
or 
hosts 
at 
Dusty 
therned 
events, communing 
for 
gatherings 
such 
as at 
Dusty's 
grave on 
anniversaries 
of 
her birth 
and 
death 
and 
forming 
a 
bulwark 
against 
the, to 
Claire 
unimaginable, 
set of 
people 
who 
do 
not 
appreciate 
her 
work: 
Claire: 
if 
you ask 
a 
Dusty 
fan 
why she's 
not more 
popular, 
I 
couldn't 
tell 
you 
because 
we all 
feel 
that 
she's 
changed our 
lives 
and 
I 
can't 
imagine 
that 
anyone 
else 
wouldn't 
feel 
that 
and 
I have friends 
that 
listen 
to 
her 
and 
don't 
feel 
that 
- 
don't 
ask me 
because I 
don't 
understand 
that. 
AP: 
And 
they 
articulate 
it 
in 
what 
way? 
What do 
you 
feel 
when 
you say 
"Well, 
I 
really 
like her 
music 
"? 
Claire: 
Well, I 
think 
they 
haven't listened 
to 
her if 
you'd 
listened 
to 
her 
and 
they 
don't 
get 
it I 
feel 
quite 
depressed but 
the 
fact 
that 
she 
is 
so admired 
by 
so many musicians 
and singers 
I 
must 
be 
right. 
[Laughter] 
" 
Claire 
and 
some 
female 
friends 
in 
the 
fan 
network are 
feminists. 
Communicating 
and 
sharing 
their 
appreciation of 
Dusty has 
included 
speculation 
about 
aspects of 
Dusty's 
more self-destructive 
excesses, 
chronicled 
in 
a 
bald, 
and 
as 
far 
as 
Claire 
and 
her 
co-fans 
are concerned, 
unsatisfactory 
way 
in 
the 
latest 
Dusty 
biography 
(Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000) 
Wickham 
is 
frequently 
a 
media spokesperson 
for 
Dusty. She 
was 
the 
surprise guest 
to 
congratulate 
the 
Dusty 
soundalike, 
Emma 
Wilkinson 
on 
winning 
Stars 
in 
their 
eyes 
in 200 
1.1 
wrote 
a memo after my 
meeting with 
Claire 
that: 
Immediately 
before 
and 
qfter 
our meeting 
she 
discussed her 
theories 
that 
Dusty's 
self-harming and other 
behaviour 
linked 
to 
classic 
evidence 
ofchild 
abuse. 
[This is 
the 
field 
that 
Claire 
principally 
works 
in 
professional 
ly. She has 
written 
a 
book 
about 
incest. ] 
She 
pointed 
to 
thefact 
that 
Dusty 
3 
brother 
was 
'totally 
weird, 
reclusive. 
'asfurther 
evidencefor 
this. 
Dusty had 
apparently 
never 
discussed 
these 
things 
and we 
agreed 
that 
this 
was a 
tragically 
underlying 
theme 
in 
the 
new 
biography 
'Dancing 
with 
Demons'released 
a 
couple 
of 
months 
before 
our 
meeting. 
She 
was 
upset 
that 
no one seemed 
to 
have 
wanted 
to 
help 
Dusty 
in 
this 
respect. 
She 
wasfurious 
that the 
authors 
had 
been 
allowed 
to 
call 
their 
account 
'authorised'-, 
since 
it 
wasposthumouslypublished, 
and, 
bearing 
in 
mind 
Tom 
Springfield's 
track-record 
Claire 
believed 
that 
it 
was unlikely 
to 
have been 
authorised 
by 
him 
Claire 
adopted 
the 
role 
ofspokespersonfor 
outragedfans. 
107 
Since 
Dusty's 
death, 
Claire 
has 
found 
ways 
to 
engage 
in 
public 
and private shows 
of 
appreciation 
of 
her 
work and 
to 
Dusty 
more 
directly. 
Journalism 
was 
Claire: 
- 
one of 
the 
main ways. 
I 
wrote 
an obituary 
and 
so 
on 
and 
I'll 
always 
do 
that. 
I 
mean, 
I 
speak 
on 
the 
radio 
if 
ever 
there's 
an 
opportunity, 
so 
that 
would 
be important 
to 
me, other 
than 
that 
it 
would 
be 
phone 
calls 
or playing 
music 
with 
friends. 
I 
went 
to 
her 
grave 
in 
the 
summer as 
a 
lot 
of people 
did, 
so 
I 
suppose 
that's 
- 
I'm 
not sure 
if 
that's 
quite 
trying to 
say 
something 
to 
her 
I 
think, 
rather 
than to 
anybody 
else. 
Live 
versus reproduced pleasures 
In 
contrast 
to 
the 
stated 
pleasures 
participants 
derived from 
repeated 
listenings 
(to 
pop/soul), 
rock 
ideology has 
privileged 
liveness, 
polarising 
it from 
notions of 
the 
inauthentic 
with 
which pop 
is 
associated. 
The 
latter 
was 
increasingly 
conceptualised 
as manufactured 
in 
the 
time 
span 
of 
Dusty's 
career. 
92 
In 
contrast 
to 
the 
public 
province 
of 
rock, 
the 
consumption 
of 
Dusty, 
throughout 
her 
early 
recording career, 
generally 
took 
place 
in 
the 
domestic 
space, mediated 
through 
her 
eponymous 
TV 
series, 
and 
frequent 
performances 
on 
Saturday 
Club, 
Easy Beat, 
Top Gear, 
Ready 
Steady 
Go! Radio 
I 
and 
Radio 
Caroline 
play, 
though 
magazines, 
music 
journalism 
and 
girls or 
women's 
popular 
literature 
. 
93 
Second-wave 
feminism 
produced 
a 
far-reaching 
and 
influential 
critique 
of 
both 
popular 
television 
and 
mainstream 
women's 
magazines 
characteristically 
linking 
these 
mediums 
to 
notions 
of 
passivity engineered 
by 
patriarchy 
(e. 
g. 
Craik, 
1994, 
pp. 
48-55) 
and 
this 
is likely 
to 
have further 
marginalised 
the 
feminist 
media 
representation 
of 
female 
stars such as 
DUSty. 
94 
" 
However, Frith 
has 
pointed 
out 
that 
liveness, 
of audiences 
hearing 
the 
real voice of stars, 
even 
at 
concerts 
is 
rarely really 
experienced. 
Frith 
describes 
the 
strangeness 
of 
hearing 
A] 
Green's 
real voice 
during 
a 
pcrfomance 
where 
the 
artist moved 
into 
the 
audience 
(Frith, 
1988, 
p. 
11). Many 
of 
Dusty's keenest 
fans, 
such as 
Claire, 
sustained 
their 
interest 
in her 
without ever 
having 
seen 
a 
live 
performance, 
in fact, 
none of 
the 
participants, 
including 
myself, 
ever 
saw 
Dusty live 
and 
Jean 
stated 
her 
preference 
of 
domestic 
consumption 
of music 
to 
the 
live 
event. 
Interestingly, 
Claire 
obscures 
this 
somewhat when 
she 
talks 
about 
seeing 
Dusty 
perform 
live 
- 
on video. 
Although 
the 
authentic versus 
manufactured 
dichotomy 
requires 
dcconstruction 
in 
relation 
to the 
historical 
privileging 
of rock over other 
popular 
forms, 
such 
essentialising 
was 
also 
used 
within 
Motown 
to 
differentiate 
soul 
authenticity 
such 
that 
"... 
the 
Supremes 
were seen as wholesome, 
glamorous andfrothy, 
while 
Martha 
and 
the 
Vandellas 
were 
creditedwith 
beingfunkier 
andmore 
lauthentically'black " 
(Whitall, 
1998, 
p. 
80). 
In 
a related 
observation 
Lynda Laurence 
who 
became 
a 
Supreme 
in 1972 
teased 
out 
the 
specificities of 
the 
discourse 
on authenticity 
in 
reading 
the 
work 
of 
the 
Supremes 
for 
Motown 
"At 
the 
time 
I 
thought 
Martha 
and 
the 
Vandellas 
were 
more 
soutrul. 
4nd 
that 
wasn't 
unusualfor 
me 
to think that 
because 
[Berry 
Gordy] 
was goingfor 
something very 
different 
with 
the 
Supremes. Let's 
go 
into the 
pop 
market, 
why 
aren't we 
1here?, 
4nd I 
think 
that 
was 
brilliant 
on 
hispart 
really. 
Because 
that's 
where 
the 
Supremes 
needed 
to 
be. So 
when 
he 
groomed 
theinfor 
thatparticular 
genre, 
I 
thought 
it 
was 
the 
best 
thing 
he 
could 
ever 
have done. 
Because 
we 
already 
had 
the 
R&B 
thing 
down. 
Diana [Ross] 
was 
never 
an 
R&B 
act, as 
it 
were. 
She's 
going 
to 
be 
deemed 
that 
because 
she's 
a 
blackperson, 
and 
unfortunately 
we still 
haven't 
come 
to 
grips with 
thefact 
thaijust 
because 
you are 
black doesn't 
mean 
you're 
an 
R&B 
artists 
(Lynda 
Lawrence, 
in Whitall, 1998, 
pp. 
80-8 
1). 
93 
Only 
eight of 
the 
approximately 
twenty 
shows 
Dusty 
made 
for 
the 
BBC 
were 
retained. 
A 
tribute 
to 
Dusty 
in 
2000 
used 
footage, 
including 
an extract 
of 
Dusty 
performing with 
Jimi Hendrix, 
from 
private collections 
(Library 
Association 
Multimedia 
Information 
and 
Technology 
Group, Vol. 
2, (1), 
p. 
6). 
" 
Feminist 
politics 
in Britain 
encouraged 
the 
growth 
of a 
Women's 
Movement 
inspired 
music 
and 
women's 
bands. 
Invariably 
these 
bands 
were 
consumed 
live. 
In 
the 
preamble 
to 
an 
interview 
with 
the 
seminal 
women's 
band 
of 
this 
era, 
The Stepney 
Sisters 
Marion 
Fudger 
writes: 
"Women 
and 
Rock 
Music. 
Cmthey 
be 
combined? 
"ilst 
some 
women 
work 
to 
sort out 
thisproblem, 
others 
bop 
on regardless. 
But 
the 
need 
is 
growingfor non-sexist 
music and 
bands 
are slowly 
emerging. 
Primarily 
the 
call came 
from 
the 
Women's 
Movementfor 
its 
conferences. 
benefits 
and socials. 
Now 
the 
demand 
is 
wider. 
" 
(Spare 
Rib, 
no. 
46, May, 1976) 
108 
Recorded 
music 
is 
capable 
of replicating, 
across 
a 
lifetime 
of 
listening, 
a virtual 
reproduction 
of a 
piece of music 
heard 
as 
in 
the 
first instance, 
despite 
a shifting context 
of 
time, 
materiality 
and 
subjectivity. 
In 
the 
light 
of 
the 
adoption 
of 
memory 
work 
methods 
by 
feminists 
in 
an attempt 
to 
add 
to 
the 
knowledge 
of 
how femininity 
and 
identity 
is 
(re)constructed, 
music 
has begun 
to 
be 
cited as a 
potentially 
invaluable 
tool 
to trigger 
memory. 
"' 
Whereas 
Stacey's 
work 
contributed 
the 
extra-cinematic 
visual 
pleasures 
to 
feminist 
knowledge 
of 
women and popular culture, 
fan 
accounts 
of 
Dusty 
comment 
upon 
the 
vocalisations 
and 
the 
sounds of 
stars' 
performances 
in 
their 
pleasurable 
identifications: 
"And 
most 
wonderful 
ofall was 
her 
voice- so 
strong and 
clear 
but 
with 
a raw 
vulnerable 
edge 
that 
expressedpain 
and 
longing 
andpassion.. 
all 
the 
things 
I 
knew 
I 
was 
destinedfor 
too 
" (Moffatt, 
1999, 
p. 
50) 
Intimacies between fashioned 
femininities 
Davis 
has 
revealed 
how, in 
the 
1960s 
it 
was 
not 
just 
fans 
I ike 
Sandy 
and 
Jean, 
remote 
from 
their 
idol, 
who were 
engaged 
in 
mimicking 
Dusty's 
fashioning 
excesses 
96 
Dusty 
was 
involved 
in 
an 
ongoing 
dialogue 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
with 
fans 
in 
ways 
that 
confound 
expectations of star/fan 
fashioning 
relationships 
and 
modes 
of 
identification. 
The 
development 
of young 
women's 
habits 
of 
consumption and 
identification 
with 
televised 
forms 
of 
femininity 
in 
the 
1960s 
involved 
complex 
processes of 
projection and 
introjection, 
between 
young 
women performers and 
their 
studio 
and 
97 
television-viewing 
audiences. 
Stacey 
has demonstrated 
that 
as commodities 
associated 
with 
stars 
became 
more 
readily 
available, 
the 
practice of 
copying 
stars 
forms 
of 
femininity 
became 
more 
within 
the 
reach 
of 
female 
fans 
and 
that 
it 
was 
through 
the 
clothes, 
make-up 
and 
hairstyles 
that 
stars were 
most 
commonly 
remembered 
(Stacey, 1994, 
p. 
I 11). Dusty's 
idols, 
her 
own 
stylings and 
the 
consequent 
copycat 
's 
Kuhn has 
asked, 
"Whatplace 
do 
images 
andsound; occupy 
in 
the 
activity 
ofremembering? 
Are 
they 
especially prominent 
amongst 
memory'sprelexts, 
source 
materialsforms ofexpressionl 
What 
hinds 
images 
andsounds 
inpersonal 
memory 
with 
Images 
and sounds 
in 
collective 
memory? 
" 
(Kuhn, 1995, 
p. 
107). 
96 
"All 
the 
girls 
[who 
formed 
the 
discerning 
Ready Steady Go! 
audience] 
were 
adopting 
Dusty's 
panda-eye 
look 
At 
one 
time 
we 
usedshoe 
polish 
and 
hadgreat 
difficulty 
in 
getting 
It 
offl.... 
Dusty 
though 
asserted 
hersel(by 
going 
one stepfurther 
than 
anyone 
else, 
lfgirls 
were 
applying 
heavypaint 
to their 
eyelids, 
she wouldput 
even 
more on, 
making 
her 
eyelashes 
even 
thicker, 
her 
hair 
more 
outrageouslyperoxide 
blonde. 
Sometimes 
her 
make-up 
was 
so 
dark 
that 
when 
she appeared 
on 
TV 
her 
eyes 
became 
Invisible, 
enguffied 
by 
two 
coal 
black 
circles 
"(Davies 
in O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
80). 
" 
Regular 
dancing 
female 
audience 
members on 
Dick Clark's 
American 
Bandstand, 
RSG Is! 
US 
counterpart, 
had 
become 
stars 
through 
the 
fanaticism 
of principally 
female 
viewers: 
"Their hairstyles, 
their 
dancepartners, 
their 
clothes 
and 
of course 
their 
dance 
routines, 
all 
had 
Philadelphia's 
teenagers 
glued 
to 
their 
screens 
[ 
... 
I By 
the 
time the 
show 
went 
national, 
becoming 
American 
Bandstand, 
the 
'regulars'were 
getting 
morefan 
mail 
than 
the 
acts, at 
the 
rate 
of 
IS, 
000 
letters 
a 
week. 
There 
was a 
special 
Bandstand 
committee, 
and a magazine 
16, 
where 
the 
girls 
wrote 
their 
own 
columns 
and 
were 
pictured wearingfluffy 
Jumpers 
and 
slacks, 
sitting 
on 
the 
living 
roomfloor 
with 
their 
scrapbooks 
" 
(Greig, 
1989, 
p. 
29). 
In 
her 
autobiography, 
Aretha 
Franklin 
states 
that 
as 
a 
child 
she 
too 
had 
leamt 
the 
names 
of 
the 
regular 
dancers (Franklin 
and 
Ritz, 
1999, 
p. 
98). 
109 
fashioning 
by 
young 
women 
fans 
were 
largely 
distinct 
from 
the 
norms 
of 
British 
femininity 
recommended 
in 
contemporary 
texts. 
98 
Research 
participants 
remembered 
a 
heightened 
sense 
of collectivity 
in 
the 
period 
from 
the 
1950s 
in 
terms 
of 
fashioning 
and 
performance. 
Girl 
and 
boy 
groups 
proliferated, 
fashioning followed 
the 
'hints 
to 
copy' 
from 
stars 
like 
the 
Ronettes, 
and 
dancing, 
for 
the 
first 
time, 
allowed 
for 
new 
expressions 
of 
youth 
identity. 
For 
both 
fans 
of and 
performers 
in 
girl 
groups, such 
as 
the 
Lana Sisters 
where 
Dusty 
made 
the 
initial 
entry 
into 
stardom, 
or 
the 
Motown 
girl 
groups 
including 
the 
Supremes, 
the 
most popular group 
in 
Motown history, 
aspects 
of 
identification 
which are 
both 
relational and 
identificatory 
abound. 
99 
Whitall's 
interviews 
with 
female 
Motown 
stars 
offer 
insights 
into 
the 
array 
of 
identiflcations, 
projections 
and 
introjections 
at work 
in 
women's 
accounts 
of suburb 
versus 
ghetto, 
of 
West 
and 
East 
coast 
differences, 
gender 
divisions 
and 
the 
public 
performance 
of synchronised 
feminine 
excess, 
including 
views on choreography 
and costuming 
and 
the 
performance 
of 
legendary 
repertoires, 
in 
some 
cases over 
a 
thirty 
year 
career 
(Whitall, 
1998). 
100 
Fan 
(and 
star) pleasures 
in 
public as 
well 
as private 
consumption 
and 
performances 
rely on 
the 
degrees 
of proximity 
that 
are 
historically 
and 
socially 
constructed 
to 
create 
appropriate 
degrees 
of 
negotiation. 
In March 1965 
the 
Motown 
Revue 
played 
at 
London's 
Astoria 
Theatre, 
Finsbury 
Park. 
Dave 
Godin, 
founder 
of 
the 
British 
Motown 
Appreciation 
Society 
with 
whom 
Dusty 
worked 
closely 
recalls 
9' 
Dusty, 
suggests 
that 
the 
panda-eyed 
cosmetic 
act was 
inspired 
by French 
models 
"A lot 
of 
French 
Vogue 
models 
had black 
eyefidP 
(Pomphrey, 
1994). 
" 
Stacey's findings 
confirm 
this 
since 
her 
respondents recall memories 
of 
cinematic 
and extra-cinematic 
pleasures 
that 
are often 
conceptualised as moments 
of 
'sacred intimacy' 
of, and 
'heightened 
enjoyment' 
in 
collective consumption. 
For Stacey, 
these 
accounts 
"could 
be 
readasfurther 
contributing 
to thefeminisation 
ofcultural 
consumption; 
femininity 
being 
culturally 
constructedas relational 
and 
masculinity 
as 
more 
individuated" 
(Stacey, 1994, 
p. 
101). 
" 
The 
endurance 
of 
the 
Motown 
Revue 
and related regroupings 
and 
themcd 
live 
shows 
alongside 
the 
continuous 
re-issue of 
back-catalogues, 
compilations 
and 
cover-versions of 
Motown 
stars 
and 
Dusty 
can 
be 
analysed 
as 
being 
motivated 
by 
positive 
and 
negative 
factors. Many 
Black Motown 
female 
stars 
have 
had 
to 
return 
to the 
road as 
their 
sole 
source 
of 
income. 
Re-groupings 
of 
Motown 
stars and 
compilations 
illustrate 
the 
broader 
commercialisation 
of nostalgia and 
the 
desire 
of 
existing 
and 
new 
fans 
to 
see 
and 
hear 
performances. 
Revival 
performances also 
facilitate 
the 
articulation 
of 
the 
reciprocities 
of 
loyalties 
and 
the 
enduring 
intimacies 
between 
fernininitics. 
Although 
Motown 
boss 
Gordy 
was 
intent 
on a 
crossover, 
Black 
R&B 
breakthrough, 
the 
arranging, staging and 
grooming 
of women 
who were 
to 
attract 
the 
interest 
of girl 
fans 
across 
ethnicities proved 
phenomenally 
successful. 
The 
notion 
of 
Gordy's 
total 
control 
in 
the 
manufacture of 
the 
image 
of 
the 
Supremes 
through 
the 
deployment 
of 
choreographers, stage craft 
experts 
and 
the 
Motown 
Charm 
School is 
rejected 
by Mary 
Wells: 
"Motown 
went along with 
our 
sexy 
but 
wholesome 
imagefor 
the 
Supremes, but, 
contrary 
to 
what 
some 
people 
think, 
it 
wasn'tfoisted 
upon 
us. 
We 
really 
were 
those 
girls, 
and we 
neverfell 
that 
what we 
were 
on 
stage 
was 
anything 
but 
an extension 
ofour 
true 
personalities. 
When 
I 
had 
seen 
myselfin 
the 
mirror)wars 
before 
in 
a 
homemade 
costume, 
I 
saw a 
girl 
every 
bit 
as 
glamorous 
as 
the 
one on 
television 
in 
1965 
" (Wells, 
1986, 
p. 
192). 
Wells 
also records 
that 
even 
when 
the 
demands 
of 
TV 
required 
specialised 
make-up 
techniques 
the 
Supremes 
continued 
to 
apply 
their 
own 
make-up 
as 
did 
Dusty 
(ibid). Gricg has 
pointed out 
that 
such 
cross-ethnic 
identifications 
were 
germinal 
in 
the 
burgeoning 
TV 
pop 
of 
America 
in 
this 
period: 
"The 
overridingfeature 
of 
the 
Bandstand 
girls 
was 
that 
they 
were 
all 
Italian 
, 
4mericansfrom 
Philadelphia's 
large 
immigrant 
community. 
As 
such, 
they 
seemed 
to 
exist 
in 
a 
worldsomewhere 
between 
the 
white 
suburbs 
and 
the 
black 
urban ghettos. 
For 
the teenagers 
watching 
the 
show, 
they 
seemed 
to 
represent 
a 
channel 
of 
communication 
between 
the 
performers and 
the 
viewers, 
black 
or 
while, 
promising an 
easypassage 
between 
the 
two 
worldsfor 
. 
future 
generations 
" (Grieg, 
1989, 
pp. 
28-29). 
110 
Every 
soul 
fan 
in 
London had 
turned 
out 
to 
pack 
that 
place. 
I 
can't 
describe 
the 
air 
of 
celebration. 
Everyone 
was so elated 
that 
they 
were 
talking 
to 
strangers. 
I 
sat 
talking 
with 
Dusty 
in 
the 
stalls and 
some 
kids 
came 
up asking 
for her 
autograph, 
'Any 
other 
time. 
' 
she said, 
'but 
not 
tonight 
because 
I'm 
here 
as a 
fan' 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
62). 
101 
Dusty 
appreciators 
Jean's 'wee 
world', 
Sandy's 
modest 
record collection 
but 
fanatical hair fashioning 
a 
la 
Dusty, 
Ellen's 
self-nomination as 
'appreciator' 
rather 
than 
'connoisseur' 
and 
Claire's 
qualities 
of 
diligent fan- 
ship, 
rooted 
as 
it 
is 
in 
the 
pleasures 
of 
self-narrativisation 
set 
themselves 
apart 
in 
their 
heterogeneity 
from 
male 
collectors. 
Straw has 
pointed out 
that 
male practices of 
accumulation 
take 
shape: 
in 
an 
ongoing 
relationship 
between 
the 
personal 
space 
of 
the 
collection and public, 
discursive 
systems of 
ordering 
or value. 
These 
public 
systems are no 
less 
arbitrary, 
or course 
in 
their 
choice of objects or 
criteria 
of value, 
but 
they 
tie 
each male's collection 
to 
an 
ongoing, 
collective enterprise 
of 
cultural 
archaeology 
(Straw, 
1997, 
p. 
6). 
The 
social 
uses 
for 
fans 
of 
Dusty 
records 
and 
fan 
memorabilia more 
generally 
expresses a 
qualitative rather 
than 
quantitative 
form 
of activity 
as 
in 
this 
lesbian fan's 
account, 
reminiscent of 
Sandy's 
invocation 
of 
the 
abundant 
signifiers 
of 
Kathy 
Kirby/Dusty: 
"Theprize 
ofmy 
collection 
had 
been 
a 
douhle-page 
spreadfrom 
Fab 
magazine. 
She 
was wearingpink 
- 
holpink, 
herfavourite 
lipstick 
shade. 
Her 
hair 
was 
glossyplatinum 
withperfect 
kiss-curls 
andshe 
was 
smiling 
wickedly, 
as 
though 
sharing 
a naughty secret 
with me" 
(Moffatt, 
1999). 
102 
Intimacies 
between 
(lesbian) femininities 
The 
accounts 
by 
research 
participants and 
my own 
memory work suggested 
the 
need 
to 
interrogate 
the 
pleasures 
in 
intimacies between 
fernininities, 
examining 
the 
ways 
through 
which 
female 
fans 
and 
audiences 
for 
women 
stars and 
Dusty 
was of course 
both 
fan 
and star, 
derived 
pleasure 
through 
their 
production 
and consumption of stars 
voices, 
still promotional 
photographs, 
record 
covers, 
television 
performances 
and other 
media representations. 
Just 
as 
research 
into 
the 
self-fashioning 
by 
101 
Mary 
Wells 
recalls 
the 
ambivalence of 
the 
British 
press's 
fascination 
at 
this 
time: 
"In 
the 
beginning they 
referred 
to 
the three 
ofus 
[Supremes) 
as 
'negresses'a 
term 
we 
had 
never 
heard [ 
... 
I 
We 
were 
exotic 
darlings, 
sexy 
and 
cute, 
and all 
the 
more 
interesting 
because 
we 
were 
black 
and 
hailedfrom 
what 
theforeignpress 
liked 
toportray 
as a 
rat-ItIfestedghetto 
"(Wells, 
1986, 
p 
186). 
(WI 
Feminist 
scholarship 
has 
attempted 
to 
account 
for 
and 
begin 
to 
define 
the 
formally 
subordinated 
definitions 
of 
kmale 
fetishism 
Gamman 
and 
Makinen 
productively 
challenged 
the 
Freudian 
and 
Lacanian 
tradition 
of 
discounting 
forms 
of 
female 
fetishism 
in Female 
Fetishism: 
a 
New Look, 
Lawrence 
and 
Wishart 
(1994) 
III 
women 
of 
forms 
of 
femininity 
such as 
hair 
and 
make-up 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
illuminate 
women's social, 
historical 
and 
cultural 
aspirations 
and 
fantasies 
so 
"The 
choice ofrecords can constitute a cultural 
expressionfor 
those 
whose access 
to 
other avenues ofexpression may 
be blocked" 
(Whiteley, 1997, 
p. 
XiV). 
103 
The 
private, 
pleasurable 
identification 
and consumption of 
female 
stars 
by 
girls 
and women 
within 
the 
domestic 
space 
is 
an 
important 
phenomenon 
to 
interpret 
in 
an analysis of constructions 
of 
femininity. 
Accounts 
that 
reveal 
the 
construction 
of 
lesbian 
identities 
and 
identifications 
within 
the 
domestic 
space 
are rare, even 
in 
feminist 
literature, 
but 
are articulated 
by 
participants 
in 
this 
study. 
For 
example 
Jean 
and 
Sandy discussed 
the 
ways 
that 
Dusty's 
mysteriously 
transgressive 
sensuality, 
and 
their 
respective 
relatives 
responses 
to 
it, 
encouraged 
their 
imagining 
different 
sexualities. 
Intimacies 
between 
(lesbian) 
femininities 
are also 
to 
be found in 
the 
literature 
on 
Dusty 
and 
in 
some accounts 
that 
centre 
on 
the 
collective pleasures 
enjoyed 
by both 
Dusty 
and 
Dusty 
fans in 
public 
contexts. 
Whereas 
Stacey 
recognised 
the 
pleasures 
of 
wartime cinema-going 
as a 
'pulling 
together', 
lesbian 
habituds 
of 
The 
Gateways 
bar 
in 
London during 
the 
1960s 
experienced 
a similarly 
ambivalent 
sense of 
identification 
in 
collective consumption 
of 
recorded 
music. 
104 
For 
the 
many 
lesbians 
visiting 
the 
Gateways 
the 
rhetoric 
of 
permissiveness 
failed 
to 
penetrate 
the 
relatively overwhelming 
culture 
of 
compulsory 
heterosexuality 
and 
the 
reasons were 
manifold 
for 
escapinglism. 
105 
For 
lesbian 
audiences, 
"' 
In 
an 
example 
of 
intimacies 
between 
star and 
fan, 
and 
where a record 
collection represents personal 
symbolism, 
Martha 
Reeves 
relates 
the 
story 
of a 
fan 
from 
Leeds 
who 
sought 
her 
out at 
her 
sound recording studio after 
a relationship 
break-up. 
The 
fan had 
some 
Motown 
records 
and 
said 
that 
they 
were all 
that 
remained 
from 
a 
bad 
marriage, 
Reeves 
records 
how 
she 
counselled 
the 
fan: "I 
said 
No, 
no, 
no, no, 
don'tfeel 
like 
that, 
because 
there 
is 
lovefor 
everybody, 
Mama 
said 
there 
is 
a malefor 
everything.. 
Ishared 
that 
information 
with 
her, 
to 
show 
thaijust 
a 
little help 
counts whenyou 
are 
down ". Seven 
years 
later, 
the 
fan 
returned 
to 
Motown 
to 
be 
married 
at 
the 
Motown Museum 
where 
Reeves 'added 
diva 
presence' 
on 
the 
lawn. 
Reeves 
approved 
of 
the 
new 
partner 
and signed 
some of 
the 
couple's 
3000 
Motown 
records 
(Whitall, 1998). 
Empirical 
research 
on 
women's 
enjoyment 
of 
other women's 
performances are scarce and 
the 
complex 
range of 
identifications 
available 
to 
Black 
women 
performers 
are 
yet 
to 
be 
adequately accounted 
for. 
The 
impersonations 
required of 
the 
Blossoms 
can 
be 
clearly 
interpreted 
as 
indicative 
of record companies 
broader 
racist subjugation 
of 
'Blackness' 
in 
marketing 
their 
product. 
In 
the 
absence 
of 
famous 
Black 
stars, 
future 
performers 
like Mary Wilson 
and other 
Black 
fans 
forged 
ambivalent 
identifications 
with 
white 
stars 
like 
the 
McGuire 
Sisters, Doris Day 
and 
Patti Page (Grieg, 1989, 
p. 
116). 
Cindy 
Birdsong, 
another 
Supreme, 
remembers 
that 
Dorothy 
Dandridge 
and 
Lena Home 
were 
her 
sole 
Black 
models. 
She 
too 
focused her identifications 
on 
Hollywood: "I 
was a 
b1gfan 
ofDoris 
Day's. 
For 
a 
long 
time 
I 
wanted 
to 
be 
Doris Day! 
You 
see we 
didn't have 
the 
black 
stars 
onfilin 
to 
idolisc 
or 
look 
up 
to 
" (ibid. 
). 
'" 
The 
group 
identity 
of 
wartime cinema 
going 
for Stacey's 
respondents 
"was 
a central 
component 
of 
the 
'atmosphere' 
and 
appeal, 
repeatedly 
remarked 
upon" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
100). Stacey 
utilises 
Dyer's 
model 
of utopian 
fantasies 
to 
expand 
her 
analysis of 
both 
the 
specific 
collective 
pleasures enjoyed 
by 
her 
respondents 
and 
importantly, 
to 
analyse 
what cinema-goers 
were 
escaping 
from. 
(ibid. 
p. 
102) 
"'i 
A 
possible 
further 
reason 
for 
mobilisation around 
familiar 
anthems 
was 
that 
many 
Gateways 
regulars 
and a stream 
of pilgrims, 
originated 
from homes 
across 
Britain. Intolerable 
homophobia in 
rural 
and 
provincial 
towns 
led 
to 
the 
migration 
of 
thousands 
of 
lesbians 
and gay 
men 
to 
London 
who 
frequently 
formed 
communities 
of support 
and 
solidarity 
through safe spaces 
of which 
the 
Gateways 
was 
the 
best 
known 
lesbian 
example 
and where opportunities 
to 
express, 
collectively, 
bittersweet 
emotions may 
have 
been 
cherished 
by 
some. 
Rather 
than 
confirming 
the 
mythology of gay 
men's 
history 
of 
collective 
social 
pleasures versus 
the 
conceptual 
isation 
of 
the 
solitary, 
closeted spinster, 
Stacey's findings 
allow 
scope 
for interrogating 
histories 
of 
women's 
collective 
pleasures, 
read 
as 
both "relational 
and gendered 
- 
Escapism 
is 
not 
merely 
an 
individuatedprocess, 
butrather 
involves 
a submergence ofselOnto 
a more collective 
identity 
which 
could 
be 
seen 
to 
have 
a 
gendered 
[feminine] 
specificity 
" (ibid. 
p. 
10 
1). Frith 
asserts 
that 
"... 
one 
ofthe 
central uses 
ofpopular music 
in 
this 
century 
[is] 
to 
conceal 
thefurtivepleasures 
ofindulging 
inprivalefantasies 
inpublicplaces 
" 
(Frith, 
1988, 
p. 
129). 
112 
such 
moments 
of collective 
identification, 
albeit 
in 
relation 
to 
recorded, 
manufactured 
sound, 
could 
be 
interpreted 
as 
dissident 
and 
political. 
"" 
Involved 
herself in 
the 
emergent 
lesbian 
scene 
in 
London in 
the 
1960s, 
Wilmer 
also 
records 
that 
specific sound's galvanised 
the 
sense 
of 
collective 
pleasure and 
identification. 
The 
Gateways, 
where 
Wilmer 
and 
Dusty 
were 
regulars 
played 
music 
that 
included 
the 
Isley 
Brothers' 
This 
old 
heart 
of 
mine, 
James 
and 
Bobby Purify's 
Do 
unto 
me 
(girl, 
as you'd 
have 
me 
do 
to 
you). 
But Val 
Wilmer 
states 
that 
"it 
wasn't until 
Engelbert 
Humperdinck's 
Please 
release 
me 
or 
Dusty's 
You 
don't 
have 
to 
say you 
love 
me, 
that the 
majority 
ofwomen 
took 
to 
thefloor 
" (Wilmer, 
1989, 
p. 
163). 
For Sandy, 
identification 
with 
Dusty 
culminated 
in 
a personal 
recognition 
of 
both 
love for 
Dusty 
and 
her 
own 
lesbianism: 
"Well 
really, 
Imean 
I've 
written 
a story 
about 
this 
andl've 
got 
it 
somewhere and 
it's 
called 
'Dusty 
Springfield 
and 
the 
buried 
treasure'. 
[ 
... 
] but 
I 
really, 
I 
mean, 
I 
wrote 
this 
story and 
it 
was 
acknowledging, 
later 
on, 
that 
it 
was 
thefirstfaffing 
in 
love 
". 
Cross-ethnic 
identiflcations 
Research 
participants 
(re-)constructions 
of 
femininity 
by 
Dusty 
and 
other 
figures 
loosely framed 
by 
the 
period 
from 
the 
late 
1950s 
to 
the 
early 
1970s 
in 
Britain 
seemed 
suff-used 
with complex 
cross 
identifications 
and racisms. 
Despite 
some 
political 
resistance 
by 
mainstream 
and 
feminist 
writers 
to 
acknowledge 
this, 
cross-ethnic 
identifications 
were 
made 
between 
white 
women 
and women 
of colour. 
The 
forms 
of radical 
feminine 
excess 
performed 
by 
music stars, 
that 
provided 
a model 
for 
Dusty 
were 
in 
great part 
generated 
by 
American female 
vocalists 
notably 
Reeves 
and 
Franklin. 
107 
The 
fascination 
of 
Dusty, 
a number 
of 
research 
participants 
as 
young 
women, 
myself 
included, into 
the 
forms 
of voice, 
clothes, 
hair 
and 
make-up 
fashioning 
by 
Black 
women 
can 
be discredited 
as 
racist, 
but 
this 
research 
is 
an attempt 
to 
begin 
to 
understand 
more 
about 
how 
such 
memories 
of 
difference 
and 
identification 
can 
be 
considered 
as yielding 
more 
positive 
evidence of 
intimacies, 
despite 
contemporary 
racist and misogynist 
discourses, 
between 
fernininities 
from 
and 
to 
a 
range of 
ethnicities. 
108 
For Mary 
1" 
Self-identified 
lesbian 
tribal 
cider 
Jackie 
Forster has 
claimed 
"At Gateways 
they 
wouldp* 
her 
records 
all 
the time, 
along 
with 
Doris 
Day 
and 
JulieAndrews. We 
adored 
Dusty, 
everyone 
bought 
her 
records. 
Especially 'You 
don't have 
to 
sayyou 
love 
me', 
that 
was a sell-out. 
When 
we 
started 
discos 
that 
was 
always 
requested.. 
Dusty 
was 
attractivejust 
because 
she 
was a 
glamorous 
singer and 
a 
lesbian. 
I 
think 
ifshe 
had 
sung 
crap 
we'd 
have 
still 
loved 
her 
because 
even 
though 
she never 
imposed 
it, 
or 
mentioned 
it, 
she was 
our 
role model 
" (Jackie 
Forster in 
O'Brien, 
Dusty 
1999, 
p. 
176). 
" 
Reeves' 
own early 
identifications 
include 
star and 
family 
members 
who 
expressed 
to 
excess. 
Reeves' 
mother 
"used 
to 
wear 
camellias 
in 
her hair 
because 
she 
loved 
Billie Holiday 
so. 
She 
used 
to 
sing 
her 
songs, 
and 
Iguess 
I 
am 
the 
epitome 
ofher 
dreams... 
so she encouraged 
me as a 
child. 
She 
always 
told 
me, 
'Never 
sing 
a song unless 
you 
mean 
itfrom 
your 
heart 
(Spector 
in 
Abbott, 200 
1, 
p. 
17 1). 
log 
Debates 
on cross-ethnic 
fitscinations 
and 
'culturally 
appropriated 
identifications' have 
tended 
to 
focus 
on white male 
appropriations, 
from Elvis 
on, of 
Black forms 
of music and 
fashioning 
to 
excess. 
However, 
this 
is 
also 
resistant 
to 
an overarching 
rcductivism. 
Greig 
records 
that 
Mary 
Wilson dated Hilton Valentine 
of 
the 
Animals 
in 
the 
1960s. 
He 
was 
"astonished 
tofind 
that 
113 
O'Brien, 
the 
identifications 
that 
culminated 
in 
the 
radical construction 
of 
her 
alter ego 
Dusty 
Springfield 
were 
formed from identifications 
and 
introjections 
of a 
spectrum of stars 
fashionings 
and 
voices. 
However, 
such cross-ethnic 
identifications 
can 
be 
separated 
at 
least 
at points 
into 
those 
that 
Dusty 
constructed 
and 
the 
projective 
and 
introjective 
identifications 
of others. 
"' 
By 
the 
1940s, Mary O'Brien, 
who 
remembered 
herself 
as 
"an 
awful, 
fat, 
ugly, middle-class 
kid' 
(Scotland 
on 
Sunday, 15 February, 
1998, 
p. 
15) had become fascinated 
in 
particular with 
Black 
female 
performers. 
110 
Unusually, 
she 
had 
forged 
an 
idealised 
construction 
of stardom 
that 
was 
fused 
with 
Blackness. 
O'Brien 
notes 
that 
by 
the 
age 
of 
ten, 
Dusty 
was 
committed 
to 
being 
a 
blues 
singer 
Dusty 
was 
frank 
when recalling why 
it 
had 
appealed: 
Well 
it 
sounded 
good, 
It 
sounded exotic 
[ 
... 
] 
It 
certainly 
wasn't 
what any 
of 
the 
other 
kids 
wanted 
to 
be. 
They 
wanted 
to 
be 
really sensible 
things 
like 
radiographers. 
And 
'blues 
singer' 
had 
a certain eroticism 
to 
it, 
and 
it 
also 
meant 
'black'. 
I 
was 
fascinated 
with 
black faces 
and 
black 
voices.... 
I had 
no 
idea 
what 
it 
meant! 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
pp. 
16-17)111 
Despite 
the 
periodic 
styling of 
Western 
fashion 
at 
specific moments 
to 
evoke 
exoticism, 
Dusty's 
identification 
extends 
the 
narrow 
formulas 
of exotic 
fashion, 
of unselfconscious 
exploitation 
and 
appropriation 
of motifs 
of 
difference. Black 
women 
(stars) had 
begun 
to 
embody 
a powerful 
form 
of radical 
femininity. 
White 
participants endorsed 
Whitall's 
observation 
that, 
"Among 
the 
most 
enduring 
Motown 
images, 
though 
are 
those 
of 
the 
girl 
groups, 
and of 
the 
classic 
Motown 
divas. For 
many ofus, 
infant 
notions 
offeminine glamour were 
nurtured 
by 
satiny 
black 
and 
while glossies of 
Brenda 
Holloway 
and 
Tammi 
Tyrell" 
(Susan 
Whitall, 1998, 
p. 
xiv). 
Such 
identiflcations 
cannot 
be 
universally 
dismissed 
as 
racist appropriations when uttered 
by 
white 
fans. The 
appeal 
of 
sound 
for 
speciflc 
listeners 
must 
be 
understood as 
both 
personal 
and 
collective, 
and as 
deriving 
meaning 
for 
she 
hadn't heard 
of any 
of 
the 
Black 
artists 
he 
played 
her. 
While Mary had 
been listening 
to 
Patti 
Page 
and 
the 
Contours 
in 
Detroit, Hilton 
had 
been busily 
learning John 
Lee 
Hooker 
songs 
in 
North Shields " (Greig, 1989, 
p. 
123). 
'" 
Although 
this 
chapter 
has 
as 
its 
focus 
the 
White British 
performer 
Dusty 
Springfield, 
mis-recognition 
of 
ethnicities, 
identifications, 
projections 
and 
introjections 
occur 
between 
Black fans 
and 
stars. 
Brenda Holloway 
was 
the 
first 
US West Coast 
artist 
signed 
for 
Motown 
and 
had 
a 
different 
image from 
Detroit's 
home-grown 
roster: 
" Well 
I 
was 
born 
pronouncing my 
words, 
I 
don't 
know 
why. 
Andpeople 
would 
always 
think 
I 
was 
white 
on 
the 
phone. 
As 
a matter 
offact, 
I 
have 
a 
long 
nose, and when 
I 
went 
on 
the 
road, 
we 
would 
have black 
and 
while 
pictures, 
so 
people 
would say, 
'Brenda 
Holloway's 
whitel'and 
Idjay, 
'Oh 
I 
don't 
think 
sol 
Brenda 
Holloway 
is 
Black' I'll 
neverforget 
there 
was 
a 
crowd of 
white girls 
behind 
me, and we were 
doing 
a 
show 
And 
they 
said, 
'Well 
who areyou? 
'I 
said, 
I'm 
Brenda 
Holloway. 
'7hey 
said, 
'Noyou'renot, 
Brenda Holloway 
is 
while. 
'l 
said, 
'No 
Brenda 
Holloway 
has 
along nose, and 
in 
black 
and 
while 
photographs she 
photographs 
white 
but 
she's 
Black... 
7hey'dalways 
call me 
the 
Black 
Barbra 
Strelsand" 
(Holloway 
in 
Whitall, 
1998). 
"0 
She heard 
recordings 
of 
Bessie Smith 
as a very young 
girl, 
and 
chose 
to 
perform 
'St Louis 
Blues' 
at 
a school event 
(O'Brien, 
1995, 
p6l) 
It 
is 
tempting 
to 
speculate 
on whether 
Smith's 
own 
then 
unnameable sexuality 
was 
also 
heard 
by 
Mary 
O'Brien. 
1" 
In 
the 
NME 
poll 
of 
1965, 
and 
at a 
time 
when 
many of 
the 
most 
popular 
poll winners, 
both 
male 
and 
female 
were 
covering, 
impersonating 
or 
heavily 
influenced 
by 
Black 
artists 
(Elvis 
Presley, 
Cliff 
Richard, Mick 
Jagger, 
The 
Beatles, 
Peggy 
Lee, 
Lulu, 
Four 
Seasons, 
Georgie 
Fame, 
no 
Black 
performers 
featured 
in 
the 
World 
Male 
Singer 
poll 
of 
25 
singers. 
Two 
Black 
female 
singers 
are 
included 
in 
the 
20 
Top 
World 
Female 
Singers 
(Shirley 
Bassey 
and 
Dionne 
Warwick) 
(NME 
Poll 
winners supplement, 
10 
December, 1965) 
114 
14. 
Aretha Franklin, 
album 
cover, 
Aretha: 
Lady 
Soul, 
1968, 
Atlantic. 
specific 
audiences 
in 
an 
historical, 
social and cultural 
framework. 
In 
the 
case 
of music 
produced 
by 
Motown 
performers 
and 
by 
Dusty 
herself in 
the 
1960s 
and 
the 
ambiguity 
of 
the 
performers ethnicity 
and gender 
is 
frequently 
highlighted 
in listeners' 
accounts, 
as 
in 
Reeves' 
own mis-hearing 
of 
Dusty's 
voice. 
Motown 
set 
a popular precedent 
for 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
musical performances of 
soul 
by 
men 
and women 
and such a 
form, 
coupled 
with 
the 
emotional excess 
associated 
with 
it have 
allowed 
for 
a spectrum 
of 
identifications 
that 
fulfil 
the 
ideal 
criteria 
for 
pleasure. 
Over 
and above 
her 
admiration 
of and 
friendship 
with 
Motown 
stars, 
Dusty 
fostered 
an 
identification 
with 
the 
Black 
soul 
star 
Aretha Franklin. 
' 12 
Dusty's 
respect 
for 
Franklin's 
musicality 
can 
be 
understood 
as 
typifying the 
mechanisms 
of projection 
and 
introjection 
in 
that 
it 
was 
"both 
satisjying 
andfrustrating" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
229). 
Franklin 
appears 
to 
have 
been 
emblematic of 
the 
'external 
ideal' 
devoid 
of negative qualities 
"The 
sum of 
the 
good objectsfelt 
to 
be lacking 
in 
the 
selr'(ibid. 
p. 
230)1 
13 
O'Brien 
and 
Wexler have 
noted 
the 
importance 
her 
introjection/projection 
of 
the 
star was 
in her 
creative 
work 
more 
generally. 
' 14 
On 
the 
occasion 
of recording 
Dusty 
in 
Memphis, 
the 
banality 
of 
the 
studio 
environment, 
in 
a 
run-down 
Black 
neighbourhood 
was 
subsumed 
by 
the 
knowledge 
of 
the 
iconic 
star's precedence 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
12 1) According 
to 
Wexler 
"One 
of 
her 
major 
problems was 
in 
comparing 
herse?f 
to 
Aretha 
Franklin. 
It 
was a commonfailing 
among whitefemale 
singers 
to 
set up 
Aretha 
as 
their 
bench 
mark"'( 
Wexler 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
125). 
"' 
112 
Franklin's 
Respect, 
described by 
O'Brien 
as 
"a 
classic 
ofjoyful 
self-determination 
" has 
been 
interpreted 
as 
"everythingftom 
anti-racist 
anthem 
tofeminist 
call-to-arms 
" 
(O'Brien 
, 
1995, 
p. 
89) 
Judith Butler 
used 
Franklin's 
performance 
of 
Natural 
Woman 
to 
demonstrate 
the 
potential 
plurality of 
interpretations 
of 
both 
the 
lyrical 
address 
and 
the 
signification 
of gender(s). 
Illustrating 
the 
unreliability 
of 
fixed 
notions of gender 
ditTerence, 
Butler 
states 
"Aretha 
sings, 
you 
make 
meftel 
like 
a 
natural 
woman, suggesting 
that 
this 
is 
a 
kind 
of metaphorical 
substitution, 
an act of 
imposture, 
a 
kind 
ofsubhme 
and momentary 
participation 
in 
an 
ontological 
illusion 
produced 
by 
the 
mundane 
operation 
of 
heterosexual drag. 
But 
what 
if 
Areiha 
were 
singing 
to 
me? 
Or 
what 
if 
she were 
singing 
to 
a 
drag 
queen whose 
performance 
somehow 
confirmed 
her 
own? 
" 
(Butler, 
199 
1, 
p. 
29). Butler leaves 
scope 
for 
further 
interrogation 
in 
terms 
of 
notions of 
natural 
and excessive 
femininity. 
Franklin, 
indubitably 
a model 
of 
fashioned 
excess 
for 
Dusty, 
was 
at 
her 
most ornate on 
the 
release 
of 
Aretha: Lady 
Soul, 
in 
1968, 
the 
album on 
which 
Natural 
Woman features. 
"' 
Son 
ofa 
Preacher 
Man, 
Dusty's 
biggest 
hit from 
Dusty 
in 
Memphis 
had 
originally 
been 
offered 
to 
Franklin 
but 
she 
had 
rejected 
it 
according 
to 
Wexler 
"because 
of 
the 
subject 
in 
the text 
"(Pomphery, 1994). 
A 
year 
after 
Dusty 
made 
it 
a 
hit, Franklin 
asked 
Wexler 
to 
produce 
her 
version, and 
Dusty, 
in 
a 
poignant 
gesture 
of projection stated 
"She 
did 
it 
the 
way 
I 
wish 
I'd 
done 
it. 
I 
now 
copy 
herphrasing 
" 
(ibid. 
). 
"' 
Wexler, 
the 
producer 
of 
arguably 
Dusty's 
best 
regarded 
work, 
Dusty 
in 
Memphis, 
managed 
her 
notorious 
'paralysis 
through 
fear' 
when 
first 
attempting 
to 
work 
in 
the 
studio 
in 
which 
Franklin 
had 
recorded 
germinal 
cuts, 
including 
Natural Woman. 
115 
Mandy 
surprised 
me 
late 
in 
our 
interview 
stating 
that 
she 
had 
played 
sax 
in 
a 
Motown 
tribute 
band. 
She 
remembered 
her 
own 
satisfactions 
and 
frustrations 
with 
Franklin: 
AP: 
And 
how 
would 
you 
describe 
her 
voice? 
Mandy: 
Powerful, 
strong. 
AP: 
And 
what 
did 
that 
make you 
feel, 
when 
you 
listened 
to 
Aretha? 
Mandy: 
I'm 
going 
to 
learn 
this 
bloody 
sax 
if it 
kills 
me 
[Laughter] 
and, 
I 
wish 
could 
sing. 
115 
Dusty's 
Black 
voice 
No 
research participants 
had 
memories 
of 
Dusty 
voice passing 
as 
Black, 
yet 
the 
literature 
foregrounds issues 
of edmicity 
and 
race 
in just 
this 
way, 
situating 
Dusty 
specifically 
in 
relation 
to 
Blackness 
or 
whiteness. 
116 
Witmer 
suggests 
that 
Dusty 
was aspiring 
to 
Blackness: 
Gospel 
music 
did 
not 
have 
the 
same 
popular 
appeal 
for 
whites 
as 
the 
blues, 
despite 
the 
fact 
that 
many 
white singers 
were 
trying 
their 
damnedest 
to 
sound 
as 
though 
they 
had 
been 
raised 
on 
the 
moaners' 
bench. 
One 
of 
those 
who 
admitted 
to 
damaging 
her 
voice 
trying to 
get 
a 
'black' 
sound 
was 
Dusty Springfield, 
one 
of 
the 
most 
popular 
solo 
singers 
of 
the 
day. 
Dusty 
sang 
songs such 
as 
Can Iget 
a 
witness? 
nominally 
copied 
from 
Motown's 
Marvin 
Gaye 
yet echoing 
an age-old 
cry 
that that 
went 
back 
to 
the 
beginnings 
of 
Afro-America... 
(Wilmer, 
1989, 
p. 
116) 
However, 
research 
participants' 
memories 
are 
of 
the 
transmission 
of an emotional 
intensity 
as 
yet 
unheard of outside 
the 
otherworldliness 
of 
Black 
performances. 
In his 
germinal 
text 
Musiefor 
Pleasure, 
Frith 
asserted 
that 
music 
is 
"the 
rawestform 
oftersonal 
expression 
" 
and endorses 
the 
link 
between 
'raw' 
and 
'Black' 
by 
adding 
("- 
which 
is 
why 
I 
love 
soul 
music') 
(Frith, 
1989, 
p. 
11). 
111 
Blackness/femininity/emotion 
are 
typically 
conflated 
in 
accounts 
of 
Dusty 
and 
her 
work. 
For 
example 
Dave Clark 
stated 
that 
"She 
was 
the 
most 
underrated 
while 
singer 
in 
the 
UK, I 
don't 
thinkpeople 
appreciated 
how 
good she 
was. 
She 
was 
a white 
lady 
who 
should 
have 
been 
black She had 
black 
mascara and 
a 
black 
soul, 
.. 
shefelt 
every 
moment 
and 
had 
tremendous 
emotional range 
" 
(Clark 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
97). 
11' 
Her 
efforts 
to 
replicate 
the 
impact 
of 
The 
Exciters' 
'attack' 
was 
not without 
risk. 
The 
performance 
of 
such 
a 
relatively 
intense 
raced 
musical 
form 
was 
perceived 
as 
both 
radical and 
dangerous in 
the 
hands 
of 
white 
women. 
According 
to 
O'Brien 
"Springfleldsufferedfrom being 
a 
116 
Wexler dubbed 
her (after 
the 
recording 
of 
Dusty 
In 
Memphis 
) 
the 
'Great White Lady' 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
127). 
After 
the 
recording 
of. 
4 BrandNew 
Me 
in 
1970 
she 
was 
awarded 
the 
dubious 
title 
of 
'blue-eyed 
soul 
singer"' 
apigeon-hole 
term 
coined 
in 
1969 
which stuck" 
(O'Brien, 
1995, 
p. 
64). 
In 1983 
Allan 
Andrews 
described her 
as, 
"afemale 
Caucasian 
Marvin 
Gaye " 
(West Sound, 
Radio 
Scotland) Even in 
recent press coverage 
whiteness 
and 
Blackness 
are 
evoked 
e. g. 
"The Husky 
Diva 
of 
"ite 
Soul" 
(Evening Times, 
Glasgow, 
3 
March, 
1999) This idea 
can 
be interpreted 
within 
the 
framework 
of raced 
and 
classed 
interpretations 
of emotional 
excess. 
Frith 
has 
noted 
that 
"thepop 
criticalrule 
ofthumb 
has 
always 
been 
that 
black 
musicians 
are, 
b de 
. 
finition better, 
more 
authentic, 
more souN1, 
more 
expressive" 
(Frith, 
1988, 
p. 
187). 
'XArthur 
Jafa has 
called 
for further 
research 
into 
the 
specificities 
of'enunciative 
desires' 
in 
Black 
popular 
cultural 
forms: 
"Black 
pleasure 
(notjoy). 
what 
are 
Usparameters, 
what are 
itsprimalsites, how 
does 
blackpopular 
culture 
or 
Black 
culture 
ingeneral 
address 
blackpleasure? 
How 
do 
these 
strategies 
in 
Black 
musicplay 
out 
the 
rupture 
and 
repair 
of4frican-America 
lie 
on 
the 
structural 
level? 
... 
How 
can 
we 
interrogate 
the 
medium 
tofind 
a 
way 
Black 
movement 
in itself 
could 
carry, 
for 
example, 
the 
weight 
ofsheer 
tonality 
in 
Black 
song? 
AndI'm 
not 
talking 
about 
the 
lyrics 
thatAretha 
Franklin 
sang, 
I'm 
talking 
about 
how 
she 
sang 
them" 
(Jafa, 
1992, 
p. 
235). 
11' 
Such 
emotional extravagance 
is 
historically linked 
to 
the 
performances 
of 
Black 
stars 
and was 
indisputably 
appealing 
for 
Dusty 
and 
many other 
British 
performers 
from 
the 
1950s 
on. 
Dusty 
articulated 
the 
way 
emotion, 
meaning 
and sound 
had 
a 
pleasurable 
impact 
on 
her by 
connecting 
it 
to 
her 
own 
ethnicity: 
"A 
good 
love 
song 
has 
to 
make 
me 
cry 
[ 
... 
] 
There's 
a connection 
between 
the 
pit 
ofty stomach 
and 
my eyes. 
That's 
the 
Irish 
melancholy 
in 
me. 
A 
song 
has 
to 
be 
immediate 
it 
cannot grow 
on 
me. 
Once 
it 
sends 
a message 
to 
my 
tear 
ducts, 
then 
its 
right 
" (ib id. 
p. 
25 
1). 
Dusty 
cites a speci 
f 
ic 
example 
in 
an 
interview 
from 
1964 
V 
watched 
Dionne 
Warwick 
at 
the 
Olympia 
in 
Paris. She 
sang 
'Anyone 
who 
had 
a 
hearl'and 
it 
was marvellous. 
I 
couldn't 
stop 
the 
tears. 
It 
was 
the 
song, yes- 
I 
think 
it's 
a great song. 
But 
the 
performance 
too 
" 
(Jones, 
1964). 
116 
trailblazer, 
trying 
to 
articulate 
R&B 
torch 
songs 
in 
an 
era when white 
girls were 
not supposed 
to 
express raw 
Rack 
emotion" 
(ibid. 
p. 
3 
8). 
The 
analogy of 
female independence, 
perceived 
by both liberationists 
and 
misogynists 
to 
be 
embodied 
in 
the 
voice 
and 
performance 
of 
African 
American 
women, 
is 
suggested 
in 
accounts 
by 
her 
contemporaries 
and other 
commentators. 
119 
Although 
the 
term 
'Black' 
is 
used 
frequently 
by 
Black 
and 
white 
contemporaries 
and critics, 
this 
essentialist 
conceptualisation 
is 
metonymic 
for 
the 
emotional 
investment 
that 
has been identified 
by 
fans 
and 
critics alike 
in 
Dusty's 
voice. 
For 
Black 
artists 
such as 
Reeves, 
Dusty's 
voice was 
mistaken 
for 
Black: 
When 
I 
heard 
her 
on 
the 
radio 
before 
we 
met, 
I 
just 
assumed 
she 
was 
American 
and 
black 
... 
Motown 
signed 
up 
nearly 
all 
the 
best 
new 
talent 
at 
that 
time, 
and 
I 
remember 
being 
a 
little 
surprised 
to 
find 
she 
was with 
a 
different 
label 
- 
and 
I 
was 
absolutely astounded 
when 
I 
finally 
saw 
her 
on 
TV (Reeves 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
59). 
120 
Dusty's 
critics 
have 
interpreted 
her 
as 
inauthentically 
aping 
Black 
American 
artists. 
Such 
readings were 
arguably preferable 
to the 
notion 
of accepting 
a new, 
raw 
form 
of 
British 
femininity 
capable of engendering 
the 
responses 
from 
research 
participants 
in 
this 
study. 
12 
1 
Black 
artists 
themselves 
continued 
to 
be 
conspicuously 
subordinated 
in 
many 
musical 
fields 
and 
identification 
with 
Black 
American 
forms 
entailed 
professional 
risk-taking, 
at 
least for 
women. 
122 
The 
racism of 
the 
Anglo- American 
music 
industry, 
and 
the 
relative 
risks 
to 
white 
stars 
who 
were 
read 
as 
its 
exponents 
and 
interpreters 
is 
unequivocally 
remembered 
and 
evoked 
by 
soul connoisseur 
Godin "[DJ's 
and record 
119 
American A&R 
man 
Sheivy 
Singleton, 
stated 
that 
at 
the 
outset 
she 
was committed 
to 
R&B: 
"I 
thought 
she 
had 
the 
most 
unusualsound 
ofthe 
threepeople 
in 
the 
group 
[The 
Springfields] 
[ 
... 
] 
She 
was 
doing 
country and 
western, 
which was 
something 
she 
didn't 
want 
to 
do. She 
had become 
more 
'black'with 
her 
voice, 
and 
shefell 
restricted 
within 
the 
group. 
" 
(Singleton 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
3 
7) 
"after 
leaving 
the 
Springfield's 
Dusty became 
more 
black 
with 
her 
voice 
she wanted 
to 
do 
more 
soul 
(ibid. 
p. 
53) 
Although Tom 
Springfield 
is 
read 
by 
some commentators 
as anticipating 
world 
music 
in 
his 
eclectic 
song-writing and arranging 
the 
superficiality of 
his 
identifications 
at 
this time 
are 
apparent 
in 
his interview 
with 
Disc in July 
1963:: 
for 
instance, instead 
of 
getting 
the 
middle 
eight, 
Dusty 
comes 
in 
all over 
the 
place. 
]play 
a 
12-string 
guitarfor 
the 
intro 
and 
Mike 
gets a guitar solo. 
Then 
we 
have 
a girlie 
chorus, making 
squeaky 
Negro-type 
noises. 
4nd 
ifyou 
think 
it is 
still 
too 
different 
when you 
hear 
it 
then 
just 
he 
glad 
that 
each 
ofthe 
trio 
hasn't 
got 
his 
or 
her 
own 
way completely! 
For 
Tom 
would 
like 
to 
do 
a 
Latin, 
4merican 
alhum, 
Dusty has her 
heart 
set 
on out and 
out gospel 
and 
Mike 
would 
like 
to 
record a 
Johnny Cash 
type 
C& 
Wset " 
(Harris, 1963). 
120 
In 1965 
Dusty, 
commenting 
on 
the 
appeal of gospel 
music reveals 
that 
her 
identifications 
and 
pleasures 
were 
indeed 
centred 
on 
non-British, 
non-white 
forms 
of sound 
and performance, 
rather 
than 
specific 
notions 
of 
Blackness: 
"Ifind 
it 
very 
stimulating 
to 
listen 
to. 
It's 
very 
exciting 
music when 
Itfirst 
starts 
up, a gospelpiano 
and 
organ 
going 
into 
something 
and 
then 
a 
tambourine. 
It 
has 
much 
the 
same 
effect 
on me as, 
say, 
Latinfterican 
sound 
suddenly 
bursting 
in, 
or aflamenco 
sound 
" 
(Melody 
Maker, 
1965) 
"' 
Criticisms 
of white, 
British, 
male appropriations of 
Black, 
American 
music, 
for 
example, 
The 
Beatles 
or 
The Rolling Stones 
are 
occasionally 
articulated, 
but 
whereas 
the 
Black 
roots of 
Jagger 
and 
Lennon's 
music 
are cited 
as 
an 
early 
appropriation/appreciation 
that 
was 
a 
significant 
mining 
of 
Black 
sources 
where 
whiteness 
was 
never 
injeopardy, Dusty's 
links 
to 
Blackness 
are persistently 
troubling. 
122 
Dusty 
in 
Memphis 
was 
the 
first 
of 
her LPs 
not 
to 
chart 
in 
the 
M 
being, 
according 
to 
Simon 
Price 
"too 
earthyfor 
British 
tastes" 
(Price, Uncut 
cited 
in 
Bulletin, 
no 
36). 
117 
management] 
just 
couldn't 
understand 
why a nice 
white 
girl should 
want 
to 
sing 
like 
a nigger 
woman 
(Godin 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
144). Wickham has 
offered more subtle 
and yet no 
less 
problematic 
interpretations 
of 
Dusty's 
fascination 
and absorption 
in 
the 
music 
that 
was 
identified 
with 
Black 
artists: 
"The 
powers 
that 
he hadn't 
heard 
ofMotown 
and weren't 
interested Dusty 
had 
a positive 
enthusiasm 
for 
the 
music. 
At 
the 
same 
time 
she 
didn't 
pretend 
she was 
the 
honefide 
article. 
She 
acknowledged 
her 
roots, and 
often saidthat 
she 
wishedshe'dheen 
horn black" 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
60). 
123 
Such 
comments 
could 
be 
read 
as 
reflective of 
both 
the 
specificity 
of 
forms 
of 
positive 
expressions 
of 
self open 
to 
white 
women 
keen 
to 
disrupt 
the 
narrow 
confines 
of 
British 
femininity 
and 
the 
naively optimistic 
aims of 
both 
Dusty 
and 
her 
Black 
counterparts 
towards 
reciprocal 
cross-ethnic 
identifications. 
For 
some 
critics, 
Dusty's 
Black-inspired, 
emotionally 
charged 
performances 
separate 
themselves 
off 
from 
commonplace 
exploitative representations 
by 
white 
performers. 
124 
The 
appeal of sound 
for 
specific 
listeners 
can 
be 
understood 
as 
both 
personal 
and 
collective, 
meaningful 
for 
specific 
listeners 
in 
an 
historical, 
social 
and 
cultural 
framework. 
In 
the 
case 
of music 
produced 
by 
Motown 
performers 
and 
by 
Dusty herself 
in 
Britain 
and 
America 
in 
the 
1960s, 
the 
ambiguity of 
the 
performers 
ethnicity 
and gender 
is 
frequently 
highlighted 
in 
the 
literature 
and 
in 
listeners' 
accounts. 
125 
Motown 
set a mainstream 
precedent 
for 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
musical 
performances of 
soul 
by 
men and women. 
These forms, 
coupled 
with 
the 
emotional 
excess 
associated 
with 
it have 
allowed 
for 
a spectrum of 
identifications 
that 
fulfil 
the 
ideal 
criteria 
for 
pleasure 
that 
Frith 
has 
summarised 
"The 
best 
records 
(the 
ones 
that 
give 
mostpleasure) 
are 
the 
ones 
that 
allow an ambiguity 
of 
response, 
letting 
us 
be 
both 
subject 
and object 
of 
the 
singers'needs 
(regardless 
of our 
or 
their 
gender). 
" (Frith, 1989, 
p. 
167). 
12' 
This 
seems 
to 
be 
born 
out 
in 
contemporary 
interviews 
for 
example 
with 
Peter 
Jones in 
1964: "The 
sort 
ofmusic 
I like 
is 
gospelly music, sung 
by 
coloured 
artists... 
7hat'sfine but 
then 
people 
started 
saying 
I 
sounded 
as 
ffl 
was coloured. 
I 
think 
Cliff 
Richard 
said 
I 
was 
'A 
white negress... 
again 
that 
`sfine. 
But 
the 
important 
word 
is 
White 
not 
Negress. 
.. 
No 
matter what 
people 
think 
I 
dont 
sound coloured, 
I'd like 
to. 
Often 
I 
try to.... 
To be honest 
I'm 
still 
lookingfor 
the 
real 
me. 
I 
know 
what 
I like 
and 
what 
I 
want 
to 
do. But 
It 
takes time 
to 
settle 
in 
- 
to 
be 
yourselfinstead 
oftrying 
tofollow 
other 
styles 
and 
other 
artists.. 
I'm 
misquoted- 
maybe 
it's 
myfaulf. 
But I 
never said 
I 
am rhythm 
and 
blues. 
I like 
it 
sure. 
People like 
Martha 
Reeves 
and 
the 
Vandellas 
- 
they 
must 
make 
it 
big 
In 
Britain 
soon. 
I'mjust 
seeking 
right 
now. 
Butyou 
can't expect 
white 
people 
to 
sing 
like 
the 
coloured 
stars 
"'(Jones, 
1964). 
114 
"She 
wasn't 
indulging 
herset(in 
sub-Al 
Jolson 
routines 
like 
other 
sixties wannabees. 
She 
understood 
that 
soul was more 
than 
putting on 
a rasp and 
sounding 
like La 
Verne 
Baker 
" 
(Shaar 
Murray 
quoted 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
248). 
Tom Dowd, 
a session 
musician 
who 
worked 
with 
her in 
Memphis has 
also acknowledged 
the 
seriousness 
of 
her 
intent 
"I 
recognised 
in 
her 
a 
deepjazz 
root 
She 
was afanaticalja= 
impressionist. 
When 
she 
told 
me 
Blossom 
Dearie 
was one 
ofter 
heroines, 
I 
realised 
that 
she 
had 
obscure, 
avant-garde genius as 
her 
goal" 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
124 ). 
"' 
As 
late 
as 
197 1, 
the 
release 
of 
Dusty's 
'bluesy 
bal 
lad' 
singles 
Haunted 
and 
I Believe 
in 
You 
were 
considered 
"too 
souNifor 
a 
while 
audience, 
and 
not 
black 
enoughfor 
the 
black 
radio stations 
" 
Neither 
made 
the 
charts 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
P. 
144). 
Wexler 
accords 
Dusty 
a 
measure 
of 
creative 
autonomy 
distinct from 
race 
that 
comes 
close 
to 
reflecting 
the 
accounts 
of 
identification 
and 
transformation 
by 
participants 
in 
this 
study: 
"With 
Dusty 
there 
were 
no 
traces 
of 
black 
in 
her 
singing, 
she's not mimetic. 
Whatever 
she 
getsfrom 
black 
she 
transmogrifles 
with 
her 
own sensibility. 
She 
has 
a pure 
silvery 
stream, 
she's a genuine 
original"(Wexler 
in O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
125). 
118 
Episodes 
of sororial 
cross-ethnic 
identifications 
Research 
participants 
discussed 
identifications 
with and 
feelings 
about stars 
in 
ways 
that 
cannot 
be 
easily 
reduced 
to 
categories 
of 
whiteness and 
Blackness, 
or racist 
appropriation. 
Similarly, 
the 
accounts 
of 
Early Mod Dusty, 
her 
own memories 
of 
this 
period and 
those 
of 
Black 
stars 
such as 
Reeves 
suggest an 
unprecedented context 
where cross-ethnic 
identifications 
between 
women were 
not 
only 
possible 
but 
were 
enacted. 
Dusty 
appeared 
on 
Dick Clark's Coast 
to 
Coast 
American Bandstand 
in 
1964 
and 
in 
the 
summer of 
the 
same 
year 
she 
performed 
for 
the 
first 
time 
with 
the 
Black American 
R&B 
artists 
she admired, at 
Murray 
Kauftnan's 
show 
in 
New York's 
5000-seater Fox 
stadium 
doing 
shows with 
the 
Ronettes, 
the 
Contours, 
Little 
Anthony 
and 
the 
Imperials 
and 
Motown 
acts such as 
the 
Supremes 
and 
the 
Temptations 
to 
mixed 
audiences. 
According 
to 
O'Brien, 
Dusty 
was 
aware of 
the 
potential 
problems 
surrounding 
her 
whiteness 
on 
a 
predominately 
Black bill, however, 
O'Brien's 
interpretations 
and 
Dusty's iconic 
memories 
of 
the 
feminised 
space 
of 
the 
dressing-room 
are strikingly 
poignant 
accounts 
of 
intimacies 
between 
femininities. 
126 
Dusty 
was 
close 
to 
Shirley Alston 
of 
the 
Shirelles 
and, 
back 
in 
Britain, 
attempted 
to 
recreate 
this 
productive, 
sororial atmosphere 
in her 
work 
with 
the 
American 
ex-pat 
backing 
singers 
Madeline 
Bell, 
P. P. (Pat) 
Arnold 
and 
gospel singer 
Doris 
Troy. 
127 
Dusty's 
first 
experience 
of 
anonymously 
backing 
Black 
stars 
is 
remembered 
by 
her 
as a 
treasured 
memory 
above 
all 
others: 
The 
best 
thing 
about 
the 
Fox Motown 
revue 
was 
that the 
Vandellas did 
the 
back-up 
for 
Marvin 
Gaye 
from 
the 
wings 
and 
on 
the 
first 
show 
[of 
the 
day] 
there 
was 
always one 
who'd 
overslept 
so 
I 
got 
to 
be 
the 
3rd 
Vandella 
and 
to this 
day 
that 
is 
the 
biggest 
thrill 
of 
my 
life (Poinfrey, 
1994 ). 
Soul 
star 
Reeves, 
who 
saw 
Dusty 
as 
"the 
champion 
ofPRfor 
soul 
label 
... 
the 
one 
who can 
be 
credited with 
breaking Motown 
in 
Britain 
" (ibid. 
) 
remembered 
their 
contact 
in 
ways 
that 
evoke 
the 
" 
"She 
would 
squeeze 
up 
in 
the 
tiny 
dressing 
room 
with 
the 
Ronettes, 
swapping stories 
and 
make-up 
hints. 
'It 
was 
hot like, 104 
degrees 
and all our 
beehives 
were 
in 
there 
- 
three 
black 
beehives 
and 
one 
while one... 
Next 
door 
were 
Martha 
Reeves 
and 
the 
Vandellas, 
and 
on 
the 
other 
side 
were 
the 
Supremes ". 
Diana 
Ross's 
mother 
hemmed 
Dusty's 
dressesfor 
her, 
while 
SmoAy 
Robinson's 
w(fe 
Claudette, 
would 
cook 
dinnerfor 
everyone 
on 
the 
topfloor 
of 
the 
building 
" 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
5 6) 
127 
The 
year 
after 
the 
Fox 
performances, 
Dusty 
paid 
for 
Reeves 
to 
accompany 
her 
and 
Bell 
on 
a 
trip 
to 
Rio. Valentine 
and 
Wickham 
recall 
a 
treasured 
memory 
from 
this time: 
"Dusty 
always 
remembered noijust 
the 
brilliance 
ofcarnival 
but 
the time 
she, 
Martha 
and 
Madeline 
climbed 
up 
to thefamous 
statue ofJesus 
that 
lowers 
over 
Rio. Despite 
the 
heal, 
none ofthe women 
went 
'au 
naturel'with 
their 
hair 
in 
Rio. For 
Martha 
and 
Madeline 
it 
was 
part andparcel 
of 
being 
a 
black 
singer 
in 
the 
1960s, 
before 
Black Pride 
saidyou 
didn't 
have 
to 
wear straight wigs 
like 
white 
women's 
hair. 
For 
Dusty 
it 
was 
probably 
more 
a 
case of 
wanting 
to 
look 
her 
glamorous 
best 
to 
herself, 
or 
indeed 
apassingjan 
orphotographer. 
So 
there 
they 
were, 
a while girland 
two 
black 
girls 
under 
the 
outstretched 
arms of1he 
Lord, 
all wearing 
scarves so 
that their 
wigs 
wouldn'tj7Y 
O)f'(Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 
2000, 
p. 
68). 
For 
Dusty, 
this 
combo 
constituted 
a groundbreaking 
opportunity 
for 
collaboration with 
African 
American 
performers. 
Bell 
stated 
that 
when 
she 
came 
to 
Britain 
in 
1963 
there 
were 
only 
two 
or 
three 
Black 
singers 
in 
Britain, 
and 
they 
sangjazz. 
Bell, Arnold 
and 
Troy 
certainly contributed 
to the 
impact 
of 
Dusty's 
material: 
"Their 
powerfid 
voicesplumped 
up 
her 
soundandgave 
her 
the 
edge 
over 
her 
competitors. 
She learnt 
a 
lotfrom 
them 
and 
repaid 
the 
compliment 
by 
recording 
backing 
vocalsfor 
them 
under 
the 
pseudonym, 
Gladys 
Thong" (O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
206). 
119 
positive cross-ethnic 
identifications 
that 
are a 
contextual 
underpinning 
for 
this 
chapter. 
128 
The 
pleasures 
and 
fashioning 
practices of 
Black 
stars 
and 
fans 
of music 
in 
America 
and 
Britain 
is 
certainly 
an under researched 
but 
critically 
important 
source 
of 
knowledge 
on 
cross-ethnic 
identifications. 
Accounts 
by 
stars and 
fans 
reveal 
identifications 
of 
forms 
of pleasurable 
and 
empowering sounds. 
The 
importance 
of 
the 
success 
of 
Black 
music 
in 
this 
period 
in 
providing 
figures 
of 
positive 
identification 
for 
African 
Americans 
models 
of 
Black 
entrepreneurship 
and 
civil 
rights 
activism 
has 
been 
well 
documented, 
as 
has 
the 
impact 
Motown 
and 
Stax had 
on 
the 
formation 
of male 
Mod 
identity 
but little 
has been 
written 
about 
the 
individual 
and 
collective 
pleasurable 
identifications 
British 
women 
fans 
and 
stars such 
as 
Dusty 
undeniably 
experienced 
on 
hearing 
and performing 
soul 
music. 
For 
the 
Black, 
American 
bom 
Mod 
queen, 
P. P. 
Arnold, 
Dusty 
"was 
the 
soul 
singer. 
Out 
ofall 
the 
girls 
- 
Lulu, Cilia 
and 
all 
ofthat 
- 
it 
was 
Dusty doinitfor 
me. 
She 
made 
mejeel 
it' 
(O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
44). 
129 
Feminist 
ambivalence 
to 
(Dusty's) 
performances 
of 
excess 
In 
line 
with much 
British 
and 
American 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
theory 
and 
activism, 
publications 
such as 
Spare 
Rib disdained 
fashioning 
outside 
narrowly 
defined 
tastes. 
130 
The 
editorial 
style 
(un)consciously 
produced 
a pro- 
rock and 
anti-pop 
stance 
reflective 
of a 
broader 
alignment 
with 
the 
middle 
class, predominantly 
white 
tastes 
of 
its 
collectives, 
at 
least 
in 
the 
first five 
years 
or so of 
its 
run. 
A 
strident anti- 
feminine 
excess 
rhetoric 
was 
sustained 
until 
late 
into 
the 
1970s, 
the 
first 
decade 
of 
its 
publication. 
In 1975, 
Liz 
Waugh 
and 
Terri Goddard 
critiqued 
the 
sexist-orientated 
lyrics 
of 
contemporary music, unproblematically 
indicting 
soul 
as 
the 
principle 
motor 
for 
sustaining 
the 
'cult 
of 
femininity' 
through 
promotion 
of 
romance 
and 
the 
use 
of sexist 
lyrics. 
In 
contrast, 
and 
in 
one 
of several 
"' 
in 
a 
tribute 
programme 
produced 
for 
BBC 
Radio 
4, Reeves 
discussed 
the 
reciprocity 
of 
their 
friendship: "Dusty 
andIshared 
things 
andwhen 
the 
secondtake 
ofDancin'in 
the 
streets was 
a 
'keep'lran 
to 
Dusty 
with 
it. 
lgot 
really 
elatedwhen 
1couldplay 
her 
the 
acetate" 
(ibid. ) Dusty 
remembered 
this 
occasion, 
whilst 
she shared 
a 
dressing 
room 
with 
Reeves 
and 
of 
them 
"playing 
the 
record 
three 
times 
in 
a row anddancing 
all over 
the 
place 
- 
it 
was 
the 
epitome 
to 
me 
ofthe 
best 
record 
ofihe 
time 
" (ibid. 
). 
Dusty 
and 
Reeves' 
friendship is 
remembered 
by both in 
forms 
of 
intimacies 
between femininities 
and 
in 
memories 
that 
contradict 
the 
formularised 
reading 
of 
the 
white 
stars 
inauthentic 
aping 
and 
exploitation 
of 
Black 
performers 
and point 
to 
a 
reciprocity 
of 
pleasures 
in 
the 
voice: 
"Dusty 
was 
always 
in 
the 
wings 
because 
I 
think 
she 
liked 
our 
music 
and 
the 
reverse, 
I 
was alwM 
in 
the 
wings 
because I 
liked her 
music 
and 
we'd sing 
back-up 
on 
[Dusty's] 
Wishin'and hopin 
"(ibid. ). 
Although 
Dusty 
had 
anxieties about 
her 
whiteness 
before 
first 
performing 
with 
the 
Motown 
Revue 
at 
the 
Apollo 
she was, 
according 
to 
musicjoumalist 
Simon 
Price "totally 
accepted 
by black 
audiences 
" 
(Price, 
cited 
in 
the 
Dusty 
Bulletin, 
review 
featured 
in 
Uncut). 
In 
contrast 
to 
Dionne 
Warwick's 
annoyance 
at 
Cilia 
Black's 
poaching 
of 
her 
Bacarach 
hits, 
Warwick 
praised 
Dusty'ssound: 
'7 
though 
she 
had 
a wonderj'ul 
quality 
to 
her 
voice, 
you 
know 
there 
are 
certain 
voices 
thalyou 
latch 
onto 
ImMediater 
(ibid. 
). 
"' 
O'Brien 
has 
noted 
that 
Dusty had 
become 
by 
the 
1960s 
an exponent 
of 
a 
form 
of 
musical 
excess 
called 
the 
Vamp. P. P. 
Arnold's definition 
states 
that 
"Everythingfron; 
sixties 
R&B 
to 
house 
andgarage 
in 
the 
nineties 
thatsjust 
gospel, 
thatsjust the 
Church, 
we call 
it 
the 
Vamp. In 
gospel 
music when you 
sing 
the 
songyou sing 
the 
verse, 
repeat 
the 
song, 
then 
move 
into 
the 
chorus, 
which 
is 
the 
hook, 
the 
groove. 
Then 
when 
you 
get 
to 
the 
end ofthe song, all 
hell 
breaks 
loose 
" (O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
45). 
Franklin 
was 
taught 
the 
expression 
"Girlyou 
pee'd 
tonight 
" from 
Jackie Verdell 
of 
the 
Davis 
Sisters, 
something 
Franklin 
admits 
to 
literally 
experiencing 
when 
doing 
the 
Vamp 
in 
her 
early 
career 
(Franklin 
and 
Ritz, 
1999, 
p. 
5 
1). 
"0 
Whilst discrete 
utopian 
forms 
of 
feminist femininity 
were 
uncritically 
endorsed, 
indeed 
modelled 
in 
each 
issue 
by 
editorial 
staff, 
cover 
stars, 
and 
in 
sanctioned 
advertisements 
for 
music 
by 
women, 
female 
stars 
that 
unequivocally 
performed 
feminine 
excess 
were 
"identirled 
with particular 
commodities which 
are 
part ofthe reproduction offeminine 
Identities 
" (Stacey, 1994, 
p. 
160). 
120 
significant 
apologist reviews 
in 
Spare 
Rib 
of 
The Rolling Stones, Mick 
Jagger 
is 
regarded 
as 
'a 
special 
case'. 
Jagger's 
rock penchant 
for 
misogynistic 
lyrics is 
acknowledged 
but 
clearly 
less 
problematic 
than 
Marvin 
Gaye' 
S. 
131 
In 1973, 
Margaret Geddes 
unequivocally appraised 
the 
Stones 
as 
holding 
a 
fascination for 
Spare 
Rib 
readers 
in 
her 
article 
'Roll 
over 
and rock me 
baby' (Geddes, 1973, 
pp. 
6-8). 
Interestingly, 
in 
the 
light 
of contemporary 
debates including 
this 
one 
about 
women's 
identification 
with 
female 
stars, 
Geddes 
suggests 
that the 
Rolling 
Stones 
provided models 
of 
mimetic 
identification. 
132 
The 
reason 
for 
Dusty's 
neglect 
by 
mainstream 
and 
feminist 
texts 
might 
be 
accounted 
for 
as 
forms 
of 
projection 
that 
railed against 
the 
political 
perils 
of encrusted 
femininity. 
Such 
projections 
allowed 
for 
other 
female 
stars such 
as 
Dusty, 
Shirley 
Bassey 
and 
Tammy 
Wynette 
to 
become 
133 
emblematic 
for 
the 
Spare 
Rib 
collective 
of 
the 
success 
of 
patriarchal 
control 
of women. 
For 
connoisseurs 
Ellen 
and 
Claire, 
appreciation 
of country 
music 
is 
an activity associated with 
developing 
musical 
eclecticism 
in 
Stage 
Two. Claire learns 
the 
value 
of 
the 
country 
genre 
through 
Dusty 
and 
suggests she would 
otherwise 
not 
have 
ventured 
into 
this 
territory. 
For Ellen, 
who 
is 
at 
pains 
to 
differentiate 
the 
work of 
Emmylou 
Harris from 
more 
encrusted 
female 
stars, 
it 
is 
only 
through the 
model of 
Dolly Parton 
whose 
kitsch 
image 
is ironically 
'loved' 
that the 
feminine 
excess associated with 
country can 
be 
consumed. 
134 
131 
And 
in 
a 
later 
article 
Waugh 
and 
Goddard 
stated 
"Jagger 
may 
be 
one ofthe most sexist 
lyricists 
around, 
but he's 
also 
one of 
the 
most 
brilliant We 
don't 
intend 
to 
miss out on 
that 
combined 
with 
the 
best 
rock 
'n'roll 
band 
in 
the 
world... 
Oh 
what 
a 
dilemma! 
" (Waugh 
and 
Goddard, 
1975, 
p. 
37). 
"' 
"7he 
Stones 
appearance 
allowedfor 
identitication 
to the 
extent 
that 
other 
heroes did 
not. 
Ifyoufancied 
Clint 
Eastwoodfrom 
Rawhide, 
it is 
unlikely 
thatyou 
should 
attempt 
to 
look like 
him 
and 
identify 
closely 
with 
his 
actions, 
but 
not so 
the 
Stones. 
(Geddes, 
1973, 
p. 
7) 
113 
The demonisation 
of 
stars 
by feminists 
that 
have 
simultaneously 
been 
adopted as 
gay 
icons is indicative 
of 
the 
dichotomy 
of 
femininity 
between 
these 
two 
political 
positions. 
In 
a 
typical 
collapsing 
of 
issues O'Brien 
has 
stated 
"D. L V 0. 
R. 
CE'pulsated 
with elements of 
high 
camp. 
'Stand 
byyour 
man'turned out 
to 
be 
the 
biggest-selling 
single ever recorded 
by 
afemale counhy 
singer. 
7hough 
it 
was 
snapped up 
by 
manyyoung 
married women 
whofoundher 
sentiments 
rousing, 
her 
recordalso 
became 
a 
kind 
ofalternative gay 
anthem 
" 
(O'Brien, 
1995, 
p. 
19 1). In 
the 
entire 
run of 
Spare 
Rib 
music 
texts 
appear 
in 
every 
issue in 
the 
form 
of 
features, 
reviews 
and adverts, 
frequently 
appearing 
on 
the 
inside 
or 
back 
pages. 
Men's 
as well 
as women's work 
is 
reviewed and advertised 
in 
the 
earlier 
issues including 
Van 
Morisson, 
David Bowie, 
the 
Rolling 
Stones, 
Roxy Music, 
Procul 
Harum, Jon Martyn, 
Chicago, Steve 
Miller, Rick Nelson, 
Alice Cooper, 
Alan 
Price, The New York 
Dolls, Lou Reed 
and 
Elvis. 
In 
issue 
5 (1972) Carmel 
Koerber 
slates 
'Songsfor 
Women's 
Liberation'by 
Femme 
Records 
and applauds 
Jonathon King's Bubble 
Rock Is Here To Stay 
- 
if 
only perhaps 
because it included 
King's 
version 
of 
The Rolling Stones' 
Satisfaction 
which apparently 
could 
never 
be 
passed 
over 
by 
early 
Spare 
Rib 
collectives. 
In her 
article 
'Tammy 
Wynette: 
Peroxide Politics 
and 
the 
Counter 
Revolution' (Tyrell, 1975) Sue 
Tyrell 
indulged 
in 
a 
form 
of 
projection 
where 
Wynette 
became 
the 
repository 
for 
all 
the 
undesirable 
qualities 
rejected 
by 
the 
feminist 
collective self. 
No 
consideration 
is 
given 
to 
the 
possibility 
of 
pleasures women might 
have 
gained 
from forms 
of 
identifications 
with 
her Wynette 
is 
'%.. 
afigure-head 
ofthe 
counter-revolution. 
a glitteringperoxide 
testament 
to 
"Ile 
Womanhood 
and 
the 
homely 
virtues 
o 
the 
nuclearfamily. 
She 
is 
both 
a symbol 
and 
defender 
of 
the traditionally 
conservative 
MiddleAmerican 
way of 
Life, 
spearheading 
the 
inevitable 
backlash 
to the 
Women's 
Movement. 
The 
protest 
movement ofthe 
sixties 
usedpopular 
musk as vehiclefor 
consciouspolitical 
comment, 
and 
now 
Nixon's Silent 
Majority 
is 
doing 
the 
same, 
and 
its 
voice 
is 
Tammy 
Wynette 
". 
Country 
music 
is 
grouped 
with other 
feminised 
fields 
of 
popular culture 
as 
illustrations 
of 
the 
perils 
of 
femininity: "The 
passive 
faithfulness, 
the 
mindless 
ecstasy 
over 
trivia 
that 
characterise 
the 
country 
music 
heroine 
are 
all 
toofamiliar 
to 
any reader 
of 
women's 
magazines 
-[... 
I 
Tammy 
Wynette 
and 
Billy Sherrill [record 
producer] 
[ 
... 
] have distilled 
this 
image 
down 
into 
such a 
heady 
intoxicating 
brew. Women have 
suffered 
the 
onslaught 
of anti-feminist 
propaganda 
before 
I 
... 
]yvt 
none ofthat 
had 
the 
emotionalpowerofcountry 
musk" 
(Tyrell, 
1975). 
'*" 
Parton, 
who 
has 
recently 
knowingly 
embraced 
her ironic following 
is 
distinguished 
from 
'that 
whole 
country scene' 
by Ellen 
in 
terms 
that 
evoke 
the 
antipathy 
of 
Spare Rib: 
Ellen: 
Yes, 
she's 
[Dolly 
Parton) 
manufactured 
herself 
f 
... 
] 
And I 
think that's 
a 
huge 
big difference, 
I 
mean 
coming 
from 
that 
whole 
country 
scene where 
most 
of 
the 
women are 
bashed, battered, 
taken 
for 
a ride and 
had 
money 
taken 
off 
them 
you 
know. 
121 
15. 
Feminist 
music 
icons: 
I, 
Meg 
Christian 
tour 
promoted 
in 
Spare 
Rib, 
Issue 
93, 
April 1980, 
page 
48. 
Detail, 
album 
cover, 
Margie 
Adam. Songwrifer. 
1976, 
Pleiades 
Records. 
16. 
Feminist 
music icons: 
-Mmrj! 
? AtAt-- a 
40p, 
io 
?01 'o, 
Li 
.- 
. 
O?- 
,-", 
A 
, 
!?F, I 
of 
oil 
o6ift, 
ok 
Apm?* 
AW 
AW 
o? 
4tI 
1? 
I 
?, 
? 
,, 
t 
I lolk 
Ncar? 
dctail trom 
alhum 
cover 
linagim, 
my, 
wit-priw! 
1979. 
Olk 
ia 
Records. 
&?, 
T 
The 
construction 
of natural 
femaleness 
construed 
to 
be 
embodied 
in 
British feminist 
music 
collectives and 
American 
stars 
from 
Holly Near, 
Meg Christian, 
Carly 
Simon 
and 
Rita Coolidge, 
that 
were 
promoted 
through 
Spare 
Rib 
are 
in 
contrast 
to 
the 
more glittering 
forms 
of 
femininity 
embodied 
by 
both black 
Motown 
/ 
Philadelphia 
and 
white 
country 
music stars. 
135 
Spare Rib 
failed 
to 
address 
the 
massive 
popularity 
of 
these 
other 
musical and 
fashioned 
forms 
amongst 
British 
women 
in 
the 
1970s, 
when 
the 
magazine 
was at 
its 
most 
influential 
in determining 
the 
tastes 
of 
feminism. 
136 
Not 
only 
is 
Dusty's 
work 
and 
the 
trajectory 
of 
Black 
soul and gospel 
performers 
who 
inspired 
her 
neglected 
in 
early-second 
wave 
feminist 
music 
criticism, 
the 
historical 
appropriation 
by 
men 
of 
Black 
women's 
fashionings 
of 
feminine 
excess 
are underplayed 
or 
ignored. 
137 
The Rolling 
Stones 
style 
is 
privileged 
in both 
mainstream 
and 
feminist 
texts, 
over 
that 
of 
Black 
female 
stars, 
despite 
Jagger's 
own 
identification 
with 
Black 
stars 
such 
as 
Tina 
Turner. Appraisal 
of 
Dusty's 
work 
is 
virtually 
absent 
from Spare Rib 
apart 
from 
one occasion 
where 
Waugh 
and 
Goddard 
recruited 
Dusty 
as 
a 
parodied model of 
feminine 
excess: 
It 
may not always 
work, 
but 
the 
Sexist 
Lyric 
Acid 
Test 
gives 
you 
a 
few 
laughs. I 
mean can 
you 
imagine... 
a 
tremulous 
young 
man 
dramatically 
declaiming 
(a 
la 
Dusty) 
'You 
gotta 
chose 
the 
clothes you 
wear/Just 
for 
her/Do 
the 
things 
she 
likes 
to 
Do/Wear 
your 
hair/Just 
for her... 
' 
(Waugh 
and 
Goddard, 
1975, 
p. 
39). 
AP: So 
did 
you 
know 
about 
that 
when 
you were 
first, 
I 
mean, 
I 
suppose 
it's 
there 
in 
some 
of 
the 
lyrics, 
but 
were you 
aware of 
that 
aspect of 
the 
country 
thing? 
Ellen: 
I 
think 
it 
might well 
have 
been 
that 
she was a sparky, 
spunky 
type 
and 
a 
lot 
of 
the 
other 
lyrics 
were 
- 
even 
Emmylou, 
I 
suppose 
a 
lot 
of 
her lyrics 
- 
her lyrics 
aren't 
exactly 
- 
women 
mistreated 
by 
men, 
they 
are 
really 
about 
women 
mistreated 
by life 
rather 
than 
being 
mistreated 
by 
a 
male 
or, or 
you 
know 
something 
bigger 
or 
stronger or 
something you 
can't 
get 
out of. 
The 
appropriation of some 
of 
the 
more ornate 
country stars 
for 
camp 
is 
ubiquitous 
and 
reflected 
in 
mainstream 
and academic 
literature. For 
example, 
a recent 
review of 
Dolly Parton 
noted 
"Trannies, 
grannies 
and 
ironic 
students 
wept 
like 
abandoned 
Kentucky babies " (Dale, 
2002, 
p. 
12). 
135 
Whereas 
the 
memories 
of pleasures 
in 
music possessed 
by 
spokespersons 
for 
feminism 
remain 
largely 
neglected 
or 
undisclosed, some maverick 
feminists 
including 
Greer 
and 
Paglia have 
not 
been 
afflicted 
by 
amnesia 
about 
their 
past pleasures 
and 
have 
revealed 
their tastes 
for 
ska and soul. 
Greer has 
stated 
that 
when she arrived 
in 
Britain in 1969 
the 
only 
way she could 
get 
'down 
and 
dirty' 
was 
by 
going 
to 
the 
ska club 
at 
the 
back 
of 
Liberty's 
in 
London 
where 
she used 
to 
enjoy 
dancing 
with 
'big 
black 
bus drivers' (Greer, 
2000) 
Paglia, in 
a moment of 
unadulterated 
projection 
has 
stated 
"l 
have 
a 
dream: 
in 
my 
dream, based 
on 
the 
diner 
episode 
in 
the 
Blues 
Brothers, 
Aretha 
Franklin 
in 
herfabulous 
black-lipstick 
Jumpin'Jack 
Flash 
ouf1t, 
leapsftom 
her 
seat 
at 
Maxim's 
and, shouting 
'Think! ', 
blasts Lacan, 
Derrida 
and 
Foucault 
like dishrags 
against 
the 
wall, 
then 
leads 
thousands 
offreed academic 
while 
slaves 
in 
a victoryparade 
down 
the 
Champs 
Elysees 
" 
(Paglia, 
1992, 
p. 
219). 
136 
This 
minimising 
of 
or amnesia 
concerning 
the 
impact 
of popular 
black 
stars 
historically 
is 
frequently 
reflected 
in 
mainstream 
media. 
In 
a 
recent 
feature 
on 
The 
Donnas 
- 
heralded 
as 
the 
girl group 
of 
the 
noughties. 
The Guardian 
magazine 
summariscd 
female 
stars and girl 
groups of 
the 
decades from 
the 
1940s 
to 
the 
1990s 
- 
thus: 
The 
Andrews Sisters, 
1940's; 
Patsy Cline, 1950s, 
Janis 
Joplin, 
1960s, 
Donna 
Summer, 
1970s; 
Madonna, 
1980s; Britney 
Spears, 1990s (Williams, 
2001) 
117 
One 
rather sad, 
lukewarm 
review appeared when 
Dusty 
was attempting 
to 
revive 
her 
career 
again 
in April, 
1978. In 
the 
case of 
Mick 
Jagger, 
and 
in 
articles 
that 
look 
specifically 
at 
forms 
of 
identification 
such 
as 
Geddes' 
cited 
above, 
the 
privileging 
of 
bourgeois, 
white male rock 
over 
forms 
of music 
and performance 
by 
black 
men 
and women 
is 
apparent. 
According 
to 
Marianne 
Faithfull: 
"Mick 
wasfascinated 
with 
the 
way 
Tina Turner 
moved 
on 
the 
stage. 
He 
studied 
her 
every 
gesture, 
her 
every move, all 
the 
nuances 
of 
herperformance. And 
when 
he 
got 
back 
to 
his 
room, 
he 
wouldpractice 
what 
he had 
seen 
inftont 
of 
the 
mirror, 
endlessly 
dancing, 
gesturing, 
watching 
himseff 
moving 
his 
body 
rhythmically, 
the 
way 
Tina 
did 
What 
seemed 
spontaneous on 
stage 
was 
really carefully 
rehearsed 
andplolled 
infront 
of 
the 
mirror 
" 
(Faithfu 
11 
cited 
in Wh 
iteley. 
1997). 
122 
The 
ironic 
subtleties of 
Dusty's 
own 
parodic, 
lesbian 
voice as 
heard 
in 
her 
cover, 
or 
rather 
appropriation 
of, 
Gene Pitney's 
libidinous 
Twenty-four hoursftom 
Tulsa 
are 
passed over 
in 
favour 
of 
a 
reading of 
Dusty 
as a straightforward 
model 
of 
false 
consciousness, 
in 
particular 
the 
proto-feminist 
achievements of 
Dusty 
are 
veiled 
by 
the 
inappropriateness 
of 
her fashioning 
of 
femininity. 
138 
The 
methods of 
the 
germinal 
all-woman, 
feminist 
band 
the 
Stepney 
Sisters 
interviewed 
in 
May 
1976, 
in 
Spare Rib, 
can 
be 
compared 
here 
to 
Dusty's interpretation 
of 
her 
role 
as 
popular 
performer. 
Interviewer 
Marion Fudger 
asks 
Stepney 
Sister 
Ruthie: 
Have 
you ever 
thought 
to 
take 
your 
music 
into 
more 
working-class 
situations? 
Ruthie: 
Well 
we've 
had 
discussions 
about 
playing 
in 
ordinary 
pubs 
where 
anybody 
will go, 
or 
trade 
unions 
where 
we'd 
be 
playing 
to 
a 
more 
working-class 
audience. 
Perhaps 
our 
gigs are 
rather exclusive 
in 
the 
sense 
that 
we 
play 
in 
middle-class 
places. 
One idea 
was 
that 
if 
we made a 
record, we'd 
be 
able 
to 
reach 
a 
much wider 
audience, 
like 
women 
trapped 
in 
the 
home, listening 
to the 
radio. 
In 
contrast, 
Lucy O'Brien 
noted, 
Her 
[Dusty's] biggest 
contingent 
of 
fans 
came 
from 
the 
North 
of 
England 
where she attracted a 
large, 
working-class audience. 
She 
later 
remembered 
one 
date 
in 
Yorkshire 
where a young mum 
caught 
her 
eye. 
'There 
she 
was with 
her 
scampi 
and chips, and 
I 
could 
tell 
she was enjoying my 
songs 
so much. 
Overworked 
as she was, 
swollen 
ankles 
and all, 
I 
was 
her 
big 
night out. 
That's 
why 
I 
used 
to 
go 
out and 
do it 
( 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
85). 
"' 
Reviewing 
her 
performance 
in 
a 
Blackburn 
club 
in 
the 
early 
1970s 
Marcelle 
Bernstein 
noted 
the 
almost 
inexpressible 
intimacies 
between 
Dusty 
and 
her 
audience: 
"It's 
notjust 
thefalse 
nails 
that 
138 
Rib's 
perspective 
ignored 
the 
fact 
that 
according 
to 
Valentine, 
Dusty's 
Breakfast 
in 
bed 
was 
practically, 
"a 
lesbian 
anthem 
(Valentine, 1999, 
p. 
18). 
13' 
Although 
a more 
in depth 
analysis 
of 
the tastes 
of 
feminist 
music 
criticism 
is 
required, 
the 
absence 
of soul 
music 
in 
reviews, 
features 
and advertising 
in 
Spare 
Ribs 
entire 
run 
is 
cause 
for 
criticism 
given 
the 
pleasures 
women 
have 
derived in 
it 
over 
the 
specific 
timeframe 
marked 
by its 
publication. 
Black 
female 
performers 
are 
included 
in 
articles and 
reviews 
but 
the 
white rock 
and 
folk 
artists 
(with 
by 
no means explicit 
feminist 
repertoires) 
arguably 
consumed 
by 
predominantly 
middle-class audiences 
predominate. 
Carly 
Simon, 
Dory Previn, 
Judy 
Collins, 
Yoko Ono, 
Marsha 
Hunt, 
Liza Minnelli, 
Carole 
King, Fanny, 
Rita 
Coolidge, 
Linda Lewis, 
Janis Joplin, Joni 
Mitchell, 
Shusha 
(singing 
'Raleigh, 
Shakespeare, 
Blake 
andher 
own songs'(Spare 
Rib, 23), 
Melanie, 
Grace 
Slick, Joan 
Armatrading, 
Joan Baez. 
Alma 
Mahler, 
Elkie 
Brooks, 
Carla 
Bley, 
Patti Smith, 
Bonnie 
Raitt, 
Emmylou 
Harris, Kate 
and 
Anna McGarrigle, 
Rock 
Follies (album 
of 
hit 
TV 
show) 
Janis 
Ian 
and 
Pegg 
Seeger 
were all 
featured 
in 
articles, 
advertising 
or 
reviews. 
123 
extend 
herfingers 
but 
the 
almost-love, 
the 
rapport 
between 
watchers 
and watched, audience 
and star 
(Bernstein 
cited 
in 
Valentine 
and 
Wickham, 2000, 
p. 
135). 
Participants' 
accounts 
and 
the 
fashioning/construction 
of 
Dusty 
and other 
music 
stars 
who 
express 
to 
excess 
can 
be 
said 
to 
have 
mobilised 
forms 
of 
creativity 
through 
and 
into intimacies between 
femininities, 
producing 
treasured, 
iconic 
and self-narrativised 
memories of often 
ineffable 
emotions 
and experiences 
neglected or 
disdained in 
both 
feminist 
and mainstream criticism. 
In 
subsequent 
chapters 
I 
discuss 
how 
cross-class 
identifications 
are 
also articulated 
through 
fashioning forms 
of 
femininity. 
Dusty 
commented 
self-reflexively 
on 
how 
her 
own middle-class 
status 
could 
inhibit her 
and 
had 
to 
be 
consciously 
transcended 
in 
specific 
forms 
of 
performance: 
When 
you are 
middle 
class 
you always 
wonder 
what people will 
think 
or say 
if 
you 
do 
something 
different 
- 
like 
standing 
in 
front 
of 
a 
thousand 
people 
and singing of 
love 
and 
romance 
... 
If 
you are 
working class 
you 
don't 
think 
like 
that, 
because 
you are 
out 
to 
prove 
something 
to the 
world. 
(Springfield 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
1999, 
p. 
29). 
This 
chapter 
introduced 
an 
individual 
and 
collective 
iconic image/text 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
the 
form 
of 
'Dusty'. 
The 
specificities 
of 
British 
post-war 
working 
class cultures 
and 
dispositions, for 
example, 
the 
development 
of 
cross-cultural 
identifications 
and 
the 
burgeoning 
of 
lesbian 
identifications 
are raised 
in 
relation 
to 
historical 
and social 
change 
and 
participants' 
testimonies. 
I 
also address some 
central 
aims 
and 
key 
themes 
of 
the 
research. 
The dissidence 
of 
Dusty (and 
Dustified 
fashionings) 
are 
discussed 
in 
relation 
to 
issues 
of sexuality, 
transformation 
into fashioned 
forms 
that 
contradicted 
contemporary 
notions 
of 
respectability, 
desirable 
modernity, 
fashion 
and 
taste 
and 
later feminist 
fashioning 
orthodoxies. 
The 
pleasures 
of participants 
in 
Dusty 
on a 
range of 
(extra) 
musical 
registers 
is 
charted 
including 
lyrical 
and 
emotional address, 
gestures, 
fashioning, 
nostalgia, 
mimicking and self- 
narrativisation. 
These 
identifications 
that 
form 
aspects 
of 
intimacies 
between 
femininities 
discussed 
throughout 
the 
thesis, 
occur 
here 
between 
Dusty 
and 
Black 
soul 
and 
white 
Hollywood 
stars, 
in 
the 
identifications 
and 
relationships 
that 
arise 
in 
the 
processes 
of 
'fan' 
consumption, 
lesbian 
identifications 
and so 
forth. Finally, 
the 
theme 
of 
disdain, discussed 
further in 
subsequent chapters 
is introduced in 
my 
interpretation 
of 
how 
Dusty's 
excesses 
(and 
those 
of 
Black 
soul 
stars) 
have 
been 
and 
are 
perceived 
through the 
lens 
of 
the 
hegemonic 
post-war 
Rock 
ideology 
and, 
from 
the 
late 
1970s 
on, 
the 
polarised 
perspectives of 
camp 
and 
feminist 
taste. 
The 
next 
chapter 
moves 
the 
discussion 
of 
fashioning 
124 
femininity 
from 
Dusty, 
a collective, 
iconic figure 
of excess 
through 
to 
participant's own 
fashioning 
experiences 
where 
the 
meaningfulness of 
hair in 
their 
respective 
histories 
of self-fashioning 
is 
defined. 
125 
5 Fashioning 
Hair 
5.1 
Introduction 
In 
effect, 
womanhood 
itself, 
as much as 
female beauty is 
created 
through 
hairstyling 
(Girnlin, 1996, 
p. 
512). 
The 
focus 
of 
this 
chapter 
is 
research 
participants' 
accounts 
of 
their 
hair fashioning histories! 
The 
impetus 
to 
draw 
this 
material 
into 
a 
dedicated 
chapter, 
a 
pivotal one 
for 
this 
project, arose 
through the 
2 
volume 
of 
meaningful 
data 
collected, some 
of which 
I 
argue offers 
feminist 
insights. 
I 
have 
attempted 
to 
cluster accounts 
in 
thematic 
sections 
although 
some 
overlap 
or cross-correlate. 
Although 
my principle aim 
is 
to 
present 
participants' 
perspectives 
on 
hair 
I 
have included 
at 
intervals, 
as 
below, 
some 
secondary sources 
where 
these 
help 
to 
illuminate 
cultural or 
historical 
contexts. 
Before 
1914 
European 
middle-class 
women 
had 
their 
hair 
dressed 
by 
a 
ladies' 
maid. 
In France 
bourgeois 
women 
might 
have 
called 
on 
the 
service 
of a 
coiffure 
for 
special 
occasions 
that 
would 
have 
made 
home 
ViSitS. 
3 
The 
memories 
of 
the 
research 
participants 
span 
the 
greater 
part 
of 
the 
period 
from 
the 
inception 
of 
hairdressing 
salons 
in 
the 
early 
part of 
the 
twentieth 
century. 
The 
growth 
of 
the 
fields 
of 
fashion/ing 
from 
this 
period 
to the 
present 
has been 
identified 
by 
many 
commentators as articulating 
and 
mirroring 
broader 
significant 
cultural, political, 
sociological 
and 
historical 
changes 
(Gaines 
and 
Herzog, 1990; 
Barnard, 
1992; Buckley 
and 
Fawcett, 
2002). 
4 
Historical 
accounts of 
British 
hair 
fashioning 
comprise 
a 
history 
largely 
of middle-class 
women's 
tastes, 
including 
sumptuary 
legislation 
which, 
inevitably, 
impugns 
women as vain and 
details 
excesses 
rather 
than 
experiences. 
The 
literature 
fails 
to 
adequately 
chart 
the 
self-fashioning of 
working-class 
women. 
5 
1 
In 
some 
instances, 
I 
approached 
participants with 
this 
aim 
in 
mind 
for 
example, 
in 
salon 
visits; 
in 
others, 
the 
subject of 
hair 
arose 
in 
discussions 
about 
broader fashioning 
regimes 
and 
related 
topics. 
' 
Ibis 
is 
the 
term 
I 
use 
to 
describe 
moments 
in 
the 
research where 
participants 
produce 
knowledge 
that 
I 
regard as 
directly 
relevant 
or new 
to 
feminism. 
Many 
participants 
claimed 
that 
hair had 
an outstanding significance 
to 
them 
in 
relation 
to 
their 
understanding 
of 
both ftmininity 
and 
feminism. For 
example, 
speaking of 
the 
idealised image 
of 
long, 
think 
hair 
that 
Elizabeth 
desired 
as 
a girl 
in 
the 
1950s, 
a 
look 
she associated 
with 
Brigitte 
Bardot 
and 
Grammar School 
girls 
she stated 
", 
4nd 
it 
rep. 
and 
to 
me 
that 
i what 
it 
took 
to 
be 
feminine [ 
... 
I 
Even 
much 
more 
than 
&D? 
large breasts 
oryou 
know, 
it 
was 
definitely 
the 
hair 
and 
I 
know I 
didjeel 
terribly 
unfeminine 
because 
-I 
always 
say 
my 
life 
would 
have been 
totally 
different 
if 
Id 
had 
different 
-a 
different 
kind 
of 
hair, 
and 
I'm 
absolutely 
convinced 
that 
that 
was 
the 
case 
". 
3 
This 
system 
accounts 
for 
the 
scarcity 
of salons pour 
dames before 
1914 
(Zdatny, 
1997, 
p. 
37). 
Salons, 
located in 
the 
new 
department 
stores, were 
first frequented by 
women 
living in 
British 
urban centres 
in 
the 
late 
nineteenth 
century 
(Cox, 1999, 
p. 
7). 
Although 
ornate 
hairstylings 
had 
once 
been 
a 
status 
symbol 
for 
both 
sexes, 
it 
was 
also at 
this 
point 
that 
the 
notion 
of 
highly 
fashioned 
or 
decorative 
hairdressing 
was gendered 
asfeminine 
(ibid. 
p. 
15). 
' 
Cox has 
demonstrated 
that 
even 
before 
the 
development 
of urban 
hairdressing 
salons and 
Academies 
of 
Hairdressing, hair 
carried social signification, 
for 
example, 
from 
the 
1820s 
to 
the 
1920s 
"afabulously 
coiffured 
wife 
signified 
that 
all was well 
in 
the 
male world 
ofwork" 
(Cox, 1999, 
p. 
7). 
s 
Exceptions 
include 
records 
of 
the 
ongoing 
sale 
by 
poor and ethnic 
minority women 
of 
their 
hair 
for 
the 
postiches 
industry, 
the 
shaving 
of 
institutional 
ised 
and working women's 
heads 
as a 
result of scalp 
diseases, 
imprisonment 
or 
similar 
forms 
of 
incarceration 
and efforts 
to 
distinguish 
prostitutes 
from 
other 
women. 
For 
example, 
Nield 
records 
that 
in 
the 
eighteenth century, 
126 
17. 
Fantasy 
fashioning 
contexts: 
Margaret 
Lockwood 
and 
her daughter 
Toots 
in 
a 
theatre 
dressing 
room, 
illustration 
in 
Girl. film 
and 
television 
annual, 
1957, 
page 
47. 
F, 
Isa 
Martinelli in 
The 
VIP's, 
1963, 
still 
in 
ABCFi1m 
annual, 
1964, 
unpaginated. 
5.2 
Fashioning 
contexts and cultures 
Grooming 
and 
fashioning 
contexts 
Many 
participants' 
earliest 
or 
most 
treasured 
memories of 
(self-)fashioning 
described 
environments 
that 
ran 
counter 
to twentieth 
and 
twenty-first 
century 
Western 
notions 
of glamour 
in 
literary 
influenced 
Hollywood 
or advertising 
industries. 
6 
Some 
accounts, 
such as 
those 
of 
Jean's 
of 
her 
own and 
her 
mother's 
fashioning 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
suggested 
how 
such 
activities 
could 
be 
absolutely 
imbricated 
into daily 
life 
and associated 
with 
banal 
but 
significant, 
sometimes 
treasured 
objects: 
She 
[her 
mother] 
used 
to 
sit 
me up on 
the 
washboard 
in 
the 
kitchen 
and 
she used 
to 
brush 
and 
brush 
with 
this 
Betterware brush. 
I 
still 
remember 
that. 
I 
still 
have 
that 
brush 
and 
it 
was 
pink and 
it 
said 
Betterware 
and 
it 
was 
kind 
of 
like 
that 
[gestures 
the 
shape 
of 
the 
brush] 
with 
the 
wee 
bristles 
all 
going round about. 
I 
had it from 
a 
baby. 
She brushed 
and 
brushed 
before 
going 
to 
school 
in 
the 
morning. 
Fashioning 
was 
undertaken 
in 
places and 
spaces 
that 
were commandeered 
and adapted 
rather 
than 
designed 
for 
fashioning. 
Janey 
had fond 
memories 
of satisfactorily 
home-perming 
her 
female 
relatives: 
AP: Whereabouts 
in 
the 
house? 
Janey: 
Well, 
we 
only 
had 
two 
rooms, what we 
called 
a room and 
kitchen 
and 
the 
bathroom had 
no 
wash 
hand 
basin 
or anything 
in it 
so we'd 
just 
to 
do it in 
the 
sink. 
And 
that 
was 
it. 
Jean: 
There 
was 
a 
kitchen 
mirror 
and 
I 
remember 
just 
as 
you went 
in 
the 
kitchen 
door, between 
the 
door 
and 
there 
was a coal cupboard we 
had 
between 
- 
there 
was a 
kind 
of 
big 
mirror 
my 
dad 
had 
put 
up 
there 
and 
because 
the 
light 
came 
in 
at 
our 
back door it 
would 
hit 
the 
mirror so she 
could see 
herself 
and she 
would 
put 
all 
her 
make-up 
on 
the 
kitchen 
table 
and 
she'd 
be 
there 
for, 
prostitutes 
were 
required 
to 
wear 
"a 
striking 
headdress 
of saffron as 
a mark of 
their 
profession" 
(Nield, 
1973 
p. 
220). Sarah 
Waters 
depicted 
a 
hair-cutting 
initiation 
and 
the 
profits 
for 
warders 
from 
hair 
shom 
from 
a 
Roma 
inmate 
in her Victorian 
women's 
prison 
-based 
novel 
Affinity 
(Waters, 
1999, 
p. 
8-80). 
6 
For 
example 
'the 
boudoir', 
'the 
toilette', 
'the 
dressing 
room' and 
the 
'dressing 
table', 
evocative, 
glamorous 
objects, 
environments 
and 
associated 
activities 
epitomised 
in 
the 
film 
Rebecca 
(Hitchcock, 
1940) 
or 
in 
promotional 
photographs 
for 
example, 
Margaret 
Lockwood 
and 
daughter illustrated 
opposite. 
127 
it 
seemed 
like 
ever, you 
know 
putting 
on 
all 
this 
make-up 
on and 
it had 
to 
just 
be 
right 
you 
know, before 
she would 
go out. 
Both Jean 
and 
Elizabeth, 
were 
warned 
as 
girls 
against 
vanity, 
nevertheless, 
Elizabeth 
experimented 
with grooming 
in 
the 
privacy of 
her bedroom 
from 
the 
1950s: 
I 
mean, 
it 
was very much 
you 
know, 
like 
doing 
it 
yourself 
kind 
of 
thing 
and 
very 
much 
in 
secrecy 
[ 
... 
]I did bouffant 
my 
hair 
- 
learnt 
how 
to 
bouffant 
and 
I did 
- 
and 
that 
was 
when 
bouffant 
hairstyles 
were very 
much 
in 
vogue 
and 
there 
was 
a sudden 
development 
in like, 
home 
hairdressing 
with rollers, 
heated 
rollers 
and 
that 
sort 
of 
thing. 
Michelle's 
description 
of 
her 
weekend 
fashioning 
regime 
contrasted 
markedly 
with 
Elizabeth's 
that 
had 
taken 
place 
some 
fifty 
years 
earlier 
in 
the 
volume 
of 
fashioning 
activities, 
array 
of 
equipment 
and 
her 
7 
confidence 
in fashioning 
techniques. 
In 
some 
accounts, 
the 
boundaries 
between 
private 
and 
public, 
domestic 
and commercial 
fashioning 
environments 
were 
redefined. 
Gabrielle 
and 
Ettie described 
occasions 
when 
hairdressers 
made 
home 
visits 
sometimes after 
long 
shifts 
at a salon. 
Ettie's ingenuity 
was 
required 
when, 
as 
a 
young married mother, 
she 
needed 
to 
be 
able 
to 
earn 
money 
at 
home: 
When 
I 
was 
expecting 
Anthony, 
at 
that 
point 
I 
worked 
a 
Friday 
and 
Saturday 
and 
did 
hairdressing 
at 
home, 
made a 
wee 
salon, 
I had 
put 
an 
extension 
onto 
the 
house 
at 
that 
point and 
there 
was 
a wee 
salon, 
started off 
working 
in 
the 
living 
room, 
didn't 
even 
have 
a 
dryer 
but 
had 
a 
fan heater 
and 
I 
cut 
the 
shape of a 
design 
around 
it 
-I 
cut 
a cardboard 
box 
at 
that 
side 
and 
a 
place 
at 
the 
back 
for 
the 
dryer 
to 
blow into 
so 
I 
created 
my 
own 
hairdryer because 
I 
couldn't 
have 
afforded 
- 
hand dryers 
were no 
use 
because 
I 
had 
to 
get 
onto 
my 
other 
lady, 
so 
I devised 
a 
way 
where 
the 
back 
of 
the 
box 
- 
AP: 
That's 
ingenious! 
Ettie: 
- 
the 
front 
of 
the 
box 
was 
that 
for her 
head, 
right, 
and 
the 
back 
of 
the 
box 
was 
like 
that 
[indicates 
a 
hole] 
for 
the 
dryer, 
it 
was 
either 
that 
or 
stick 
her 
head 
in 
the 
oven 
- 
[Laughter] 
Frequently involving 
as 
it did 
"trying 
on 
twenty 
different 
ouOus 
" 
and 
taking 
place 
in 
"Bedroom, 
hall, 
living-room, 
every room 
with a mirror 
In it 
basically, 
aye 
". 
128 
18. 
Salon 
interiors, 
fashioning 
environments: 
La Paris 
el; 
lol 
I 
dWW11614 
Faqade 
1 
II 
bbh? 
Hair 
treatment 
preparation. 
I 
a 
ar4a 
P 
44 
Customers 
under 
dryers 
and 
Marilyn 
Monroe 
poster. 
Reception, 
hair 
treatment 
and refreshment 
preparation 
area. 
9. 
Salon 
ergonometrics, 
Ta 
Paris'. 
For 
some 
participants, 
salon 
visits 
as a child 
from 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
were remembered 
as occasions 
engendering 
fear. 
None 
described 
the 
salon 
interior 
as 
glamorous 
in 
ambience, 
furnishings, 
staff 
or 
clientele: 
' 
Jean: 
I 
was 
scared, and 
I 
tell 
you 
the 
reason 
I 
was 
scared, 
I 
was scared 
of 
the 
hairdryers 
because 
they 
were 
a sort 
of 
dome-shaped, 
not a 
dome-shape 
but 
they 
were a sort of cone-shaped 
and 
I 
was 
frightened 
that the 
dome 
would 
go over 
my 
head 
and suffocate 
me and nobody 
knew 
what 
- 
the 
fear 
was 
so 
- 
eventually 
my mother 
took 
me 
out and 
I 
cried 
all 
the 
way 
along 
Argyle 
Street. 
Elizabeth's 
memories 
of 
accompanying 
her 
mother 
and grandmother 
to the 
hairdressers 
for 
their 
perms 
date 
from 
when 
she 
was 
three 
and 
a 
half 
years 
old 
in 
1940: 
"Well, 
it 
was 
the 
time 
of 
these 
absolutely 
enormous 
dryers, 
so 
I 
remember, 
that's 
all 
I 
remember 
really, 
women, 
say, under 
those 
enormous 
dryers, 
it 
was 
vety 
small 
hairdressers 
but 
I 
think 
-[... 
]-I 
think 
most of all what 
I 
remember 
was 
the 
smell 
and 
it 
was 
a 
very, 
very 
strange 
place 
". 
Ettie's 
perspective 
as a 
hairdresser in 
a 
working- 
class 
women's 
salon 
in 
the 
1960s 
in 
Glasgow 
underscores 
this 
impression: 
AP: 
And 
how 
would 
you 
describe 
'Betty's'? 
Ettie: 
Wee, 
scruffy 
salon 
where 
they 
made 
their 
own 
lacquer 
from 
shellac 
and spirit 
- 
AP: Did 
they? 
Goodness 
me. 
Ettie: 
You 
washed 
the 
windows, 
you 
did 
the 
laundry, 
this 
is 
going 
back 
to 
the 
beginning 
where 
there 
were 
electric, 
horrible, 
burny 
perms, 
it 
wasn't 
just 
curls 
you 
bought, 
you 
had lacerations. 
AP: 
And 
what were 
the 
customers 
like in 
there, 
do 
you remember 
much 
about 
Ettie: Good, 
hard 
working, ordinary 
women 
and 
this 
was 
a 
big 
treat, 
getting 
their 
hair done, 
much more 
like 
a 
torture 
chamber. 
[Laughter] 
As 
a rule, 
the 
interior 
ftimishings 
of salons 
where 
many women 
spent 
long 
hours 
each weekend 
were 
barely 
remembered 
apart 
from 
the 
processing 
apparatus 
even 
defying 
Jean's 
formidable 
powers 
of 
recalO 
Unlike 
the 
allure 
and 
'escapist 
pleasures' 
of 
for, 
example, 
cinema 
interiors 
(Stacey, 1994, 
p. 
95). 
AP: What did 
the 
hairdressers 
look like 
or smell 
like? 
Jean: 
I'm 
trying to 
remember, 
it 
was 
really 
quite a nice salon, 
I 
can't 
remember, 
I'm 
trying 
to 
think. 
There 
was 
quite a 
lot 
of 
plants 
around, 
I 
can't 
even remember 
the 
colour now, 
it 
was 
a pale 
colour 
if I 
remember, 
but 
I'm 
just 
stabbing 
in 
the 
dark, 
because 
there 
wasn't 
anything 
to 
sort 
of 
spark off 
- 
This 
was 
an 
impression 
born 
out 
in 
my own 
visits 
to 
for 
example, 
'La 
Paris' 
with 
its 
old 
and 
shabby 
furnishings, 
plastic 
plants 
and 
faded 
posters. 
In 
'Cutz' 
a stool with 
a 
missing 
leg 
was 
being 
used 
as 
a makeshift 
table 
for 
the 
hairdressers' 
materials 
and salon 
visitors 
used old, mismatched 
living 
room chairs. 
Preparation 
of 
bleaches 
and 
other 
lotions 
was 
done 
on 
same 
129 
in 
contrast, 
Jean 
and others 
recalled 
in 
detail 
staff, customers, and salon 
life: 
Jean: 
Mostly 
my mother 
would 
do it herself, 
but 
yes, a 
lot 
of 
the time 
I 
did 
go 
to 
the 
hairdressers 
with 
my 
Mum 
on a 
Saturday 
morning 
[ 
... 
] 
That 
was, 
I 
liked 
that, 
I 
liked it. 
It 
was 
a 
place 
in 
St 
Enoch's 
Square 
which 
used 
to 
be 
the 
old arches 
which was 
below 
the 
old 
St Enoch's 
Hotel 
[ 
... 
] 
and 
there 
was 
a 
hairdressers 
there 
Lizzy 
Kelly, 
now 
Tizzy Kelly's' is 
still going, 
she's now 
in 
Bath 
Street 
and 
her 
and 
her 
husband 
ran 
the 
salon 
and 
they 
were 
really, 
I 
mean really nice 
to 
me. 
And 
my 
mum would 
go 
in 
there 
and get 
her hair 
done [ 
... 
] 
AP: 
Can 
you remember 
the 
reasons 
why 
you 
have 
positive 
memories 
of 
it? 
What 
was 
it 
about 
it 
that 
you 
liked? 
Jean: 
The 
friendliness 
you 
know, 
and 
everybody 
speaking 
to 
everybody 
and you 
know, 
and 
it 
was 
sincere, 
it 
was 
sort 
of 
genuine 
and 
they 
couldn't 
do 
enough 
for 
you, you 
know. 
10 
Ettie 
described 
another 
Glasgow 
salon 
environment 
of 
the 
1960s 
with a 
diverse 
female 
clientele: 
We 
used 
to 
do 
prostitutes 
in 
the 
morning, 
maybe 
some 
housewives, 
grannies, 
babies, 
children, 
first 
haircuts, lunchtime 
you'd 
get 
the 
buyers 
out 
of 
Daly's, Copelands, 
Pettigrew, 
C&A, 
all 
the 
shops 
on 
Sauchiehall 
Street, 
you used 
to 
get 
office 
workers as 
well 
coming 
in 
at 
lunchtime, 
in 
the 
afternoon, 
again, 
back 
to 
housewives, 
teachers, 
then 
after 
half 
three, 
four 
o'clock, 
you 
were 
on your 
feet... 
As 
a young, 
working-class, 
Catholic 
woman 
Ettie 
intimated 
that 
her knowledge 
of 
life 
was 
indubitably 
broadened 
by her 
customers: 
- 
and 
they'd 
be 
saying, 
"Hi, I 
want such 
and 
such. 
" 
and 
you'd 
get on with 
what 
you 
were 
doing 
and 
it 
was 
as 
if 
you 
were 
invisible, 
after 
that 
they'd 
be 
talking 
about 
things 
like 
- 
it 
wasn't 
a 
word 
used 
then, 
abortion, 
or, 
"She's 
at 
the 
clinic" 
or 
"She's 
not 
going 
down 
to the 
base 
", 
I 
or 
- 
and references 
to 
homosexuality. 
You'd 
see 
some 
of 
the 
gays 
coming 
in 
and 
saying 
"Sandra, 
there's 
a 
lot 
of 
Yanks 
up 
at 
theflat 
and 
they 
are 
hanging 
socks 
up and 
they 
are all 
dripping 
all 
ledge 
as 
tea 
making 
and 
condiment 
storage. 
In 
'Cutz' 
there 
was 
no 
tea 
making 
area, 
the 
male 
boss 
brought 
in 
carry 
out 
coffees 
rather 
than 
provide 
any 
brewing 
up equipment. 
Francine 
worked 
with 
extensions 
laid 
out 
in front 
of 
her 
on 
a 
two 
legged 
stool. 
Her 
equipment 
consisted 
of a 
lighter 
for burning 
the 
ends 
of 
the 
extensions 
and a comb. 
The 
interviewing 
process 
in 
salons 
and 
at 
Northend 
College 
was physically 
uncomfortable. 
I 
was 
frequently 
perched on precarious stools 
or chair 
arms. 
10 
Jean's 
pleasures 
in 
salon 
visits 
occasionally extended 
far 
beyond 
the 
limits 
of 
the 
interior: 
"I 
mean, 
I 
was 
interested in 
photography 
and 
things 
andl remember 
Li=y's 
husbandhadjust 
bought 
a camera, 
it 
wasa 
Canonat 
the 
time 
andhesaidlome, 
"Wouldyou like 
to 
try, 
take 
ft" 
and 
he 
gave 
it 
tome 
and 
I 
went 
away 
into 
Glasgow 
and 
started 
using 
his 
brandnew 
camerajust 
trying 
it 
outfor 
him 
and 
then 
coming 
back, 
whenever and 
handing 
it 
back 
into 
him, 
you 
know, 
and 
that 
kind 
ofthing, very 
trustingyou 
know 
". 
11 
The 
Polaris 
Submarine 
base 
on 
the 
Clyde 
where 
many 
prostitutes 
worked. 
130 
over 
theplace. 
" 
[Laughter] You 
could write 
- 
you 
could 
do 
a 
play, a sixties play. 
I 
had 
never 
seen 
it 
and 
I 
said 
to 
my mother, 
"Mum", 
because 
we came 
from 
an 
Irish, Catholic 
family, 
she 
was 
a 
bit 
more 
straight 
laced 
than 
me 
but 
very caring 
too 
- 
because 
I 
said 
to 
her, 
"Mum. "I 
said, 
"There's 
prostitutes 
coming 
in. 
", 
"Justyou 
treat them 
like 
Mary 
Magdalene, 
the 
way 
you would 
her. 
" 
she said 
Sandy 
remembered 
the 
women's 
salon 
where she 
began 
working aged 
13 
as 
'safe': 
I 
got 
fifty 
pence, 
I 
got a 
fifty 
pence 
piece 
for 
a 
Saturday 
morning, 
you 
know, 
but, 
I 
mean, 
I 
just 
loved 
it. 
I 
loved 
the 
environment. 
I 
felt 
so safe 
in 
there. 
It 
was 
like, it 
was 
just 
all 
these 
regulars, 
customers 
for 
shampoos 
and 
sets, 
that's 
what 
it 
was, and, 
like, 
there 
wasn't 
blow-waving, 
in 
fact, 
when 
I 
got 
older, 
I 
was 
the 
one who 
started 
the 
blow-waving, 
the 
first 
that 
had 
ever 
been 
done 
in 
the 
salon, 
it 
never 
- 
they 
had 
never 
done it. 
It 
was 
just 
like 
shampoos 
and sets, and 
then 
little 
girls 
coming 
in for 
dry 
cuts 
and 
things. 
12 
This 
perception 
of salons 
and 
fashioning 
spaces 
being 
safe 
environments 
where 
specific 
codes; 
example 
on 
touching, 
disclosures 
or 
other aspects of 
intimacy 
were used was widespread. 
On 
occasions, 
I 
was 
surprised 
by 
taken-for-granted 
accounts of 
intimacies: 
13 
AP: 
[attempting 
to 
prompt 
... 
]- 
when 
Tony's [hairdresser's] 
wife 
came 
in [to 
the 
salon] on 
the 
first 
occasion 
and 
it 
was very, 
very rainy outside 
- 
Ellen: 
Oh 
yes, 
and was she 
taking 
her 
clothes 
off or 
something? 
[Laughter] 
I 
can't remember 
the 
ins 
and 
outs 
of 
it. I 
do 
remember 
it because 
I 
didn't 
realise 
it 
was 
his 
wife. 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
Exactly, 
exactly, 
so you are going 
into 
the 
hairdressers, 
from 
what 
I 
gather, 
you were 
sitting 
there 
and 
were 
oblivious 
that this 
person 
is his 
wife and 
she comes 
in 
and puts 
her 
brolly 
down 
- 
Ellen: 
- 
that's 
right 
- 
AP: 
- 
and? 
Ellen: 
- 
her 
coat, 
and 
then 
she 
took 
her 
trousers 
off. 
[Laughter] 
[ 
... 
]" 
Maybe 
it had 
to 
do 
with 
the 
space 
in 
the 
hairdressers. I'll 
tell 
you 
it's kind 
of 
funny 
because 
there's no 
private space 
in it 
" 
Sandy 
and 
others 
implied 
a 
'safety 
from fashion' 
-a 
fashion inertia 
that 
I 
also 
noted 
in 
some 
salon 
contexts. 
13 
Ellen had 
told 
me 
of 
an 
occasion, on 
herfirst 
visit 
to 
her 
new 
local 
salon, 
before 
our 
interview 
took 
place. 
I 
was 
keen 
to 
encourage 
her 
to 
relate 
this 
on 
tape 
but 
she 
failed 
to 
see why 
this 
might 
be 
noteworthy. 
"I 
probed 
Ellen 
further, 
asking 
whether she 
thought 
that 
this 
was 
an 
encounter 
that 
she could 
imagine 
happening 
in 
other 
local 
shops or 
businesses. 
131 
[ 
... 
] 
It's 
just, 
you 
know, 
these 
really old 
fashioned 
ones where you 
go 
in 
the 
door, 
and 
the 
door 
and 
the 
window 
are all 
one, 
and you go 
in 
and 
itjust 
goes 
like 
that. 
[Describes 
rectangle 
with 
her 
hands. 
ff 
... 
]- 
yeah, and 
there's 
sinks 
and 
things 
- 
AP: 
- 
and mirrors 
- 
Ellen: 
- 
and 
that's 
it, 
there's 
nowhere, 
there's 
no private space 
so 
if 
you are 
in 
a 
familiar 
space 
and 
there's 
no other 
place 
to 
go 
to take 
- 
[Laughter] 
13 
Trial 
and error 
was 
employed 
to 
identify 
a 
fashioning 
environment 
that 
suited 
customers. 
Janey 
frequented 
Northend 
College, 
where 
customers 
received 
beauty 
and 
hairdressing 
services 
from 
students of 
cosmetology at a 
cut-price 
rate: 
"I 
can sit 
here 
and relax 
and 
get 
someone 
to 
do 
something 
for 
me 
[ 
... 
]I 
used 
to 
go 
to the 
hairdressers 
and 
I 
was 
never really 
happy. 
Since I 
came 
here 
I've 
learned 
more 
about 
my 
hair 
because 
they 
really 
look 
after 
it 
and 
they 
do 
know 
what 
they 
are 
doing, 
advise 
me 
what 
to 
do 
mysetrat 
home 
Po16 
Getting 
Itrigged 
up': 
hair 
cutting 
occasions 
Haircutting 
and 
fashioning 
more generally 
was 
often 
discussed 
in 
association 
with specific 
events. 
Hair 
management was 
a 
factor 
in 
Jean's 
mother's 
preparation 
for 
a 
holiday: 
And 
we were 
going 
away 
on 
holiday 
and 
my mum 
and 
I 
think 
my 
Gran 
said 
"It's 
time 
she 
got a 
hair 
cut 
because 
you 
can't 
handle 
it" 
and 
I 
couldn't 
handle it, 
my 
mother 
brushing [ 
... 
] 
so 
I 
think 
they 
thought 
"Right, 
we need 
to 
get 
rid ofJean's 
hair. 
[Laughter] because 
it's 
going 
to 
take too 
long, 
we're 
going 
on 
holiday 
so 
let's 
cut 
the 
hair" 
and 
I 
was 
- 
and 
I 
went 
into 
the 
hairdressers 
and 
I 
sort 
of 
threw 
a 
tantrum. 
17 
Since 
salon 
visits 
were 
often 
occasioned 
by 
significant 
events, 
the 
heightened 
emotions of customers 
were 
palpably 
or 
vicariously 
felt by 
hairdressers 
like 
Ettie: 
"It's 
like 
afair, 
its 
like 
afair, sort ofall 
different 
is 
Ellen's description 
of 
the 
salon space 
was a 
template 
for 
all 
the 
salons 
visited 
for 
this 
research, 
her 
observations 
I 
read 
as 
offering 
a 
'feminist 
insight' 
about 
the 
specificities of 
the 
fashioning 
environment 
generated 
by 
a participant. 
Although 
having 
a 
fully 
glazed 
facade like 
'Cutz', 
Ta Paris' 
was made more 
private 
by 
the 
effect 
of condensation. 
A 
field 
memo 
recorded: 
The 
salon 
was warm, 
the 
large 
windows 
on 
Marytown Road 
were steamed 
up, and 
a 
cosy 
atmosphere 
was 
created 
with 
lighting 
and 
the 
smell ofshampoos, 
hair 
lotions 
and sprm. 
"A 
further 
unexpected 
demonstration 
of 
intimacy 
occurred 
when, embarking on my 
interview 
with 
Mrs 
Lochead 
she 
unselfconsciously 
grabbed 
my 
knce, 
which 
I 
interpreted 
as 
both 
reassuring 
and 
affectionate, 
and 
held 
on until 
the 
interview 
ended 
some 
10 
minutes 
later. 
" 
This 
memory 
has 
resonances 
with 
Crawford 
et al's memory 
work 
findings 
where 
holidays 
for 
mothers 
and 
daughters 
are 
frequently 
conflict-laden, 
and 
for 
adult 
women 
are 
freighted 
with 
work 
and 
disappointments 
after 
fantasising: 
"thepromise 
of 
empty 
days 
" 
or 
"a 
breakfrom 
work" 
(Crawford 
et al, 
1992, 
pp. 
127-150). 
Getting 
a 
perm 
was 
one 
of 
the 
preparations 
Jenny 
still 
132 
acts and 
different 
people 
doing 
- 
going 
to 
a 
wedding, 
going 
to 
afuneral, 
first haircut, 
baby's 
screaming, 
getting 
him 
a 
book 
somebody'd 
cut somebody's 
head 
and 
it's 
bleeding 
profusely 
or somebody 
else 
has 
tried 
someone's wedding 
ring on 
and 
herfingers 
starting 
to 
swell 
up 
awfur 
[Laughter]. 
' 
8 
For 
the 
older, middle-class 
women 
participants 
such 
as 
Mrs Lochead, 
aged eighty-three, 
trips to the 
hairdressers 
as a young woman 
were 
a more 
frequently 
enjoyed outing: 
Well 
yes, and 
you 
were 
always 
changing 
from 
one 
hairdresser 
to 
another, 
and wasn't 
sure 
if 
you 
liked 
the 
way 
they 
were 
doing 
it 
[Laughter] 
but 
it 
was 
always 
different, 
although 
not 
so 
frequently 
as now 
is 
the 
case. 
I 
had 
a 
hairdryer 
of 
my own, 
equipmen? 
rollers, 
nowadays 
- 
but in 
earlier 
days 
it 
was 
different 
stuff 
and 
I 
washed 
it 
myself, 
and, 
you 
know, 
did it 
myself, 
anytime 
I 
was going out when 
I 
was 
young. 
I 
was always 
going 
to 
social 
dances 
and so 
on, 
I 
always 
paid a visit 
to 
the 
hairdresser 
before I 
went. 
That 
was 
a 
must. 
In 
the 
case of 
home 
hair 
fashioning, 
and 
broader 
cosmetic 
acts, 
many 
participants 
articulated 
their 
personal perception 
of contexts 
and 
conditions 
where 
degrees 
of 
fashioning 
were 
deemed 
in/appropriate, 
for 
example, 
in 
Janey's 
statement 
"Oh, 
I 
like 
the 
make-up, 
I 
wouldn't 
go 
without 
the 
make-up, going shopping 
I 
don't 
put 
it 
on, 
just 
when 
Igo 
out". 
Student 
Michelle 
claimed: 
If 
it's 
a normal 
like, 
Uni 
day 
and 
I 
can't 
really 
be bothered, 
I'm 
tired, 
then 
I 
won't really 
do 
my 
hair 
- 
I'll 
do 
my 
hair, 
I'll 
maybe 
put 
my 
hair in 
a pony-tail, 
but it'll 
take 
me about 
forty 
minutes 
to 
get 
it 
until 
it's 
right. 
[Laughter] 
[ 
... 
]I 
mean 
getting 
up 
in 
the 
morning, 
I 
don't 
go 
to 
college 
without 
-I 
mean 
some 
days 
I 
will 
just 
nip up 
to 
the 
shops 
without 
doing 
anything, 
but 
if 
I'm 
going out 
in 
public 
then 
I 
will 
put 
the 
make-up 
on. 
19 
Routines 
Fashioning 
decisions 
often 
seemed 
idiosyncratic 
or 
individuated, 
rarely 
routines 
that 
were 
consciously acknowledging 
fashion 
or even 
social 
dictates. 
Regimes 
rather 
than 
fashion 
or 
the 
newness 
made 
for holidays: "The 
next one 
will 
be 
September, I'm 
going 
to 
Blackpool [ 
... 
I September 
weekend 
is 
always 
busy, 
so 
that's 
when 
we 
go, 
we 
pay 
so much 
a 
week 
to this 
gentleman and what 
we 
have left 
is 
spending 
money 
and 
travelling 
expenses 
". 
"Within 
the 
memory 
work 
triggered 
by 
the 
word 
hair, 
I 
generated 
the 
following 
text: 
When. 
4 's 
aunty 
Suzie 
got 
married 
looking 
like 
Babs 
Windsor. 
Her 
hair 
was 
a gleaming, 
lacquered, 
peroxide 
white. 
.4 
was 
a 
bridesmaid 
along 
with 
her 
cousin 
Jennifer. It 
was 
easyjar 
Jennifer 
tofit 
Into 
the 
bridesmaid 
role. 
She 
had lots 
of 
hair, 
was 
thin 
and 
was 
morefeminine. 
As 
grandma 
had 
made 
comments afier 
their 
visit 
to 
the 
local hairdresser 
that the 
hairdresser 
hadperformed 
miracks 
to 
make 
something ofA`s 
hair 
as 
there 
was 
barely 
anything 
to 
work with. 
This (the 
comparison 
between 
Jennifer's big 
hair 
and 
her 
own) 
became 
a 
perennialfamilyjoke. 
In 
a 
field 
memo 
I logged 
that 
the 
only other 
haircutting 
occasions 
I 
could 
remember 
from 
childhood were 
those 
preceding 
a 
dreaded 
return 
to 
school after summer 
holidays 
and 
accompanying 
Grandma 
on 
her 
Saturday 
visits. 
A 
striking 
and 
disorienting 
sight 
on 
Day 
I 
after 
a summer 
holiday 
were 
the 
massed 
ranks 
of 
others' 
new 
haircuts. 
. 
flalfish 
shoes 
during 
the 
day 
". 
Mrs Martin 
on 
the 
other 
Although 
many 
of 
her 
150 
pairs of shoes 
were 
high-heeled 
Michelle 
wore 
" 
hand 
wore 
high-heels 
in 
the 
salon 
even when 
this 
seemed 
ergonometrically 
inappropriate. 
133 
of 
particular 
spaces or processes were 
discussed 
as 
pleasurable 
in 
and 
of 
themselves. 
Accounts 
of salon 
visits were 
imbricated 
with notions of 
routine articulated 
in 
often surprising 
ways. 
20 
Interviewing 
customers 
at 
Ta Paris'21 
, 
for 
example, 
Jenny, 
a regular 
for 
14 
years 
and 
before 
that 
a 
regular at 
a salon nearby 
it became 
apparent 
that 
fidelity 
between 
customers 
and salon staff 
was widespread, 
Significant life 
changes, 
occasioning 
inevitably 
a 
visit 
to the 
hairdresser, 
became 
calibrated 
by 
the 
routines of 
salon 
visits. 
Some 
customers 
were 
loyal 
to 
a 
particular 
style 
22 
and 
Gabrielle's family 
had 
to 
plan 
around 
her 
hairdressing 
appointments: 
23 
Gabrielle: 
I 
go every 
Saturday, 
except 
for 
this 
week 
[Christmas], 
I 
go 
Christmas 
week 
on 
Friday. 
Yes, I 
really 
like 
it. 
AP: 
[ 
... 
]- 
do 
you 
have 
your 
hair 
done 
when 
you 
are going 
to 
have 
visitors, or 
for 
special 
occasions? 
Gabrielle: 
No, 
not 
really. 
I 
just 
go 
every 
Saturday 
whether 
anyone's 
coming or 
not. 
I 
just have it 
done 
for 
me 
[ 
... 
] like 
- 
when 
Paul 
and 
Linda [son 
and 
daughter 
-in-law] 
came 
last 
Saturday 
afternoon 
and 
I 
said, 
"I'm having 
my 
hair 
donefirst, 
I'll 
be 
about 
an 
hour 
". 
They 
said, 
"Well 
it's 
alright, 
we'll work 
round 
that 
we'll 
do 
a 
bit 
ofshopping 
while 
you 
- 
you 
know, 
and we'll 
be 
there 
about 
two 
o'clock 
op 
. 
24 
" 
What follows 
was 
the 
response 
to 
my 
initial 
question 
directed 
at 
Ellen, 
a customer 
on 
my 
first 
visit 
to 
'La Paris': 
AP: How 
long have 
you 
been 
coming 
here? 
Eileen: [having 
her hair 
washed] 
I'm 
not 
going 
to 
be 
able 
to 
hear 
you 
right. 
AN Oh I'm 
sorryl 
I'll 
wait 
until 
you've 
had it 
washed. 
[Approx. 
I 
min] 
Irene: [hairdresser]: 
How 
long 
was 
that 
you 
were 
away 
then 
Ellen? 
[Ellen 
had 
returned 
tanned 
from 
a 
holiday 
abroad] 
Eileen: 
Eh? 
Irene: How 
long 
were 
you 
away? 
Eileen: Fortnight. 
AP: How 
long have 
you 
been 
coming 
here 
then 
Ellen? 
Eileen: Eh? 
AP. How 
long have 
you 
been 
coming 
here? 
Eileen: Ehh 
... 
God, Irene 
how 
long? 
Irene: What 
age 
is 
Ralph? 
Before 
that. 
Eileen: Ralph 
was 
2 
1, 
no 
before 
that. 
Irene: Lisa's 
21, before 
Lisa 
was 
bom. 
Eileen: 
Yeah, before 
Lisa 
was 
bom. 
So 
about.. 
Irene: Well 
how 
long 
have 
I 
been 
down 
here? [General 
Laughter] 
Eileen: I 
think 
it 
was 
when you come 
Irene. 
Irene: Aha, 
aye 
Eileen: When Mrs 
Martin 
took 
over. 
Irene: Well 
before 
that. 
Eileen: That's 
right. 
Irene: So 
about, well 
we've 
been 
here 
22 
years, so about 
22 
years. 
Even before 
then 
you 
came 
to 
this 
shop 
didn't 
you? 
Eileen: Yes, 
aha. 
Irene: Even before 
that 
so 
- 
AP: 
[Laughing] 
So 
you must 
like 
itl 
You 
must 
do 
a gDodjob 
[to 
Irene]. 
" 
The 
name 
of 
the 
salon 
resembles 
that 
of many others 
in 
Glasgow 
in 
that 
it 
evokes 
specific 
associations 
of aristocratic 
and/or 
Hollywood 
or 
Continental 
glamour, 
for 
example: 
Aphrodite, 
Comiche, 
Damask, 
Et 
Vous, Hollywood 
Hair 
Studio, 
Maison Gina, 
Maison 
Olga, My Fair 
Lady, 
Narcissus, 
Panache, 
Studio 
1, International, 
Vanity Fair... 
" 
Pauline had had 
her hair dyed 
blonde 
for 
twenty 
years 
and 
it 
was 
many 
years 
before 
Mrs. 
Martin 
could 
restyle 
Jenny's bouffant 
with 
hairpiece first 
adopted 
at 
the 
neighbouring 
salon. 
Cox 
notes 
that 
she 
was 
"intrigued by 
my 
grandmother'sperm, 
which 
never 
seemed 
to 
alter. 
She 
sported 
the 
same 
tight 
curly style 
injamilypholographs 
of 
the 
1930s 
right 
through 
to 
the 
1990s, 
which 
was 
set at 
the 
hairdresser's 
once a 
week andpermed every 
six 
to 
eight 
weeks or so 
" (Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
10). 
23 
Her 
two 
sons, 
daughter 
and 
grandchildren 
could 
only 
manage 
infrequent 
visits 
but 
the 
importance 
of 
her hairdressing 
routine 
was 
understood 
by 
all 
her 
family. 
" 
Mrs Lochead 
could 
afford 
to 
have 
her hair 
fashioned 
regularly. 
She 
travelled 
several 
miles 
from 
a wealthy 
suburb 
outside 
Glasgow 
to 
'La 
Paris' 
a cheap salon, 
to 
enable 
this. 
Mrs 
Lochead's 
routine comprised; 
shampoo 
setting 
and 
blow-drying 
(weekly), 
trimming 
(six 
weekly), 
perming 
(quarterly), 
and 
tinting 
(twice 
a 
year) 
"because 
Igo 
to 
church 
on 
Sunday, 
Igo 
out 
on 
134 
Daily 
or 
weekly 
cosmetic routines, even 
those 
used many years 
before, 
were 
frequently 
remembered 
by 
participants 
with clarity. 
Janey 
could recall 
her 
preferred 
method of 
applying 
make-up 
in 
the 
living 
room 
of 
her 
family home in 
preparation 
for 
nights 
out 
skating 
or at 
a 
Glasgow 
ballroom in 
the 
1950s. 
25 
For Michelle, 
her 
sister 
and 
their 
five 
pals 
preparing 
for 
weekend socialising was, 
from 
the 
late 
1990s 
on, 
an event requiring 
up 
to two 
meticulously 
planned 
and 
executed 
days 
work. 
26 
Hair fashioning 
intimacies 
Ettie: 
I 
think 
it's 
confessor, 
somebody 
you shared 
with, 
became 
a 
best friend, because 
they 
were 
seeing you every 
week, 
sometimes 
twice 
a week 
- 
come 
in 
for 
a set every 
week 
regardless 
- 
Participants 
highlighted 
intimacies 
within 
fashioning 
environments. 
Jean, 
describing 
Tizzy Kelly's 
said 
of 
the 
relationship 
between 
customers 
and 
hairdressers: 
"It 
was 
quite 
close 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
kind 
of 
personal, 
personal 
thingyou 
know, 
I 
think 
you 
know, 
I'm 
trying to 
put 
it 
into 
words 
here, 
you 
know, 
I- 
that's 
how 
my 
mother 
always 
went 
back, 
because 
it 
was 
the 
way you 
were 
treated 
and 
the 
closeness 
and 
they 
were 
alwayspleased 
to 
seeyou 
andthey 
madeyoufeel 
really welcome". 
Sandy 
and 
Ann 
disclosed 
the 
subtleties 
of confidentiality 
required: 
Sandy: 
I 
felt 
very safe 
in 
there. 
It 
probably 
took 
me a 
time to 
get safe, 
but 
really you 
had 
to 
be 
trusted, 
you 
know, it 
was 
like, 
'What's 
said 
in 
here 
won't go any 
farther. 
' 
you 
know, 
so 
it 
probably 
took 
a 
time 
to 
- 
for 
me 
to 
be initiated 
in 
and 
be 
allowed 
to 
listen 
in 
on 
the 
- 
all 
the 
gossip 
and 
stuff, 
but 
once 
you were 
it 
was 
great, 
you 
know, 
you 
were 
so 
trusted 
it 
. 
27 
Satur&? 
andalso 
Igo, 
have 
a meeting 
every 
Mond2y, Women's 
Royal 
Voluntary Service, 
so 
Ialways 
like 
to 
get 
my 
hair done 
on a 
Friday, 
or 
Saturday 
morning 
so 
I'm 
all 
trigged 
up 
[siclfor 
the 
weekend-". 
Another 
more 
expensive 
salon 
was 
also 
visited 
for 
less 
frequent 
treatments. 
Even 
within 
each 
salon 
visit, movement around 
the 
space 
was 
regimented. 
In 
a memo 
made 
during 
my 
visit 
to 
'La Paris' 
I 
wrote: 
"The 
customers 
moved 
[were 
guided] 
around 
the 
space at each 
stage: 
1. Hair 
washing, 
Z Selling 
lotion 
and 
rollers, 
3. 
Hairdryer, 4. Back 
to 
mirrored area where 
their 
hair 
was 
leased 
Into 
shape, 
from 
chair 
to 
chair 
In 
a semi-circle, clockwise. 
The 
hairdressers did 
not 
sit 
down 
". 
23 
"Start 
off with 
a 
skin 
toner. 
I 
always 
used 
something 
to take 
all 
the 
grease offmyJace 
and 
then 
I 
always used a moisturiser and 
at 
that 
time 
it 
was 
Mar 
Factorpan 
cake 
soyou 
had 
to 
wet 
the 
sponge 
and 
it 
went 
on, you 
know, 
andl 
tried 
not 
toput 
it 
on 
thick 
I hated 
to 
see anyone 
with 
makeup 
thatyou 
couldscrape off. 
I 
tried 
to 
make 
it 
as natural aspossible 
". 
She 
would usually 
prepare 
herself 
with 
friends 
who 
would 
share 
cosmetics and 
help 
each other 
fashion. 
' 
Michelle 
began by 
selecting 
her 
outfits: 
Michelle: Yes, 
once 
I kind 
of 
know 
what 
I'm 
doing 
I'll 
say 
to 
Sheila, 
[her 
sister] 
"Oh 
I 
want 
this 
kind 
ofcolour 
" 
and she'll 
do 
my make. 
up 
for 
me 
but 
usually 
- 
we 
used 
to 
do it 
on 
a 
Friday 
night 
if 
we 
were 
all going 
on 
a 
Saturday, 
a 
Friday 
night 
would 
be 
like 
prep 
night 
preparation 
night, 
and we'd 
all 
do 
our nails, 
our 
toenails, 
because 
obviously 
they 
had 
to 
match 
our 
hand 
nails would 
have 
to 
match what 
shoes we 
were wearing 
then 
your 
toes 
and 
hands 
and nails and 
pluck out 
the 
things 
that 
matched 
and 
that 
was more 
of a 
kind 
of 
ritual 
because 
Sheila, 
again, 
she would 
be 
waxing 
everybody. 
AP: She does 
all 
the 
waxing 
as 
well? 
Michelle: She 
does 
everything 
[Laughter] 
[Leg 
waxing 
took 
place 
every six weeks]. 
17 
The 
pejorative notion 
of gossip was countered 
in 
many accounts 
of 
the 
intimate 
discussions 
of 
salon 
customers and specifically 
in 
Ettie's 
view: 
"Nobody's 
got 
time 
now, 
it's 
considered 
gossip 
or something 
ifyou 
stand 
andgive 
somebody 
the 
time 
ofdQy? 
135 
Ann: 
Often 
people 
will 
divulge 
things to 
their 
hairdresser 
or 
their 
beauty 
therapist 
that they 
wouldn't 
normally 
divulge, 
and 
then 
again 
what 
we used 
to 
teach 
is 
about 
being, just 
exactly 
that thing, 
about, 
it's 
not about 
you at 
the time, 
it's 
not 
important for 
you 
to 
be 
commenting 
about 
what's 
happening in 
your 
life, 
you 
must 
listen 
to this 
person 
and you must not comment 
on 
it. 
[Laughter] You 
can't 
really give 
an 
opinion, 
you 
just 
can 
listen, 
and 
if 
people 
do 
that 
well, 
that 
is 
really 
a good 
service 
[ 
... 
] 
And 
that 
of course 
is 
something 
that 
we used 
to 
teach. 
I 
don't 
know 
if 
that's 
of 
interest 
but 
we used 
to 
just 
to 
- 
to 
take 
notes of 
people 
just like, 
you 
know, 
if 
someone's 
husband 
is 
not 
well or 
- 
try 
and 
remember 
the 
details 
so 
that 
you can ask 
next 
time, 
that 
you 
can record 
it. 
" 
Both 
learnt 
from 
other salon 
workers 
and 
also 
at college 
about 
how 
to 
manage 
intimacies 
in 
the 
salon 
envirorunent: 
Sandy: 
I 
suppose 
they 
were 
very 
-[... 
]I 
mean, 
they 
[customers 
at 
'Marjory's] 
treated 
me 
like 
their 
daughter, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
like, 
that 
was 
a 
lovely, 
there 
wasn't 
- 
they 
just 
weren't, 
sort 
-I 
mean, 
when 
we went 
to 
college 
we were 
taught 
about, 
you 
know, 
I 
went on 
day 
release 
to 
college 
later 
and we were 
taught 
these 
sort 
of ethical 
things, 
and, 
oh 
yes, 
it 
was part of 
the 
course 
about 
boundaries 
and 
things 
and certain 
codes, 
and 
[ 
... 
] 
the 
first 
code 
I 
was ever 
taught 
of 
how 
to 
be 
was never 
to 
touch 
the 
customer's 
lips, 
you could 
never 
touch 
the 
customer's 
lips, 
[ 
... 
] because 
there's 
a 
lot 
of 
touching 
that 
actually 
goes 
on 
in hairdressers, 
you 
know, 
so 
it's just 
like 
these 
codes and 
things, 
but 
I 
only 
learnt 
those 
really 
in 
college 
and 
it 
was 
just 
like, 
you get a 
feel 
for it 
and 
you 
know, 
I 
can't 
-I 
don't 
know 
how 
to 
describe 
how 
you, sort of, 
know 
what 
are 
the 
OK 
things, 
you 
know, 
like 
as well, 
their 
culture, 
there 
were certain customers 
that 
you could 
say 
certain 
things 
to 
and 
that 
was right 
and 
you could 
tell 
them 
about 
Doris, 
you 
know 
Doris 
[mimics 
inaudibly 
sharing 
a confidence] 
but if 
such 
a 
body 
came 
in 
you 
absolutely 
don't 
mention 
Doris 
to 
so 
and 
so, and 
you 
had 
to 
learn 
all 
these, these 
subby 
[sic] 
kind 
of 
things. 
Ann: 
I 
think 
that that 
is 
one of 
the 
most 
difficult 
things 
is 
to 
get 
that 
communication 
right, 
and 
what 
I 
used 
to 
always 
say 
to 
students 
was 
to 
try 
and 
listen 
very, very 
carefully 
because 
it's 
our 
job 
to 
please 
that 
person 
most of 
all. 
And 
so often 
when 
you 
get 
it 
wrong 
it's 
just 
because 
you 
haven't 
really 
listened, 
or you 
have 
an 
idea in 
your 
head 
of what 
they 
thought 
would 
really 
suit 
them, 
and 
that 
really 
doesn't 
matter 
because 
what You 
have 
to 
do 
is 
please 
that 
person. 
Your 
notion 
of what 
they 
should 
look like 
isn't 
necessarily 
the 
way 
they 
want 
to 
look. 
Ann 
developed 
a 
training 
company after 
leaving 
the 
beauty 
field 
and 
Sandy 
qualified 
as 
a 
counsellor. 
Both 
stated 
that 
the 
interpersonal 
skills 
developed 
in hairdressing 
were 
transferable: 
everybody's rushing, 
infact 
have 
they 
not made afast 
lane 
In 
the 
pavements 
in 
London 
and 
ffyou 
walk 
slowlyyou are 
going 
to 
fet 
a 
ticket 
orfined". 
3 
Ann, 
a 
fornier 
hairdresser, 
had 
taught 
hairdressing 
ethics. 
She 
had 
helped 
devise 
the 
first 
beauty 
courses 
in 
Scotland. 
136 
Sandy: 
I 
think, 
well, 
I 
do 
I 
think 
I 
learnt 
the 
basic 
counselling 
skills 
as a 
hairdresser 
for 
sure 
because 
it 
was about 
women coming 
in 
and you 
know, 
building 
up 
trust 
relationships 
and 
them 
confiding 
in 
you. 
It 
was a 
place 
for 
confidences, 
but it 
was, 
because 
it 
was all 
about 
women 
going 
into 
the 
salon 
and calling 
their 
husbands, 
you 
know [Laughter] 
and 
talking 
about 
their 
husbands 
and saying 
you 
know 
"Oh 
the 
shit 
" 
or 
"Sods " 
You 
know, 
that 
type 
of 
thing, 
you 
know, 
but 
being 
very, 
but 
very 
strong 
codes 
about 
confidentiality 
and 
supporting 
each 
other and 
- 
but 
not 
realising 
they 
were 
supporting 
each 
other, 
you 
know 
and 
so, yeah 
I 
certainly 
learnt 
a 
lot 
about, sort of, 
how 
to 
be 
with, 
how 
to 
be 
supportive 
and 
how 
to 
be 
with other 
women 
from 
that 
and 
it 
was 
a 
lovely 
time 
in 
my 
life 
in 
many 
ways. 
Ettie 
and 
Sandy 
also 
made 
clear 
in 
their 
contributions 
that 
as 
young 
women 
the 
frankness 
of 
exchanges 
and 
intimacies 
shared 
in 
salon 
were 
illuminating: 
Ettie: 
So 
you 
listen, 
to 
the 
sharing, 
people 
share 
with 
you 
things 
that 
you wouldn't even 
share 
with 
your 
-I 
remember 
one 
saying, 
"I'm 
haemorrhaging" 
I learnt 
an awful 
lot in hairdressing 
as 
well 
like 
- 
that 
held 
me 
in 
good 
stead 
for 
the 
choices 
I 
made. 
[ 
... 
] 
another 
one, 
she 
had 
a coil 
in, 
another 
one 
-I 
used 
to think 
why 
are 
women 
going 
through this? 
Is 
this 
what 
being 
married 
and 
being 
a woman 
is 
about? 
I don't 
want 
any 
of 
this 
I 
want 
to 
stay 
healthy 
you see. 
One 
on 
the 
coil, 
one used 
a 
tampon 
and 
put 
another 
one 
in 
and 
it 
was 
rotting 
inside 
her 
and 
caused 
an 
infection 
in her 
ovaries 
but 
ach, 
we 
had 
laughs 
as 
well. 
[ 
... 
] 
But 
this 
time 
I 
was approaching 
marriage, 
I'm 
eighteen, 
nineteen, 
approaching 
and 
I'm, it 
was 
a 
good 
learning 
field 
being 
a 
hairdresser 
because 
when 
people share 
with you, 
you 
learn 
an awful 
lot 
about 
people 
and 
it 
really was on 
the 
shop 
floor 
and 
I 
was 
thinking 
to 
myself, 
what 
am 
I 
going 
to 
do 
here? I 
don't 
want any of 
this, 
miscarriages 
and 
haemorrhaging 
[ 
... 
] 
They 
shared 
their 
deepest 
- 
if 
they 
miscarried, 
if 
they 
wanted 
a 
baby 
and couldn't 
have 
one, 
they 
shared 
their 
deepest 
- 
their 
affairs 
or 
dates 
or 
dates 
that 
went wrong, 
or someone 
giving 
them 
a 
dizzy 
as 
they 
called 
it 
then, that's 
standing 
you up, 
that's 
not 
appearing 
for 
a 
date 
"I 
stood 
there 
and 
I 
was 
all 
dressed 
up, 
remember 
you 
did 
my 
hair? 
AndI 
looked 
that 
good 
and 
he 
never 
appeared". 
They 
shared 
the 
deepest 
hurts, 
theirjoys 
as well: 
"My 
daughters 
getting 
married" or 
"My daughter's had 
a 
baby" 
or 
"I'm 
expecting 
PP 
. 
29 
"During 
the 
1960s 
when 
working relationships 
between 
young 
women 
in 
the 
service 
industries 
and 
those 
in 
the 
sex 
industry 
would 
have 
been 
unusual, 
Ettic 
enjoyed 
friendships 
with 
her 
prostitute 
customers: 
"At 
Christmasyou 
were 
like 
that 
[mimcs being 
laden 
with gifts] 
going 
out, 
they 
were 
giving, you 
had 
to 
get a 
taxi 
home, 
very generous 
girls 
". 
Although Ann's formal 
training 
suggested 
that the 
active 
listening 
mode 
was 
the 
professional approach 
to 
discussing 
intimacies 
in 
the 
salon, 
Ettie's 
description 
of 
the 
array of 
sometimes 
distressing 
disclosures 
prompted me 
to 
ask 
about 
the 
emotional 
impact 
on 
workers. 
AP: How did 
you cope 
because 
you 
are 
talking 
about 
say, 
in 
those twelve 
hour 
shifts at 
the 
height 
of 
you 
know, 
your 
working 
in 
this 
field, how 
did 
you 
offload? 
Because 
obviously 
you're 
taking 
all 
that 
information, 
you 
are not 
allowed 
to 
say 
enough, 
I 
don't 
want 
to 
hear 
- 
Ettie: Nooooo [emphatically] 
because 
you speak 
to 
them 
too, 
it 
was 
a 
kind 
of 
two 
way 
- 
which was 
quite 
- 
they 
were 
really 
interested in 
me as well, 
but 
you were 
reciprocating 
their, 
you 
were 
- 
probably 
- 
there 
was no such 
thing 
as 
counselling 
then, 
everybody's 
getting counselled 
now 
you 
know, 
therapy 
and all 
that 
- 
And 
she 
would 
be 
saying 
"And 
how 
syour 
love life 
going? 
Andhow'syour 
wee 
boy? 
And 
-? 
" 
137 
The 
accounts 
of 
hairdressing 
from 
hairdressers 
suggested 
that 
a range 
of expertise 
in 
addition 
to 
fashioning 
skills 
were required 
in 
the 
field, 
an ethics of care 
that 
extended 
into 
diverse 
areas 
of welfare 
for 
clients 
and 
built 
upon 
degrees 
of 
intimacy 
and 
trust. 
30 
Hairdressers 
with 
the 
required skills 
and, 
remarkably, 
the 
majority 
of 
those 
interviewed 
or 
discussed 
by 
participants seemed 
to 
possess 
these 
qualities, engendered 
loyalty 
in 
customers 
like 
Gabrielle: 
You 
know 
the 
comer 
shop? 
A 
hairdresser 
opened 
there 
and 
this 
- 
she's 
called 
Joyce but 
she 
only 
[ 
... 
I 
rented 
the 
premises 
and she 
had 
a row 
with 
the 
landlord 
and she's 
left 
there, 
but 
she's 
moved 
to 
where 
the 
co-op 
is 
at 
Main 
Road 
so 
we've 
- 
all 
her 
customers 
have 
sort of 
followed 
her 
there 
so 
I'm 
with 
her 
now, and 
she 
sort of, 
oh, 
she 
is kind, 
she's 
very 
helpful, 
she 
has like, 
always 
lets 
me 
know 
when 
it 
wants 
cutting 
or you 
know, 
colouring 
and 
if 
- 
because 
I've 
got 
very 
poor 
hair 
you 
know, 
now, 
its 
one 
or 
two 
- 
because 
of 
taking 
medication, 
it's 
got 
one 
or 
two 
patches 
which 
she's covered 
up you 
know, 
yes. 
31 
Ettie 
demonstrated 
a 
broad 
array of 
caring 
skills 
and articulated 
a 
vision of 
the 
symbolism of 
her 
role 
and 
the 
importance 
of 
hair 
for 
others: 
She 
would 
be 
a 
Down's 
Syndrome, 
or a wee 
girl 
would 
be brought 
in 
with 
nits 
and 
you would 
have 
to 
use 
your 
very 
-just 
like 
a 
doctor 
would 
if it 
was a 
skin 
rash, or, 
I 
know 
some 
hairdressers 
who 
would 
just 
throw 
the 
comb 
down 
and 
refuse 
to 
-I 
just 
quietly cut 
their 
hair, 
took 
the 
gown 
off, 
put 
my 
tools 
in, 
wrapped 
them 
up 
together 
and 
quietly 
wrote a 
note out 
to 
her 
mother. 
You've 
got 
to 
preserve 
and 
protect 
the 
dignity 
of 
the 
person. 
On 
another 
occasion, contacted 
by 
a 
former 
customer, 
Ettie 
was 
asked 
to 
do 
a 
home 
visit 
for her 
husband, 
a stroke 
victim, 
whose 
hair had 
grown 
unchecked: 
I 
cut 
the 
curls 
off and 
used 
the 
machine on 
the 
rest 
of 
his face, 
thank 
God 
a machine 
was 
around 
then, 
cut 
his 
hair 
and 
do 
you 
know 
what? 
It 
was 
worth 
a weeks 
wages 
to 
seeing 
him 
looking 
in 
the 
mirror, 
"How's 
thatfor 
you? 
"- 
" 
That's 
me 
instead 
ofthis 
paralysed 
alien person. 
" He 
was 
" 
The 
notion 
of 
hairdresser 
as 
confidante 
is 
a 
fusion 
of myth, 
media 
invention 
and 
reality. 
Customers 
and 
hairdressers 
at 
the 
'Pure 
Velvet' 
salon 
in Leamington 
Spa 
were recently profiled 
in 
a 
popular 
women's magazine where 
the 
themes 
of 
'services 
beyond fashioning', 'confidential 
bc-friending 
and 
confidence 
building' 
and 
'woman-centred 
cue' 
are 
rehearsed. 
One 
customer 
claimed: 
"She's 
more 
thanjust 
a 
hairdresser. 
Through 
cutting 
my 
hair 
she's 
become 
my 
bestfriend, 
therapist 
andpersonal 
stylist 
rolled 
into 
one. 
She 
knows 
all 
my secrets" 
Other 
comments 
included 
"Marion's 
become 
afriendfor 
life. 
She knows 
everything 
about 
me and 
when 
I 
need advice 
I 
simply 
come 
herefor 
a 
haircut 
It 
costs me 
f2O 
a 
time. 
I 
come 
here 
up 
to 
three 
times 
a 
week 
mainlyfor a 
blow 
dry" 
and 
"She 
really 
has been 
a shoulder 
to 
cry 
on 
- 
andl've 
needed 
it. 
It 
really 
was a case of 
Ywantiocut 
that 
man right out 
ofmy 
hair'- 
the 
best 
cure possible 
" 
(Valentine, 
1999). 
31 
Gimlin in her 
research 
on salons 
in 
Long 
Island defines 
a 
hairdresser's 
"faithful 
group 
of 
clients" 
as 
afollowing 
(Gimlin, 1996, 
p. 
516). 
138 
gradually 
getting 
back his 
- 
and 
I 
think 
I 
lifted 
his 
spirits. 
I 
know 
I 
did. 
I 
think 
I 
did 
and 
there's 
no 
credit 
for 
that 
in hairdressing, 
there's 
no 
money could 
buy 
that. 
5.3 Hair 
and 
familial, 
sororial. 
and 
salon-based 
relationships 
Relationships 
and grooming 
For 
Haug 
et al, 
'Hair' 
triggered 
memory 
work 
texts 
that, 
when 
analysed, 
revealed 
its 
significance 
as 
a contested site 
of power. 
32 
In 
this 
research, 
some 
participants' 
accounts 
suggested 
that 
children's 
hair 
fashioning 
reflected 
aspects of 
relationships 
between 
generations. 
Jean's 
fright 
at 
the 
hairdressers 
and 
her 
consequent rescue 
by her 
mother 
precipitated 
the 
following 
face 
off. 
We 
stood 
waiting on a 
bus 
and 
my 
Gran 
turned 
round 
to 
my 
mother 
and 
said 
"Well 
I 
wouldn't 
let 
anyfouryear 
old, 
Margaret, 
dictate 
to 
me, 
but 
it's 
up 
to 
you 
". 
My 
mother marched 
me 
all 
the 
way 
back 
to the 
hairdressers, 
sat 
me 
on 
her 
knee 
and 
the 
girl 
had 
to 
cut my 
hair 
short 
on 
her 
knee 
and 
that 
happened 
so, 
but, 
that 
was 
my 
hair 
short. 
Michelle's 
memories 
of 
first-haircut 
trauma 
were 
compounded 
by 
and associated 
with parental 
disageement: 
Early, 
very 
first, 
I 
used 
to 
have 
really 
long hair, 
right 
down 
my 
back, 
so 
did 
my sister 
and my 
Dad 
cut 
my 
hair 
- 
well 
my 
Mum 
and 
Dad 
-I 
wasn't 
well 
for 
a 
few 
months, 
er, 
like, 
a 
few 
weeks 
and 
my 
hair had 
just 
got all 
matted 
and 
my 
Dad 
had 
to 
go and 
cut 
it into 
a 
kind 
of 
page 
boy 
thing 
and 
I 
remember 
locking 
myself 
in 
the 
room 
because 
he 
was 
saying 
[Indecipherable] but he 
did 
cut 
my 
hair 
into 
a 
horrible 
page 
boy 
thing 
[Laughter] 
it 
was 
horrible, 
so 
that 
was 
my 
first 
haircut 
and 
I 
must 
have 
been 
about 
7[... ]-I 
don't 
know 
whether 
it 
was 
because it 
was 
my 
Dad 
that 
was 
cutting 
it but 
he 
was so 
nuts 
I 
just 
didn't 
want 
him 
to 
cut 
it 
and 
he 
did 
and 
I 
think 
actually 
-I 
was picking 
it 
up 
from 
my 
Mum 
as 
well 
because 
my 
Mum 
went 
absolutely 
ballistic 
when 
he 
cut 
it. 
She 
didn't 
know he 
was 
going 
to 
cut 
it 
- 
she 
knew, 
they 
were 
talking 
about 
it, 
but 
then 
he 
just 
did it 
and she 
went nuts. 
33 
" 
Although 
issues 
of 
fascism, 
respectability, 
the 
rise of 
notions 
of 
meaningfid 
black hair 
and 
children's 
subjugation 
by 
parental 
power 
are 
discussed 
at 
length 
in 
Haug 
et al's chapter on 
hair, 
and 
despite 
their 
socialist 
feminist 
proclivities, 
issues 
of class are 
not addressed 
in 
this 
analysis 
(Haug 
et al, 
1983, 
pp. 
91-113). 
3' 
First-haircut 
trauma, 
and subsequent enforced 
hairdressing 
regimens 
were 
also remembered 
by 
Elizabeth 
as a 
battleground 
between father 
and 
daughter: "My 
very, veryfirst memory oflike, 
a 
hair 
memory 
Ifyou 
like, I 
don't 
know 
Ifthis is 
relevant, 
but 
anyway 
- 
was 
being 
taken 
to 
a 
barbers byJohn, 
my 
step-father 
when 
I 
wouldonly 
be 
about 
3 
anda 
hatror 
4 
and1was absolutely 
terrified 
ofgoing 
into 
the 
- 
sitting 
in 
the 
barber's 
chair and 
I howled 
the 
place 
down 
and 
they 
couldn't 
get 
to 
cut 
my 
hair 
so 
I 
Ive 
always 
had 
a 
bit 
ofa 
problem with 
actual 
hairdressers 
". 
Asked 
about 
her 
first 
style 
Jackie 
remembered 
that 
she 
had 
cut off 
the 
sides of 
her 
own 
hair 
to 
look 
like 
Suzi 
Quatro's 
feather 
cut. 
Her 
mum 
cried when 
she saw 
it 
and 
Jackie 
was 
marched off 
to 
the 
hairdressers 
to 
have 
the 
cut 
salvaged'. 
139 
Memories 
of 
hair fashioning 
were 
linked 
with notions 
of 
femininity 
and class 
in 
specific 
timeframes. 
Elizabeth 
grew 
up 
in 
a working-class 
home 
in 
the 
1950s: 
I 
never 
remember 
my 
Mum 
pressurising 
me 
into 
having 
a 
perm 
and 
I 
think 
it's 
because, 
first 
of 
all 
it 
would 
have 
cost 
her 
money and 
money 
was extremely 
tight? 
but 
secondly 
I 
think 
by 
then 
either 
she personally 
- 
or 
generally 
there 
was 
coming 
the 
idea 
that 
all 
these 
very 
harsh 
penning 
fluids 
and methods, 
dyes 
and 
so on 
were 
not very 
good 
for 
the 
hair 
so, 
because it 
was, 
it 
was 
definitely 
still 
the time 
of 
perms 
being 
very 
popular, 
it 
was certainly 
predated 
like 
Mr 
Teazy 
Weazy 
bouffants 
and 
later 
Mary 
Quant, 
that 
was, 
that 
was 
like 
when 
Janet, 
my sister 
[ 
... 
]was 
a 
teenager, 
certainly when 
I 
was at 
school 
my 
Mum insisted 
that 
I 
did 
go 
to the 
hairdressers 
and 
have 
my 
hair 
cut and 
I 
hated 
it because 
she 
used 
to 
have it 
cut 
far, 
far 
too 
short 
because 
it 
was 
money 
again, 
it 
was always 
-[... 
] have 
it 
cut 
short 
to 
save 
money, 
I 
mean my 
hair 
didn't 
grow 
very 
fast 
anyway 
so 
I 
mean 
it 
was always 
torment 
coming 
out 
feeling, 
feeling 
very 
unfeminine, 
very uncomfortable 
but 
also 
nits 
were 
a continuous 
problem you 
know 
then 
at school 
so 
I 
know 
mum 
had 
this 
idea if 
you 
had 
your 
hair 
cut 
short 
than 
it 
would 
mean 
you weren't 
as 
likely 
to 
get 
nits 
because 
we still 
had 
the 
nit nurse- 
Since, 
in 
most 
cases 
parental 
responsibility 
resided 
with 
female 
relatives, 
daughters 
like 
Jean 
and 
Elizabeth 
would 
frequently 
accompany 
mothers 
and 
other 
female 
carers 
on visits: 
Elizabeth: 
Now, I 
remember 
vividly 
going 
with 
my 
Mum 
and also 
Nana 
at 
times 
just 
to 
watch 
- 
they 
took 
me 
because 
they 
were 
looking 
after 
- 
they 
couldn't 
leave 
me at 
home 
because 
I 
was 
too 
young, 
but 
I 
remember 
that 
women's 
hairdressers 
so vividly 
because it 
was 
the 
smell of 
it, it 
was 
that 
perming 
lotion 
at 
that time, 
well, 
what 
would 
it be? 
Late 
1940s, 
maybe 
early 
50s, 
but 
I 
think 
it 
would 
be 
'49, 
'50 
something 
like 
that, 
if 
you 
went 
to the 
hairdresser 
it 
was 
to 
have 
a 
perm 
and 
I 
just 
remember- 
I 
mean 
it 
was 
world 
of 
its 
own 
-I 
mean 
it 
was 
the 
time 
of very 
aggressive 
looking 
hairdressing 
pieces of 
equipment, 
so 
it 
was 
just 
like 
nothing 
else you 
know, 
any 
other 
place 
that 
you 
went 
to. 
For 
some, 
the 
memories 
of 
hairstyling, 
usually 
begun 
as ajob undertaken 
by 
a 
female 
relative, was 
inextricably bound 
to 
profound or clearly 
recalled 
memories 
of 
the 
intimacy 
of 
sharing 
the 
domestic 
space. 
34 
3' 
Jean's 
fastidiousness 
in fashioning herself 
and 
her home 
was a 
trait 
she shared 
with 
her 
gran: 
"She 
had 
white 
hair 
and 
it 
was 
alwm 
groomed, 
I 
mean 
she was aIwM 
immaculate 
my gran andshe 
- 
when 
she 
worked 
about 
the 
house 
she 
kept 
her hat 
on 
[Laughter] 
she 
had 
one 
ofthese, 
you 
know, 
the 
old, you 
know 
the 
aprons 
they 
used 
to 
wear 
it 
was 
like 
a coal with no sleeves 
in 
with 
sort offloral 
design 
and 
tied 
at 
the 
sides, 
she would come 
home, 
take 
her 
good coat off, 
put 
this 
over 
her 
and 
work about 
the 
house 
but 
alwM 
- 
never 
went out 
without a 
hat, 
alwm 
had 
a 
hat 
on, 
that 
was 
the 
done 
thing then 
and 
lovely, black filled 
coats 
that 
came 
In 
at 
the 
waist 
and 
then 
skirted 
down, but 
aIwM 
very smart, 
I 
mean 
she never 
had 
a 
lot, 
she 
worked 
hard 
all 
her 
life 
In 
domestic 
service 
but 
she 
put 
money away 
and would save 
upfor 
whatever 
and 
she always 
kept 
herselfwell 
turned 
out. 
I 
... 
I 
Adele: 
When 
you 
fashioned 
yourself 
(like 
that] 
who'd you got 
to 
model 
yourself 
on 
then? 
Jean: Well 
my gran 
came 
to 
stay with 
us, 
my mother's 
mother, 
she 
looked 
after 
me 
because 
my 
mother 
worked 
most 
of 
the time. 
And 
my 
father 
worked, 
and 
my gran 
died 
when 
I 
was 
seven 
so 
I 
was 
with 
her 
constantly up until 
I 
was 
seven, 
so we 
went 
to tea- 
140 
Some 
accounts 
of 
fashioning 
initiations, 
between 
mentor/mother 
and 
mentee/daughter 
expand 
the 
limitations 
of notions 
of cosmetic acts. 
35 
Ettie's 
son 
Padraig 
bought 
and cut 
Izal 
toilet 
paper 
squares 
as a cheap 
substitute 
for 
perming 
'mops' (paper 
pieces 
used 
in 
hair 
processing) 
used 
by his 
mother. 
Daniel 
and 
/or 
other 
children were/ was on call 
when 
Ettie 
attended 
the 
stoke 
victim. 
Ettie implied 
that 
she 
understood 
this 
situation as a 
form 
of moral 
mentoring: 
This 
man 
I 
was 
telling 
you 
about, 
she 
[his 
wife] 
said 
"Beards" I 
said 
"that 
doesn't 
bother 
me"[... 
] 
so 
he 
coped with 
the 
stroke and 
then 
he 
had 
to 
cope 
with 
- 
hair 
doesn't 
stop 
growing, 
this 
- 
so 
- 
cut 
it 
with shears, 
I 
had 
to 
cut 
it 
with 
scissors 
first, 
no problem, 
I 
don't know 
who 
helped 
me, 
I 
think 
it 
was 
Daniel 
[youngest 
child] 
that 
was with 
me 
that 
day, 
so 
they 
are 
getting a 
wealth 
of 
- 
seeing 
that 
people 
don't 
all 
walk, 
talk, 
say 
-I 
always 
felt it 
would 
give 
them 
an 
attitude 
of 
- 
if 
they 
saw 
housebound, 
in 
a 
wheelchair... 
The 
descriptions 
of relationships 
between 
hairdresser 
and customer, 
whether 
professionals, 
friends 
or 
family 
members, 
constituted a mass 
of 
treasured 
memories. 
For 
many 
years, 
before 
she 
discovered 
that 
she 
could 
access 
hairdressing 
at 
Northend College, 
Maureen 
was curly 
permed 
and 
treated to 
a weekly 
hairdo 
by 
36 
her 
pal. 
ne 
skills 
gained 
by 
Pauline 
at 
Northend 
were 
appreciated 
by 
regular 
customer, 
Jo: 
AP: 
How 
would 
you 
describe 
the 
relationship 
between 
hairdresser 
and customer? 
[To 
Pauline] 
Jo: 
I 
suppose 
it's 
better 
if 
you 
talk 
and 
get 
on. 
Pauline: 
Make 
them 
comfortable, make 
them 
feel 
as 
though 
your 
attention 
is 
all on 
them. 
Jo: 
So 
you're 
just kidding 
on? 
[ 
... 
I 
So 
you're 
not 
my 
pal? 
[Laughter] 
rooms, 
and 
I 
mean 
tea 
rooms 
were 
tea-rooms then, 
and 
met all 
her 
old 
friends 
and all 
the 
gossip 
that 
was 
going on and 
I 
remember 
the 
ways 
the 
tables 
were set and all 
the 
lovely 
cakes 
and 
these 
sort of cake 
plates 
had 
three 
tiers 
and all 
that 
kind 
of 
stuff and 
that 
sort 
of 
influenced 
me a 
lot 
as 
well 
but 
that 
was, 
I 
mean, 
how 
she 
was with 
me, my gran, 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
She 
was 
very 
good 
to 
me. 
we 
were very close, we slept 
together 
in 
the 
same 
big 
old 
double 
bed 
in 
the 
house because 
there 
wasn't 
really 
enough room, 
you 
know, 
my 
brother 
had 
the 
wee 
bed 
in 
the 
comer 
and 
they 
had 
the 
big double 
bed 
which 
I 
slept 
in 
with 
my 
gran and we 
all went 
on 
holiday 
together 
and all 
that 
sort 
of 
thing. 
Jean discussed 
accompanying 
her 
gran whilst she 
was 
in 
service. 
I 
rcflccted 
that 
her 
exposure 
to the 
aesthetics 
of 
the 
upper 
middle 
classes might 
have 
shaped 
her 
own and 
her 
gran's 
desircs 
and aspirations 
and 
those 
of 
my 
own grandmother 
who 
was 
in 
service 
as a 
girl. 
At 
home Ettie 
witnessed 
tailoring 
and millinery 
destined 
for 
'the 
gentry' 
and 
had 
styled 
hair 
for 
wealthy 
and 
fashionable 
women. 
She 
had 
subsequently 
developed 
her 
own sophisticated 
tastes 
in 
hair 
and 
interiors. 
It 
occurred 
to 
me 
thatjust 
as 
Jean had 
recreated 
the 
'look' 
of nineteenth 
century 
bourgeois 
grandeur 
in her 
flat 
and 
working-class 
hairdressers like 
Ettic 
had 
had 
the 
means and 
the 
know- 
how 
to 
appropriate 
the 
'look' 
of 
another 
class 
for 
themselves 
and 
thus 
refuse class 
differences 
in 
their 
self-fashioning. 
35 
Ann's 
mothers mcntoring 
enabled 
her daughter 
to 
overcome a 
painful 
episode of pubescent 
trauma: 
"I 
was 
thirteen, 
andlhadno 
idea 
I 
was even spottyyou 
know 
what 
I 
mean, 
I 
thought 
I 
was 
lovely 
andyour 
Mum 
thinksyou 
are 
lovelyyou 
never 
thought 
anything about 
it, 
you 
know, 
so 
I 
went 
home 
that 
night 
and 
Ijust 
said 
to 
my mother 
That's 
it, 
I'm 
not 
going 
back 
to 
school. 
'you 
know, 
ant 
'We'll 
have 
to 
change schools'[... 
] 
and 
she 
said 
'Don't 
be 
dqft, dont 
be da/1'and 
she 
- 
she 
went 
upstairs and 
brought 
down her 
make-up 
bagyou 
see and she covered 
up 
my 
spots a 
bit [ 
... 
) because 
I did have 
quite 
bad 
acne you 
know, 
and she 
started 
tweezing 
my 
eyebrows a 
bityou 
know, 
and 
she gave me 
her 
mascara and 
it 
got me 
into 
school 
the 
next 
day 
and 
that's the 
only 
reason 
I 
think 
I 
could 
go 
back 
in 
". 
141 
Pauline: 
Make 
her feel 
good about 
herself 
Jo: 
It 
makes 
a 
big difference if 
you go 
into 
a 
hairdresser's 
and 
they 
talk 
to 
you 
instead 
ofjust 
kind 
of 
doing 
your 
hair 
and not 
speaking. 
Learning 
to 
fashion 
Learning 
cosmetic acts 
was 
remembered 
as 
a 
far 
from 
transparent 
discipline 
for 
young 
women 
growing up 
in 
the 
immediate 
post-war 
period. 
Many including 
Jean's 
mother 
and 
aunts 
and 
Gabrielle 
and 
her 
sisters 
taught 
each other 
how 
to 
negotiate 
this 
potentially 
fraught 
territory. 
31 
Few 
instructive 
texts 
were 
available 
for 
young 
women 
like 
Gabrielle 
struggling 
to 
raise 
a 
family 
on a very 
low 
income. She 
resorted 
to 
consulting 
a 
book 
first 
used 
by 
her 
mother: 
"Yes, 
they 
were 
like 
books, 
very 
old ones 
like, 
one was 
called 
The 
Red 
Letter 
[ 
... 
] 
Yes, 
Red 
Letter 
was one, 
because 
my 
mum 
used 
to 
have 
it, 
but 
I 
can't 
remember 
many 
more 
and 
there 
was 
these 
tips, 
but 
I 
don't 
think 
anybody 
would 
use 
vinegar now 
to 
rinse 
their 
hair 
in 
would 
they? 
s, 
39 
Maureen 
was 
one 
of 
several 
participants 
whose 
memories of 
fashioning 
began 
with 
experimentation 
with 
her 
mother's 
cosmetics, 
shoes and 
garments. 
Janey 
described 
the 
relationship 
between 
herself 
and 
her 
mother 
through 
articulations 
of what 
may 
be 
described 
as 
inter-fashioning, 
where 
the 
boundaries 
between her 
mother's 
fashioning 
and 
her 
own 
are 
not 
easily 
distinguished 
but 
are 
shared 
or seamlessly 
inherited: 
Janey: 
Oh 
my 
Mum 
was very 
proud 
of 
the 
way 
she 
looked. 
She 
always 
wore 
a 
hat 
and 
one 
thing 
she 
always 
taught 
me, when 
you 
a 
buy 
a 
coat 
buy 
a 
hat, 
gloves, 
shoes, 
bag 
and umbrella 
all 
to 
match 
and 
I 
got 
that twice 
a year, 
summer 
and winter, 
I 
got 
the 
whole, 
complete 
outfit and you 
never went 
out 
with 
a 
new 
coat on without 
all 
the trimmings. 
She 
was 
really 
fashion 
conscious 
AP: 
[ 
... 
] 
did 
she 
have 
certain 
sorts 
of 
fashioning 
regimes 
for 
her 
own 
hair 
and make-up 
or 
did 
she 
not 
use 
- 
Janey: 
She 
liked 
her 
hair 
to 
look 
really 
nice 
and 
she 
always got 
what 
she 
called 
a 
blue 
rinse. 
36 
, 
She done 
wonders, 
it 
was 
great 
[ 
... 
] 
she used 
to think 
I 
was 
taking 
a 
loan because 
I 
used 
to 
come 
down 
every week, 
I 
used 
to 
say 
I'm 
going out, 
going 
out, going 
out 
I 
she'd 
say 
'H%ere 
are 
you 
going? 
'and I'd 
say 
I dont 
know 
yet, 
just 
do 
my 
hair'and 
when she 
started 
back 
at 
work again 
she couldnae 
[ 
... 
] 
She's 
got 
Avin 
boys 
and all". 
" 
Gabrielle: Well, 
it 
was 
my sister 
Joan 
that 
got me 
thisjob 
inspecting 
these 
cookers 
you 
see, 
and 
- 
at 
the 
factory, 
and she said, 
"Putsome 
make-up 
on 
" 
and 
I 
said 
"Ihaven'tgot 
any" 
so 
she said 
"Keep 
buying 
something 
every 
week" 
and 
she 
told 
me what 
to 
get and you 
know, 
and 
I 
kept 
trying 
it 
and 
at 
first 
I 
used 
to 
put 
too 
much 
red on and she 
told 
me 
- 
or 
too 
much of 
that 
pan stick 
on 
and 
she said 
"Make 
it 
so 
that 
it 
goes 
right 
- 
er 
-you 
know, 
pastyour 
cheeks 
thatpan 
stick 
andnot 
inyour 
hair, 
make sureyou 
get 
it 
all roundand 
underyour 
neckyou 
know 
". 
142 
AP: 
A 
blue 
rinse, 
righ? 
so 
did 
she 
have 
that 
done 
at 
the 
hairdressers? 
Janey: 
Sometimes 
I 
did 
it for her. 
AP: 
So 
do 
you 
remember 
applying 
make-up or 
putting 
perfume 
on or 
powder 
or anything 
like 
that? 
Janey: 
On 
myself? 
AP: 
Doing 
- 
your 
mum 
doing 
that? 
Janey: 
Oh 
yes, 
she 
always wore 
her 
perfume, 
she 
didn't 
wear a 
lot 
of makeup, 
she 
liked 
powder on 
her 
face. 
39 
Whereas 
it 
is impossible 
to 
accurately 
quantify 
the 
popularity of 
specific 
hairstyling by 
women 
in 
any 
decade, 
in 
the 
course 
of 
this 
research 
I 
began 
to 
imagine 
that 
every other 
participant 
born 
between 
the 
end of 
the 
1950s 
and 
the 
end 
of 
the 
1970s 
would reveal 
that 
they too 
had 
a 
beehived 
or 
bouffanted 
aunt, grandma 
or 
sister-in 
law 
who 
was 
to 
inspire 
experiments 
with 
dissident 
self-fashioning. 
At Northend I 
found 
Pauline 
whose 
sister-in-law 
had 
possessed a coveted 
blonde beehive. 
40 
Pauline's 
early 
experimentation with 
the 
hair 
of 
friends 
and 
relatives 
is 
echoed 
in 
other participants' 
accounts 
including 
Ettie 
who 
learnt 
to 
fashion hair 
and 
develop 
her 
own 
ethics 
of care 
by 
grooming 
male relatives: 
"Id 
always 
cut 
Jimmy's 
and old uncles and 
things. 
My 
mother 
was 
a 
great 
onefor, 
'Take 
uncle 
Joe 
in, 
shave 
him 
and 
cut 
his 
hair 
and give 
him 
a 
clean 
shirt' 
Wayward 
old 
uncles 
that 
didnae 
bother 
with 
themselves, 
cut 
his 
toenails 
and 
all 
that. 
[Laughter] You 
weren, 
tfrightened 
to 
have hands 
on StUjf,. 
41 
" 
Red 
Letter 
was 
a romance 
and 
fiction 
magazine 
of 
the 
1920s. 
39 
A 
regime 
adopted 
by 
Janey 
herself 
77his 
notion 
was also 
inferred 
in 
Ann's 
comments about 
her 
mother's 
fashioning 
practices: 
"Oh 
yes, 
aha, 
ohyes, 
sheput 
her 
make-up on every 
day, 
which 
you 
know 
Imiust 
exactly 
like her 
now". 
Michelle 
rooted 
her 
own 
interest 
in 
shoes 
to 
her 
experimentation 
with 
her 
gran's shoes 
Michelle: 
I 
think 
it 
goes 
back 
to 
my 
gran who used 
always 
wear 
big 
high 
heels 
and me and 
Sheila 
used 
to 
dress 
with 
them 
on 
and 
break 
your 
ankles 
and 
the 
first 
memory 
I have 
- 
when 
I 
got 
my new 
denim 
outfit 
and me 
and 
my 
wee 
cousin, 
we 
used 
to, 
we used 
to 
go 
in 
our 
house 
quite 
- 
also 
and 
my 
wee 
cousin was 
just 
a wee 
baby in 
her 
prarn and 
my aunt used 
to 
have 
white 
high 
heels 
and 
I don't know 
whether 
this 
was 
because 
we 
weren't allowed 
heels 
either, 
but I borrowed 
the 
high heels 
and 
I 
wore 
them 
and 
we were playing 
dolls 
and 
we 
had 
the 
wee 
baby 
and 
that's the 
first 
pair 
of shoes 
I 
ever 
really 
remember wanting and 
coveting 
these 
shoes 
AP: 
What 
were 
they 
like, 
were 
they 
high 
white 
ones 
were 
they 
platforms 
or 
Michelle: 
No, 
no 
they 
were 
kind 
of 
pointy. 
' 
AP: 
So 
what 
did 
you, 
did 
you 
experiment 
on any 
Pauline: 
Everybody. 
[Laughter] 
Everybody. 
I 
was 
always cutting 
people's 
hair 
and 
they 
were 
always 
cracking up with me. 
AP: 
So 
what 
do 
you 
think 
inspired 
you 
to 
start 
doing 
that? 
Pauline: 
I 
don't 
know, 
my 
sister 
in-law 
was 
a 
hairdresser 
and 
I 
used 
to 
love 
what 
she used 
to 
do 
with 
hair. 
AP: What 
did 
she 
use 
to 
do? 
Pauline: Ach, 
all 
the 
different 
shapes 
a 
hair 
and what 
she 
used 
to 
do 
with 
it, 
colour 
and 
things 
like 
that. 
41 
In 
a memory 
work 
text, 
A 
recorded: 
"Occasionally 
when 
her 
granddadJell 
askep 
A 
wouldplay 
sometimes 
alone sometimes 
with 
her 
cousin 
with 
his 
thick 
curly, silver 
andgrey 
hair. 
Thefront 
was 
very 
long 
and she wouldplait 
the 
strands, 
use 
hairgrips 
and 
ribbons and 
on 
one 
or 
two 
occasions 
he 
would 
wake and, oblivious 
to 
his 
headfid 
ofbows 
and 
ribbons 
walk 
his dog ". 
Although 
at a 
later 
date 
Ettie's 
mother 
had 
invested 
the 
relatively 
large 
sum required 
for 
her 
daughter 
to 
become indentured 
as a 
hairdresser, Ettie 
noted 
that 
her flair 
for fashioning 
was generated 
in 
the 
midst 
of 
creative activities 
taking 
place 
in 
a 
busy 
household: V 
camefrom 
-my 
grandmothers 
children 
-at 
thatpoint 
she 
had 
six. 
she 
hadfour 
daughters 
and 
two 
sons. 
One 
ofthe 
143 
Radical 
difference 
rather 
than 
mirroring sometimes characterised 
the 
fashionings 
of 
female 
relatives 
of 
different 
generations 
42 
. 
Whereas Michelle 
was 
affectionate about what 
she read as 
her 
grandmother's 
fashionfaur 
pas, 
claiming 
a 
link 
with 
her 
own 
'shoe 
fetishism', 
she 
was 
at pains 
to 
distance 
herself from 
her 
mother's 
style, 
Ellen, 
committed 
to the 
pursuit of 
the 
goal 
of 
creating a 
head 
of natural 
looking 
blonde hair 
was also 
fondly 
patronising 
in her 
account of 
her 
mother's 
own 
hair fashioning 
routine: 
She 
used 
to, 
she 
used 
to 
[Laughter] 
dye 
the 
front 
bit 
of 
her hair 
you 
know in 
that 
very 
kind 
of 
peroxide, 
it 
was 
just 
peroxide and a 
toothbrush 
and 
it 
was always 
sitting 
in 
the 
bath, 
just 
sitting 
there 
and 
every 
so often 
she 
would 
-[Laughter] 
AP: 
So 
when 
did 
she start 
doing, 
do 
you 
remember 
her doing 
-? 
Ellen: 
I 
remember 
her 
doing 
that 
as a 
wee 
girl yes 
aye. 
AP: 
And 
what 
sort of 
hairdo did 
she 
have? 
Ellen: 
God 
love 
her but 
she 
- 
all 
the 
men 
in 
our 
family 
have 
the 
most gorgeous 
thick, 
luxurious, 
curly 
hair 
and 
all 
the 
women 
have 
very straight, 
thin 
- 
whatever 
but 
Mum 
always 
just had 
very 
forties, 
that 
kind 
of 
I ike 
a page 
boy but 
rings, curls, 
just 
kind 
of 
curled, so 
she 
always 
done 
the 
blonde bit, it 
was 
peroxide. 
AP: 
And 
did 
you ever ask 
her 
why she 
did 
that? 
What 
she was 
modelling 
herself 
on? 
Ellen: 
To 
me 
it 
was 
- 
it 
was 
these 
ladies 
in 
these 
films 
you 
know, 
not 
Celia 
Johnson 
as 
such 
but 
that 
kind 
of- 
Michelle, 
one 
of 
the 
few 
participants who 
identified 
herself 
and 
her 
mother 
as 
feminist 
was 
alone 
in 
having 
no 
memories 
of 
her 
mother self-fashioning, 
except 
for 
her 
CUrly 
perm43 
"She'd 
always 
had 
her 
hair 
like 
that 
always, 
always. 
She 
wasn't 
into 
make-up 
I 
think 
she 
wore 
make-up 
but 
I 
don't 
ever 
remember 
her 
putting 
it 
on or seeing 
her 
doing 
any 
kind 
offashioning 
ot 
. 
44 
daughters 
was 
a milliner 
in 
Daly's, 
and 
one was 
a 
tailoress 
so, 
without 
realising 
It, 
you're 
sitting 
in 
your grandmothers 
house, 
you 
Ire 
playing 
arounit 
you're 
watching 
someone 
doing 
a 
hat, 
you're 
watching somebody 
else 
making 
trousers, 
bespoke 
tailors 
they 
called 
them 
then, 
they 
- 
sewersfor 
the 
gentry, 
so 
that 
was maybe 
an 
inspiration 
too, 
very 
closefamily, 
so 
aye 
". Many 
participants 
discussed their 
pleasures 
and 
skills 
in 
dressmaking. 
Elizabeth, 
and 
Janey 
would 
fashion 
a garment 
for 
a 
dance 
the 
night 
before, 
in Janey's 
case 
she 
would stay 
up until 
four 
in 
the 
morning 
to 
complete 
it. 
" 
This 
is best illustrated 
in 
Michelle's 
grandmother's 
high heeled, 
bouffanted 
look, 
maintained 
in 
part 
by Michelle's 
hairdresser 
father, 
Michelle's 
mother's 
perennial curly perm 
and 
no make-up, 
and 
Michelle's 
own 
self-consciously 
ironic 
absorption 
in 
the 
world 
of 
fashion. 
"A 
curly perm 
is 
allied 
to 
stylings 
that 
attempt 
to 
appear 
natural 
but 
involve 
setting and 
penning 
as 
with 
hair 
perceived 
to 
be 
more artificial. 
" 
Michelle, 
a young 
woman 
during 
the 
1980s, 
described her 
relationship 
with 
her 
mother 
regarding 
fashioning 
in 
ways 
that 
resemble 
the 
proscriptive 
attitudes 
and 
consequent 
transgressions 
of 
Elizabeth's 
adolescence 
in 
the 
1950s: 
AP: 
When 
did 
you 
start 
experimenting 
with 
make-up 
then? 
144 
Michelle 
described 
the 
relationship 
between 
her 
grandmother's, 
her 
mother's 
and 
her 
own 
fashioning 
as oppositional, 
but later 
intimates 
that 
she 
had inherited 
aspects of 
fashioning 
from her 
feminist 
mother. 
She 
described 
her 
initiation 
into 
'becoming 
a 
hippy' 
to the 
soundtrack of a 
record collection 
inherited 
from her 
parents 
which 
included Hendrix, Joplin, 
Neil Young 
and 
Joni Mitchell. 
45 
Some 
participants 
claimed 
to 
despair 
of 
their 
mother's 
tastes 
in 
fashioning, 
others 
remembered 
their 
mother's 
disdain 
at 
their 
own 
dissident 
tastes, 
but 
these 
cross-generational 
relationships generated 
less 
than 
predictable 
accounts. 
Ettie 
experienced shame 
and 
rejection 
from her 
own 
mother 
as a 
consequence 
of 
her 
hair-dyeing, 
but 
was 
an 
ally 
for her 
own 
daughter's 
hair-fashioning 
experimentation: 
She 
[Sinead, 
her 
daughter] 
dyed her hair 
blue, 
plummy 
blue 
when 
she was going 
for 
her 
interview. 
She 
wanted 
her 
hair done just 
before 
she 
left 
school, 
"Mum I'm 
going 
to 
get 
my 
hair 
dyed" 
I 
said, 
"No 
you're 
not 
Ifanyone's dyeing 
your 
hair, 
I'll dye 
it 
" 
and we 
picked a 
kind 
of 
nice 
plummy, 
a 
bit like 
that tray 
over 
there 
[ 
... 
] 
"Ifanyone's 
going 
to 
make 
a 
mess... 
" So 
I dyed 
her 
hair 
and 
she 
got 
- 
which 
I 
think 
is 
ridiculous, 
she got 
detention, 
and she wasn't able 
to 
go 
to 
school 
for 
a 
week. 
Now 
there 
was no 
trouble, 
she 
never 
caused 
trouble 
or smoked or 
- 
and 
because 
her 
hair 
- 
hair 
means a 
lot. 
46 
Michelle: 
When 
I 
was 
older, 
a 
lot 
older 
than 
when 
I 
first 
started 
with 
the 
hair. I 
never wore 
make-up 
at school, well 
later 
on 
I did, 
older, 
maybe 
fourth 
year 
15 
maybe, 
14,15. 
AP: And 
what 
did 
you 
start 
with? 
Michelle: 
Red 
lipstick 
[Laughter) 
I 
wasn't allowed 
to 
wear 
make-up 
though. 
My 
mum 
was 
really 
strict 
I 
wasn't 
allowed 
to 
wear 
like heeled 
shoes 
even 
though 
I 
was 
a 
tomboy. 
At 
one stage 
I 
fancied 
-I 
mean 
I'm 
talking 
about 
heels 
like 
that 
[indicates 
about 
an 
inch] I 
wasn't 
allowed 
any 
shoes 
like 
that 
at all, nothing, 
I 
wasn't 
allowed 
- 
like 
I 
wasn't allowed 
like, 
nylon 
tights. 
I 
wasn't 
allowed 
- 
we 
weren't 
allowed 
to 
wear 
clothes 
that 
were 
basically 
too 
old 
for 
us. 
Michelle's 
sister, 
the 
person 
charged with 
the 
role 
of 
fashioning 
all 
those 
attending 
Michelle's 
pre-night-out 
fashioning 
sessions 
and 
presumably 
having 
had 
no 
instruction from her 
feminist 
mother 
in 
excessive 
cosmetic acts, attended 
a 
beauty 
course 
in 
order 
to 
gain 
fashioning 
skills 
for 
her 
own and as 
it 
transpired 
her 
sister 
and 
friends benerit. 
11 
As 
a 
teenager, 
having 
seen 
photos 
of 
her 
uncle 
and mother's 
room 
at 
the 
same age where 
they 
had 
album 
covers 
over 
their 
bedroom 
walls 
like 
Jean, 
Michelle 
had 
replicated 
the 
effect 
in her 
own 
room. 
In 
the 
same 
phase, 
Michelle 
mined 
her 
mother's 
wardrobe 
alongside 
vintage 
clothes 
outlets. 
An 
aspect 
of 
this 
discussion 
generated 
a 
fascinating dimension 
to 
fashioning, 
namely 
the 
reproduction 
of 
(photographic) 
records 
of 
fashioned 
femininity, 
of women 
wearing 
the 
same garments, 
across 
different 
generations: 
AP: 
Where 
did 
you 
get 
these 
clothes 
from 
then? 
Were 
they 
in 
normal 
clothes 
shops? 
Michelle: 
No, 
like 'Mr 
Ben' 
and 
'Virginia 
Galleries'. 
AP: So 
we're 
talking 
vintage? 
Michelle: 
Vintage 
clothes 
and 
digging 
out my 
mum's 
old stuff as 
well. 
AP: 
So how 
did 
she 
feel 
about 
you wearing 
her 
old stuff? 
Michelle: 
I 
don't 
know. 
[ 
... 
] 
AP: 
So 
you 
knew 
where 
to 
get 
it, 
you went and 
got 
her 
old 
stuff 
I just 
wondered, 
were 
there 
any 
photos 
of 
her 
wearing 
some 
of 
the 
gear you 
ended 
up 
wearing 
- 
Michelle: 
Yes. 
AP: Right 
ok, 
and 
had 
you 
seen 
those 
- 
Michelle: 
Aha. 
AP: Right, 
ok. 
You 
don't 
have 
any 
photos 
where 
you're 
wearing 
this 
gear 
that 
she 
-? 
Michelle: 
Yes. 
[Laughter) 
' 
Ettie 
subsequently 
challenged 
the 
headmaster 
about 
this 
punishment. 
145 
Hair 
rites 
Some 
participants 
acknowledged 
the 
role 
of 
mothers and 
other 
elders 
in 
unequivocally 
47 
detennining 
their 
own 
hair look. 
This 
was 
discussed 
as 
a collective 
condition 
of childhood, 
where 
mothers 
created 
hair 
stylings 
over 
which girls 
had 
little 
control: 
Elizabeth: 
When 
I 
look 
at 
family 
photographs 
or 
photographs 
of 
me and 
Janet 
when 
we 
were 
little 
I 
would 
say up 
to 
six and seven 
we always 
had 
bows 
- 
[Laughter] 
in 
our 
hair 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
the 
fashion 
for 
a 
bow 
at 
each side 
of 
the 
head 
and 
it's 
funny 
how 
I've 
seen 
lots 
of photos 
of 
like, 
Eastern, 
you 
know like 
Russian 
girls, 
even 
like, 
you 
know 
when 
Olga 
Korbut 
came 
on 
the 
scene 
you 
know, 
and 
all 
those 
- 
it's 
the 
first 
time 
we saw all 
these 
young 
Russian 
girls 
and 
it 
was 
like, 
oh yes, 
it's just 
like 
the 
50s 
again 
you 
know 
Jean 
remembered 
enduring 
her 
own 
mother's 
delight 
in 
fashioning 
her 
to 
excess: 
AP: 
So 
when 
your mum used 
to 
brush 
your 
long 
hair, 
what 
do 
you 
think 
she 
felt 
about 
your 
hair 
at 
that 
time? 
Jean: 
I 
think 
she 
thought 
I 
had lovely, lovely 
hair 
and 
she 
used 
to 
tie 
it in 
bows 
and 
things 
- 
[Laughter] 
[ 
... 
] 
much 
to 
my 
horror. [Laughter] 
AP: 
Did 
you 
not 
like it? 
Jean: 
I 
didn't 
really 
like, 
no, 
I 
didn't like it? 
I 
thought 
it 
was 
too, 
sort 
of, 
, 
you 
know, fussy. 
Speaking 
of 
her 
own pride 
in her daughter's 
hair, 
Gabrielle 
had 
rationalised 
Evelyn's 
distress: 
Yes, 
I've 
got 
loads 
of memories, 
Evelyn's hair 
was 
dark, 
like it is 
now and 
it 
was naturally 
all 
ringlets 
and 
it 
was 
so nice 
[Laughter) 
( 
... 
] 
Her hair 
was 
long 
and 
I 
can 
remember 
sitting 
her 
on 
the 
table 
after 
we'd 
washed 
it 
and 
I 
used 
to 
brush 
it 
and 
she used 
to 
sob 
her 
little 
eyes 
out, and 
as 
I 
was 
brushing 
it 
to 
get 
the 
like, lugs [sic] 
out 
you 
know, 
the 
- 
it 
used 
to 
go 
back 
again 
like 
that, 
all 
in 
spirals, 
yes". 
47 
Analysing 
the 
material 
for 
this 
chapter 
I 
used 
a shorthand memo 
-'Whose 
hair 
is it 
anyway?, 
to 
note 
a recurrent mis/use 
of 
hair 
belonging 
to 
children 
by 
adults 
and 
in 
some 
cases 
adults 
hair 
by 
hairdressers. 
Kuhn illustrates 
this 
theme 
in 
her 
reflections 
on 
her 
own 
mother's 
habits 
of 
using 
her daughter 
as 
a 
tabula 
rasa 
for fashioning 
fancy dress 
as, 
for 
example, 
'Cinema 
Litter'. 
(Kuhn, 
1995, 
pp. 
40-58) 
146 
The 
shifts 
from 
parent/carer 
as 
hairdresser 
to 
visits 
to the 
salon 
were 
remembered 
by 
some as a 
significant 
rite 
of passage. 
Although 
she 
had 
never 
been 
permed, 
Elizabeth 
nevertheless acknowledged 
the 
significance 
of 
this 
process 
in just 
these 
terms: 
In 
the 
1950s 
having 
your 
first 
perm was, you 
know, like 
an 
initiation 
if 
you 
like, 
a mark of your 
- 
of 
your 
becoming 
a woman 
because, if 
you remember, 
in 
the 
1950s 
there 
was no such 
thing 
as 
teenage 
you 
know, 
you 
were a child and 
then 
suddenly overnight 
you 
know, 
you 
had 
to 
dress 
and 
behave 
like, 
like 
a woman 
[ 
... 
]I 
was 
never able 
to 
understand 
when 
I 
was 
little 
was why, 
why 
it 
was 
necessary 
to 
have 
things 
done 
to 
your 
hair 
you 
know, in 
- 
well, obviously 
it 
was 
something 
that 
you 
had 
to 
have done 
if 
you were 
going 
to 
an 
adult woman. 
I 
think 
it 
was very, 
very 
much 
tied 
up with 
the 
ideas 
of when you 
grow up 
this 
is 
what you 
have 
to 
have 
done 
to 
your 
hair, 
on 
the 
other 
hand 
there 
was an 
enormous 
emphasis 
by both 
my 
mother and 
grandma 
on 
natural 
looking 
hair, 
for 
example, 
I 
remember 
Nana 
very, very 
proudly showing me 
this 
photograph 
of 
her 
when 
she 
was 
eighteen and she 
had jet black hair 
and she 
took 
such pride 
in 
telling 
me 
how 
long 
it 
used 
to 
be 
and 
how 
she used 
to 
brush it 
and 
so she used 
to 
get 
this 
photograph 
out 
quite 
a 
lot 
and 
I 
never understood 
then 
why, you 
know, 
why she 
was 
so proud 
of 
this 
natural 
hair 
that 
she 
had 
as a young woman 
and why she was 
having her 
hair done 
you 
know, 
permed, 
tortured 
it 
seemed 
to 
me, and yes, 
so 
it 
made 
me 
think 
it 
was 
something 
to 
do 
with 
being 
an 
adult 
woman. 
Hairdressing 
visits 
started 
for 
Mrs Lochead, 
who 
was of 
the 
generation of 
Elizabeth's 
mother, 
when 
she 
got 
engaged: 
my 
first 
visit 
was 
when 
I 
was nineteen, 
I 
started 
to 
go when 
I 
got 
engaged 
at 
twenty-one, 
although 
I 
wasn't 
married 
till 
I 
was 
twenty-five 
[ 
... 
] 
that's 
when 
perms 
had 
started 
and 
they 
called 
them 
a 
Marcel 
Wave. 
[ 
... 
]I 
don't 
think 
I 
was 
there 
much 
before 
that, 
maybe 
I 
got a 
trim, 
but 
that 
was 
the 
first 
sort 
of, 
getting 
a particular, and 
then 
we used 
to 
go 
for 
[Indecipherable] it 
was 
tongs 
in 
those 
days 
and 
of course 
when 
I 
was 
getting 
married 
I 
went 
to 
get 
my 
hair 
all 
done. 
Marking 
a 
change 
between 
being 
and 
living 
at 
home, 
where 
she was 
the 
much-cherished 
daughter 
and 
grandchild 
and 
surviving 
at school was 
symbolised 
for 
Jean in 
her 
rejection, aged 
twelve 
or 
thirteen 
of 
her 
mothers' 
in 
favour 
of 
her 
own outlaw 
fashioning. This 
new 
styling 
fused 
an 
identification 
with 
elder 
brothers 
and 
'hard', 
older 
schoolgirls: 
Before 
it 
was 
long 
and 
it 
was 
ringlets 
you 
know, 
so 
- 
and 
as 
I 
started 
to 
get, 
to 
get 
that 
bit 
older 
you 
know, 
and 
I 
was 
going 
to 
school, 
then 
I 
decided 
to 
get 
it 
cut 
shorter 
myself 
and 
then 
I 
147 
started 
to 
dye 
it blonde. I 
had 
two 
brothers 
who were 
blonde 
and 
I 
was 
the 
only 
one 
- 
well 
I 
had 
had 
fair 
hair 
when 
I 
was younger and as 
I 
got older 
my 
hair 
has 
always 
darkened 
down 
so 
I 
started 
to 
put 
a 
blonde 
dye 
through 
my 
hair. 
In 
Elizabeth's 
accounts, 
the 
demarcations 
of good/bad, appropriate/excessive 
femininity 
and 
the 
roles 
and responsibilities 
of parents and children 
made 
glamour a 
desired 
but 
prohibited 
mode 
of 
self- 
fashioning: 
In 
our 
house 
to 
spend 
any 
time 
at all 
on 
fashioning 
yourself 
or 
spending 
any 
time 
beautifying 
yourself, 
that 
was 
that 
was 
not regarded 
as a 
good 
thing 
at 
all 
[ 
... 
] 
to 
be 
clean and 
healthy, 
you 
know, 
to 
start 
spending 
time 
on yourself 
was 
seen 
you 
know, 
as 
not 
a 
good 
thing 
to 
do, 
[ 
... 
] 
you 
could 
be 
doing 
better 
things 
and 
nice girls 
don't 
do 
that 
and 
that 
sort 
of 
thing 
and yet 
I 
saw 
my 
mother 
spending 
a 
lot 
of 
time 
[Laughter) 
- 
on 
- 
but 
it 
was somehow 
- 
so 
it 
got 
very 
much 
tied 
with 
like, 
but 
when 
you're a 
child you 
know, 
a girl, 
you 
don't 
do 
that 
sort 
of 
thing, 
that's 
only 
what 
grown 
ups 
do, but 
there 
was never 
any 
preparation 
by 
my 
mother 
for it 
you 
know, 
it 
obviously 
wasn't 
seen, 
certainly as 
far 
as 
my 
mother 
saw 
the 
job 
concerned, 
she 
didn't 
see 
it 
as 
herjob 
you 
know, 
to 
encourage 
me 
or 
to 
show 
me 
the 
skills 
of 
making 
yourself 
beautiful 
and 
I 
did 
envy, 
this 
is 
the 
memory 
I 
was going 
to tell 
you 
-I 
did 
so 
envy 
my 
friend 
Sharon 
who was 
an 
only 
child 
and 
they 
seemed 
to 
have 
loads 
of 
money 
in 
their 
house 
[ 
... 
] Sharon 
used 
to 
tell 
me, 
oh, well, 
she always 
looked 
as 
though 
she 
did 
spend a 
lot 
of 
time 
on 
herself 
fashioning 
herself 
and 
everything and 
I 
was 
-I 
know 
I 
was 
very 
envious 
of 
her 
and when 
I 
mentioned 
it 
to 
my 
Mum 
at 
one 
time 
you 
know, 
that 
Sharon 
had 
this 
hairstyle, 
was 
wearing 
lipstick 
or 
whatever, 
Grandma 
said something 
like, 
"Oh 
well 
her 
Mum 
will 
have 
groomed 
her 
" 
and 
I 
was 
absolutely 
fascinated by 
this 
phrase, you 
know, 
'She 
groomed 
her', 
it 
was 
like 
she 
was 
teaching 
her 
daughter 
you 
know, 
how 
to 
be beautiful 
and 
that 
-I 
didn't 
get 
that, 
so 
it 
was 
when 
I 
did 
start, 
you 
know, 
to 
want 
to 
make myself 
look 
beautiful, 
which 
I 
think 
meant 
feminine, 
I 
mean, 
it 
was 
very 
much 
you 
know, like doing it 
yourself 
kind 
of 
thing 
and 
very much 
in 
secreCy. 
41 
Against 
her 
own mother's prescriptions 
Michelle 
began, 
whilst 
still 
at 
school, 
to 
fashion 
herself 
with 
the 
ahn 
of 
creating 
an older 
look. 
Her 
experimentation 
with cosmetics 
suggests 
a 
link 
between 
feminine 
excess 
and 
perceptions of age: 
Michelle: 
Oh, 
it 
was 
hellish, 
well, 
when 
I 
was 
getting 
into 
the 
lipstick 
and 
I 
was 
into 
real 
pure 
hairspray 
hairdos, 
hellish 
things. 
"I 
had 
remembered 
hearing 
at 
school 
that 
beehive 
hairdos 
were 
dirty 
and, as so-called 
evidence 
I 
was 
told 
that 
one 
woman 
had 
beetles 
or earwigs 
nesting 
in hers 
because 
she 
had 
not 
washed 
it 
for 
so 
long. 
Mikkelson 
and 
Mikkelson 
tracked 
the 
origins 
of 
this 
urban 
myth 
to the 
1950s 
when 
beehives 
first 
became 
fashionable 
in 
the 
US: 
"The 
original 
version 
isprimardy 
a 
fatal 
vanity 
type 
oflegend about 
ayoung 
woman 
who 
dies 
[through 
spider 
bites/earwig 
infestation 
etc. 
] 
becauseshefoolishly 
allows 
her 
pride 
in 
having 
the 
highest 
'do'take 
precedence 
over 
basic hygiene 
" 
(Mikkelson 
and 
Mikkelson, 
1995). 
148 
AP: 
[ 
... 
] 
Why 
do 
you 
describe 
them 
as 
hellish? 
Michelle: 
Just 
like, 
I 
went 
through 
this 
phase 
where 
I 
looked 
about 
twenty 
years 
older 
than 
what 
I 
was, 
you 
know, like 
I 
just looked 
like 
an old 
woman, 
it 
was 
just horrible, 
just like, I 
don't 
know, 
where 
it 
came 
from 
that. 
I 
fancied 
this 
older 
look 
but it 
was 
just 
horrible 
and 
then 
because 
none 
of 
my 
friends 
are 
into 
make-up 
and none 
of us 
wore 
make-up 
so 
that 
didn't 
last 
long, 
so 
then 
I 
was 
into, 
I 
didn't 
wear 
make-up 
at all until 
I 
was 
about 
twenty. 
The 
relationship 
between 
hairdresser 
and customer 
sometimes 
mirrored 
that 
of 
mother/daughter. 
In 
the 
following 
extract, 
Michelle 
discussed her 
graduation 
from 
maternal 
control 
of 
her 
hair 
fashioning 
into 
her 
paradoxically 
passive, almost 
infantilised 
state 
at 
the 
salon: 
AP: 
How 
would 
you 
describe 
the 
relationship 
between 
you and 
this 
hairdresser? 
Michelle: 
Well I 
think 
she sort 
of 
treated 
you 
like 
a grownup and 
she'd 
ask 
you what 
you 
wanted 
done 
instead 
of 
asking your mum, 
or 
- 
so you 
felt like 
a 
bit 
older and 
as 
if 
somebody 
was 
talking 
to 
you 
and 
doing 
what you wanted. 
AP: 
And 
do 
you 
feel 
like 
she 
did listen 
to 
what 
you 
said? 
Michelle: 
Hopefully 
not. 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
So 
it 
was 
sometimes 
- 
Michelle: 
No 
it 
would 
have 
been 
a 
dreadful 
[] 
AP: 
So 
did 
you 
feel like 
sometimes 
she was 
fashioning 
your 
hair 
in 
a 
way 
that 
it bore 
no resemblance 
to 
what 
you 
wanted, 
or 
did 
it 
generally 
turn 
out-? 
Michelle: 
I 
never, ever went 
in 
with an 
idea, 
she 
just 
used 
to 
say, 
"Do 
youfancy 
this? 
Do 
you 
fancy 
that? 
" 
and 
I'd 
just 
go, 
#oyeS ap. 
49 
" 
Although 
hair 
rites 
that 
marked a 
movement 
from 
childhood 
to 
adolescence 
were more 
prevalent, 
Ann 
discussed 
a 
dramatic 
refashioning 
in 
relation 
to 
her 
marriage 
break-up, 
and 
implied 
in 
her 
experience as a 
hairdresser 
that 
makeovcrs 
in 
such 
circumstances 
were also 
routine: 
"I 
always 
wanted 
long hair 
but 
my 
hair 
was 
always 
too thin, 
and 
it 
didn 
It 
grow 
right, 
hutfunnily 
enough, 
and 
it's 
really odd 
because 
I 
was 
looking 
at apicture 
ofmysel(the 
other 
day 
there, 
and 
I 
eventually grew 
my 
hair 
long 
when 
- 
it 
wasJust 
qfler 
got separatedfrom 
my 
husband, 
and, 
usually 
people 
have 
their 
hair 
cut at 
that 
stage, 
hut 
what 
I 
did 
was, 
grew 
my 
hair, 
and grew my 
hair, 
and grew 
my 
hair, 
and grew 
my 
hair, 
and 
dyed 
it 
blonde 
and 
I 
eventually 
had 
this 
long, 
blonde 
hair 
that 
I'd 
always, 
always 
wanteg and 
it 
seemed 
to 
be longer 
and 
it 
seemed 
to 
he 
thicker, 
and 
1just 
kept 
It, 
you 
know 
really 
quite 
long, 
and 
I 
kept 
itfor 
a wee 
149 
In/appropriate 
self-fashionings 
Participants 
expressed 
their 
views 
about 
the 
in/appropriateness 
of styles 
on 
the 
basis 
that they 
were 
'too 
old' or 
'too 
young. 
50 
Changing hairstyles 
for 
this 
reason, 
as 
in 
Jenny's 
case, 
seemed 
less 
to 
do 
with 
an appreciation 
of 
the 
vagaries of 
fashion, 
she 
maintained 
her 
bouffant 
with 
hairpiece 
for 
more 
than 
fourteen 
years, 
but 
with 
a 
more socially 
implicit 
understanding 
of 
age appropriateness: 
"That 
was 
my only 
hairdo 
- 
was 
my 
hair-piece 
that 
only- 
[ 
... 
] 
But 
as 
I 
say, 
when 
I 
got older 
I 
didn't 
really suit 
it". 
51 
Mrs. 
Lochead 
frequently 
identified 
styles 
in 
magazines 
to 
instruct 
the 
hairdresser 
to 
copy 
but 
these 
were 
checked 
for 
age 
appropriateness: 
"Yes 
she, 
[Anthea 
Turner] 
has, 
lovely hair 
and, 
but 
most 
of 
the 
others 
are 
too 
youngfor me 
so 
I 
have 
to 
model 
mysel(on 
the 
older-" 
The 
hairdresser's 
interpersonal 
not 
to 
say counselling 
skills 
were 
required 
to 
either 
implement 
or 
suggest 
changes 
where 
the 
abandoning 
of 
long-cherished 
styles were 
concerned. 
52 
Other 
stylists' 
notions 
of 
'old' 
hairdos 
had frustrated 
Sandy, 
a 
hairdresser 
herself. 
I 
find 
these 
days I 
don't know, 
maybe 
I 
go 
to 
the 
wrong 
places 
but 
I 
find 
them 
categorising 
me 
as 
an 
older 
woman 
and 
I'm 
trying to 
go 
in 
for 
something 
that 
will 
- 
and me earrings 
and 
everything 
that 
will 
give 
them 
a message 
that 
I 
don't 
want 
an 
old 
fashioned hairdo 
or 
that 
I 
do 
want 
something, 
a 
bit 
of 
trend 
in 
my 
hair 
or something 
you 
know, 
' 
so 
I've 
just 
- 
there 
isn't 
any 
one 
place 
that 
I've 
been 
to 
twice. 
But 
as 
a 
young 
trainee 
Sandy 
had herself 
categorised 
some 
specific 
customers' 
requests 
as 
, 
inappropriate': 
I 
can 
think 
ofjust 
the 
odd sort 
ofeccentric, 
older 
woman 
like 
every salon 
has 
one and 
who 
would 
come 
in 
and 
bring 
a picture 
say 
ofMarilyn 
Monroe 
or something, 
and 
say, 
'Do 
me 
like 
that 
darling 
' 
you 
know, 
and we'd go 
in 
the 
back 
and 
have 
a 
giggle and 
say, 
'Who's 
going 
to 
break 
it 
to 
her 
that 
she'd 
need 
a 
lot 
more 
hair 
than 
that? 
"' 
Ann 
noted 
that 
it 
was usually 
younger 
customers 
who 
while 
and 
then 
Icut 
it, 
you 
know. 
that 
was 
it, 
sort ofathingIldhatt 
you 
know, [adopts 
an 
admonishing 
voice] 
'Youre 
too 
oldforthatt, 
[Uughter] 
Butyou've 
hada 
wee shot, andl was 
delighted 
to 
have had 
it! 
" 
By 
far 
a 
greater 
number 
than 
showed any 
concern 
about 
fashionability. 
Feelings 
of youthfulness 
were 
cited 
as one 
of 
the 
pleasures after 
a salon 
visit. 
For 
example 
Jenny 
expressed 
that 
after a visit 
to 
Ta 
Paris' 
she 
felt 
'fresher' 
and 
'younger'. 
51 
Jenny 
reported 
that 
this 
had been 
done 
with 
due 
care and sensitivity 
when she 
had 
eventually 
been 
persuaded 
by 
Mrs. Martin 
to 
relinquish 
her 
hairpiece 
for'an 
older style'. 
Ann 
had had 
experience 
of 
this 
with 
make-up 
regimes 
too: 
"Iwouldsay 
what 
wefind 
difficult 
we would 
maybe 
have 
an older 
lady 
coming 
in 
who 
has 
afashionfrom 
1962 
and 
maybe 
bright 
turquoise 
eye 
shadow 
way 
up 
to 
her 
eyebrows, 
itsjust 
doing 
absolutely 
nothingfor 
her 
and 
really not 
suiting 
her 
at 
all, 
all 
spangly 
and everything 
and 
it's 
about 
trying 
to 
change 
- 
butyou 
can't 
do 
that 
suddenly and can't 
hurt 
theperson'sfeelings, 
doyou 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
So 
it's 
a 
very, 
very 
gradualprocess 
to 
sort 
oftease 
-" 
150 
20. 
Fun 
in 'La 
Paris'. 
2 1. 
Customers 
enjoy 
coffee 
and 
whisky 
under 
the 
dryers 
at 
'La 
Paris'. 
came 
into 
a 
hair 
or 
beauty 
salon with a star's style 
to 
copy 
and noted 
that, 
as with 
customers' 
identifying 
the 
right 
hairdresser, 
having found 
a style 
that 
worked women 
would 
remain 
loyal 
to 
it. 
" 
Many 
older 
women 
placed 
great 
importance 
on 
maintaining 
a 
hair 
fashioning 
regime 
over 
and 
above other cosmetic acts. 
Mrs Lochead, 
who 
had 
an 
active 
lille 
that 
included dieting 
and exercise, 
emphasised 
the 
importance 
of 
having her 
hair done 
regularly: 
"I 
always consider 
it 
as part 
oj*I? 
I. v 
/?/? 
and, 
you 
know I'm 
old now 
[ 
... 
] 
so 
1 
make 
a 
bigger 
efj6r1. 
I 
would 
certainly 
look 
at 
it, 
some 
part oj'me 
trying, trying 
not 
to 
get 
myse?f 
if 
1 
didn't 
have 
the 
hairdos 
then that's 
a 
downward 
step 
". 
5.4 
(Cross) 
identifications 
and pleasures 
in 
hair 
fashioning 
Pleasures 
Many 
women 
expressed 
pleasure 
in 
hair fashioning 
processes. 
The 
hairdressers 
who 
had 
experienced work related 
illnesses, 
poor 
pay 
and conditions, 
long 
hours 
and 
lack 
of union 
representation 
and might 
have 
had 
reason 
to 
voice 
the 
most 
displeasure 
were 
pragmatic 
but 
undeniably 
positive 
about 
their 
experiences. 
Customers 
expressed 
a range 
of pleasures 
in 
their 
visits 
to 
salons, 
colleges and 
other 
fashioning 
environments. 
54 
1 
also 
took 
pleasure 
in 
my 
visit 
to 
'La 
Paris' 
and 
other 
salons 
and could 
see why 
many 
would 
become 
loyal 
customers. 
Treats 
were 
built 
into 
the 
framework 
of 
visits 
to 
'La 
Paris' 
as 
described 
by 
hairdresser 
Irene, below. 
On 
my 
first 
visit 
chocolates, 
biscuits 
and 
tea 
were 
being 
offered 
free 
to 
all customers. 
55 
While I 
was 
interviewing 
Eileen, 
to 
my surprise 
I 
overheard 
Mrs Martin 
offering 
further 
treats 
to 
customers: 
AP: And 
what 
do 
you 
like 
about 
it? 
Mrs. Martin: 
[in 
background 
to 
customer 
Cathy. ] Can 
I 
offer you a 
whisky 
or 
sherry? 
5' 
"1 
would say 
that 
young womenwould 
do 
that, 
they 
would come 
in 
andsay1heywanted 
a 
definite 
make-tip 
style 
want 
to 
look 
like 
somebody and 
we would 
try to 
do 
that 
if 
we could and 
that 
might 
he 
eyebrow 
shapes 
changed 
all 
the 
time to 
keep 
up with 
what 
thefashion 
is 
whether 
they 
are 
thick 
and 
bushy 
or whether 
the 
a 
ivee 
thin 
line 
and 
it-here 
that 
thin 
line 
is you 
know, 
as well 
and we 
have 
to 
knovs, 
how 
to 
do 
it, 
so 
I 
would say 
that 
what 
happens 
after 
that 
is 
that 
very 
often 
young 
women 
would get 
into a 
style 
so maybe 
they 
would copy 
Martine AfcCulcheon 
but 
then, 
when 
they, 
arefiorty 
they 
are 
still 
doing 
it 
because 
it worked 
when 
they 
were 
that 
age 
-" 
'4 
For 
example, asked 
how 
she 
felt 
after 
leaving 
the 
hairdresser's 
Mrs. Lochead 
said she 
felt "Great, 
Iftel 
great, 
'cause 
I 
look 
right, 
I 
always make 
sure 
I 
have 
it 
donefior 
the 
weekend 
- 
because 
it 
doesn't 
matter 
hois, 
nice 
it 
stat. 
vou've 
got on. 
ifyour 
hair's 
not 
nice 
you might as 
well 
not 
bother ". 
33 
My 
interview data 
was 
interspersed 
with 
bursts 
of 
laughter. 
often 
entered 
into 
by 
the 
whole 
salon: 
AP: Oh 
yes, 
okay, 
if 
you 
don't 
unind. 
[I 
arn 
handed 
a clip ofcollee 
and 
cake. 
] Thank 
you 
very 
much, 
that's 
lovely. So 
what's 
happening 
now, what's 
this 
stage? 
Irene: 
Well, 
Eileen 
likes 
a setting 
lotion 
on 
to 
niake 
her hair, 
ern, 
er 
setting 
lotion 
on 
at 
this 
stage, 
anti 
then 
rollers 
in 
- 
Adele: Right. 
Irene: 
-at 
this 
stage, 
and 
then 
in 
the 
dryer 
for 
about 
half 
an 
hour- 
Adele: Right. 
Irene: 
-and 
then 
have 
a cup 
oftea. 
[Laughterl 
151 
AP: Why 
do 
you 
have 
it done in 
that 
style? 
Cathy: 
[In 
background 
to 
Mrs Martin] 
I 
can't 
take 
sherry. 
Eileen: 
Well, I 
think 
I 
suit 
it 
that 
way, 
I 
used 
to 
have it 
permed 
and curlY, 
but 
then 
I 
got 
it 
all cut 
short. 
Mrs 
Martin: 
[In 
background 
to 
Cathy] [ 
... 
] 
Whisky, 
with 
lemonade 
or 
what? 
36 
For 
disabled 
customers 
like 
Gabrielle, 
visits 
to 
the 
hairdresser 
had 
become 
linked 
to 
issues 
of self- 
esteem 
as 
well 
as 
offering stress-free 
trips 
outside 
the 
house. 
She 
adopted 
a 
directive 
approach 
with 
her 
hairdresser: 
Gabrielle: 
I 
always say 
to 
her, 
"I 
don't 
want 
my 
ears showing 
too 
much", 
I've 
got 
big 
ears. 
[Laughter] 
And 
I 
always 
say, 
"I 
don't 
want 
aparting 
andjust 
cover 
that thinness 
there 
". And 
I 
always 
try 
- 
Oh, I 
always 
say, 
"And 
try 
and 
make 
itfull 
", 
you 
know. 
[ 
... 
] 
Why 
I 
like 
to 
have 
it 
done 
-I 
go 
every week 
now, 
to 
have 
my 
hair 
done 
and 
why 
I 
like 
it is 
because 
now 
I 
can't wear 
fashionable 
clothes 
really as 
I 
am now 
you 
know, 
I'm 
all 
this 
- 
[emphasises 
her 
stroke 
affected 
arm] 
like 
with 
my 
arm 
being like 
this 
now 
it 
falls 
off my 
shoulder 
and 
I 
have 
to 
keep 
pulling 
them 
up 
and 
I 
don't 
walk right 
so 
I 
think, 
I 
always 
think 
- 
So 
long 
as my 
hair's 
alright. 
[ 
... 
II 
feel 
as 
though 
I've 
got 
space, 
lots 
of space 
for 
myself 
and 
a 
bit 
of 
peace and 
I 
feel 
relaxed 
and 
- 
yes 
I 
do. [ 
... 
]I like it 
when she's sort 
of 
behind 
me 
and she's 
doing 
my 
hair 
and she'll 
go 
like 
that 
[gestures 
pulling 
lock 
of 
hair 
over 
forehead] 
and 
bring it 
downwards 
with 
both 
her 
hands 
and 
if 
she 
doesn't like 
it 
she pulls 
it 
up a 
bit 
and 
covers 
- 
if 
there's 
a space 
anywhere 
and you 
know, 
really 
spends 
time 
on me you 
know. 
Yes, 
I 
feel 
pampered 
and 
it's 
peaceful, 
you 
57 
know, 
relaxing, 
yes. 
Participants 
defied 
my expectations 
in 
their 
willingness 
to 
discuss 
the 
pleasures 
they 
took 
in 
their 
appearance, 
after 
salon visits, as above or 
in 
Ettie's 
case 
'unfashioned': 
I 
love 
a 
French 
Roll 
as well with 
a 
wee 
bit 
of 
hair 
[indicates loose 
hair 
at 
the 
sides 
of 
her face] 
I 
always 
liked 
that. 
[ 
... 
]I 
quite 
liked 
when 
it 
had 
tendrils 
sometimes 
and 
it's 
the 
dampness, 
when 
it's 
raining, 
in 
wee 
curls, 
there's 
certain 
hairdos 
- 
and 
I 
like 
the 
French 
Roll 
but 
I 
also 
like 
when 
"6 
The 
visit 
took 
place 
in 
January 
and 
therefore there 
was 
some 
justification 
if it 
was 
needed 
for 
offering 
a 
wee 
dram for 
New 
Year 
although 
the 
interview 
was 
at 
10.30am. 
Ellen 
accepted 
her 
drink 
whilst 
she was 
having her 
hair 
washed. 
Most 
other 
customers were 
given 
a 
large 
measure. 
One 
customer caused 
general 
hilarity 
when 
she 
stood up 
from 
under 
the 
dryer 
and 
Fretendcd 
to 
stagger 
as 
if 
'under 
the 
influence'. 
.7 
, 
Jenny 
stated 
that 
she 
felt 
"a different 
woman 
when 
Igo 
out 
" 
and 
recalled a 
time 
after 
one 
visit 
when 
a stranger 
"made her 
day" 
commenting 
on 
how 
good 
her hair 
looked 
and 
asking 
her 
where 
she 
had 
had it 
done. 
152 
my 
hair's 
shiny 
although 
it's losing its 
lustre 
now, 
but 
when 
it's 
shiny 
and 
long. 
I 
would 
say 
long 
hair 
was 
my 
favourite, just because 
it's looking 
like hair. 
I like hair 
to 
flow, 
I 
never, 
ever 
liked 
lacquered 
hair, it's fimny 
that. 
I 
never, 
ever 
liked hair 
that 
looked 
as 
though 
it 
was 
just 
out 
the 
hairdressers. I 
always 
liked hair 
to 
flow 
and 
to 
move and 
to 
- 
Isn't 
that 
funny? 
But 
that's 
- 
not every 
hairdressers 
that's 
like 
that, 
but 
I 
like 
things 
kind 
of 
natural. 
Apart 
from 
having her hair 
done 
to 
her 
satisfaction 
on 
her 
visits 
to 
Northend, 
Janey 
found 
the 
visits 
relaxing 
whereas 
Sandy 
suggested 
that 
at 
'Marjory's' 
social 
pleasures 
for 
customers 
were 
paramount: 
I 
think 
the 
average 
sort 
of, 
you 
know 
[ 
... 
] 
the 
average 
shampoos 
and set, 
older woman, 
thirties 
to 
fifties 
pensioner, 
they 
got 
their 
hair 
cleaned 
really, cleaned 
and 
just 
neatly 
in 
place 
for 
the 
week, 
and 
they 
got 
the 
social 
thing 
and 
that 
was 
a 
really 
big 
thing 
you 
[ 
... 
]I 
mean, 
I 
think 
for 
the 
customers 
it 
was massive 
really. 
I 
think 
the 
contact 
with 
other 
women 
and 
in 
all 
different 
degrees 
-[... 
] 
they 
got 
a 
lot 
more 
that 
was about 
touch 
and 
having 
someone 
pamper 
them 
you 
know, 
and 
that 
you 
know 
what 
- 
and 
they 
did 
say 
that 
"Oh 
I 
love 
it 
when you're 
washing 
my 
hairyou 
know Ijust love 
it 
", 
and, 
"You 
can 
rub 
a 
bit harder 
love, 
you can 
really 
dig 
in 
" 
and 
all 
that 
and 
I 
think 
that 
- 
and 
they 
all 
said, 
I 
mean 
they 
didn't 
say 
- 
use 
words 
like 
therapeutic 
and 
so 
on, 
but 
they 
did 
say 
things 
like, 
"Oh 
it 
does 
me good coming 
here 
", 
you 
know 
and, 
"I 
always 
feel 
better" 
and, 
"It's 
lovely 
to 
be 
pampered. 
" 
and 
things 
like 
that. 
Hairdresser 
participants 
demonstratedjoie 
de 
vivre. 
Ettie discussed 
how 
she and 
her 
co-workers 
had 
managed 
to 
milk 
pleasure 
from 
a gruelling 
work 
regime, 
enjoying 
music 
and 
dancing 
in 
and 
out 
of 
the 
salon 
during 
the 
day. Ettie's 
first 
regular 
hairdressing job 
coincided 
with 
her 
discovery 
of rock 
and 
roll music: 
That 
was 
my 
first. 
I 
could 
feel 
my spirit 
soaring, 
it 
was 
fantastic, 
before 
that 
it 
was, 
[ 
... 
]- 
it 
was 
Guy 
Mitchell 
- 
[sings, 
"I 
neverfelt more 
like 
singing 
the 
blues"] 
but 
then 
it 
went 
on 
to 
Elvis 
and 
all, 
and 
terrific, 
music 
was great 
[indecipherable] 
jiving 
you 
had 
a coke 
and 
[ 
... 
] 
At 
the 
Locarno 
[Ballroom], 
at 
lunchtime, 
it 
was 
fantastic 
[ 
... 
]- 
and 
the 
figures 
were 
just, 
I 
mean 
all 
the 
girls 
- 
because 
that's 
what we 
did, 
we 
enjoyed 
it. 
Mr 
Jess 
[salon 
manager] 
used 
to 
go 
mad, 
"Where 
are 
you 
all 
going? 
", 
"We'll 
be back, 
that's 
our 
lunch 
", 
"You 
canny 
all 
go at 
once 
" 
and 
he'd 
grab 
maybe 
two 
but 
is 
Even 
for 
those 
spectating 
like 
Jean 
there 
were 
pleasures 
to 
be 
had 
at 
the 
salon: 
"It'sjust 
where 
it 
was 
situatedas 
well, 
you 
know, 
it 
was really 
niceyou 
know, 
being 
able 
to 
go 
in 
andsit, 
they 
hadniceseatsyou 
51 
At Northend 
College 
the 
atmosphere 
was 
sociable and unlike 
my 
experiences at 
any 
other 
educational 
institution. 
Loud 
music 
was 
being 
'DJ'd' 
by 
one 
of 
the 
hairdressing 
apprentices 
and 
some 
others, 
along 
with 
clients, 
whose 
ages ranged 
from 
teens 
to 
153 
22. 
Gabrielle's daughter 
Evelyn, 
whose 
hair 
was 
remembered 
as 
being 
like 
'black 
grapes'. 
could 
actually 
sit 
on and wait, 
I 
would 
waitfor my mum or 
I 
would go 
away and 
do 
something, come 
back 
I 
or 
evenjust 
sit and 
have 
a conversation you 
know 
". 
Hairdressers 
expressed 
their 
vicarious pleasure 
in 
the 
delight 
of 
transformed 
customers and 
took 
pride 
in 
their 
skills, 
in 
the 
camaraderie and even, as 
Sandy 
suggested, 
the 
expressions 
of 
sensuality 
and sexuality 
in 
some salon 
contexts. 
Mother's 
described 
their 
pleasures 
in 
grooming 
their 
daughters 
and many women 
chose 
to 
fashion 
together, 
particularly 
for 
specific events or as part of a routine 
like 
Maureen's 
weekend regimes 
that 
had 
become 
treasured 
memories. 
59 
Daughters 
and mothers 
discussed 
their 
own 
often 
differing 
perspectives 
on 
the 
dis/pleasures 
derived from 
children's 
hair 
fashioning. 
Speaking 
of 
her 
mother's 
views on 
her hair 
Jean 
commented, 
"My 
mum, she 
was very 
pleased 
with 
it 
[Jean's 
hair] 
obviously, and 
she went on 
and 
on 
and 
on about 
it 
[ 
... 
] 
Oh, 
I 
was 
so 
lucky 
to, 
you 
know, have 
this 
curly 
hair, 
you 
know, 
andpeople 
have 
to 
go 
to 
the 
hairdressers 
and 
get 
a 
perm, 
and 
Ijust 
thought 
it 
was 
long 
and 
it 
was 
heavy 
andyou 
know, 
I 
couldn't 
be 
bothered 
with 
it 
you 
know". 
Such 
vicarious 
pleasures 
were often 
attributed 
to 
or voiced 
by 
mothers 
who 
scorned 
vanity. 
Gabrielle 
said, 
"Yes, I've 
got 
loads 
of memories. 
Evelyn's 
hair 
was 
dark, like 
it 
is 
now 
and 
it 
was 
naturally 
all 
ringlets and 
it 
was 
so nice 
that 
the 
lady 
across 
here, 
she's 
died 
now, 
an old 
lady, 
she 
said 
-[... 
I 
'Just 
look 
at 
that 
child's 
hair, 
its 
like 
a 
bunch 
ofgrapes, 
that's 
how 
she 
described 
Evelyn's 
hair ". 
Ettie 
noted 
how 
her hair had 
given 
pleasure 
to 
her 
children: 
"Joseph 
always 
said, 
Joseph 
is 
mythirdson, 
'Big 
hair 
-Mum 
I 
like 
your 
hair big. 
'Ifyou 
pleased every son 
you'd 
be bald" 
[Laughter]. 
Many 
women 
had 
taken 
pride and 
pleasure 
in 
approbation 
from friends 
and 
relatives 
and 
cherished 
moments 
enjoyed 
many 
years 
before 
when a new 
hairstyle had 
been 
admired or a 
feeling 
of glamour 
had been 
experienced. 
Significantly, 
it 
was 
Michelle, 
the 
self-identified 
feminist 
who 
provided 
the 
broadest 
range 
of 
accounts 
of 
albeit 
unequivocally 
guilty pleasures 
in 
hair 
and 
other 
cosmetic 
acts: 
AP: 
Can 
you remember a point 
in 
your 
life 
when you 
first 
thought 
I'm 
really 
happy 
with 
that 
look? 
Michelle: 
First 
time 
I 
went 
to 
the 
hairdressers. 
AP: 
Right 
ok, and 
what 
did 
she 
do 
or 
he 
do? 
Michelle: 
It 
was when 
it 
was 
the 
bob. 
seventy plus 
year 
olds, were singing 
along 
when 
I 
arrived. 
My 
own 
impression 
echoed 
Maureen's 
that, 
"eveiybody's 
all nice 
to 
you, so 
they 
are 
". 
" 
Maureen 
remembered: 
"My 
wee 
sister, inypals, 
we 
used 
to 
go 
to 
the 
Barrowlands 
[ballroom] 
andall 
that 
and 
we usedto 
- 
she used 
to 
do 
my 
hair 
and all 
that 
then 
we used 
to 
go 
back 
out 
". 
154 
AP: 
Oh 
right 
that 
first 
time, 
when 
you went 
with your 
mum 
and your 
grandma 
and so 
on. 
So 
what 
sort 
of 
process 
can 
you 
remember? 
Tell 
me 
more about 
the 
hairdressers 
and what 
happened 
there. 
Michelle: I 
don't 
really remember 
that 
much 
about 
it, 
just 
remember 
going 
to 
school 
and everybody 
going, 
"Oh 
your 
hairs 
gorgeous, 
it's 
lovely, 
where 
didyou 
get 
it 
done? 
" 
and 
after 
that 
I 
took 
my 
friends 
to the 
hairdressers 
and 
we 
all started 
to 
go, and as 
I 
say 
Sheila 
and 
I 
both 
got our 
hair done. 
[Laughter] 
This 
Pleasurable 
feeling 
of 
transformation 
was 
repeated 
most 
weekends when 
Michelle's 
home 
was 
the 
venue 
for 
mass 
fashioning: 
The 
pleasure 
is 
everybody 
being 
there 
all 
being 
together 
and 
all 
doing 
the 
same 
thing 
but 
- 
the 
pleasure 
is 
being 
together 
and 
doing 
it 
together, 
the 
pleasure 
isn't in 
actually 
applying 
the 
make- 
up 
because 
I 
hate 
doing 
that. 
I hate 
having 
to 
sit 
and 
do 
my 
hair. 
The 
pleasure 
is 
actually once 
it's 
all 
done 
and 
I 
put 
my outfit 
on 
and 
I look 
in 
the 
mirror 
and 
we always used 
to 
say 
to 
each 
other 
like, 
when 
we were 
all ready 
and 
we'll 
all 
be like, 
"Oh 
you 
look 
good" 
and you 
know, 
kind 
of 
thing 
and 
if 
somebody 
said 
that 
you 
would 
know 
that 
was 
you ready 
to 
go. 
Michelle 
remembered 
an 
iconic 
moment 
of 
pleasure 
at 
looking 
at 
herself 
after 
a 
hairdressing 
session: 
"I 
remember 
that 
hairdo 
because 
I 
remember 
actually 
being 
in 
a park 
in 
Shawlands 
and 
people 
saying 
tome, 
andIremembergettingpictures 
ofit as well, 
but 
I've 
got more ofa 
memory 
actually 
getting 
it 
done 
in 
the 
hairdressers 
and 
being 
in 
the 
hairdressers 
and 
looking 
at 
0.60 
Gabrielle 
recalled 
an 
iconic 
memory 
from 
the 
1960s: 
Ron 
[husband] let 
me get 
ready 
and 
he 
was seeing 
to the 
boys 
and 
that 
- 
to 
bed 
and 
I 
was sat 
at 
the 
kitchen 
table, 
I 
was 
- 
with 
a 
big 
mirror 
- 
put 
all 
me make-up on 
expertly, 
trying to, 
and 
I 
thought, 
yes 
it 
looks 
nice, and a 
neighbour 
where 
we 
lived [ 
... 
] 
called 
Betty 
came 
across and 
she 
said, 
"Ohyou 
do 
look 
nice, where areyou 
going? 
" 
she 
said, 
"It 
doesn't 
look 
likeyou". 
Because 
before 
that, 
before 
I 
started work, 
before, 
I 
was 
always 
poor, 
poorly 
dressed 
and 
well 
I 
looked 
a 
mess you 
know, 
I didn't look 
after 
myself 
or 
my 
hair 
really 
then 
because 
I'd 
got 
the 
two 
kids 
6' 
Michelle's 
pleasures 
in fashioning 
extended 
into 
other 
related 
territories 
- 
her 
admission 
came 
with 
the 
proviso 
that 
she 
knew 
this 
ftirther 
example 
of 
fashioning 
excess 
was 
'unhealthy', 
'freakish' 
and 
'spooky' 
and 
'funny': 
Michelle: I'll 
tell 
you 
about my 
shoes right 
I 
must 
tell 
you 
this 
well. 
I've 
got 
over a 
hundred 
pairs, 
one 
hundred 
and 
fifty 
pairs 
of shoes. 
AP: You 
haven't. 
Michelle: 
And 
they 
are 
lying in 
their 
boxes 
and 
this 
is 
what 
I 
get 
real 
pleasure 
from 
[Laughter] 
because 
I 
get pleasure 
from 
counting 
my 
shoes 
and 
looking 
at 
my shoes 
and everybody 
says 
I 
am 
a pure 
freak 
because 
if I'm 
feeling 
really 
down 
I 
look 
at my 
shoes and 
I'll 
count 
them 
all again 
and 
I'll 
put 
them 
into 
different 
-I 
mean 
there 
is 
something 
not 
healthy 
about 
it but I 
enjoy 
doing it. I love 
my 
shoes 
or 
- 
even when 
I 
was on 
holiday 
a 
couple 
of 
years 
ago, 
I 
brought 
back 
21 
pairs 
of 
shoes 
and 
they 
were 
all 
in 
their 
boxes. 
I 
need my 
boxes 
I'm 
really, 
it 
is 
a 
bit 
spooky 
actually 
but 
it's funny. 
155 
and 
I 
was 
busy 
you 
know. 
[ 
... 
] 
And 
she couldn't 
believe 
it 
was me. 
I 
said 
"Oh 
we're going 
to 
this 
dinner 
dance 
at work". 
When 
they 
saw me 
at work 
they 
said 
"Oh 
Gabrielle 
you 
look 
beautiful 
You 
look 
stunning", 
you 
know 
and all 
that, 
and 
I 
was 
so 
pleased 
with 
it 
all. 
Jean, 
whose 
fashioning 
reflected 
influences 
from 
her 
grandmother and 
father, 
reiterated 
themes 
of 
fashioning 
as 
sensory and 
therapeutic. 
" 
Elizabeth 
offered me a new 
insight 
into 
the 
ways 
women 
have derived 
pleasure 
fashioning. 
Iconic 
and narrative 
memories 
have been 
linked 
to 
notions 
of 
the 
self 
and stars. 
In 
this 
account, she 
discusses in 
detail 
an 
enduring 
image 
of a stranger: 
Yes, 
well 
you 
have 
to 
remember 
that 
this, that 
Inchwall 
[council 
estate] 
was a very, 
very 
working-class 
housing 
estate so 
it 
was extremely 
unusual 
to 
find 
anybody who 
looked 
in 
any 
way 
extraordinary 
-[... 
] it 
would 
be 
when 
I 
was maybe, 
I 
would 
say about eight, nine 
or 
ten 
so 
that 
would 
be 1950s 
and 
we used 
to 
see 
this 
woman quite 
often either 
on 
the 
bus 
or walking 
through 
Inchwall. She 
was 
always on 
her 
own and 
I 
would 
say she seemed quite old 
to 
me 
at 
that 
time, 
but 
I 
suppose 
looking back 
she 
was only 
maybe 
in 
her 
thirties, 
but 
she was 
very 
unusual 
because 
she 
had 
this 
hairstyle 
that 
I 
can only 
describe 
as 
being 
like 
an 
18th 
century 
- 
[Laughter] 
aristocracy 
wig. 
It 
was, 
her 
hair 
was 
naturally grey, wasn't 
tinted 
but 
it 
was 
always 
like 
piled 
up 
on 
her 
head in 
that 
pompadour shape 
and 
also 
it 
had 
[Laughter]- 
she 
had 
like 
two 
fat 
ringlets 
always 
to 
complete 
it, just 
like 
you saw 
in 
like fairy 
storybooks 
- 
AP: 
I 
was 
going 
to 
ask 
you 
whether 
that 
had 
anything 
to 
do 
like 
- 
did 
you 
find 
that 
hairdo? 
How 
would 
you 
describe 
Elizabeth: 
- 
Cinderella 
- 
AP: 
- 
right, 
but 
was 
that 
- 
Elizabeth: 
- 
illustrations 
- 
AP: 
- 
alluring 
to 
you or was 
that 
- 
Elizabeth: 
- 
Oh 
I 
thought 
it 
was 
- 
AP: 
- 
or 
was 
it 
not nice? 
How 
would you 
describe 
your 
reaction 
to 
this 
" 
Jean: 
How 
I 
maintain 
myself? 
Moisturisers 
and, 
I 
mean, 
I 
still 
wear 
Indian 
oils and, 
I 
mean, 
I 
use 
deodorants 
and 
hair 
shampoo 
and 
conditioner 
you 
know, I'm 
trying 
to 
put 
it 
into 
some 
sort 
of, 
you 
know, 
[indecipherable- 
uniform? 
] 
of what 
I 
do 
but it is 
really 
important 
to 
me 
how I 
look, 
to 
a 
degree 
but how 
I 
smell 
also 
because 
I've 
always 
had 
that 
sort 
of 
influence. 
AP: 
Would 
you 
describe 
those things, those 
grooming rituals 
as 
a chore 
or 
are 
they 
a pleasure? 
156 
Elizabeth: 
Well, I 
think 
it 
was 
one 
of amazement 
really. 
The 
actual construction 
of 
it 
was 
absolutely 
amazing 
so 
that 
made me 
wonder 
how 
much 
time 
she 
spent on 
it 
and 
it 
always 
looked 
the 
same 
but 
also 
it 
struck 
me as 
incredibly 
brave 
of 
this 
woman 
because it 
did 
appear 
to 
me 
and no 
doubt 
everyone 
else as 
incredibly 
old-fashioned, so, 
so unusual and 
it 
was 
made 
more 
unusual 
by 
the 
fact 
that 
in 
every 
other 
respect 
this 
woman 
looked 
so ordinary, 
so, so 
modest 
and quite 
you 
know, 
in 
every 
other 
way 
- 
so 
it 
was a 
really weird 
juxtaposition 
if 
you 
like 
of 
dress, looks 
and 
then 
this 
amazing 
hair. 
AN 
So 
that's 
really 
interesting, 
well, 
first 
because 
you remembered 
her from 
forty 
odd years 
ago, you 
remember 
this 
hairdo 
-I 
mean 
did 
you ever 
speak 
to 
this 
woman? 
Elizabeth: 
No, 
no she 
was as 
I 
say, she 
was 
always on 
her 
own, although 
if 
I 
think 
hard 
enough 
I 
think 
she, 
I 
think 
once 
or 
twice 
I 
did 
see 
her 
with 
her 
husband, 
but 
I 
think they 
were 
a 
couple 
with 
no children and yes, 
and 
I 
think 
they 
-I 
just 
gained 
this 
impression, 
I don't know, 
maybe 
from 
talking 
about 
her 
to 
me 
Mum, 
that 
they 
were 
a quiet 
couple 
who 
lived 
on 
their 
own. 
62 
Identifications 
Identifications 
with 
film, 
TV, 
music 
and other 
stars were 
discussed by 
participants. 
For 
Maureen, 
stars 
had 
provided 
an array 
of models 
for 
hair 
and 
glamour 
fashionings. 
Contrary 
to 
feminist 
orthodoxy, 
she 
had 
seen 
these 
as relatively 
achievable: 
Maureen: 
Aye, I 
always 
wanted my 
hair like 
Julia Robertson. 
AP: Julia 
Roberts? 
Maureen: 
Right, I 
always wanted 
it 
to 
be like 
that 
and 
I 
was 
like 
that 
-I 
wish 
I'd 
never 
got my 
hair 
cut 
now, 
or 
else 
I 
like her hair 
that 
Heather 
Lockwood [Locklear? 
] 
[ 
... 
]I 
wear 
her 
gear, 
I've 
got 
ajacket of 
hers 
but 
because 
I've 
put 
on 
the 
weight now 
I 
cannae 
get 
into 
all 
my 
slim 
stuff 
because 
-I 
says, 
right 
I'll 
just 
go 
back 
on a 
diet 
now 
( 
... 
I 
Aye, 
no 
she's nice. 
I 
used 
to 
like 
it 
wasnae 
- 
remember 
that 
Pamela Ewing 
who 
used 
to 
be 
on 
Dallas? 
I 
honestly 
think 
- 
and 
I 
says 
to 
my 
husband, 
I 
wish 
I 
had 
the 
money. 
Younger 
Northend 
trainees 
and 
customers 
used 
photos 
of contemporary 
stars 
in 
their 
salon 
visits. 
Eva 
and 
Sue 
were 
in 
their 
early 
twenties: 
Jean: I 
find it's 
a 
pleasure 
to 
smell 
and 
look 
nice. 
I 
think 
it's 
a 
pleasure 
and 
it's 
a nice 
relaxing 
feeling 
to, 
sort of, 
take 
time 
for 
yourself as well 
you 
know. 
62 
A 
memory 
work 
text 
recorded: 
A 
hadlovedthe hair, 
excessivefashioning 
andthe real 
name 
ofthe 
actress 
whopla)vda 
hairdresser 
in 
TV's 
Crossroads. Her 
hair 
was ornatelyfashioned 
coil 
upon 
coil. 
The 
actress's 
name 
on 
the 
credits, 
Zeph. 
seemed 
157 
AP: What 
about 
you? 
[To 
Eva, 
lying having 
a 
facial] 
Have 
you ever 
taken 
a photo 
into 
hairdressers 
and said, 
'7d 
like 
my 
hair like 
that? 
" 
Eva: 
Oh 
aye, 
Courteney Cox. 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
Have 
you? 
[To 
beauty 
therapist, 
Sue] 
Sue: Jennifer Anniston. 
Eileen, 
in her fifties 
cited 
Sophia 
Loren, 
Joan Collins 
and 
Elizabeth Taylor 
as models whereas 
Mrs. 
Lochead 
remembered 
Hollywood 
stars 
of 
the 
1940s influencing 
her 
own 
fashioning 
during 
her 
Marcel 
wave 
period: 
Mrs. 
Lochead: One 
of my, 
the 
ones 
that 
I 
admired, 
as a 
young 
woman were 
Joan Crawford. 
[ 
... 
] 
I 
liked 
her because 
she 
was 
very er, 
sort of 
mannish 
type, 
she 
had broad 
shoulders, 
she was 
the 
first 
to 
wear 
those 
padded 
shoulders. 
[ 
... 
] 
But 
I 
admired 
her, 
and 
later 
on 
Betty Grable 
( 
... 
] 
She 
was more 
of 
the 
curly 
type 
and 
Vivien 
Leigh, 
I 
saw 
her in 
Gone 
with 
the 
wind, again, 
Who 
else? 
And 
Olivia De 
Haviland 
-[... 
] 
They 
were 
all 
beautiful. 
Lana 
Turner, 
Linda Gray 
and 
the 
English 
ones, 
the 
one 
who 
was 
in 
The 
wicked 
lady, 
Margaret 
Lockwood. 
63 
Mrs. 
Lochead 
caused 
amusement 
when she 
commented, 
Yes 
for 
a 
while 
I 
thought 
that 
Mrs 
Thatcher's 
hair 
was 
lovely. 
[General 
Laughter] 
AP: 
Did 
you 
ask 
the 
hairdresser 
to 
do 
you 
a 
Margaret 
Thatcher? 
Mrs. 
Lochead: 
Often, 
aha, 
I've 
done 
that 
once or 
twice, 
brought 
in 
a wee photo of 
people 
I 
admire. 
Aspirations 
to 
have 
a middle-class 
'natural' look 
underpinned 
Ann's 
pragmatic 
identirications 
with 
female 
stars 
from 
the 
1970s: 
"I 
suppose 
I 
always sort 
offiked 
the 
Kate 
Bush 
sort 
of- 
I 
never 
had 
the 
hair 
that 
could 
do 
that, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
I 
always 
wanted 
legs 
like 
Jerry 
Hall, I 
mean 
you 
to 
capture perfectly 
the 
sense ofexoticism 
and 
uncommonness 
ofher 
hairstyle. 
Forsomejewivars 
"ChadinsistedthatZeph 
be 
added 
to 
her 
already 
long 
string 
of 
made up, 
exotic 
middle-names. 
" 
Stacey 
noted 
of 
her 
respondents 
that 
"the 
Oes 
ofstars 
who 
were mostfrequently 
imitated 
in 
terms 
ofposture, 
movement 
and 
gesture 
tended 
to 
be 
those 
associated 
with 
the 
more 
'confident', 
: 
power 
. 
ful'feminine 
Identities 
such 
as 
Bette 
Davis 
andJoan 
Crawford"(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
167) 
158 
904 
SCOtCh 
WOOI 
S40P 
9d 
4 
I 
C\- 
UBLE 
KNITTIN 
23. 
Scotch 
Wool 
Shop 
knitting 
pattern, 
1967. 
can't 
have 
that, 
I 
mean 
there 
are 
some 
things 
you 
can't 
have 
". 
[Laughter] 
64 
Ann's 
most 
enduring 
identification 
was with 
Joni Mitchell. She 
conceded 
that 
Jerry Hall's 
'artifice' 
was a 
relatively more 
achievable 
look 
than 
Joni 
Mitchell's: 
"The 
natural 
look 
yes, aha, 
[Laughter] 
the 
sort 
ofwake-up-and- 
she-looks-like-that 
nauseating 
thing, 
aha 
,. 
65 
Although 
feminist 
research 
has 
touched 
upon 
identifications 
between 
stars 
and 
their 
audiences 
I 
was 
less 
prepared 
for 
the 
range 
of accounts 
of 
identifications 
by 
proxy. 
In 
a 
discussion 
that 
preceded 
our 
taped 
interview 
Gabrielle 
had disclosed 
that 
in 
the 
1970s 
she 
had 
once asked 
the 
hairdresser 
to 
cut 
her 
daughter's 
hair in 
the 
style 
of 
the 
winner 
of 
the 
Eurovision 
Song 
Contest. 
66Evelyn, 
Gabrielle's 
daughterjoined 
in 
the 
discussion: 
Gabrielle: Yes 
was 
it 
a 
French 
singer? 
And 
you 
had it 
- 
Evelyn: 
Like 
a 
bob 
or something. 
Gabrielle: Yes, 
it 
was 
sort of a 
fringe 
and 
it 
sort of 
came out 
like 
that 
and went 
under 
and 
just 
come 
round 
there 
- 
Evelyn: 
It 
was 
like 
that 
when 
I 
started 
school. 
Mrs 
Lochead 
collected 
images 
of 
stars 
for 
her 
daughter 
to 
model 
herself 
upon: 
"No, 
the 
last 
one 
I 
was 
cutting 
out wasfor my 
daughter, 
Anthea Turner, 
I 
was saying 
to 
Margaret 
my 
daughter, I 
think 
Margaret, 
you would suit 
that. 
So 
I 
cut 
it 
out 
and 
she 
took 
it 
to 
her hairdressers" 
. 
67 
Hairdressers 
applied 
stars' styles 
on willing 
and 
unwilling customers 
since 
the 
birth 
of 
the 
salon. 
68 
Gabrielle 
was 
transformed 
by 
this 
process 
as 
were 
so 
many 
other 
young 
women 
in 
the 
1960s: 
" 
She discussed 
her 
identification 
with 
Joni Mitchell 
on a 
range of registers: 
Ann: My big 
heroine 
was, 
and still 
is 
Joni Mitchell. 
AP: And 
tell 
me 
about what 
- 
how 
the 
way she 
fashions 
herself 
what 
you 
found 
attractive? 
Ann: Well, 
what 
I 
found 
attractive, 
I 
mean 
I 
loved 
her 
music 
and 
I loved 
her lyrics 
so 
that 
was 
-I 
also 
loved 
the 
way 
she 
looked 
and still 
looks, 
I 
mean, she 
was 
like 
a natural 
beauty, 
she 
had 
naturally 
blonde hair, 
and 
a 
naturally 
lovely face 
and very 
musical 
and 
artistic you 
know. 
65 
Our 
discussion 
had 
generated 
a more 
in depth 
account 
from 
Ann 
about 
her 
own 
working-class 
identification 
- 
shifting 
in 
this 
passage 
from 
past 
to 
present 
tense: 
"Well, 
1 
was very 
working 
class, 
lived 
in 
a council 
house 
[ 
... 
I 
My Dad 
camefton; afamily 
who 
had 
been 
monied, 
ifyou 
know 
what 
I 
mean, and 
had 
lost 
all 
their 
money and 
the 
generation 
before 
him 
- 
but 
my grandpa 
and grandma 
had 
money and 
then 
had 
ended up 
up a close 
in 
Glasgow 
which was a 
big 
shame. 
My 
mum cameftom up a 
close 
in 
Govan [ 
... 
j 
so 
I 
am working class, yes, 
but 
aspired 
to the 
Joni 
Mitchell 
middle-class 
look. 
" 
66 
1 
had 
been 
surprised 
by 
my 
Mum's 
revelation 
that 
whilst 
knitting 
a 
garment 
for 
me 
as 
a 
young 
girl she 
had 
fantasised 
about 
me 
growing 
up 
to 
be 
like 
one of 
the 
knitting 
pattern models 
illustrated 
right, 
opposite. 
67 
Haug 
et al 
interpreted 
parental 
fashioning 
of girl 
children's 
hair 
as 
unequivocally 
a 
function 
of 
the 
controlling 
and 
ordering 
of 
young 
women's 
sexualisation and 
the 
broader 
socialisation 
of 
women 
by 
Church 
and 
State 
(Haug 
et 
a], 
1983, 
pp. 
91-113). 
6' 
Dieudonne 
describes 
the 
context 
of early 
twentieth 
century 
France: "Only 
the 
old women 
still 
wore 
grey, 
lifeless 
hair: 
the 
young 
ones 
had 
all gone 
Hollywood 
" 
(Diedonne 
quoted 
in 
Zdatny, 1997, 
p. 
376). 
159 
By 
that 
time there 
was a 
few 
hairdressers 
started 
to 
open, 
different 
salons 
you 
know, 
and 
when 
I 
had 
my 
long hair 
she 
just 
used 
to 
sort 
of shampoo 
it 
and put 
it 
in 
big 
rollers 
then 
let 
it 
down, 
and 
I 
thought 
that 
was 
the 
bees-knees 
you 
know, 
all 
nice and shiny 
[ 
... 
] 
and 
then 
this 
style 
came 
what 
they 
called 
Helen 
Shapiro 
style, 
and 
it 
was 
sort 
of 
short 
and 
back-combed, 
yes, 
like 
a- 
not 
quite 
bee-hived 
and 
this 
young 
girl at 
the 
salon 
she 
said 
"Why don't 
you 
have 
it 
done 
like 
that 
foryourparty, 
Xmasparty 
at work? 
" 
For 
both 
customers 
and 
hairdressers 
alike, 
star 
styles 
were 
used 
as 
a 
form 
of shorthand: 
Sandy: 
and 
the 
best 
thing 
was, when 
I 
went 
to 
Jersey 
and 
I 
was 
really 
amazed 
but 
there 
was a 
really 
good 
hairdresser 
and 
it 
wasn't sort 
of 
trendy 
looking 
place 
and she 
said 
to 
me, 
[ 
... 
] 
"Well, 
what 
do 
you 
want? 
" 
and 
I 
said, 
" 
Well 
I 
want 
some 
layers 
in 
it 
" 
and 
so on 
and 
she 
said, 
"How do 
you want 
it 
to 
look? 
Whose 
do 
you want 
it 
to 
look 
like 
?" 
and 
I 
said, 
"I 
don't 
knowjust 
sort 
of 
layered 
but 
sticky-out a 
bit. 
" 
and 
she said, 
" 
Well 
like 
a 
kind 
ofwildAnthea 
Turner? 
" 
she said 
and 
I 
said, 
"Yeah I'll 
have 
that, 
I'll 
have 
thatyeah 
" 
and 
she 
did 
and she 
did 
me 
these 
sort 
of 
these 
little 
flick-ups 
but 
it 
was 
like, 
that's 
all 
right 
because 
I 
know 
they 
can 
lie down 
but 
sometimes 
they 
might stick up you 
know. 
AP: 
[ 
... 
] 
so, 
a wild 
Anthea 
Turner 
[Laughter] 
Sandy: 
I 
think, 
even 
better is 
a 
wild 
Tina 
Turner. 
[Laughter] 
Elizabeth 
remembered 
the 
role of 
film 
magazines, 
principally 
Picturegoer, 
in 
fuelling 
her 
identification 
and 
fascination 
with star 
fashionings 
"and 
there 
were 
always 
lots 
offull-sized 
head 
shots you 
know, 
ofwomen, 
so 
it 
was 
quite easyyou 
know, 
to 
look 
atyou 
know, 
look 
at 
the 
shape 
oftheir 
lipstick 
and 
that 
sort 
of 
thing 
, 
69 
whilst 
Michelle 
used 
texts 
produced 
by 
the 
hair 
industries 
to 
help 
construct 
a 
desired 
look. 
70 
Although 
identifications 
with 
film 
and 
TV 
stars 
were 
widespread 
in 
participants' accounts, 
many 
women 
remembered 
family 
members 
and 
friends 
having 
created an 
equally 
compelling 
or 
iconic 
image 
with 
which 
they 
came 
to 
identify, 
for 
example 
Pauline, 
blonde 
for 
twenty 
years, 
had 
identified 
with 
her 
peroxided, 
6' 
Elizabeth's 
comments 
on 
her 
gaze 
in 
this 
instance 
refuse 
to 
be 
consigned 
readily 
to 
feminist 
interpretations 
of 
the 
objectification 
inherent 
in 
theories 
of 
'fragmentation' 
(of 
women's 
bodies 
by 
media), 
'identification' 
and 
'fetishisation'. 
"' 
"I 
was really, 
really 
Into 
my 
hair. 
I 
really 
loved 
having 
my 
hair done, 
I 
really 
loved 
getting 
the 
colours 
done 
and styles 
and 
I 
was 
really 
aware 
of what 
was out 
and what was 
in 
and 
I 
was always 
worried, 
I 
didn't 
want 
to 
look 
old-fashioned 
so 
I 
used 
to 
get 
hair 
magazines 
". Michelle 
found 
this 
'research' 
pleasurable. 
She 
rarely 
bought 
hair 
magazines, 
preferring 
to 
leaf 
through 
them 
in 
shops. 
Whilst 
contributing 
a 
mass 
of 
detail 
about 
in/appropriatc 
modes 
of self-fashioning 
hair, 
clothes, 
shoes 
and 
interiors 
Michelle 
was 
nevertheless 
often 
reluctant 
to 
cite 
her 
influences, 
but in 
the 
construction 
of 
identifications 
from 
'hippy' 
to 
'clubby' 
to 
'trendy' 
she 
conceded 
that this 
was 
undertaken 
by "... kind 
of 
looking 
at otherpeople andseeing 
what 
they 
were wearing 
and 
firiend's, 
magazines, 
TV, 
things". 
160 
beehived 
hairdresser 
aunt. 
Ettie 
had 
also 
had 
a range of 
inspiring 
modelS. 
71 
Jean 
explained 
why 
she 
had 
identified 
herself 
with 
the tough, 
dyed 
blonde 
girls 
in 
her 
peer group: 
"They 
seemed 
to 
be 
a 
lot 
more 
outgoing 
and 
a 
lot 
more 
confident 
than 
what 
I 
was, and 
I 
think this 
was what 
I 
was 
trying to 
instil 
in 
mysetr 
because 
I 
was 
always 
very 
quiet and 
shy 
and all 
that 
kind 
ofthing and 
I 
didn't have 
a 
lot 
ofconfidence and 
I 
tried 
to 
-I 
mean 
a 
lot 
oftime 
I 
had 
my 
own ways 
ofthings you 
know, 
but 
I 
decided 
I'm 
going 
to try 
this 
and 
see 
what 
it 
looks 
like 
you 
know". 
For 
Sandy, 
information 
about constructing 
a 
lesbian feminist 
image 
came 
from identifications 
with 
'butch' 
or 
'dykey' 
lesbian feminists 
on 
the 
so-called 
scene: 
When 
I 
sort 
of got 
onto 
the 
lesbian 
scene 
properly 
and 
it 
was 
about 
choosing 
and choices 
and 
what 
I 
wanted 
it 
was 
-I 
was 
26 
really and 
I 
remember 
that 
when 
I 
felt 
comfortable 
with 
how 
I 
looked 
I 
did 
sort 
of 
have 
my 
hair 
cut 
really short, 
and 
it 
was 
- 
and 
I 
mixed 
with 
so many sort 
of 
dykey 
women 
and 
I 
remember, 
I 
don't 
know, 
I 
remember 
feeling 
a 
bit 
daunted 
about 
the 
importance 
of, 
you 
know, 
going, 
I 
remember 
the 
first 
time 
I 
went 
into 
a 
lesbian 
bar 
and 
I 
thought 
it 
was 
mixed, 
I 
thought there 
were 
men 
in 
there 
you 
know, 
I 
thought that 
some 
of 
them 
were 
men 
you 
know, 
in 
their 
appearance, 
you 
know, 
and 
then 
I 
suddenly realised 
it 
was 
all 
women 
who 
looked 
like 
this 
you 
know, feeling 
a 
bit daunted 
by 
it, but 
things 
that 
made me 
change 
and 
become 
happy 
with my 
identity 
[ 
... 
] 
with my 
dykey 
hair-do 
you 
know 
and my one 
earring 
in 
and 
all 
that 
kind 
of 
thing thinking 
yeah 
I 
like how 
I 
look, 
I'm 
part 
of 
it 
and 
I'm 
happy 
with 
it 
and 
I 
belong 
and 
I'm 
proud of 
how 
I 
look 
you 
know. 
The 
denouement 
in 
memories 
of pleasure 
in 
achieving 
a state 
of glamour 
was 
frequently 
cited as 
being 
the 
moment 
when 
others sought 
to 
copy 
it. 
Gabrielle's 
pleasure 
culminated 
in 
the 
recognition of 
her 
successful 
transformation 
by her 
friend 
Lily 
and 
others: 
" 
She 
said, 
'Oh 
I 
wish 
I 
could 
have 
mine 
cut 
like 
that'and 
then 
as 
the 
months 
went 
on 
different 
ones 
kept having 
theirs 
cut 
like 
-yes 
". 
Michelle's 
self-effacement 
failed 
to 
conceal 
her 
pleasure 
in 
being 
the 
one 
with 
whom 
friends 
identified: 
I 
think 
a 
lot 
of 
it had 
to 
do 
with 
when 
I 
used 
to 
get 
my 
hair 
done 
everyone 
would go, 
"Oh 
God 
your 
hair's 
amazing, 
it's 
lovely. " 
the 
boys 
and 
the 
girls 
- 
and 
I 
think 
it's 
because 
people 
were 
noticing 
me 
and usually most 
people, 
girls' 
hair 
was 
a 
bit 
of, 
you 
know 
long 
or 
not really 
much 
style 
but 
because 
I 
have 
a style 
then 
people started 
going, 
I 
think 
they 
weren't 
modelling 
71 
"My 
aunty 
Eileen 
that 
looked 
like 
a 
Spanish 
- 
she was 
lovely, 
aha, 
Gracte 
Branigan 
in 
America, 
Betty 
who went 
to 
live 
in 
America, 
she 
made 
her 
own clothes, 
put 
her hair 
up, she was 
glamorous, 
big 
high heels, 
shoes, 
matching 
her dress ". 
161 
themselves 
on 
me, 
but 
I 
think they 
just fancied 
having 
a 
trendy 
look 
that 
people 
would 
comment 
on. 
72 
Identifications 
with 
the 
hairstyles 
of others were 
strongly 
felt 
by 
Ann 
from 
school 
age 
on: 
think 
it is 
yourpeer 
group, 
I 
do, 
I 
do. 
I 
think that 
was 
definitely 
- 
injact 
I 
mean, right up 
to 
now 
I'm 
still 
thinking 
about 
things 
I 
used 
to 
covet 
at school, 
you 
know 
girls 
that 
had 
a special 
sort ofhairdo, or, 
'How 
can 
I 
get 
that, 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
"[Laughter]73 
Identifications 
were often with excessive 
femininity, 
ostensibly 
refusing 
both 
Modernist 
and 
feminist 
taste: 
Elizabeth: 
Well I 
always 
marvelled 
and 
was 
thrilled 
and so 
longed 
myself 
for 
the 
kind 
of 
hair 
that 
I 
used 
to 
see 
in 
fairy illustration 
books 
even 
- 
if 
- 
it 
wasn't 
so 
much 
the 
pompadour 
thing, 
it 
was 
more 
like 
medieval and 
Victorian, 
yes, 
because 
these 
were 
the 
kind 
of story 
books 
there 
weren't 
any 
modem story 
books 
at 
that time, 
I 
mean, 
that 
was 
a 
fairly 
late development 
wasn't 
it? Children's 
- 
in 
the 
area of children's 
literature, 
but 
I 
did 
have 
so many 
books 
with 
Victorian 
illustrations 
and 
I 
often 
wondered why 
women 
and 
in 
particular 
myself somehow 
in 
the 
20th 
century 
didn't 
have 
these 
yards of 
thick, 
you 
know, 
hair, 
especially, 
I 
especially 
loved 
and 
still 
do 
in fact 
- 
[Laughter] 
- 
and wish 
I 
had 
that 
very 
profuse 
hair 
which 
is like 
slightly 
curly 
or 
slightly 
wavy 
you 
know, 
like 
Irish 
hair 
I 
suppose 
or whatever 
or 
you saw 
in 
the 
Pre-Raphaelites 
- 
you 
see 
in 
the 
Pre-Raphaelite 
painting 
you 
know, 
I 
always 
thought 
that 
was 
the 
epitome, 
not 
of 
glamour, 
I 
think 
pompadour was 
definitely 
glamour, 
it 
was 
quite 
different 
from, 
from 
the 
natural 
so 
I 
always 
I 
did, 
very quickly, 
I 
developed 
the 
idea 
that 
glamour 
was 
not, not 
natural. 
... 
] 
when 
I 
first, 
when women 
first 
started 
appearing 
to 
me 
as 
glamorous 
they 
were 
women 
in 
film, 
film 
stars, none of whom 
had 
the 
kind 
of 
loose, 
profuse 
hair 
that 
I 
admired so 
much, 
I'm 
talking 
about 
women 
like 
Sophia Loren, 
Gina 
Lollabrigida, 
who, 
we 
mentioned 
Elizabeth 
Taylor, 
all 
the 
women of 
that, 
all 
the 
film 
stars, 
Lana 
Turner, 
I 
mean 
she was 
still 
very popular 
at 
that 
time, 
Joan Crawford, 
they 
were 
all 
women 
with obvious 
perined 
hairdos, immaculate 
hairdos, 
there 
was 
no 
loose 
hair, 
I 
think 
the 
first, 
the 
first 
film 
star who 
ever 
impressed 
me, 
it 
was 
Brigitte 
Bardot 
but 
that 
- 
AP: 
I 
was 
going 
to 
say when 
you 
described 
- 
72 
In 
contrast, 
having 
her 
style 
copied 
by 
others 
had 
negative 
class 
associations 
for 
Janey 
when 
remembering 
fashioning 
herself 
in 
the 
1940s. 
Janey: 
Yes, 
my 
girlfriend 
used 
to 
come 
to 
me and 
we 
would get 
the 
make-up 
on and 
your 
hair 
done 
and 
she 
would 
do 
mine and 
I 
would 
do 
hers 
and 
things 
like 
that. 
AP: 
And 
would 
you 
ever 
dress in 
a similar way 
as 
well or 
- 
Jancy: 
No I 
didn't 
like 
that 
sometimes 
they tried 
to 
copy 
me, 
but 
I didn't like 
them 
doing 
that, 
I 
liked 
to 
be 
individual, 
I didn't 
like 
anyone 
to 
say 
well 
they've 
come out 
a sale, 
I 
liked 
to 
be individual. 
7' 
Her 
fascination 
fuelled 
her future 
career: 
V 
didn't 
really 
know 
what 
I 
was meant 
to 
do, I 
hadn't 
a 
clue 
what 
I 
was going 
to 
do, 
but 
I know 
that 
I 
was 
[Laughter]from 
early 
on 
I knew 
I 
was quite 
obsessed with people's 
hair 
and 
I 
would sit completely 
ignoring 
whatever 
nonsense 
was going on 
in 
French 
or 
German 
and 
I 
would 
be 
studyingpeople 
thinking 
'They 
would 
be 
better 
with 
a 
different 
hair 
colour, 
or 
7 
could 
cut 
that, 
or 
I'd be looking 
atpeople'sfaces 
thinking 
what 
I 
would 
do 
with 
it 
or, 
that 
kind 
ofthing 
-" 
162 
Elizabeth: 
- 
that 
was 
little 
bit later. 
AP: 
So 
there 
actually 
were 
figures later 
that 
you sort 
of associated with, with 
this 
earlier 
identification? 
Elizabeth: 
Oh 
yesj 
... 
] 
And 
it 
rep- and 
to 
me 
that's 
what 
it 
took 
to 
be 
feminine. 
I 
thought 
of 
beauty 
in 
terms 
of 
the 
like 
the 
carnival queens 
or 
the 
Rose Queens 
or 
the 
May Queens 
that 
especially 
in 
the 
big 
Roman 
Catholic Whitsun 
festival 
where 
they 
always 
had 
you 
know 
these 
queens, 
you 
know, 
these 
girls who were selected you 
know like 
Rose Queens 
and 
had 
their 
attendants 
and 
they 
were 
on 
big floats 
and all 
this 
sort of 
thing 
going 
through 
Doncaster 
at 
this 
time 
[ 
... 
] 
every 
Whit. So I 
thought 
of 
beauty in 
those 
sort of 
terms 
and 
also 
in 
Virgin 
May 
in 
the 
nativity 
play 
you 
know 
it 
was 
always 
[Laughter] 
the 
girl with 
the 
blue 
eyes and 
the 
long 
curls or 
the 
long 
blonde 
hair. 
For 
Elizabeth, 
in her 
late fifties, 
and 
Maureen 
in 
her 
forties 
a 
desire for long 
hair 
had 
translated 
into 
having 
or 
planning 
hair 
extensions. 
74 
Maureen 
had been 
costing up 
the 
job 
and 
imagining 
the 
effect: 
AP: 
So 
if 
you 
got 
that, 
if 
you 
got as many 
hair 
extensions 
as 
you 
want, 
as 
long 
as you wanted 
what 
colour 
would 
you get 
do 
you 
think? 
Maureen: 
All 
different 
colours, 
I 
wouldn't go 
for 
blonde 
because 
blondes 
now, 
I 
think 
it's 
got 
played 
out, 
too 
many people's 
got 
blonde, 
so 
I'd 
go 
for 
something nobody's 
got, 
every 
different 
colour 
and 
have 
it 
all curls 
[describes 
the 
big 
shape 
with 
her hands]. 
AP: 
So 
you'd 
actually 
be having 
it 
long? 
Maureen: 
Long, 
aye. 
Being 
blonde 
75 
Being 
blonde 
carried 
specific 
significations 
for 
participants. 
Considered the 
antithesis 
of 
feminist 
taste 
and 
counter-revolutionary 
by 
many of 
the 
early 
spokespersons, 
being 
dyed 
blonde 
is 
74 
Elizabeth 
had 
had 
hair 
extensions 
for 
over 
15 
years. 
75 
For 
example, 
catharsis, 
it 
being 
'too 
played 
out', 
'hard'. 
and 
'inappropriately' 
youthful. 
163 
freighted 
with a 
huge 
cultural 
significance. 
76 
With 
the 
notable 
exception 
of 
Pauline, 
who 
derived 
pleasures 
in 
perfortning as 
her 
in 
the 
college's 
annual 
cabaret, 
Marilyn 
Monroe 
the 
dyed 
blonde 
archetype 
rarely 
featured 
as a clearly 
defined 
point of 
identification, 
but 
was 
used as 
a 
descriptive 
term 
as 
in 
Sandy's 
account of 
her 
own 
past 
blondeness: 
77 
By 
the 
time 
I 
was eighteen 
[in 
the 
1960s] 
I 
first 
had, it 
wasn't, 
I didn't 
go 
full 
blonde, 
it 
was 
just 
millions 
and millions 
of 
blonde 
streaks 
and 
actually 
when 
I 
look 
at 
the 
photographs 
it 
did look 
as 
though 
it 
was all 
blonde 
because 
I'd 
got 
that 
many streaks 
but 
that 
was 
when 
I 
was eighteen 
but 
it 
was 
short 
hair but 
when 
I 
think 
about 
it 
now 
I 
mean 
you 
know 
I 
could 
find 
a photograph 
and 
actually when 
I 
think 
now 
it 
was 
like 
a 
Princess 
Diana 
then 
[ 
... 
] it 
was 
like 
sort 
of a 
bob, 
like 
a graduated 
bob 
and 
it 
was 
quite 
fab 
and 
then, 
after 
that 
I 
grew 
my 
hair longer 
and 
then 
I 
did 
have 
my 
hair bleached 
all 
over, 
yeah, 
and 
it 
was 
like 
a curly 
sort of, you 
know 
Marilyn 
Monroey 
sort of 
type 
[ 
... 
II 
mean 
I 
just 
-I 
loved 
being 
blonde, 
I 
really 
did 
and 
I 
can't 
imagine 
why 
I 
ever 
gave 
that 
up 
in 
a way, 
but 
I 
loved 
it 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
just, 
I 
felt like 
I 
looked 
better, 
you 
know 
everything 
about 
me 
and 
it 
affected 
my 
personality 
in 
a 
way 
that 
I did 
think 
that 
- 
that 
was 
the 
time 
when 
I 
sort 
of 
liked 
myself 
more 
and as 
though 
people 
you 
know, 
really 
treated 
me 
a 
bit 
differently 
when, you 
know. 
Dark 
roots 
in dyed 
blonde 
hair 
continue 
to 
create 
anxieties 
for 
some women as 
Maureen 
noted: 
"But 
then 
I 
got 
my 
hair 
bleached 
once 
because 
I 
went 
hack 
to 
blonde, 
so 
after 
I 
got 
my 
hlonde 
streaks 
76 
Even 
the 
lodestone 
for 
this 
research, 
the 
peroxide 
blonde 
beehive 
is 
a 
hairstyle 
with 
wide and 
conflicting 
cultural 
resonances 
embodied 
in 
the 
iconic 
pantheon: 
Barbara 
Windsor, 
Viv 
Nicholson, 
Julie Goodyear, 
Dusty 
Springfield, Myra 
Hindley, 
Dolly 
Parton, 
the 
style 
indubitably 
read as 
low 
class and 
increasingly 
appropriated 
as 
camp, 
Blondes 
continue 
to 
be 
mythologised 
in 
popular 
and 
critical 
collections 
(for 
example, 
Marsh, 
1999; 
Ilyin, 
2000; 
Phillips, 
2000 
and 
Pitman 
2003). 
Discussing 
the 
Society 
Blonde 
who 
when 
aged: 
"decides 
to 
opiforplatinum 
hues'journalist 
Judy Rumbold 
stated 
that 
"Gone 
are 
the 
days 
when 
a 
demure 
blue 
rinse 
or well groomed 
shampoo and set 
symbolised 
dignified 
old 
age 
and 
moneyed 
elegance, 
In 
this 
country, 
coyly 
named 
shades 
like 
Green Waty, 
Tickled Pink 
and 
Saucy 
Beige 
have been 
exiled 
to 
gorbhmey eel 
andpie 
land 
andpeople called 
Queenle 
" (Rumbold, 
1990, 
p. 
19). Donatella Versace's 
iconic 
look 
is 
routinely 
read 
as 
'hard'. 
Her 
non 
ironic 
bleached 
style 
I 
see 
as 
typifying the 
excessive, 
glamorous, 
extended 
hair described 
in 
Maureen's fantasy. 
Versace 
started 
dyeing 
her hair 
aged 
eleven: 
"My 
brother 
Glanni 
was originally 
against 
it 
andity 
mother 
would 
havepreferred 
me 
to 
be 
more 
conservative, 
but 
in 
the 
end 
my 
blonde, 
tough 
side 
won 
through. 
4t 
the time, 
thefashion 
was all about 
the 
Courreges 
image 
defined 
by 
the 
dark bob 
rather 
than 
long 
blonde 
hair, 
so 
my 
decision 
was 
more personal 
thanfashionable 
" 
(Versace, 
1999, 
p. 
4). 
The 
blonde beehive 
is 
frequently 
used 
to 
symbolise 
working-class 
female 
culture 
for 
example 
in 
the 
drag 
creations 
Lily 
Savage 
and 
Pauline 
Calf. 
Hindley 
with 
peroxided 
beehive 
became 
". 
4 
medusa, a gorgon 
" 
(Glancey, 
2002, 
p. 
5). 
Hindley 
came 
closest 
to 
being 
appropriated 
for 
post-modernity 
if 
not camp 
by 
Marcus 
Harvey 
in 
the 
Sensation 
show 
of 
1997 (Royal 
Academy 
of 
Arts) 
Interestingly 
it 
was 
Harvey's 
piece rather 
than the 
iconic 
'original' 
that 
The Guardian 
alone 
chose 
as a 
front 
page 
image 
announcing 
Hindley's 
death 
(The Guardian, 
16 November, 
2002). 
Cox has 
charted 
the 
historical 
and 
cultural evolution of 
dyed blondes: 
"In 
the 
1930s 
[following 
the 
racist 
undertones 
to 
the 
promotion 
of 
the 
Aryan 
peroxide 
glamour 
look 
'an 
exclusionary 
look 
of segregation') 
as 
more 
and more women 
succumbed 
to 
the 
peroxide 
bottle, 
hiondeness 
began 
to 
lose 
its 
high 
status 
and 
the 
disparaging 
term 
' 
bottle 
blonde'began 
to 
be 
used 
Cheap 
hair bleaching 
with 
thinly 
disguised 
black 
roots 
began 
to 
be 
associated 
with 
the 
'easy'working-class 
woman. 
(Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
160)[ 
... 
I 
With 
blondeness 
a 
little 
bit 
offightening was 
considered 
acceptable 
but 
too 
much 
and 
a woman 
risked 
appearing 
a 
bit 
fiast', lower 
class, 
a sporter 
of 
an arty1cial 
disguise 
that 
was 
unnatural and 
cheating, 
misrepresenting 
age 
or 
'natural'beauty. 
Injact 
considering 
whether 
to 
bleach, 
dye 
or 
lint 
was 
such 
a 
sensitive 
issue 
that 
the 
practice 
was 
not openly 
referred 
to 
until 
the 
1950s 
and 
women 
used 
the 
code 
word 
'treatment'instead 
"(ibid. 
p. 
16 1). 
77 
The 
images 
on 
the 
walls of 
'La Paris' 
were 
all of glamorous 
but 
anonymous 
hair 
models, 
the 
exception 
was 
an 
image 
of 
Marilyn 
Monroe, 
situated above 
the 
hairdryers. 
164 
it 
wasnae 
anyhody'sfault 
hecause 
you see 
the 
roots 
were coming 
in 
really, 
really 
heavy 
hecause 
I'm 
actually 
dark hair 
so, so 
I 
had 
to 
come 
up 
here 
andget 
it 
all 
done, 
so 
Ijust kept 
it 
the 
red colour 
I. 
" 
Pauline, 
inspired 
by 
a sister-in 
law 
who 
looked 
"like 
a 
Barble doll" 
felt less 
good when 
not. 
blonde. 
Blonde 
hair had 
made 
her feel 
"Deadglam, 
hut 
I 
went 
to 
get 
streaks 
again a 
couple 
ofteeks 
ago 
and 
Ifelt 
dead depressed 
and 
so 
I'm 
getting 
it 
dyed 
again". 
She 
noted 
that 
her 
fashioning 
of 
long 
blonde 
hair 
has been 
unequivocally 
for herself. 
Ellen 
had 
also 
been 
a 
dyed blonde 
for 
over 
twenty 
years. 
She 
discussed 
going 
blonde 
as, 
in 
part, 
a 
desire 
not 
to 
be 
thought 
of 
as a 
redhead, 
and 
an 
aberration 
from 
her 
attempts otherwise 
to 
stay 
'natural': 
79 
Hair, 
I 
was 
always 
dyeing 
my 
hair. 
I 
dye 
my 
hair 
and 
my 
hair 
has 
got 
quite a reddish 
tinge 
to 
it 
and 
one 
night 
Brenda 
and 
I 
were 
out somewhere 
I 
can't 
remember, 
and 
we got 
these 
two 
lads 
on 
the 
bus 
home 
and one of 
them 
said 
to 
me, 
[ 
... 
] 
"Oh I 
didn't 
know 
you 
had 
red 
hair 
". 
Now, 
I 
must 
have been 
about, oh, 
probably 
about 
15 
coming 
on 
16 
then 
and 
I 
thought, 
'I'd 
hetter 
start 
dyeing 
my 
hair'because 
I 
did 
not 
- 
because 
my 
mother always 
had 
this 
aura of 
red 
haired 
Catholics 
that 
was 
simply, 
my 
father's 
a 
red 
haired 
Catholic 
you 
know, 
but 
that 
was 
a 
kind 
of 
thing 
then, 
red 
hair, 
especially 
when 
you 
had 
red 
hair 
and 
freckles, 
and 
I've been 
a 
blonde 
ever 
since 
really. 
[Laugliter]80 
The 
obstinacy 
of 
the 
association 
between 
a 
non-ironic 
dyed blondeness 
and a perception 
of 
(working-class) 
women's 
stupidity 
has 
outlived 
punk's 
reclamation, 
the 
appropriation of 
so-called 
trailer trash 
by 
couture 
fashion, 
queering and 
the 
dynamics 
of 
postmodernity. 
" 
" 
Some 
attitudes 
to 
appropriate 
fashioning, for 
example 
the 
badness 
of 
roots- prevailed 
even 
in 
Michelle's 
clubby 
milieu, 
where 
anifice 
and 
excess 
were 
otherwise 
welcomed: 
Viust 
can't 
have 
roots. 
God, Imean 
its 
all right 
if, 
Idon't know, 
every 
time 
I've 
got my 
hair 
dyed 
it's 
always 
been, 
it 
looks 
dyed, 
its 
obviously 
dyed, 
It's 
not 
like 
subtle 
d?v, 
so 
its 
alright, 
thepoint 
is 
to 
show 
that 
you 
Ive 
got 
colour 
Inyour 
hair, butyou 
stillcan't 
have 
roots 
because 
Hjust 
looks 
crap, 
uJust 
looks 
crap". 
The 
overriding 
anxiety 
concerning roots 
appears 
to 
be based 
on 
issues 
of class 
and 
respectability. 
Roots 
might 
imply 
that 
a person 
cannot 
afford 
to 
have 
their 
hair 
re-dyed. 
79 
Ellen: 
I 
was never 
a 
great 
makc-up 
-I 
wear make-up 
now 
because 
I 
have 
to, 
but 
really 
I 
was 
never, 
I 
never wore 
make-up at 
all, 
occasionally 
I 
would 
put 
lipstick 
on 
but 
that 
was 
it, 
but 
then 
that 
was 
all 
to 
do 
with 
that 
very 
kind 
of 
natural 
whatever, 
and 
luckily 
enough 
I 
didn't 
have 
to, 
I had 
quite good 
skin 
tone 
and 
I 
was 
perfectly 
happy. 
' 
The heightened 
context 
of 
sectarianism 
in Glasgow 
may 
have 
further 
influenced 
Ellen's decision 
to 
shed 
her 
natural colour. 
In 
the 
context 
of 
the 
development 
of 
the 
queer 
turn 
in 
media 
representations 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
big 
hair 
and 
in 
particular, 
dyed 
blonde 
big 
hair has 
had 
a significant 
amount 
of 
so-called 
playful 
media 
attention. 
The 
use of 
star 
names 
as nouns or adjectives 
by 
participants 
is 
characteristic 
in 
much of 
this 
ironic, 
self-conscious 
mock-appropriation 
of working-class 
women's culture: 
""at 
style wouldl 
like, 
asks 
Lindsay [Hairdresser 
at 
'Crazy 
Cutz' 
salon 
where 
Big 
Brother's 
Helen 
formally 
worked] 
What 
sort of 
question 
is 
that? 
Forget 
the 
'Rachel'. 
the 
'Kate, 
the 
Weg'the 
only 
style 
in 
town 
is 
thefluffy, 
bouncy, 
giggly, 
blonde bimbo 
ofa 
hairdo 
immortalised 
by 
that 
Big 
Brother 
woman. 
I 
want 
a 
Helen 
". 
(Buttolph, 
200 
1, 
p. 
16). 
11 
Natural 
blondes 
remain 
vigilant 
and 
defensive 
lest 
they 
are co-opted. 
Mariella 
Frostrup, 
keen 
to 
establish 
herself 
as a serious 
journalist 
asked 
ironically 
-'Can 
a 
slave 
to 
her hair 
colour 
reallyjudge 
a 
literary 
prize 
and present 
Panorama? 
' 
(Frostrup, 2000, 
pp. 
1-2). 
Blondes 
have 
established 
a 
Blonde 
Legal 
Defence Club 
in 
the 
US 
to 
help 
dispel 
dumb 
blonde 
myths 
(Glasgow 
Herald, 9 July, 2001, 
p. 
7). 
165 
Transformation 
For 
some participants, 
fashioning 
a 
transformation 
had been 
a process 
impacting 
upon other 
important 
aspects 
of 
identity. 
82 
This 
was clearly 
illustrated 
in 
Michelle, 
s 
accounts 
of consecutive 
transformations 
based 
on 
diverse identifications. 
Michelle 
made explicit 
through 
her 
articulations 
of 
meaningfiil 
fashion/ings 
her desire 
not 
to 
be identified 
with 
specific 
groups/stylings: 
AP: 
So 
you were saying 
there that 
you'll 
do 
everything 
not 
to 
look 
like 
a certain 
- 
Michelle: 
Student. 
AP: 
Why 
is 
that 
in 
particular 
do 
you 
think? 
Michelle: 
I 
think 
because 
I've 
been 
a student 
for 
so 
long. 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
Ok, 
so you want 
to 
be different 
from 
- 
Michelle: 
I 
don't 
want 
to 
be 
a 
student. 
I 
at 
the 
end of school 
I 
used 
to 
be 
like 
hyper 
trendy 
with 
my 
clothes and my 
hair 
and stuff 
[ 
then 
when 
I 
left 
school 
I 
turned 
into 
a 
hippy 
so 
I 
didn't 
wear 
make-up 
and 
my 
hair 
was 
just 
horrible, 
actually 
it 
was 
long 
and 
dull 
and 
lank 
it 
wasn't 
nice 
and 
I 
stopped 
really 
bothering 
about 
my 
hair 
then 
actually. 
AP: When 
you say 
it 
wasn't 
nice was 
that 
- 
is 
that 
you speaking 
now about 
that time? 
Michelle: 
Because 
it 
wasn't 
highlighted 
or 
anything 
it 
was 
my 
hair 
and 
nothing 
done 
to 
itjust 
long. 
AP: 
And 
do 
you 
think 
you were 
fashioning 
yourself 
then? 
Michelle: 
Well 
that 
was a 
deliberate 
effort 
to 
look 
hippy. I 
went 
to 
a 
lot 
of 
effort 
to 
make 
sure 
I 
looked 
like 
a 
kind 
of 
60s 
hippy 
and 
not 
this 
grungy 
hippy. I'll 
kind 
of 
put 
it into 
context 
of 
how 
I 
first 
got 
into 
it 
all. 
I 
was 
in 
the 
hippy 
dippy 
stuff, no 
make-up, 
straight 
hair, I 
put a 
lot 
of effort 
into 
my 
clothes 
then 
I 
started getting 
into 
the 
club 
scene. 
[ 
... 
] 
So 
going 
clubbing, 
so 
I 
couldn't 
go clubbing 
dressed 
like 
a 
hippy, 
so 
I 
gradually, 
well 
not 
gradually 
but 
quickly 
changed 
my style. 
93 
Michelle, 
Gabrielle, 
Jean, Maureen, 
Janey 
and 
others 
discussed 
the 
pleasures 
and sensations 
94 
associated with 
memories of undergoing 
a 
fashioning 
transformation. 
Gabrielle's 
most 
readily 
" 
Identifications 
that 
are mimetic 
necessitate 
transformation 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
167). 
Michelle 
was a 
Sociology 
student 
moving 
from 
undergraduate 
into 
graduate study. 
AP: When 
you'd 
done 
your 
grooming you'd 
got your 
plum suit 
on 
and 
then 
you 
put 
the 
patchouli 
oil 
on, 
I 
mean, 
can 
you 
remember what 
that 
made 
you 
feel like? 
166 
recalled 
moment 
of glamour and satisfaction 
in fashioning 
took 
place almost 
fifty 
years 
ago 
and 
had 
become 
a narrative 
whereby 
the 
key 
elements 
of 
the 
transformation 
model 
rehearsed 
by 
several 
participants 
were 
in 
place, namely, 
fear 
and 
trepidation 
of what 
the 
transformation 
would 
entail, 
relinquishing 
trust 
to 
another, enduring 
the 
process, 
the 
pleasurable 
outcome, 
followed 
by 
the 
praise 
of 
others. 
Her 
reluctant 
agreement with 
the 
hairdresser's 
suggestion 
of a 
Helen 
Shapiro 
cut 
had been 
followed by 
anxiety: 
I 
said, 
"I 
don't know" 
and she 
cut 
it 
and cut 
it 
and 
while 
she 
was 
cutting 
it 
- 
it 
was 
wet 
-I 
was 
looking 
at myself 
in 
the 
mirror 
and she 
cut 
it 
off 
and 
I 
was 
crying, 
I 
thought 
-I 
saw 
it 
all 
* 
dropping 
on 
the 
floor 
and 
I 
thought, 
Oh 
my 
God. 
What's 
it 
going 
to 
look like? 
and 
she put 
it in 
rollers, 
big 
rollers, 
even 
though 
it 
was 
so short 
and 
it 
wasn't 
penned 
then 
you 
know, 
and put 
me 
under 
the 
dryer. 
I 
was 
crying 
my eyes 
out 
under 
the 
dryer, 
she 
didn't 
know, 
and 
she 
took 
me 
out 
of 
the 
dryer 
and she 
got 
the 
brush 
and 
a comb 
and she 
sort 
of 
backcombed 
it 
and 
it 
was all 
shaped 
and 
all 
lovely. 
Oh, 
and 
I 
was 
so 
pleased 
with 
it. 
In 
a 
further 
moment of 
illumination, 
and 
the 
recognition 
of 
a 
shared 
understanding, 
Ettie 
provided 
this 
unexpected 
insight: 
I 
loved Doris Day 
when 
I 
was 
young, 
I 
loved 
Doris 
Day, 
the 
Deadwood Stage 
in 
Calamity 
Jane 
and 
how 
they transformed 
the 
house, 
I 
always 
loved 
being 
able 
to transform things. 
I 
could 
always 
look 
at 
- 
and 
I 
loved 
Lloyd Loom 
chairs 
and 
things 
and 
I 
used 
to 
go 
round 
the 
Barras 
[Glasgow 
market] and 
buy 
things 
and 
transform 
them. 
I 
got 
an 
old 
Lloyd 
Loom basket 
and a 
lovely 
chair 
like 
- 
and 
an 
Austin 
chair, 
high 
backed, 
horsehair 
and springs, 
and 
I 
stripped 
it 
and 
resprayed 
it, 
I 
love 
to transform. 
AP: That 
very scene 
that 
you are 
talking 
about, 
you 
know, 
when 
they 
go 
in 
and 
there's 
that 
little 
shack 
_85 
Ettie: 
Dirty 
old shack, yeah 
- 
AP: 
- 
and 
then 
it's 
- 
well, 
they 
do 
a 
song 
don't 
they 
- 
while 
they 
are 
cleaning, and 
then 
finally, 
I 
love 
it 
when 
they 
get 
all 
the 
curtains 
- 
Ettie: 
- 
Gingham 
- 
AP: Gingham, 
and 
the tablecloth 
- 
Jean: Ijust 
felt 
like 
I 
could 
conquer. 
[Laughing] 
I felt 
so 
good, 
Ijust 
felt 
so confident, 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
And 
Ijust 
thought 
- 
and you 
know, 
and 
I 
would go out 
there, 
you 
know, head 
up, 
felt 
really confident. 
" 
An 
episode 
A 
had 
generated 
in 
a 
memory 
work 
text. 
167 
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of 
5 
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for 
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or 
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24. 
Excessive 
hairpieces 
advertised 
in 
US 
magazine, 
Motion 
Picture, 
1965, 
page 
59. 
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A. 
Demure 
hair 
fashioning 
in 
Women's Own 
book 
of 
70 
hairstyles 
you 
can 
set 
yourself, 
2 
April 
1966, 
page 
16. 
Ettie: 
She's 
like Cinderella 
when 
the 
birds dressed 
her do 
you 
remember? 
And 
that's 
what 
hairdressing 
is 
and 
we're 
transforming 
a spirit 
as well 
because 
someone 
will come 
in down 
and 
before 
you 
know 
it, 
we'll 
be laughing 
together, 
the 
music, 
smells, 
colour, 
"Come 
on, you're 
getting 
your 
hair done, 
it's 
a new 
day" 
you 
know, 
that 
was 
the thing, 
it's 
so 
I ike, 
that 
- 
it's 
an 
art 
and 
that's 
why 
it 
should 
be 
valued. 
86 
Exoticism 
and 
'dissident 
hair' 
Notions 
of exoticism and 
ambivalence 
concerning 
otherness, 
of 
black, 
minority 
ethnic and 
'foreign' 
glamour 
was raised at 
intervals 
in 
participants' 
discussions 
about 
their 
hair 
and 
fashioning 
histories. 
Apart 
from 
contributing 
knowledge 
about 
the 
ubiquity 
of associations 
of 
otherness 
to 
women's 
self-fashioning 
in 
Britain, 
their 
accounts 
were also 
instructive 
in 
reflecting 
the 
ways 
in 
which 
the 
cosmetics, 
hairdressing 
and 
fashion 
industries 
have 
historically 
fore-grounded 
such 
allusions 
whilst 
erasing, 
for 
example, 
the 
reality 
of 
Black 
people's 
relationship 
to 
hair 
grooming 
above 
other cosmetic 
acts. 
87 
Elizabeth 
discussed 
the 
appeal 
of 
'French' 
fashioning 
to 
her 
as a 
young woman: 
Because 
you 
know 
anything 
foreign 
-[Laughter]- 
was exotic 
anyway 
you 
know, 
I 
mean 
there 
was 
- 
yes, 
and somehow 
I'd 
managed 
to 
absorb 
an 
idea 
that 
French 
women were 
very 
glamorous, 
they 
were 
very glamorous 
and 
also 
they 
spent 
an 
enormous 
amount 
of 
time 
on 
grooming 
and 
I 
had 
this 
idea 
that they 
prioritised 
you 
know, 
looking 
beautiful 
and 
I 
think 
some 
of 
that 
came 
from 
reading 
- 
I've 
only 
just 
thought 
of 
this 
- 
but 
reading 
small ads 
in 
magazines 
women's 
magazines at 
the time. 
I 
was 
fascinated 
by 
all 
the 
beauty 
treatments 
especially 
like 
bust 
enhancers 
and 
all 
this 
sort 
of 
thing, 
odd 
bits 
of 
machinery 
and stuff 
like 
that 
and 
they 
were 
all 
either 
French 
or 
you 
know, 
the 
French 
Paris 
style so 
you 
did 
get 
this 
idea 
- 
and also 
because 
the 
only 
fashion designers 
then, 
I 
mean 
apart 
from 
Norman 
Hartnell I 
think 
he 
was 
the 
only 
- 
Norman 
Hartnell 
is 
the 
only 
English 
fashion 
designer 
that 
I 
could 
name 
from 
that 
period 
and 
yet 
Dior 
-[... 
J 
Dior 
and 
later 
Yves St 
Laurent. 
' 
Ettie 
and 
Gabrielle 
pointed 
me 
in 
the 
direction 
of 
the 
links 
between 
fashioning 
and 
other 
satisfying 
processes 
of 
transformation. 
For 
example, 
the 
(gendered) 
popularity 
of 
the 
makeover 
format 
in 
TV 
programming 
in 
recent 
years 
(Brunsdon 
et 
al, 
2001, 
pp. 
29-63). 
27 
Ryle 
has 
pointed 
out 
that 
"Though 
they 
rarelyfeature 
in 
shampoo 
ads, 
blackpeople 
spendmore 
on 
their 
hair 
than 
any 
other 
ethnic 
group 
" 
(Ryle, 
2000, 
p. 
17). 
Stylist 
Hector Obeng 
claims 
"Among 
black 
women, 
hair 
comes 
lop 
of 
the 
list 
ofpriorities, 
above clothes, 
make-up 
orjewellery'(Obeng 
cited 
in 
Lindsay, 
2003, 
p. 
4). At 
the 
inception 
of 
the 
hairdressing 
industries 
in 
the 
nineteenth century, 
"black 
hair 
was considered 
as closer 
to 
beast 
than 
man 
" (Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
26). 
Consequently, 
much of 
the 
beauty industry's 
investment has 
been 
in 
repudiating 
Blackness 
in 
a culture where 
"as 
a racial 
signifter 
hair 
is 
only 
second 
to 
skin 
" (Cox, 
quoted 
by Pool, 200 
1, 
p. 
6 1). 
Somewhat 
ironically, 
the 
proliferation of 
hair 
products 
and cosmetics 
industries 
from 
the 
nineteenth 
century 
flourished 
through 
presenting 
ideals 
of 
both 
whiteness 
and 
otherness, 
however 
unrepresentative. 
Americaness 
and 
Europeaness 
were 
similarly 
recruited 
into 
the 
creation of an alluring 
difTerence 
represented 
through 
product 
branding 
and 
in 
the 
modelling 
of specific 
forms 
of glamour. 
In 
a 
broader 
cultural sense, 
the 
fields 
of 
fashion 
and 
the 
principal 
cosmetic 
acts 
from 
the turn 
of 
the 
century can 
be 
read 
as signifying 
an 
inherent foreignness, 
alluring 
to 
many 
women 
in 
this 
study, and 
arguably, 
troubling 
to 
both 
masculine 
168 
As 
a young 
woman 
experimenting with grooming 
over 
a 
decade 
earlier 
in 
the 
1940s, 
Janey 
remembered 
the 
evocative 
titles 
of 
her 
favoured 
perfumes: 
"The 
perfumes 
were 
Coty, 
Coty 
LA 
imant. 
And 'Evening 
in 
Paris'was 
another 
one" 
[Laughter]. 
British 
youth's 
desire 
to 
model 
European 
and 
American 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
increased in 
the 
post-war 
period 
consequent 
with 
the 
proliferation 
of 
products 
that 
emphasised 
notions of 
difference. 
88 
Titles 
of salons 
themselves, 
including 
'La Paris', 
established 
in 
the 
1960s 
drew directly 
on 
the 
characteristic 
association 
of 
Frenchness 
with glamour. 
89 
in 
the 
late 
1960s 
and 
1970s 
the 
desire for 
exoticism 
and 
difference 
was reflected 
in 
the 
consumption 
of products 
associated with 
notions 
of 
the 
mythical 
East 
and 
the 
Orient. 
By 
the 
1970s 
Elizabeth's 
desire 
for 
a glamorous 
individualism 
drew 
upon 
increasingly 
accessible and yet still 
dissident 
referencing 
of exotic cosmetics 
such 
as 
kohl, 
patchouli 
oil 
and 
henna, 
products 
alien 
to 
salons. 
90 
Such 
consumption 
was a 
paradoxical 
anti-fashion 
fashioning. 
Well, 
I 
think 
the 
hennaingjust 
came 
from 
accessibility 
of 
henna, 
you 
know, 
I 
don't 
really 
think 
I 
thought 
about 
it 
consciously, 
but 
I 
thought 
at 
least 
I 
can 
have 
a colour, coloured 
hair 
you 
know, 
and 
try to 
make something 
that 
would, 
that 
I 
would 
feel 
happy 
with 
even 
if it 
wasn't 
fashionable 
or 
I 
don't 
know. [ 
... 
]I 
mean 
I didn't like 
the 
hippy 
thing 
at 
all 
because 
well, well, 
I 
didn't 
like 
it 
aesthetically 
but 
I 
think 
everybody 
or most women 
were 
influenced 
by it 
to 
a 
degree, 
so 
although 
I 
didn't like 
the 
clothes 
or 
anything, 
I did like 
the 
foreignness 
of 
it 
you 
know, 
its 
connection with 
India 
and yes, 
so 
that 
was mainly 
the 
attraction. 
Just 
in 
the 
way 
that 
British 
women's 
fashioning 
of 
Americanness in 
the 
1950s 
held 
risks 
for, 
it 
could 
be 
argued, 
working-class women 
in 
particular, 
so 
fashioning 
exoticism 
in 
the 
1970s 
appears 
to 
have 
sexualised 
women 
choosing 
to 
fashion 
this 
look 
based 
upon 
the 
historical 
assumption 
of working- 
institutions 
and 
normative 
notions of 
gender. 
A 
pre-war 
survey 
produced 
by 
the 
City 
of 
London 
Guild 
of 
Hairdressers 
"identified 
that 
ofthe 
master 
hairdressers 
in 
London 
ninety-seven per 
cent 
wereforeign 
born 
"(Cox, 1999, 
p. 
7 1). 
n 
The 
British 
perception 
of 
American's 
fashioning 
to 
excess 
is 
reflected 
here 
in 
Shrimpton's 
memory 
of 
working 
in 
the 
US. 
Photographer 
Irving 
Penn's 
'excess' is 
compared with 
Bailey's 
Modernist, 'less is 
more' perspective. 
Penn, 
objecting 
to 
Shrimpton's 
greenish 
grey neck 
had demanded 
pancake cover: 
"I 
hatedpulting 
on 
pancake. 
Bailey 
never made 
me use 
it 
He 
repeatedly 
sent 
me 
offlo 
put on more and 
more pancake. 
Ofcourse 
Ididwhat I 
was 
told 
American 
Vogue 
expected much 
more 
groomingfrom 
their 
models 
than 
was 
required 
In 
Europe 
" 
(Shrimpton, 
1991, 
p. 
88). 
"' 
Ann 
claimed 
suitably 
glamorous 
roots 
for 
the 
origins of 
the 
beauty 
courses she 
established 
in Scotland: 
"Iwouldhave 
saidso 
yes, 
I 
wouldhave 
saidso, 
or 
-yesprobably 
American, 
perhaps 
a 
touch 
French 
as 
wellyou 
know, 
they 
were 
Into it 
too, 
but 
then 
Scotland 
actually 
leads 
now 
in 
what we 
have 
in 
the 
way ofnationally 
recognised qualifications 
". 
The 
concurrent 
development 
of star systems 
and 
a 
broadening 
of 
the 
fashioning 
of 
masculine 
sexualities 
on screen 
led 
to 
the 
growth 
of 
related 
products 
and 
fashioning 
for 
men. 
Here, 
Ettie fuses 
the 
excessive 
femininity 
of 
the 
Melly Wave 
for 
men with 
$commonness' 
and 
'foreignness': "There 
were 
certain 
styles 
that 
- 
and- 
but Ildsaypeople 
went 
In 
andout 
ofdifferent 
styles, 
you 
wouldget 
somebody 
thatyou 
mean, 
like, 
would 
be 
considered 
common, 
common 
style 
there 
were 
Italian 
boys, 
Iremember, like 
Italian 
boys 
' 
style 
- 
there 
was 
'Melly 
waves'they 
called 
it, 
'Wee Melly'l 
remember 
wee 
Garry 
coming 
infor 
a 
'Wee 
Melly'he 
would 
call 
it 
[Laughter] 
which was wee 
Italian 
boys 
' 
waves 
and 
curls- 
". 
90 
The 'Indian 
oils' 
associated 
by Jean 
with 
her 
early memories 
of 
her 
middle-class 
father's 
wardrobe, 
became 
fused in 
the 
early 
1970s 
with 
Jean's 
desire 
to 
create an 
individual 
fashion: 
"It 
waspatchouli oil, 
Indian 
oils 
And 
I'm 
still wearingpatchouli 
today 
because 
you 
can still 
get 
it, 
and 
sandalwood 
oils 
". 
169 
class women's 
sexual availability and proximity 
to 
prostitution. 
" 
Elizabeth's 
identification 
with a 
'disreputable' 
but 
exotic aunty epitornised 
the 
allure 
despite 
threatened 
social 
disapprobation 
that 
attracted 
women 
to 
fashion 
exoticism 
to 
excess: 
I 
don't 
think 
she 
hennaed her hair, but it 
was always 
bright 
red so 
I 
think 
she may 
have dyed it 
and 
yes, 
Hilary 
always 
had 
very 
long 
nails and 
they 
were 
always 
painted 
bright 
red, 
but 
my 
mum 
had 
told 
me 
about 
this 
before 
I 
met 
her 
and 
I 
met 
her 
for 
the 
first 
time 
since 
being 
three 
and 
a 
half 
when 
I 
was 
15, 
so 
I 
think 
at 
that 
point 
you 
know, 
I 
was 
noticing 
very 
much what 
people 
were, 
women were wearing and 
I 
just 
thought 
she 
was 
extremely 
glamorous 
and 
terribly 
92 
daring 
yes, 
and 
I 
did 
want 
to 
be 
such a 
person 
myself. 
Many 
participants 
contributed 
infonnation 
that 
constituted 
collective 
histories 
of 
knowledge 
of 
the 
meanings 
of 
fashionings 
where ethnicity, 
racism, 
glamour 
and 
difference 
were 
fused in 
an 
often 
iconic image 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
Prior 
to 
conducting 
this 
research 
I 
had 
never 
come 
across 
the term 
93 
'Barras 
Tart'. 
Ellen 
explained: 
I 
mean 
it 
is 
a 
generic 
term 
if 
you 
Re. 
[ 
... 
I 
Yep, 
aye, 
lots 
of 
people 
would 
know, 
maybe 
aspiring 
Glaswegians 
that 
maybe 
didn't 
want 
to 
be 
associated 
with 
that 
sort 
of 
thing, 
but 
when 
I 
worked 
there, 
and 
I 
obviously 
had 
this 
- 
not 
that 
I 
ever 
took 
on 
board 
what 
my 
mother said, 
was a 
realisation 
that 
she 
has flaws 
and stuff 
as 
well, 
but 
these 
women 
were 
incredible 
in 
the 
sense 
that 
they 
seemed 
to 
run 
the 
show 
and 
they 
certainly 
were strong 
women, 
but 
that 
wasn't alien 
to 
me 
because 
my 
Mum 
was quite 
a 
strong woman 
and 
kind 
of 
organised 
- 
but 
they 
seemed 
to 
always 
have 
- 
we were quite 
a small 
family 
and 
didn't have 
a 
lot 
of extended 
family, 
but 
they 
all 
91 
This 
attitude 
is illustrated 
in 
a memory work 
text: 
"When 
A 
was 
walkingfrom one 
grammar 
school 
site 
to 
another, a 
boy 
who 
had 
a 
head 
of 
natural 
red 
curls and 
had 
starred 
in 
the 
BBCprogramme 
The Secret 
Garden 
said 
to 
his 
group 
ofposhfriends, 
Only 
tarts 
have 
dyed 
hair. This 
was 
levelled 
at 
A 
and 
her 
hennaed 
hair. 
She 
thought 
that there 
was 
something 
in 
his 
enunciation 
that 
meant 
that 
he 
would 
be 
at 
home 
at university 
and 
that 
this 
mode ofdelivery and 
accent made 
him 
'naturally 
intelligent. 
Shefell 
aforce 
that 
made 
her 
think 
ofhis parents, 
what 
he had learnifrom 
them 
and 
what 
she 
would 
never 
know. 
It 
was 
a 
moment 
when 
he 
changedfrom 
being 
someone who 
would 
have 
had 
to 
work 
hard 
to 
match 
her 
efforts 
to 
someone 
shefell 
shefelt 
overtaken 
by 
". 
" 
McRobbie 
has 
noted 
that 
working a salon 
frequented by 
wealthy 
Jewish 
customers 
in 
Glasgow 
in 
the 
mid-1960s 
provided 
her 
with 
exciting 
models 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
notwithstanding 
the 
anti-Semitism 
prevalent 
amongst 
the 
salon staff 
more: 
" 
In 
the 
hairdressing 
salon 
I 
was 
attracted 
by 
theforeignness 
of 
the 
clients. 
They 
actually camefrom somewhere 
else. 
I liked 
their 
European 
names; 
it 
was 
like being 
in 
a 
different 
country. 
" (McRobbie, 
1986, 
pp16-17) 
" 
Having 
visited 
Glasgow's 
Barras 
market regularly 
for 
over 
twenty 
years, and even 
running 
a stall 
there 
on one occasion. 
Shortly 
before 
our 
interview 
and 
in 
a moment 
of 
illumination 
for 
me. 
Ellen linked 
this 
term to 
Roma 
people. 
In 
the 
following 
extract 
I 
attempted 
to 
learn 
more 
about 
its 
particular 
meaning 
for her. 
Her 
comments suggested 
discomfort 
with 
the 
term 
but 
an 
acknowledgement 
of 
an 
enduring 
fashioning difference: 
AP: 
You 
gave 
me 
a 
phrase 
that 
I've 
been 
thinking 
about a 
lot 
and 
I've been 
thinking, this 
is 
really 
does 
name 
a certain style, 
do 
you 
want 
to 
tell 
us? 
Ellen: 
It 
was 
Barras 
Tart 
aha. 
[Laughter] I 
went 
to 
the 
Barras 
on 
Sunday 
and 
I 
hadn't 
been 
there 
for 
years and 
years and 
years 
and 
when 
I 
was 
at school 
I 
used 
to 
help 
out on 
a stall 
at 
the 
Barras [ 
... 
] 
So I 
was 
quite 
heavily 
into 
it 
then 
but 
I kept 
seeing all 
these 
women 
like I'm 
talking 
about 
when 
I 
was at school, which 
would 
be late 
sixties early seventies 
and 
they 
were 
still 
there 
Adele, 
they 
were still 
there. 
AP: 
Did 
they 
recognise 
you? 
Ellen: 
No, 
I 
don't 
mean 
they 
were 
the 
same women, 
but 
the 
same 
type 
of 
women, 
the 
same 
type 
of 
women. 
AP: 
And 
in 
your 
own 
words 
I'd like 
you 
to tell 
me 
what 
the 
characteristics 
are 
of 
this 
certain 
style 
[. 
- 
J. 
Ellen: 
Well, 
that's 
a 
kind 
of 
difficult 
one 
because 
the 
reason 
I 
say 
Barras 
Tarts 
is because 
my 
mother 
- 
that's 
obviously 
come 
from 
her 
and 
she would 
have 
said 
that, 
my 
father 
would never 
have 
said 
that 
ever, ever. 
didn't 
want 
anything 
to 
do 
with 
hawkers 
or 
- 
because 
my 
father 
was, 
I 
think 
his 
granny was a 
hawker. 
[Laughter] 
170 
seemed 
to 
have 
a 
huge 
extended 
family 
[ 
... 
] 
different 
they, 
they, 
they 
ones 
, 
you 
mind 
the 
ones 
with 
the 
earrings, 
the 
black 
eyes and 
the 
with 
just 
that 
look 
about 
them, 
hawkers, 
hawkers 
they 
were 
called, 
Barras Tarts 
my 
Mum 
used 
to 
say. 
Ellen 
defined 
the 
hair 
and 
fashioning 
of 
women 
associated 
with 
the 
Barras 
market 
as 
distinctive, 
excessive 
but 
respectable. 
Their hair 
was: 
Always 
back, 
tied 
back 
in 
a 
bun 
and 
there'd 
be, 
depending 
on 
their 
age, 
but 
even 
if 
they 
were 
elderly 
it 
would 
be backcombed 
and 
tied 
back 
in 
a 
bun, 
you 
never, 
never 
saw 
these 
women 
with 
their 
hair down, 
that's 
maybe 
to 
do 
with 
- 
only 
your 
husband 
saw 
you 
with your 
hair 
down 
or 
whatever, 
)ou 
would get 
untidy 
ones 
but, 
but 
not 
[ 
... 
]- 
and 
wore 
a 
lot 
of 
black 
as well, 
you 
never 
saw 
them 
in bright 
colours, 
maybe 
a 
bright 
coloured 
blouse 
and 
the 
fimny 
thing, 
when 
I 
think 
back 
now, no 
patterns 
never 
a 
pattern, 
always 
a self 
coloured 
-[... 
] 
they 
all 
seemed 
to 
have 
dark 
hair 
as well and 
Scottish 
people 
don't 
really 
have 
dark 
hair, 
you'll get 
dark, 
darkish 
like Irish, 
but 
it's 
a 
different 
type 
of 
dark, 
its 
not, 
it 
is 
a 
different 
type 
of 
dark. 
94 
Ellen's 
history 
of working 
at 
the 
Barras 
and 
having 
a great-grandparent 
who 
was 
market 
trader 
enabled 
her 
to 
be frank 
about 
'Barras Tarts' 
whilst 
distancing 
herself 
like 
her 
mother 
before 
her from 
this 
pejorative 
identification. 
95 
She 
was 
interpellated 
by 
the 
arresting 
iconic 
look 
of strangers 
who 
fashioned 
in 
ways 
that 
resisted or 
were 
beyond 
fashion, 
remembered 
for 
their 
power, glamour 
and 
respectability 
and 
yet were named 
in 
a 
derogatory 
way. 
They 
were 
'tarts' because 
of 
their 
class, 
ethnicity 
and 
gender 
- 
read off 
from 
their 
fashioning. 
96 
Whilst 
Ettie, 
with 
her 
personal awareness 
of 
racist 
discrimination, 
embraced 
diversity, 
Ellen hinted 
at 
the 
anxiety 
caused 
by 
the 
proximity 
of 
identifications, 
arguably 
inherited 
from her 
aspirant 
middle-class 
mother 
who preferred 
to 
distance 
herself 
from 
her 
husband's 
own 
'hawker' 
heritage. 
Having 
knowledge 
of 
anti-Irish 
racism, 
exploitation 
" 
in 
a 
feminist 
insight, 
Ellen linked 
the 
legendary 
Maggie 
McIver, 
the 
founder 
of 
the 
Barras 
to 
travelling 
communities 
in 
Scotland: 
"Maggie 
McIver 
was 
one 
of 
the 
matriarchs, now, 
McIver 
is 
a 
Slornoway 
name and 
up 
in 
Stornoway 
there's 
a 
huge, 
huge 
load 
of 
gipsies. 
One 
year 
the 
gypsy 
king died, 
myfriend 
Maureen 
isfrom 
Slornoway 
and 
she 
is 
a 
McIver 
spell 
differently... 
"I hope 
to 
develop 
this 
link 
in future 
research. 
The 
notion of 
'ethnic 
hair'- 
the 
dissident 
black hair 
of 
'hawkers' 
arose 
in Ettie's 
memory 
of 
her 
Mum's 
racist 
admonishment 
when 
Ettie 
dyed her hair 
black 
- 
Her 
Mum had 
ignored her 
in 
the 
strect, 
saying: 
"I 
was ashamed 
to 
say 
hello. 
You 
look like 
a 
Pakistani 
". Ettie 
added: 
"I 
was 
gelling 
on 
the 
bus 
once, 
I 
would 
never 
check 
myjare, 
I'dgive 
it 
the 
black 
man and 
mother 
would 
say, 
'Yeah 
because 
he 
thinks 
you are 
one ofthem. 
'I 
would 
have 
pan stick on, 
you 
know, 
the 
tan 
- 
big 
eyeliners 
-" 
" 
Although 
Ettie 
recognised 
the 
specificities of 
fashioning 
inherent 
with 
this 
term, 
she 
absolutely 
objected 
to 
the term 
when 
I 
raised 
it in 
our meeting. 
AP: Anyway 
I 
was 
talking 
to 
this 
- 
and she said, 
"Oh 
you mean 
'Barras 
Tart', 
a 
'Barras 
Tart'. 
Ettie: 
- 
Aha, 
'Barras 
tarts. 
' 
oh 
there's 
a 
lot 
of names 
- 
AP: 
- 
And 
she 
said, 
she 
didn't 
mean 
it 
a 
horrible 
way 
- 
Ettie: 
I 
knew 
all 
the 
expressions, 
I knew 
all 
the 
expressions 
on 
the 
malicious 
side, 
that's 
the 
thing 
about 
hairdressing 
too, 
there's 
a 
big 
wide 
- 
all 
the 
classes 
coming 
in, 
all 
the 
professions, all 
the 
world. 
I hate 
people refcrring 
to 
it 
it's 
a 
bit like 
'Barras 
tarts', 
it's 
too 
like 'cabbage' 
refcrring 
to 
a woman who 
stays 
at 
home 
as a 
cabbage 
It's 
not 
nice, 
it's 
a 
derogatory 
thing; 
they 
arc awful 
rod 
at 
that 
in Glasgow, 
putting 
a 
tag 
on you 
- 
, Ellen 
described 
'Barras 
Tarts' 
fashioning 
in 
a 
form 
I 
have 
described 
as 
'fashion 
inertia'. 
171 
and working 
--class 
discrimination 
in 
Glasgow, 
Ettie's 
migration 
to 
New 
York 
in 
the 
1960s 
was 
liberatory 
departure: 
I 
had 
big ideas 
about 
who 
I 
was and what 
I 
was, even 
though 
I 
came 
from 
what 
would 
be 
considered 
immigrants from 
Ireland, 
because 
the 
Irish 
were 
underneath, 
it 
was 
no 
blacks, 
no 
dogs, 
no 
Irish 
even after 
my grandmother, 
so she 
had 
a 
great 
sense 
of, 
you were 
up 
there, 
you 
know, 
maybe 
that 
made 
her 
twice 
as 
-I 
went 
in 
and got 
the 
interview 
[with 
the 
manager of a 
prestigious 
salon 
in 
New 
York], 
he 
was 
perfect, 
he 
said, 
"Ive 
waited 
all 
my 
lifefor 
an accent 
like 
that. 
I'd 
love 
to 
interview 
you. 
Love 
your 
accent". 
So, 
I 
went 
in 
and gotthe 
interview 
and 
I 
was 
working 
with 
Italian, Puerto 
Ricans, 
Brooklyn's, 
Hungarians, 
a girl 
that 
did 
Zsa Zsa Gabor 
and 
Miss 
Universe 
kept 
coming 
in, 
it 
was so 
interesting, 
I 
loved 
it, 
it 
was 
like 
being 
on 
the 
set 
of 
a 
movie, 
I 
was on my way 
to 
Miami 
where 
the 
Miss 
Universe 
Pageant 
was, 
in 
the 
hotel 
that 
they 
stayed 
in 
and 
they 
got glamorised 
before 
they 
were 
going 
out, 
and 
the 
cameras, 
I 
would 
have 
loved 
to 
have 
kept 
a 
log 
of 
photographs- 
Although 
the 
field 
of 
Black 
hairstyling 
has been 
considered 
the 
ultimate 
'triumph 
of 
artifice 
997 
Black 
hairdressing 
and 
the 
fashioning 
of 
Black forms 
of glamour 
has 
remained absolutely 
marginalised. 
Racism 
in 
the 
field 
prevailed 
in 
both 
British 
and 
American 
contexts 
in 
the 
period 
recorded 
by 
participants 
and 
in 
fashioning 
cultures 
more 
generally. 
98 
Elizabeth 
had 
noted 
how 
her 
Jamaican 
neighbours 
would 
invest 
heavily in 
attempts 
to 
adopt 
White 
hairstylings 
and 
that 
this 
identification 
was 
capitalised upon 
by 
cosmetic 
industries: 
In 
the 
1960s 
we 
had 
a 
Jamaican 
family 
come 
to 
live 
next 
door 
to 
us 
and now what was 
interesting 
for 
me was 
that 
you 
know 
our 
friends 
Cherie 
and 
her 
friends 
and 
teenage 
daughters 
they 
were 
extremely 
keen 
to 
have 
Western-style 
hairdos, bouffant 
hairdos 
so 
they 
used 
to 
spend 
a 
lot 
of 
time 
at 
the 
hairdressers 
you 
know 
trying 
to 
get 
their 
hair 
smooth 
and 
I 
remember reading 
their 
newspapers 
and 
magazines 
which 
were 
full 
of 
hair 
straightening 
potions 
and 
treatments 
and 
products 
and 
that 
sort 
of 
thing. 
" 
" 
Ryle 
has 
claimed, 
"Black 
hair 
is 
oval 
in 
cross 
section, 
unlikeAsian 
and 
Caucasian hair, 
which 
Is 
circular. 
7his 
apparently 
is 
what 
gives 
it its 
curl... 
the 
inventiveness 
ofb1ack 
hairstyles 
is 
bornfrom 
this 
recalcitrant 
quality 
in 
the 
raw material. 
They 
are 
in 
this 
sense, 
a 
triumph 
ofartifice 
"(Ryle, 2000, 
p. 
17). 
" 
Some 
participants' 
used 
racist 
terms 
at points 
in 
the 
research 
process. 
Jenny, 
for 
example, 
used 
the 
following 
expression: 
V 
feel 
worse 
coming 
in 
than 
when 
Igo 
out 
[indecipherable], Ifeel like 
a golltwog. 
I'm 
a 
different 
woman 
when 
I 
go out 
". 
" 
Although 
its 
claims 
to 
naturalness might 
now 
be 
questioned, 
from 
the 
1960s 
the 
Afro 
represented 
broader 
political messages 
emerging 
first 
through 
Black Civil Rights' 
spokespersons and 
writers such as 
Marcus 
Garvey, 
Eldridge 
Cleaver 
and 
Malcolm 
X. 
They 
linked 
Black 
consciousness 
and 
pride 
to 
a rejection of 
processes 
literally 
that 
mimicked whiteness 
(Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
205-6; 
Mercer, 
1994). 
As 
I 
have 
indicated 
in 
the 
Literature 
Review, 
Mercer 
and others 
have 
contested 
the 
notion 
of 
the 
'natural' 
Afro. 
Ronke 
Jolaoso 
of 
Black 
Beauty 
and 
Hair 
magazine 
confirms 
this 
on 
a pragmatic 
level: 
"Black 
hair 
is 
labour 
intensive; 
there 
is 
no 
way round 
it. 
I 
wore 
my 
hair 
naturalfor 
a while 
but 
lended 
up 
being 
ruled 
by 
it. 
Every 
night 
Ihad 
toplait 
it 
andput 
it 
under 
172 
25. 
Salon 
interiors 
and 
fashioning 
environments: 
'Cutz'. 
Fashioning 
extensions. 
Process 
of 
transformation. 
furnishings in 
Cutz. 
Rudimentary 
fashioning 
apparatus 
and 
If 
the 
political 
meaning, 
if 
not 
the 
origins 
of 
the 
Afro has been 
transparent, 
the 
adoption 
of 
this 
style 
by 
white, 
British 
working classes 
by 
the 
1970s has 
not 
been 
adequately 
accounted 
for. 
The 
unpredictability 
of such 
identifications, 
given 
the 
prevalence 
of racism 
is 
apparent 
in 
Pam's 
account 
of 
her 
white 
mother's 
adoption of 
the 
look 
in 
the 
mid 
1970s, 
one she 
stayed 
loyal 
to 
until 
the 
late 
1990s: 
AP: 
So 
are 
there 
any 
other 
memories 
that 
you 
have 
got 
of any 
hairdressing 
experiences 
or any 
particular 
hairdos 
that 
you 
felt 
strongly 
about 
or 
remembered 
being 
significant? 
Pam: 
Afro 
hair. 
Adele: 
Afro 
hair? 
Pam: 
I 
remember 
that. 
Adele: 
Wow, 
did 
you 
get an 
Afro 
hairdo? 
Pam: 
No, 
I 
didn't. [Laughter] 
Adele: 
Oh 
right. 
What impact 
did 
that 
have 
on 
you 
seeing 
those 
for 
the 
first 
time? 
Pam: 
I 
don't 
know, 
I 
was 
just 
- 
like 
it 
just 
didn't 
seem 
natural, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
can remember 
me mum 
had 
one and 
every 
time 
I 
think 
of 
it 
I 
kill 
myself 
[Laughter] 
Adele: 
So 
when 
was 
that? 
When did 
she 
get 
an 
Afro? 
Pam: 
I 
must 
have been 
about 
thirteen 
something 
when 
she 
got 
that 
done 
and stopped 
about 
two 
years 
ago 
or something. 
Adele: 
[ 
... 
] 
So 
why 
do 
you 
think 
she 
had 
an 
Afro 
perm? 
Kathy: 
It 
was probably 
the 
in 
thing 
at 
the 
time. 
Pam: 
Aye, 
I 
think 
it 
was 
the 
in 
thing 
at 
the 
time 
and 
it 
just bubbled, 
and 
she 
had 
really 
black 
hair 
and 
really 
pale 
skin 
[Laughter] 
it 
was 
just 
- 
when 
she came 
in 
the 
door 
and 
we 
had 
to 
look 
and 
look 
again, 
we 
said, 
"What 
have 
you 
done? 
" 
[Laughing] 
Adele: 
[ 
... 
j 
so 
your 
mum 
- 
was she quite 
courageous 
and 
experimental 
with 
a 
scarfand 
then 
go 
through 
having 
to 
style 
it 
all again 
in 
the 
morning. 
Wearing 
it 
straightened 
is 
a 
lot 
easier 
" 
(Jolaoso 
quoted 
in 
Lindsay, 
2003, 
p. 
4). 
173 
Pam: 
No, 
not really. 
Funny 
enough, 
no with 
make-up or anything 
like 
that 
you 
know. 
Adele: 
She 
must 
have just 
really wanted 
that 
Afro. [Laughter]" 
Black 
writers 
across genres 
have discussed 
the 
importance 
of 
hair 
cultures 
for 
African 
American, 
Afro-Caribbean 
and 
Black 
British 
culture. 
"' 
Rooks 
has 
explored 
the 
notion 
of 
'fugitive 
fashion' 
in 
this 
context, 
that 
is, 
a 
form 
of 
vernacular 
fashioning 
where 
"whiteness 
gets 
troubled' 
(Rooks, 
1997). 
102 
In 
recent 
years 
braided 
hair 
extensions 
have 
become 
extremely 
popular 
in 
British 
urban 
centres 
including Glasgow. 
This 
unequivocally 
Black hair 
fashioning 
is 
a 
dissident 
style 
worn 
by 
white, 
primarily 
young 
working-class 
women. 
This 
style 
is 
not 
one 
promoted 
in 
fashion 
magazines 
or 
by 
music 
or 
film 
star associations. 
Braided 
hair 
fashionings 
are 
frequently 
undertaken 
in 
homes 
and 
outlaw salons. 
"' 
Whilst 
performing 
the 
function 
for 
Maureen 
and 
Elizabeth 
in 
terms 
of 
offering 
the 
abundance 
and 
excessive 
femininity 
they 
desired, 
such 
fashionings 
defy 
any 
reductive 
meanings 
based 
on 
the 
politics 
of 
identity 
or consumption. 
100 
More 
recently 
the 
Afro 
has 
undergone a process of queering, 
post-modem 
and camp 
appropriation 
providing 
a 
ftirthcr 
'ironic' 
accessory 
for 
Black 
and 
white 
stars 
alike. 
In 
her 
article 
'Big 
Up' 
that 
charts 
the 
renaissance 
of 
the 
Afro, Zoe 
Richardson 
bracketed Beyonce 
Knowles 
spoof 
Afro 
donned by her 
in 
Goldmember, 
the 
stylist-approved 
chic 
Afro 
wig 
of 
Naomi 
Campbell 
and an endorsement 
of 
the 
birth 
of 
the 
Jew-fro 
as 
modelled 
by 
Justin 
Timberlake 
(Richardson, 
2002). 
"I 
For 
example, 
Zadie 
Smith 
had her 
protagonist undergo 
a 
Malcolm 
X-type hair-straightening 
trauma 
in 
her 
novel 
Ollie 
Teeth. 
Smith 
pathologises 
the 
process 
and emphasises 
the 
difference 
between 
white 
and 
Black 
salons 
and 
hairdressers: 
"Jackie 
and 
Denise 
[hairdressers 
at 
P. 
K's Afro Hair: Design 
and 
Management] 
having 
none of 
the 
obligations 
ofwhite 
hairdressers, 
no 
need 
to 
make 
lea 
or 
kiss 
arse, 
flatter 
or make conversation 
(for 
those 
were 
not customers 
they 
were 
dealing 
with 
but 
desperate 
wretchedpatients), 
would 
give 
a sceptical snort 
and 
whip offthe 
puke-green 
gown. 
'It's 
as straight as 
it 
ever 
going 
to 
be! 
(Smith, 
2001, 
p. 
275). 
1'2 
Rooks' 
work, 
first 
cited 
in 
'Fashioning 
Dusty' has 
offered 
a 
useful 
model 
for 
this 
research 
in her 
conceptual 
isation 
of 
fashioning 
dissidence, 
specifically, 
dissident 
hair. Rooks has 
discussed 
how 
young 
African 
American 
school 
girls' 
fashioning 
dissident 
com-rowed 
hair 
have had 
the 
capacity 
to 
trouble 
school 
staff 
to 
the 
extent 
that 
they 
were 
sent 
home 
(Rooks, 
1997). 
Rooks 
claims 
that 
in 
Afro- American 
culture 
the 
will 
to 
adom 
takes 
place 
in 
a context 
where 
Black 
bodies 
are 
embattled 
and 
where 
adornment 
is 
a 
'communal 
style'. 
Com-rows 
had 
been interpreted 
as 
a 
violation 
of school 
dress 
codes 
they 
had been 
viewed 
as 
disrupting the 
school context. 
As 
Rooks 
states 
"the 
acceptable 
hair 
identity 
was 
different 
"(ibid. 
). 
Whereas 
the 
white 
school 
administrators 
claimed never 
to 
have 
witnessed corn 
rowed 
hair, braiding in 
Afro-American 
culture, 
Rooks 
claims, 
is 
a 
$utopian 
moment', 
a 
closeness, 
'it 
is 
when 
you 
are 
loved'. 
In 
two 
further 
cases, 
two 
other 
girls 
were 
sent 
home 
as 
there 
was 
a 
correlation 
made 
between 
their 
hair 
and gang 
activity. 
Rooks has 
concluded 
that 
black 
hairstyles 
have 
meaning, 
"they 
righten 
white 
people 
" but 
that 
people 
have 
rights 
to 
self 
adornment. 
Francine, 
a 
hairdresser 
at 
'Cutz' 
had 
grown up 
in 
Botswana 
where 
her 
teacher 
had 
been 
a 
white 
missionary. 
She 
remembered: 
"She 
sent 
me 
homefor 
having 
corn-rowed 
hair but 
it 
was 
the 
oldest 
hairstyle. 
My 
mum 
had 
corn-rows, 
my grandma 
andeveryone 
". 
Asked 
why she 
thought 
she 
had 
been 
sent 
home 
she 
said 
that 
she 
thought 
they 
were 
thought 
of 
as 
'pagan'. 
My 
own memory 
work 
included 
an 
episode 
where 
A 
was 
called 
into 
the 
grammar 
school's 
headmaster's 
office 
on returning 
to 
school 
after 
the 
summer 
holidays 
to 
be 
told 
off 
about 
having 
hennaed 
hair, 
an 
occasion remembered 
in 
terms 
of 
issues 
of class 
conflict, 
in/justice, 
glamour, 
identification 
and 
dissidence. 
"i 
Only 
two 
salons 
in 
Glasgow 
specialise 
in 
Afro 
hairstylings. 
'Cutz' doubles 
up as 
a 
meeting 
place 
and social 
centre 
for 
many 
Black 
people. 
During 
my visit 
people came 
in 
for 
tea, 
chatted 
and 
left 
without 
any 
hairdressing 
business being 
undertaken. 
Francine, 
a 
hairdresser, 
was 
an architecture student who worked 
at 
the 
salon 
for 
nothing 
other 
than 
the 
social 
contact. 
White, 
Black 
and 
minority 
women 
were 
having 
their 
hair braided 
or 
styled 
at 
'Cutz' 
during 
my visit. 
The 
scale of 
hair 
braiding 
visible 
on 
the 
streets 
of 
Glasgow 
at 
the 
time 
of 
writing 
suggests 
that the 
majority 
of 
this 
is 
being 
undertaken 
in 
people's 
homes 
or 
makeshift 
salons 
and 
is 
advertised 
through 
word 
of 
mouth. 
In 2002, 
two 
young 
Black 
women 
were 
shot at 
a 
party 
in 
a similar 
salon 
in 
Aston, 
Birmingham. 
In 
an article 
following 
this 
event 
Emma 
Lindsay 
stated 
that: 
"unlike 
their 
while 
counterparts, 
black 
salons are 
afocalpointfor 
the 
community- 
Walkpast 
a 
black 
hairsalon 
on 
a 
Friday 
orSaturday 
nightandyou 
Wsee 
uJammed 
with 
customers 
until 
midnight" 
(Lindsay, 
2003: 
p. 
4). 
174 
YOU 
9 
SIXIIIN 
Now 
here 
is 
the 
first 
entry 
for 
your 
own 
personal 
Journal 
I 
Copy 
the 
quiz on 
this 
page 
into 
the 
first 
right-hand 
page of your 
Journal. 
Paste 
a 
photograph 
of 
yourself 
at 
the 
top 
of 
that 
page. 
This 
will 
be 
an 
interesting 
entry 
to 
look 
back 
on 
in 
the 
future, 
when you 
will 
probably 
have 
completed 
your 
Journal, 
and changed 
quite 
a 
bit 
yourself. 
In 
any case, 
don't fill in 
the 
questionnaire 
printed 
on 
this 
page 
of 
SIXTEEN. 
Other 
people 
may 
be 
using 
this 
copy after you-and 
they 
will 
not 
be 
very 
thrilled 
to 
read 
all about 
you 
I 
t- 
P- 
Your 
name 
. 
Your 
birth 
cl?tal?t- 
Height 
....... 
Weight 
Heir 
colour. 
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Ucrw*)k 
Eye 
colour 
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Us%L-T---TA 
.......... 
Complexion 
(Fair/Medium/Dark) 
11-1 
fi06- 
- 
... *, *... ,,, 
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* 
2. 
Do 
you 
regard 
YOuf"If 
80 
serious 
........................ 
Light-hearted 
................... 
Romantic 
...................... 
Aloof 
........................... 
3. 
Are 
you 
easily 
upset 
by 
Criticism 
....................... 
Teasing 
........................ 
Quarrels 
. 
\/ 
.................. 
4. How 
many 
close 
friends 
have 
you 
had 
so 
for 
in 
your 
life 7 
............ 
5. What do 
you 
regard 
09 
the 
two 
most essential 
qualities 
in 
a 
friend 
7 
Affection 
....................... 
Unselfishnewl*r 
................ 
Humour 
........................ 
Sociability 
...................... 
Good 
grooming 
V 
............ 
Intelligence 
..................... 
Dependability 
.................. 
Good dress 
sense 
................ 
6. 
On 
which 
of 
the 
following 
would 
you 
think 
It 
most 
worthwhile 
to 
spend 
El 7 
" 
now 
hairstyle 
..... 
V 
.......... 
" 
record 
........................ 
" 
coffee-bar 
meal 
for 
two 
........ 
Two 
seats 
for 
a 
now 
film 
.......... 
Paperback 
books 
............... 
7. 
Have 
you 
ever 
been 
alone 
for 
a 
whole 
day? 
Does 
the 
prospect 
appal 
you 
or 
intrigue 
you? 
...... 
................................ 
a. How 
many 
of 
the 
following 
would 
thrill 
you? 
Climbing 
a mountain 
Writing 
a poem 
... 
........ 
Becoming 
a pop 
singer 
.......... 
Making 
a 
dress 
....... 
V 
.......... 
9. 
Are 
any 
of 
then 
your 
ambitions? 
Becoming 
a 
ballet 
dancer 
......... 
Having 
a 
flat 
of your 
own 
......... 
Travelling 
abroad 
...... 
Ve 
......... 
Living in 
the 
country 
.... 
V., 
Having 
at 
least 
two 
children 
...... 
Making 
a 
lot 
of 
money 
.... 
V 
...... 
10. 
What do 
you 
think 
is 
the 
most 
important 
thing 
thft 
has he 
--o-w 
to 
you to 
far 
7. 
11. 
If 
you could 
change 
yourself 
in 
one 
way only, 
which would 
you 
choose 
to 
be 
Prettier Aw 
................. 
Cleverer-%e 
........ 
............. 
More 
confi?sni? 
Tailor 
....... 
................. 
Shorter 
........................ 
IL 
Which 
of 
the 
following 
do 
you 
think 
the 
most 
important 
in 
a 
husband 7 
Success 
in his job 
.... 
V 
......... 
Kindness 
............... 
e 
.......... 
Good 
looks 
..................... 
Helpf 
ulness 
in 
the 
house.. 
Y 
Thrift 
............... 
Devotion 
to 
you 
...... 
V* 
......... 
5 
26. 
'You 
at sixteen' 
quiz, 
filled 
in by 
reader 
Carolyn 
Paterson, in 
Sixteen 
annual, 
1967, 
page 
5.5 Political 
discourses 
of 
hair 
Complex 
knowledges, discourses 
of 
hair 
The 
insights 
of 
Mercer 
and 
Rooks, 
that 
hair 
has 
meaning 
beyond 
good/bad, 
are 
bome 
out 
in 
104 
the 
accounts 
of research participants 
. 
Michelle 
articulated 
in 
a 
self-deprecating 
way 
details, 
terms 
and 
descriptions 
for 
processes 
that 
were meaningful 
to 
her 
and 
her 
peer group 
and, 
on 
the 
basis 
of 
similarly 
rich 
accounts 
by 
older 
women 
participants, 
these 
could 
be 
seen 
as merely 
a 
contemporary 
contribution 
to 
an 
historical 
discourse: 
AP: 
What 
do 
you 
do 
when you're 
in 
front 
of 
the 
mirror? 
Are 
you 
just 
combing 
your 
hair 
or 
Michelle: 
Well, 
if 
I'm 
putting 
it 
up 
I'll 
have 
-I 
have 
got 
every 
hair 
product 
that's 
on 
the 
market 
so 
even 
if 
I'm 
going 
for 
the 
natural, 
just-got-out-of-bed 
look 
it's 
been 
manufactured 
to 
look like 
that. 
[Laughter] It'll 
take 
about 
half 
an 
hour. 
I'll 
have 
all 
my 
products 
and 
I know 
what ones 
I'm 
using, 
whether 
my 
hair's 
going 
to 
be 
curly 
or straight 
or up 
or 
down. 
[Laughter] 
It's 
a pure 
waste 
of 
time. 
It 
takes 
me 
ages 
doing 
it 
and 
then 
if 
I'm 
doing 
it 
straight 
- 
if 
I'm 
- 
well 
that's 
if 
it's 
a 
during-the-day hairdo, if 
it's 
a 
night 
hairdo 
it'll 
take 
me 
forever 
because 
I'll 
then 
have 
to 
use 
different 
products 
on 
my 
hair 
when 
it's 
wet 
and 
then 
when 
it's 
dry. 
I'll 
use 
different 
products 
and 
then 
I'll have 
to 
blow 
dry 
it 
and 
then 
have 
to 
take 
straightening 
irons 
over 
it 
to till 
it 
goes 
straight, 
so 
it 
takes 
me ages 
to 
do 
my 
hair 
if 
I'm 
going 
out and 
I 
hate doing 
it. [ 
... 
]I hate 
the 
process 
of sitting 
blow-drying 
it 
but 
once 
it's 
done 
I 
love 
it, 
I 
love 
my 
hair 
to 
look 
- 
and 
if 
I've 
got 
the 
mirrors 
that 
I 
can 
see right 
round. 
[Laughter]. 
'05 
At 
one 
point 
I 
confused 
streaks 
with 
highlights, 
a subtle 
distinction 
that 
even 
Michelle 
found 
difficult 
to 
articulate: 
Michelle: 
It's 
not 
streaks, 
you've 
got 
to 
know, 
its 
highlights, 
there's 
a 
big distinction 
between 
streaks 
and 
highlights. 
AP: 
And 
what 
was 
the 
distinction? 
"' 
Jackie, 
a 
white 
customer 
at 
'Cutz' 
said 
that 
Black hairstyles 
had 
looked 
to 
her 
like 
expressions 
of pride and 
that 
is 
why she 
had 
wanted one, 
and 
it 
was practical 
since 
she 
went surfing. 
105 
1 
asked 
Michelle, 
What 
sort of effort 
did 
you go 
to? 
Can 
you 
remember 
the 
sorts 
of 
things 
you 
did 
to 
create 
this 
construction 
of 
yourself 
at 
that 
particular 
time?: 
Michelle: 
Well, I 
made 
sure 
I didn't 
wear 
like 
those 
purpley, 
tassely 
skirt 
things, 
I had 
you 
know, 
like, 
kind 
of 
bright 
coloured 
bandanas 
and 
things 
in 
my 
hair, 
coloured 
beads 
[Laughter] 
but 
not 
grungy, not 
that 
dull, dirty, 
purple 
and 
black 
look 
it 
wasn't 
that 
at all. 
On 
several occasions 
my 
lack 
of 
finesse 
or 
knowledge in 
naming 
specific 
stylings was 
given 
a 
more 
refined, specific 
definition. 
Michelle: 
No 
it 
wasn't 
grungy 
though, 
it 
wasn't 
grunge, 
it 
was 
flower 
power 
clean 
with 
the 
emphasis 
on 
clean, 
it 
was 
like 
sixties 
hippy 
not a grungy 
hippy. 
AP: 
Right, 
ok. 
So 
you 
were- 
Michelle: I 
went 
to 
a 
lot 
of 
cffort 
to 
make 
sure 
I 
looked like 
a 
kind 
of 
sixties 
hippy 
and 
not 
this 
grungy 
hippy 
175 
Michelle: 
I don't 
know, it's just 
that 
highlights 
were 
highlights. 
Streaks 
were 
naff, 
streaks 
were 
like 
guys with short 
hair 
and white 
streaks 
and 
highlights 
were 
not naff. 
The 
specificity of 
looks 
was 
both 
co-authored 
and appreciated 
by her 
friends 
and 
her 
sister. 
Michelle: 
I 
mean, 
I 
liked it 
once 
it 
was 
done 
and 
I 
was probably 
the 
most particular 
about 
how 
it 
was 
done. 
I 
would 
take 
forever. 
I 
would 
be 
like 
that, 
"No, 
no, 
it, 
3 not 
right, 
touch 
this, 
change 
that 
". 
106 
She 
discussed 
the 
complexity 
of 
managing 
and 
justifying 
her 
will 
to 
adom 
whilst 
sustaining 
her 
feminist 
beliefs. 
This 
had 
intensified 
when 
she 
was 
performing 
as 
pan 
of a 
band. 
107 
The 
spectrum 
of skills, and 
technical 
knowledge 
in fashioning 
required of 
hairdressers 
was 
emphasised 
by Ettie: 
When 
I 
trained 
in 
the 
sixties 
it 
was 
two 
years 
improving, 
three 
years 
training, two 
years 
improving 
on what you 
had 
-a 
bit like 
[ 
... 
]a 
learner 
driver, 
after 
your 
three 
years 
that 
was 
you 
1'6 
Requesting 
more 
information 
on 
Michelle's 
conception 
of 
individual 
and collective 
notions of 
'rightness' I 
asked 
AP: 
[ 
... 
I 
what 
were 
you 
looking for, 
for it 
to 
be 
right? 
what sorts 
of 
things? 
How 
did 
you 
know 
when 
it 
was right? 
Michelle: 
My 
eyes 
would 
have 
to 
be 
exactly, 
like, 
equal, my 
lips 
would 
have 
to 
be 
perfect 
like 
symmetrical 
I 
suppose. 
AP. 
Right 
so 
symmetry 
and other 
things 
that 
meant 
the 
difference 
between 
it being 
right 
and not 
quite right? 
Michelle: 
If 
the 
colour 
didn't 
look 
right 
because 
my 
colour 
would 
have 
to 
match 
my 
outfit, 
which 
would 
have 
to 
match 
my 
shoes, would 
have 
to 
match 
my 
hair, 
everything. 
AP 
[ 
... 
] 
but 
do 
you 
think 
generally women who 
were 
gathering 
were 
looking 
for 
similar 
sort 
of 
effects 
or 
did 
they 
all 
have 
their 
own 
style 
that 
they 
were 
looking for? 
Michelle: 
Similar 
but 
their 
own 
style 
She 
detailed 
the 
mass 
of 
processes 
to 
be 
organised 
each weekend: 
Michelle: 
Legs, 
your 
arms, 
(both 
shaved] your 
eyebrows 
have 
to 
be 
plucked 
and 
then 
you 
hit 
the 
shower and 
then 
doing 
your 
hair, 
oh, at 
the 
same 
time 
going 
through 
all 
the 
outfits 
that 
you 
think 
you 
might 
be 
wearing as 
well 
[Laughter] 
doing 
your 
hair before 
you can 
do 
your 
makeup, 
you 
have 
to 
decide 
on your outfit 
in 
case your 
wearing 
like 
a 
kind 
of 
brown 
outfit 
then 
you 
can't 
wear grey 
make-up 
kind 
of 
thing, 
so you 
have 
to 
know 
what you're 
wearing 
so you can 
do 
your 
make-up, 
then 
getting 
your 
outfit getting 
your make-up, 
getting 
your 
shoes 
and 
ajacket 
and 
bag 
that 
you're 
taking 
with 
you and getting 
everything 
to 
match, 
trying 
on 
twenty 
different 
outfits. 
AP: 
- 
so 
when 
Sheila 
is 
ready 
to 
go 
she 
comes 
to 
your, 
your mug 
[Laughter] 
what procedure 
does 
she go 
through? 
Is 
it 
the 
same 
procedure 
each 
time? 
What 
does 
she 
do 
? 
Michelle: 
Yes, 
I'll 
do 
all my 
face 
make-up 
and 
then 
she, she 
just 
does 
my eye shadow 
so 
I'm 
all 
ready. 
AP: 
So 
what 
do 
you 
call 
your 
face 
make-up 
then? 
Michelle: 
Like 
my 
foundation 
and 
your 
powder 
and 
blusher 
and 
I've 
done 
my eyebrows, 
lipstick, 
everything except 
my 
mascara and 
everything 
except 
my 
eye 
shadow. 
Michelle's 
attention 
to 
detail 
in fashioning 
extended 
to 
her 
domestic 
space 
where 
she 
had 
once 
constructed 
a 
hippy 
interior 
with 
"all 
the 
incense 
sticks 
and 
all 
the 
stupid 
candles 
and 
bells 
". And 
later, 
when 
gravitating 
into 
her 
'clubby' 
and 
'trendy' looks 
respectively 
- 
Michelle: 
It 
was 
black. 
[Indecipherable] 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
Tell 
me 
what 
your 
room's 
like. 
Michelle: 
Minimalist. 
AP. 
Minimalist 
right. 
Michelle: 
Not 
a 
lot 
of 
stuff 
in 
it, 
very, very neat 
and 
tidy 
and 
quite 
trendy. 
10 
"Well, 
I 
was 
conscious 
of 
theJact that 
loads 
of 
disgusting 
guys come 
pure 
off 
on 
the 
Idea 
of 
some, 
like, 
young 
lassie 
playing 
the 
sarophone, 
so 
you 
always 
had 
to 
wear 
clothes 
that 
were not 
revealing or short or 
low 
cut. 
I 
always 
wore 
trousers 
and 
I 
always 
wore 
-I 
kind 
ofdressed 
down, I 
dressed 
up 
but I dressed down, 
Ifyou 
know 
what 
I 
mean. 
" 
Ann 
had 
also 
felt 
compelled 
to 
develop 
a 
knowledge 
of 
how 
to 
'dress 
up 
and 
dress 
down' 
-a 
form 
of 
negotiating 
femininity 
Ann: 
That's 
something 
that 
did 
used 
to 
really, 
really piss me off and 
I 
can remember 
the 
first business 
meeting 
-I 
was 
going 
into 
my 
new 
business 
with 
my 
business 
advisor who 
said, 
"Ohyou're 
a 
really good 
looking 
woman, 
that'll 
open 
doorsforyou 
" 
and 
I 
mean 
it 
took 
me 
all 
my 
strength 
to 
not 
walk 
out 
of 
the 
meeting 
there 
and 
then. 
There is 
a general 
attitude 
- 
[... ] but I 
would 
176 
qualified, 
but 
you 
were 
improving 
for 
two 
years 
and 
it 
was all across 
the 
board 
hairdressing, it 
wasn't 
just 
like 
they 
have 
got colour 
technicians 
now, 
penning 
technicians, 
fancy 
titles, 
we were 
everything, 
you 
had 
to 
get skilled 
from 
the 
baby 
right 
through to the 
grandmother, you 
had 
to 
be 
skilled 
in 
perming, 
tinting, 
cutting, everything, 
all aspects- 
She 
consistently 
conceptualised 
hairdressing 
as a creative 
rather 
than 
cosmetic 
act: 
"Ohhh, 
after 
the 
torture 
chambers 
it 
erupts 
into 
art. 
It 
was a 
design 
then, 
you were 
doing 
'up'styles 
that tookyou 
- 
it 
was a 
craft, 
you 
were 
threading 
inpearls 
and 
velvet and, you 
know, hair 
coming 
down, 
falsepieces, 
that's 
right 
and 
girls 
with 
long 
hair... 
" 
She 
acknowledged 
the 
complexity 
of a 
job 
where 
technical, 
artistic 
and 
interpersonal 
skills 
at very 
high levels 
were required: 
Some 
people 
are 
just lousy hairdressers, 
they 
canny 
do 
it, it's 
got 
to 
be 
in 
you, 
it's 
not 
-I 
think 
it's 
in 
your 
genes, 
artistic, 
and 
it 
shouldn't 
be 
undervalued 
[ 
... 
] 
It 
should 
be 
a 
treasured 
as any 
other, 
you 
know, 
it's 
a 
hands 
on 
thing. 
I 
had 
came 
from 
Garriethill 
Convent 
into 
the 
counting 
house 
and 
then 
into 
this 
job, 
our 
first 
clients 
queued up 
when 
we opened 
and 
they 
were 
prostitutes 
from 
the 
Polaris, Tattooed 
Lucy 
and very, 
I 
mean, 
terrific 
natured 
girls 
[ 
... 
] 
but 
that 
was 
a whole 
training, 
you'd 
have 
them 
in 
the 
morning, you would 
have STV 
stars coming 
from 
the 
studios, 
singers, 
I 
remember, 
I 
never 
was 
interested, 
they 
were 
rotten, 
well 
they 
weren't 
rotten, 
I 
shouldn't 
say 
that 
Babs... The Beverley Sisters, 
and 
groups 
like 
that 
... 
Maureen 
and 
Mrs 
Lochead 
discussed 
their 
experiences of specific 
discourses 
between 
customer 
and 
hairdresser, 
what 
Michelle 
referred 
to 
as 
knowledge 
required 
in 
order 
to 
achieve 
a 
satisfactory 
hairstyle. 
Maureen: 
I 
got 
a perm, 
I 
got 
two 
perms, 
I 
got one, 
I 
got 
one, 
I 
got a perm, 
and 
then 
got 
- 
it 
was 
like 
a spiral 
thing, 
but 
the 
spiral 
never 
took 
because 
my 
hair 
was 
too 
thick 
and 
I didn't 
want 
it 
cut, 
I 
just 
wanted 
it just 
all pure 
curly 
so 
it 
never 
took, 
so 
it 
wasnae 
anybody's 
fault 
and 
then 
I 
came 
back 
here 
and 
I 
got 
my perms 
fae here, 
so 
they 
do 
my perms 
for 
me 
sometimes 
I 
get, 
it's 
two 
they 
think 
so 
it's 
a 
twig, 
it's 
a 
twig 
plant 
they 
do 
and 
they think 
it's 
the 
twirls 
that 
are 
actually 
doing 
- 
so 
it's 
all 
curly, 
curly, 
curly, 
it's 
lovely 
once 
its 
all 
done. 
Mrs 
Lochead: 
Well 
today 
I'll 
just 
have 
the 
shampoo 
and 
set, 
I 
had 
a 
perm 
just 
about 
four 
weeks 
ago 
and 
in 
between, I 
have 
a perm 
every 
four 
months 
and 
in 
between 
I 
have 
my 
hair 
trimmed. 
She 
always 
gives you 
a good 
trim 
before 
the 
perm and 
that 
only 
lasts 
about 
six 
weeks, 
two 
months 
and 
so 
I 
have 
another 
trim. 
But 
every 
week 
I 
come 
I 
get shampoo 
and 
set. 
Some 
people 
probably 
tend 
to 
dress 
down 
not 
the 
way 
I 
would 
want 
to 
go 
to 
a 
serious 
business 
meeting now, 
because 
I 
want 
not 
to 
have 
any 
- 
too 
much 
of 
a pre-judgement 
against 
me. 
177 
get 
a 
blow dry, but 
I've 
always 
stuck 
to 
the 
smne, 
puts 
the 
rollers 
in 
and 
I 
always 
get 
a setting 
lotion. 
Sandy 
drew 
my attention 
to the 
fact 
that 
in 
the 
hairdressing industry 
the term 
'fashioned' 
itself 
was 
used 
as a synonym 
for 
complexity: 
"Yeah, 
and 
fashioned', 
you 
know, 
to 
mean 
a sort 
of, 
every 
bit 
ofit, 
you 
know, 
it's 
been 
done 
into 
aparticular 
style, 
you 
know, 
it's 
not 
been 
left 
to 
befree 
and 
everything 
hut 
a reallyfashioned 
hairdo, 
you 
know". 
Fashioning 
feminist 
hair 
By 
the 
1970s 
specific styles of 
short 
hair 
on 
women 
were 
associated 
with 
feminism 
and 
modernism. 
108 
Karen 
Durbin's 
Spare 
Rib 
cover 
story 
rehearsed 
a narrative 
of 
transformation, 
a 
'before 
and 
after' makeover. 
Before, 
Durbin 
was an 
archetype 
of 
the 
white, 
young, 
bourgeois 
'hairy 
generation'. 
She 
conflrmed what 
Elizabeth had 
intuited 
about 
bourgeois 
girls 
with 
abundant 
hair, 
they 
were muses 
for 
artists, 
109 
and 
"it 
was 
as 
ifwe 
were 
announcing 
our 
sexuality". 
Maintaining 
her 
natural 
look 
required 
signiflcant 
labour, 
her 
waist-length 
hair 
took 
"an hour 
to 
wash and 
brush 
and 
a 
ha?'-day 
to 
dry". 
Both 
style 
and signiflcation 
led her 
to 
doubt 
whether 
this 
hair 
was appropriate 
for 
a 
feminist: 
I 
was active 
in 
the 
women's 
movement 
and 
it 
always 
struck 
me 
as 
fi=y 
to 
go 
to 
a 
meeting 
and 
see 
all us 
activist women, 
in 
ourjeans 
and 
tee-shirts 
and 
sturdy 
boots, 
talking 
about 
the 
hassles 
of 
being 
sex objects, and 
yet with no 
more 
than 
one or 
two 
exceptions 
at every 
gathering 
we all 
had 
outrageous 
heads 
of 
hair. 
Impractical, 
inconvenient, 
downright 
counter-revolutionary. 
[ 
... 
] 
To 
be 
fair I 
don't 
think 
it 
was 
simply 
vanity. 
We 
were 
making 
a statement 
with 
all 
that 
hair. 
That 
we 
weren't nice girls any more. 
That 
we 
were 
wild 
and 
woolly 
and 
out of 
control. 
[After, 
the 
crop] 
It 
now 
looks 
properly 
boyish. 
It 
feels 
sexless 
to 
have 
so 
little 
hair. 
And defiant. 
As 
if I 
am 
thumbing 
my nose at 
the 
whole 
idea 
of 
trying 
to 
be 
sexy. 
[ 
... 
] 
Oh, but 
it 
does 
feel 
good. 
Parting 
with vanity. 
Short hair is 
easier 
to 
live 
with 
and 
it 
feels 
as 
natural 
as 
blue 
jeans 
and 
comfortable 
shoes. 
11 
O(Durbin, 
SR 
no 
18) 
"" 
In 
his 
article 
'The 
Boyish Look', 
Zdatny 
provides an 
illuminating 
analysis of 
the 
meanings 
of short 
hair 
for 
women 
when 
this 
look 
first 
achieved 
popularity 
in 
the 
1920s: "While 
women's 
hair 
became 
shorter 
[at 
the 
turn 
of 
the 
nineteenth/twentieth 
century) 
it 
did 
not 
become 
simpler 
or cheaper. 
Quite 
the 
contrary: cheveaux 
courts 
required 
constant 
attention 
andfrequent 
trips 
to 
the 
beautyparlour. Women 
consequently 
began 
to 
spend 
more and 
more money on 
their 
hair" 
(Zdatny, 
1997, 
p. 
376). 
Feminist 
magazines 
implicitly 
promoted 
this 
look, 
paradoxically 
suggesting 
that 
looks 
did 
and 
did 
not 
matter. 
'" 
The 
cover 
declared 
hair 
as 
"as 
apolitical and 
sexual 
symbol" 
Durbin 
modelled 
the 
feminist 
haircut 
a 
crop. 
In her'hairy' 
former 
life, 
Durbin's 
mane 
had 
been 'discovered' by 
a male 
photographer 
friend 
after 
which 
she 
posed 
for 
him. 
" 
Anxious 
to 
clarify 
her 
own 
sexual 
identity 
with 
the 
so-called 
sexlessness of 
the 
crop, 
Durbin 
noted: 
"Since 
lam human 
(and 
heterosexual) 
as 
wellasfeminist. 
Ican'tpretend 
it's 
not 
important 
to 
me 
to 
know 
that 
Ican 
attract men who 
attract 
me. 
I 
couldn't 
help 
wondering 
jf1 
would 
be 
sexless without myplumage. 
[But 
all 
is 
well 
after 
meeting 
a man at 
a party] 
He 
says 
Ilook 
like 
a pineapple when 
I 
wake 
up 
in 
the 
morning 
with my 
three 
inches 
ofhair 
standing 
up 
in 
spikes. 
But 
It's 
okay. 
Turns 
out 
he 
likespineapple 
" (Durbin, 
Spare 
Rib, 
no. 
18). 
178 
27. 
Cartoon, 
Wynnie 
Raine, 
Spare 
Rib, 
issue 
14, 
August, 
1973, 
page 
25. 
wo 
my 
?. 
/?w #, Is 
An 
10 caly 
to 
kp 
?m -- 
th- 
'I 
Caricature 
of 
Tammy 
Wynette in 
'Peroxide 
politics and 
the 
counter-revolution', 
Sue Tyrell, 
Spare 
Rib, 
issue 
42,1975, 
page 
45. 
4- 
'y?I ... 
Durbin's 
candid 
confessional, 
typical 
of 
Rib's 
editorial 
tone, 
is in 
contrast 
to the 
caricatures 
of 
dumb 
fashioning 
to 
excess used 
in 
Rib. 
In 
such representations, ostensibly 
objecting 
to the 
patriarchal 
control 
of 
women, 
Rib 
demonstrated 
an ambivalence 
itself 
concerning 
the 
sexualising 
of women 
who 
fashion 
femininity 
to 
excess. 
The 
blonde 
archetype of 
femininity features 
as comic 
device, 
and 
the 
scathing 
review 
of 
Tammy Wynette 
in 
1975 discussed 
earlier 
demonstrates 
Rib's 
conflation 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
with right wing politics 
again 
illustrated 
with a cartoon caricature. 
The 
rhetorical 
invocation 
of 
the 
evils 
of 
feminine 
excess and 
feminised, 
popular culture 
demonstrated 
the 
unconscious 
proximity 
of 
feminist 
positions 
to those 
of 
conservative 
patriarchy 
on 
these 
issues 
at 
a critical moment 
in 
second-wave 
British 
feminist 
politics. 
Feminist 
literature 
has 
subsequently 
offered 
little in 
the 
way 
of 
discussion 
about 
those 
women 
who 
resisted 
the 
feminist 
fashion 
imperative 
to 
have 
short, 
unfashioned 
hair, 
or comfortable 
shoes, or 
blue 
jeans 
outside 
more 
recent 
debates 
on so-called 
lipstick lesbianism 
and 
femme. 
Durbin's 
assumption 
endorsed 
by 
the 
SR 
collectives 
editorial 
stance 
that the 
purpose and/or consequence 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
was 
to 
attract 
men 
has 
rarely 
been 
challenged, 
and 
what 
of 
those 
women 
who 
took 
pleasure 
in 
the 
processes 
of 
fashioning 
their 
hair? 
The 
inference 
remained 
ambiguous. 
"' 
Given 
the 
proscriptiveness 
of much 
feminist 
rhetoric 
about 
fashioning 
to 
excess and 
the 
media's 
demonisation 
and 
caricaturing 
of 
feminists, 
the 
research participants' 
general obliviousness or 
lack 
of 
interest 
in 
either 
what 
feminists 
look/ed like 
or 
in fact 
what 
feminists 
might 
think 
or 
have 
thought 
about 
fashioning 
gave 
this 
project 
something of an 
unexpectedly 
ironic dimension: 
AP: 
But 
when 
I 
say 
the 
word 
feminist 
does 
an 
image 
pop 
into 
your 
head? 
Jane: 
Aye, 
well 
somebody 
thin, 
young. 
AP: 
And 
do 
you 
think there 
can 
be 
a 
feminist 
hairdo? [4 
second silence] 
[] 
Pam: 
Some 
people 
try to 
get 
their 
make-up 
to 
look 
natural, 
that's 
why 
I 
apply 
my own 
make-up 
because 
to 
try 
and 
make 
myself 
to 
look 
natural. 
Ellen, 
now 
in her forties, 
had 
both 
encountered 
and 
rejected stereotyped 
notions of 
feminists: 
. 
Terence between 
"'Durbin, 
growing 
up 
in 
the 
US 
in 
the 
1950s 
noted: 
"The 
Bad 
Boys 
and 
the 
Bad 
Girls 
had 
more 
hair[ 
... 
] 
The 
dif 
our 
styles 
[i. 
e. 
the 
hair 
of 
the 
middle-classes] 
was 
one of sex. 
Bad 
Boys 
and 
Bad 
Girls 
werefrankly 
sexy, 
with 
their 
greasy curls 
andftowsyflopping 
waves. 
We knew 
about 
them: they 
Did It 
at 
drive 
in 
movies, 
in 
parked 
cars. 
They 
were 
going 
to 
go 
blind 
some 
day, 
and 
they 
weren't 
going 
to 
be 
thefuture 
leaders 
of 
their 
country 
" (Durbin, 
1973). 
179 
I 
think 
I 
probably 
was aware 
of 
it 
at 
college 
and 
I 
think 
it 
was 
something 
I 
wasn't 
involved 
in 
[Laughter] 
I 
had 
too 
many other 
things 
going 
on 
and 
it 
just 
wasn't 
something 
I 
was 
going 
to 
be 
engaged with, 
but 
part 
of 
that 
really 
was 
to 
do 
with 
the 
fact 
that 
I 
usually 
got 
what 
I 
wanted 
anyway 
and 
I 
usually got 
it in 
a completely 
non-feminist 
way 
[Laughter] 
and 
I 
don't 
know 
whether 
that 
had 
to 
do 
with 
just 
being 
an only 
daughter 
or you 
know, 
at 
that time 
having 
the 
nice 
blonde 
hair 
and 
the 
gear 
and everything, so 
I 
just 
went ahead 
and 
got 
on 
with 
it 
and 
never 
really 
thought, 
but 
then 
I 
would 
never 
have let 
anybody 
treat 
me 
badly 
or 
mistreat 
me 
in 
any 
way 
because 
I 
just, 
you 
know 
-[... 
]I 
think 
all 
that 
burning 
your 
bra 
stuff, 
I 
certainly 
got 
the 
tail 
end 
of 
that, 
but 
to 
me 
that 
was, 
like, 
that 
was 
just like fun 
you 
know, 
I didn't 
actually 
understand 
the 
symbolism 
behind 
it 
at 
all, 
just, 
I 
don't 
think 
I 
was sophisticated 
enough, 
I 
don't 
think 
a 
lot 
of 
young 
women 
were sophisticated 
enough 
to 
understand 
and 
I 
think 
maybe 
if 
your 
life 
was 
running 
along 
a 
different 
line, 
AP: But 
do 
you 
remember 
feeling 
like, 
aware 
of 
feminist 
fashioning? 
Did 
you 
associate 
a 
certain 
look 
with 
feminists? 
Ellen: 
No, 
no, 
I don't 
think 
so. 
I 
don't, 
I 
don't, 
I 
think 
later 
on, 
when 
you've got 
that 
very 
kind 
of 
bad 
press 
where, 
oh 
yeah, 
it's 
all 
women 
with 
moustaches 
and 
they 
have 
obviously 
got some 
sort 
of 
gripe 
but 
certainly 
not at 
twenty, 
I 
mean, 
I 
didn't 
even 
know 
what a 
blooming 
lesbian 
was 
at 
twenty. 
[Laughter] 
Ettie's 
critiques of 
feminism 
were 
perceived 
as 
set against 
both 
her 
socialism 
and 
her 
Catholicism: 
That's 
what 
annoys 
me about 
women 
nowadays, 
this 
feminist 
kind 
of equality 
thing, 
at 
the 
end 
of 
the 
day 
what are 
they 
paying 
their 
minders? 
What 
are 
they 
paying 
their 
hairdressers? 
Where 
is 
the 
equality 
and 
these 
women 
wouldn't 
even 
clean 
their 
own 
toilet 
and 
I 
think, 
crisis 
to them 
is breaking 
a 
nail, all 
the 
glamour 
is 
on 
the 
outside 
when 
the 
inside 
stinks. 
[ 
... 
] 
It's 
terrible 
when 
you say 
feminist 
to 
me, or 
I 
hear 
the 
word 
feminist, 
not 
just 
when you 
say 
it 
to 
me, 
I 
always 
think 
it's 
a very aggressive 
women 
that's 
got 
a chip 
on 
her 
shoulder, 
that's 
not 
had 
a 
good 
relationship 
with 
her 
father, 
that's 
why 
fathers 
are 
so 
important 
or 
men, 
who's probably 
been 
delivered 
the 
wrong 
recipe, anyway 
I 
feel 
a 
bit 
sorry 
for 
them 
and a 
bit 
angry at 
what's 
been 
done 
through 
feminism. 
I 
always 
thought 
feminists 
wear 
boots 
and 
I 
love 
boots, 
I've 
got 
a 
big 
pair of 
boots 
in 
the 
house. 
However, 
for 
the 
self-identified 
feminist 
participants 
their 
past or current 
will 
to 
adom, 
their 
pleasures 
in 
transformation 
and 
fashioning 
to 
excess 
were 
understood as 
in 
conflict with 
feminism. 
This 
ambivalence 
featured 
throughout 
Michelle's 
account: 
"Once 
I've 
done 
it, 
done 
my 
hair 
and 
done 
180 
my 
make-up 
and 
I 
think 
it 
looks 
nice, and 
I 
think 
it 
looks 
nice and 
I'm 
glad 
I've 
done 
it, 
but 
I 
still 
think 
it's 
a waste 
of 
time, 
aye 
". 
112 
She 
was 
the 
only participant 
who 
denied 
ever 
having identified 
with a 
style, 
fashion 
or 
star as 
a 
young person: 
I 
didn't 
recall 
having 
any 
kind 
of awareness 
of 
what 
other 
people 
were 
dressing 
like 
or 
looking 
like 
other 
than 
my sister 
just 
to torment 
her, 
so 
- 
but 
we 
didn't 
like 
read 
the 
magazines 
or spend 
it 
with 
hair 
or make-up, 
we 
wasn't allowed 
to 
use 
it 
- 
not 
that 
I 
wasn't allowed, 
I 
wasn't 
interested 
in it 
and 
I 
don't 
really remember 
-I 
didn't feel 
left 
out 
because 
of 
it. 
I 
don't 
think 
it 
was 
anything 
-I 
don't 
think 
it 
was anything 
that 
any of us 
were 
really 
interested 
in. 
113 
However, 
Michelle 
identified 
at 
least 
to 
a significant 
degree 
with 
feminists. 
Her 
account 
provided 
a useful 
model of 
the 
conceptualisation 
of 
feminist 
style 
as a 
fashion 
antithesis, 
the 
perception 
of 
not 
doing 
something. 
Her 
memory 
of 
feminists 
fashioning 
is 
of a 
barely 
registered uniformity, 
the 
ubiquity 
of 
denim 
and sensible shoes, 
as 
in 
Durbin's 
account above: 
AP: 
Do 
you 
think 
or 
did 
you 
think 
there 
was 
a sort of 
feminist 
hairdo? 
Michelle: 
No. Well I 
didn't 
really 
think there 
was a 
feminist 
hairdo, but I'd 
thought 
there 
was a 
feminist-hair-not-to-do, 
which 
involved 
hairspray, 
and 
flouncy 
[gestures 'big 
hair'] 
I 
suppose. 
AP: 
Right, 
ok, 
I 
mean you've 
just 
sort 
of gestured 
something 
like, 
I 
don't 
know 
what 
- 
"I 
Michelle 
articulated 
how her feminist 
and 
socialist 
consciousness 
intervened 
at a 
point when 
she attempted 
tojustify 
her 
pleasures 
in 
fashioning: 
Michelle: 
I 
mean, 
I 
don't 
think 
anybody 
really escapes 
fashion, 
even 
people who 
think 
they 
arc 
opting 
out 
because 
they 
have 
got 
a specific 
look 
as 
well 
[ 
... 
] 
And 
the thing 
is 
why should 
you? 
You know, 
why shouldn't 
you 
take 
pleasure 
in 
preening and 
wearing 
nice 
clothes, 
I 
mean, 
obviously 
the 
money aspect 
comes 
into it 
and 
that's 
when 
I 
think, 
Oh 
wait a wee 
minute, 
you 
know, it 
is 
about 
money, 
you need money 
to 
look 
good. 
113 
This 
somewhat 
unconvincing 
notion 
of a 
dissociation 
from fashioning 
echoes comments 
by 
Claire 
when she 
implied 
that 
fashion happened 
to 
other 
girls. 
In her 
memories 
of 
her 
mother's 
perpetual shaggy 
perm, 
Michelle 
suggested 
that 
her 
mother 
had 
avoided 
the 
pitfalls 
of 
a 
fashion 
dependency. 
"' 
Michelle: 
-I 
don't 
know 
where 
I first 
heard 
of 
it 
[feminism] 
but 
I know 
all my 
family 
were 
politically 
active. 
My 
mum was a 
feminist, 
her 
friends 
are 
feminists 
so 
I 
must 
have 
been, it 
must 
have 
been 
spoken of, 
but I don't 
know 
when 
- 
but 
I 
know 
in 
secondary 
school 
I 
used 
to 
call 
myself 
a 
feminist 
and 
I 
was always 
talking 
feminist 
politics, 
however 
simplistic 
it 
was 
then, 
but 
I 
was 
politically 
active 
at 
a young, young, young 
age and 
as early 
as 
that 
I 
was 
a 
feminist. 
AP: And 
did 
you 
have 
any conception of 
feminist 
views on 
fashioning? 
Michelle: 
Well, 
when 
I first 
started 
the 
make-up 
thing 
and 
I 
thought 
mmm, 
this 
isn't 
feminist 
to 
be 
wearing make-up. 
AP: 
Where 
did 
you 
pick 
that 
up? 
Michelle: 
Probablyjust 
a stereotypes 
that 
are out 
there 
about what 
a 
feminist 
is 
or a 
feministAesbian/ 
untrendy 
- 
or 
a 
particular 
look 
which 
wasn't 
make-up. 
So 
then, 
when 
I 
got 
into 
the 
hippy 
dippy 
stuff 
I'd 
never 
like 
shave 
my 
legs 
or anything 
like 
that 
and 
when 
I 
was 
in 
to the 
hippy 
thing 
I 
used 
to 
make a 
big 
deal 
of 
the 
fact 
that 
1,1 
sort of, 
was 
thinking about 
- 
never shaved 
my 
legs 
and 
I 
didn't 
shave 
my 
arms and 
I didn't 
wear make-up. 
AP: 
So 
did 
you 
feel 
like 
more able 
to 
square 
with 
this 
feminist 
thing 
when you 
were 
fashioning 
yourself 
in 
a certain way? 
Michelle: 
It 
kind 
of 
validated 
my politics, 
the 
way 
I 
was 
looking 
[ 
... 
I 
And 
I 
made a 
big deal 
about 
the 
way 
I 
was 
looking. 
AP. Righ4 
even 
though 
you 
are 
saying 
that 
you were probably 
spending as 
much 
time 
-? 
Michelle: 
I 
wasn'L 
well, 
aye 
I 
was 
actually, 
for 
my 
clothes 
not 
so 
much 
for 
my 
hair but 
the 
clothes 
aye, 
I 
was. 
AP: 
Do 
you 
remember 
- 
if 
you are 
saying 
your 
mum and 
her 
pals 
were all 
feminist 
did 
you 
identify 
feminism 
with 
the 
way 
that they 
looked? 
Michelle: 
I don't 
know 
because 
everybody 
looked 
like 
thaL 
like, 
I 
remember 
things 
like 
going 
to 
like 
Faslane 
[Peace 
camp] 
and 
stuff and 
all 
the 
demonstrations 
we used 
to 
go 
on 
but 
everybody 
looked 
the 
same 
it 
was all 
likejeans 
and 
flat 
shoes and 
denim 
jackets, 
everybodyjust 
looked 
the 
same 
so 
- 
181 
Michelle: 
Farrah Fawcett 
flick. [Laughter]"5 
Michelle, 
active 
in 
women's 
organisations 
had 
perceived negative 
comments 
and criticism 
from 
feminists 
about 
her fashioning. 
' 
16 
1 
asked 
AP: 
[ 
... 
] 
Did 
you 
at 
the time 
feel 
that 
they 
had 
somehow 
escaped 
this, 
sort of, not an 
industry, 
socialisation 
of 
fashion? 
Michelle: 
No I 
didn't because 
they 
had 
made a 
lot 
of 
them 
make 
a 
conscious 
effort not 
to 
be 
seen 
to 
be 
part 
of 
the 
fashion 
industry, 
but 
at 
the 
same 
time 
displaying 
a 
distinct fashion look. 
Sandy 
recounted 
consciously 
thinking 
she 
should change 
her 
appearance, a stylisation 
that 
was 
based 
on 
'less' 
and 
masculinisation, when 
she 
first began 
to 
mix with 
feminists: 
"'i 
Responding to 
the 
question of whether 
there 
was still 
a 
feminist 
view on 
fashioning 
Michelle 
returned 
to the 
conflicted 
argument 
mode 
where 
she 
saw 
feminist 
theory 
on 
fashioning 
as a grand 
political 
narrative and 
her 
own 
decision 
to 
fashion 
as a personal/political 
battleground: 
Michelle: 
Well, 
I 
don't 
I 
think there 
is. 
I 
think 
some, maybe 
on a 
personal 
level, 
for 
some 
feminists, 
well not 
on a 
personal 
level, 
on a 
political 
level, 
some 
feminists don't 
think 
- 
see, 
I 
mean, 
I have 
a 
bit 
of a problem with 
this 
because 
I do 
think 
we are 
buying 
into 
this 
whole 
fashion 
culture 
and 
it is, 
you 
know, 
contriving 
an 
image 
of 
women 
that 
is 
not 
in 
the 
image 
of 
women 
it's 
a 
contrived 
- 
you're 
spending 
money 
on 
it, 
you're going 
through, 
you 
know, 
like 
links 
to 
anorexia 
and all 
that 
and 
how 
young girls 
are 
becoming 
more 
kind 
of 
sexualised 
in 
their 
image 
and 
being 
more 
aware of 
fashion 
at a younger age so 
I find 
there 
is 
a valid 
feminist 
argument, which 
I do 
agree 
with, 
that 
you 
know, 
it's 
not 
- 
really 
why 
bother 
you 
know? 
Why 
waste 
all 
this 
money 
and 
why 
paint your 
face 
and 
do 
your 
hair? 
But 
then 
the 
other 
part 
of me 
thinks, 
well 
a 
feminist 
means you're 
liberated 
to 
do 
what 
you want 
to 
do 
and 
if 
I 
want 
to 
put make-up 
on 
and 
do 
my 
hair 
then 
I 
should. 
It's 
me 
that's 
wasting 
time 
and 
me 
that's 
wasting money, 
but 
that's 
too 
simplistic 
because I 
know 
the 
industry 
you 
know, 
this 
male 
industry 
that's 
just 
manipulating 
women. 
She 
articulated 
her 
understanding 
that 
her 
pleasures 
in fashioning 
were 
contradictory 
to 
feminism, 
but 
maintained a stance 
against 
notions 
of 
self-objectification. 
AP: 
[ 
... 
I 
When 
you 
are 
talking 
about all 
this 
fashioning, 
who 
are you 
doing 
it for? 
Who have 
you 
been doing it 
for? 
Michelle: 
Me 
number 
one, and 
then the 
second 
lot is 
my 
friends 
because 
we 
know, 
you 
know, 
whereas 
other 
people 
like, 
maybe 
they 
are 
not 
into 
fashion 
can't 
really, you 
know, 
wouldn't really 
-I 
mean 
obviously 
if 
you 
look 
nice 
you 
like 
nice, 
but 
we 
know 
what's 
like 
- 
what's 
in 
and what 
isn't in 
-[... 
JI don't 
think 
any 
of 
the 
men 
or 
boys 
were 
that 
clued 
up on 
it 
so 
it 
wasn't 
their 
- 
it 
didn't 
really 
need 
to 
get 
their 
kind 
of validation 
because 
they 
didn't 
know 
what 
they 
were 
talking 
about 
in 
the 
first 
place whereas 
my 
pals 
did. 
[ 
... 
]I 
think 
a 
lot 
of 
women 
dress 
for 
themselves 
and 
a 
lot 
of 
men 
think 
that they 
are 
dressing for 
them. 
I 
mean, 
talking 
about 
the 
pleasure 
thing. 
I 
get 
pleasure 
from 
my 
female 
friends 
saying 
to 
me, 
"nere 
didyou 
get 
that? 
"[... ] 
That's 
the 
big 
thing, 
that 
we 
all 
talk 
to 
each other and 
that's 
where you 
get 
the 
pleasure, 
because 
you 
are 
talking 
to 
people who 
know 
about 
it. It's 
better 
than, 
you 
know, 
strangers or 
guys coming up. 
[ 
... 
] 
The 
other 
thing that, 
just 
for 
future, 
1, I'm 
really aware 
how 
women 
have 
to 
dress 
depending 
on 
their 
circumstances, of where 
they 
are 
going 
and 
the 
way 
that 
other people react 
to 
you when 
you 
dress 
in 
a particular 
way 
and 
it 
really, really, 
really 
pisses me 
off. 
[ 
... 
I 
Like, 
particularly 
like, 
see 
like 
clubby stuff, 
I 
mean, 
a 
lot 
of young 
women 
go 
out 
in 
short skirts 
or 
low 
cut 
tops 
and you 
see all 
these 
disgusting 
guys 
slobbering 
all over 
them 
and 
it 
really 
annoys 
me. 
[ 
... 
] 
And 
that's 
what pisses 
me off about 
the 
men 
that 
are 
involved 
in 
the 
fashion 
industry because 
of 
their 
stuff 
is 
really 
anti-womcn, 
the 
clothes 
that 
they 
put 
out 
there, 
its 
so sexualised 
and 
revealing 
and 
the 
Vivienne Westwood 
-I 
don't 
know 
where 
she 
gets 
her ideas from. 
Her 
stuff s 
really 
offensive. 
Although 
conceding 
a 
devotion 
to 
Posh 
Spice, Michelle 
was also 
critical of 
the 
impact 
of 
music 
culture: 
"Because 
with 
things 
like, 
like 
thexi 
saints 
and 
they're 
meant 
to 
he 
like, 
more 
kind 
ofwomen-orientated 
hecause 
they 
don't 
wear 
high 
heels 
andstiff, 
hut 
then 
you 
think 
they 
arejust as much, 
it's 
a 
different 
style 
hut 
they 
are 
stillpawns, 
I 
mean, 
they 
are 
all 
still 
wearing 
lahelled 
fear 
and 
expensive 
clothing 
and 
their 
hairs 
all styled 
6 
16 
Michelle: 
There 
used 
to 
be 
comments made 
and 
I 
don't know 
if it 
was 
me, 
knowing 
that 
I 
was 
the 
only one 
that 
was 
into 
make-up, 
being 
on 
the 
defensive before 
anything was 
actually said, 
so 
when 
a 
comment was 
made 
it 
wasn't 
like 
an overt 
kind 
of 
- 
it 
wasn't 
cheeky 
or, 
or, 
it 
wasn't 
cheeky, 
but I 
took 
it 
that there 
was a 
wee 
underlying 
dig 
there. 
[ 
... 
]Comments 
were 
made 
more 
than 
once 
it 
wasn't 
I 
mean, 
I 
don't 
know 
whether 
it 
was me 
taking 
the 
defensive because 
I 
was 
feeling 
as 
though, 
at some 
point 
I 
was 
going 
to 
have 
to, 
it 
was 
an 
issue, 
kind 
of, 
not 
an 
issue, 
but 
you 
know, 
aye, 
it 
was 
an 
issue, 
aye, 
it 
was 
an 
issue 
and 
that 
annoyed 
me so 
1,1 
thought, 
oh, 
it 
annoyed 
me 
because 
you 
think, 
but 
at 
the 
same 
time 
I 
was 
on 
the 
defensive 
because I'm 
not 
quite 
reconciled 
I 
suppose 
within 
myself 
as 
well. 
[... ] 
I 
still 
think, 
why 
are women 
doing 
this? 
You 
know, 
why 
do 
you 
spend all 
this 
money, 
all 
this 
time? 
You 
know, 
and 
notjust 
on a personal 
level but 
the 
wider 
level, 
kids, 
just 
look 
at 
the 
way 
they 
are 
dressing 
and stuff 
and 
you 
think, 
Oh 
God. 
[ 
... 
II 
couldn't 
tell 
you 
a 
particular 
comment 
it 
was 
just 
along 
the 
lines 
of, 
"Oh 
look 
at 
you with 
allyour 
make-up, 
and 
look 
at us 
". 
I 
mean 
I 
was 
different 
because 
I had 
the 
make-up. 
182 
I 
remember 
thinking 
that 
I 
would 
wear 
less 
make-up 
and 
stuff 
that, 
you 
know 
and 
that 
I 
wasn't 
sure 
if 
it 
was right 
to 
be 
wearing make-up you 
know 
and 
that, 
sort of really making 
it, 
my make. 
up, 
sort 
of 
basic 
you 
know 
something 
that 
was sort of 
like, 
well, 
this 
is how 
I 
want, 
I 
want 
these 
things 
on 
but 
you 
know, 
it's 
got 
to 
be less 
and everything and 
having 
my 
hair 
cut 
actually and 
making 
it 
probably 
a 
bit 
more 
boyish 
you 
know, but 
I 
mean 
I 
was 
quite old 
then 
really 
you 
know I 
was, 
I 
suppose, 
when 
I 
talk 
about 
that, 
that 
was 
probably 
when 
I 
was way 
into 
my 
twenties 
and 
that 
was 
the 
age 
that 
I 
was at 
before 
there 
was a really 
big 
sort of 
feminist 
influence 
in 
my 
life but 
prior 
to 
that 
when 
I 
was 
less 
conscious 
of 
it, 
it 
was 
probably a subtle 
you 
know, 
changing 
process where 
I 
probably 
wasn't 
that 
aware 
that 
I 
was 
doing 
things 
a 
bit 
differently, 
you 
know 
and 
I 
sort of 
wore 
trousers 
more and 
stuff 
like 
that 
but 
certainly 
the 
feminist 
kind 
of 
time 
in 
my 
life 
was 
very 
tied 
up with my 
lesbianism 
as well and 
it 
was all 
it 
was 
the 
whole 
package of 
becoming 
a 
feminist 
lesbian 
and sort 
of altering my 
appearance 
in 
relation 
to 
that. 
AP: 
[ 
... 
] 
Why 
do 
you 
think 
you changed? 
Sandy: 
I 
remember, 
I 
mean 
I'm 
going way 
back, 
but 
probably 
the 
first feminist 
that 
I 
ever read 
was 
Burning 
Questions, 
I 
don't know if 
you 
remember, 
Alix 
Kate Schulman 
and 
I 
remember 
then 
that 
sort of, 
kind 
of affected 
me and 
I 
thought 
yeah, 
but 
you 
know 
they 
are 
doing 
that 
and 
so on 
and 
what about 
me making choices and 
things, 
but 
that 
was a positive 
experience, 
but 
I 
do 
remember 
that 
when 
I 
sort of got onto 
the 
scene 
with more 
middle-class, 
middle-class 
women 
really 
I 
remember 
feeling 
guilty 
about 
my 
appearance 
[ 
... 
] 
Feeling 
that 
I 
shouldn't 
wear 
make- 
up 
and 
I 
shouldn't 
look... 
and 
I 
remember 
women 
saying 
to 
me 
things 
like 
you 
know, 
"Wellyou 
wear 
make-upfor 
men. 
" 
and 
I 
remember saying 
and 
saying 
it 
and 
hanging 
onto 
it 
that, 
"No, 
I 
wear 
make-upfor 
mysetr' 
and 
if 
I 
wear 
make-up 
for 
anyone 
besides 
myself 
it's 
other 
women 
it's 
never 
been 
men, 
in 
my 
life 
you 
know 
when 
I 
was 
a straight 
woman 
I 
never, ever, 
I 
don't 
think 
there 
was ever a 
thought 
of 
I'm 
putting 
my 
make-up 
on 
what 
will 
a 
man 
think 
of 
me? 
It 
was, 
what 
will other women 
think 
about 
how 
I 
look? You know 
enjoying 
it 
-I 
absolutely 
enjoy 
- 
I've 
always 
enjoyed... 
AP: 
[ 
... 
] 
you were 
saying 
that 
you 
felt 
guilty, 
but 
also 
do 
you 
think 
that 
there 
were 
taste 
issues for 
example 
or 
class 
issues? 
Sandy: 
That's 
an 
interesting 
one, 
I 
think, 
for 
me personally 
I 
think 
I 
was 
very affected 
by 
what 
I 
picked 
up 
around me you 
know, 
feminist 
and 
class 
things 
at 
that 
time 
in 
my 
life 
and 
that 
how 
I 
looked 
was 
a compromise 
between 
what 
I 
wanted 
and 
liked 
and 
what 
pleasured 
me and what 
I 
thought 
other people would, 
you 
know, 
how 
I 
would 
fit in 
with, 
yeah. 
183 
Noting 
the 
irony, 
Sandy 
suggested, 
based 
on 
her 
experience 
of salons: 
It 
was a place 
for 
women 
to 
come 
together 
in 
a 
very 
feminist 
way and 
I 
mean, 
I 
can't 
imagine 
anyone 
sort 
of 
thinking, 
"Oh, 
you 
know, 
let's 
sort of 
do 
a 
play or something 
about 
ferninism" 
and 
basing 
it in 
a 
hairdressing 
salon 
or something 
you 
know, 
but it 
was, 
because 
it 
was all about 
women 
going 
into 
the 
salon 
and calling 
their 
husbands, 
you 
know" 
[Laughter]. 
Many 
women 
articulated 
a 
rogue 
form 
of 
feminism. 
' 17 
Ettie 
claimed 
a 
brand 
of 
feminism 
that 
she 
could 
endorse, 
but 
perceived 
that this 
had 
been 
appropriated 
and/or 
excluded. 
"' 
Some 
participants 
like Ann, 
had 
un/consciously 
implemented 
feminist 
strategies 
in 
salon 
and 
beauty 
course 
contexts. 
It's 
the 
communication 
and working 
with 
so 
many 
different 
people 
and also 
that 
support 
thing, 
and realising 
that 
it's 
not about 
competition, 
I 
mean 
that's 
the 
sort of 
thing 
I 
actively 
discourage 
in 
the 
class, 
in 
a 
teaching 
class 
there 
is 
no competition 
here, 
you 
know 
you can't 
sort of give 
up 
in 
the 
team 
thing, 
if 
somebody 
was 
late 
because 
they 
had 
to 
pick 
their 
children 
up or something 
like 
that, 
then 
you get 
their 
place 
set 
up and 
you get 
organised 
for 
them 
and 
they'll 
do it for 
you 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
That's 
much 
more 
important 
than 
being 
at 
the top 
of 
the 
class 
which 
was 
the 
way 
it 
was 
when 
I 
was at 
school. 
in 
speciflc 
discussions 
about 
feminism 
and 
fashioning 
participants 
suggested 
that this 
was a 
vexed 
territory. 
For 
participants who 
had 
taken 
pleasures 
in 
the 
fashioning 
of 
themselves 
and others a 
movement 
into 
feminism 
entailed either a 
reluctant 
relinquishing 
of such pleasures 
to 
fit 
it 
and/or 
sustaining 
a conflicted 
and 
embattled 
relationship 
with 
feminism. 
"' 
For 
most, 
feminism 
remained 
an 
Whilst 
all 
but Michelle 
and 
Clairc 
regarded 
feminists 
as 
'they'. 
"They've 
takenfeminism 
and moulded 
it 
to 
suit 
them. 
f 
... 
II 
mean 
your 
grandmother 
would 
have 
been 
very 
like 
my 
grandmother, 
a powerful 
woman. 
I've 
never 
had 
a 
problem. 
I've 
never everfelt 
tyrannised 
by 
men 
because 
I 
always 
let 
them 
knowfirst 
ofall, 
I 
value me, 
[ 
... 
I 
What 
annoys me 
is 
that 
it's 
a country 
that 
allowed 
Page 
Three, 
Madonna 
was on 
the 
other 
night, 
they 
are 
showing 
the 
Opium 
advert 
with 
her 
naked 
breasts 
andyetyou 
werefrowned upon 
ifyou 
breastfed 
inpublic, 
you 
would 
befrowned 
upon, 
you'd 
he 
told, 
"Why 
don'tyou 
go 
to 
toilet 
and 
do 
that. 
" 
and 
I 
wouldjust 
say, 
'Well, 
why 
don'tyou 
take 
your 
dinner 
into 
the 
toilet 
andyou eatyour 
dinner 
in 
the 
toilet, 
I'm 
notfeeding a 
bahy 
Ina 
toilet. 
'and I 
would 
do 
it 
discreetly, 
I 
mean, 
I 
couldjeed 
a 
baby like 
you 
know, 
the 
baby 
would 
he 
under 
there, 
so 
that 
is 
what 
annoys 
me 
about 
this, 
it's 
acceptable 
as 
a 
titillating 
thing 
to 
use 
[Laughter] how 
very graphic, 
titillating 
thing, 
but 
not acceptable as 
a 
natural 
born 
thing, 
so 
that's 
the 
kind 
of, 
I 
always 
get 
annoyed 
at 
that 
kind 
of stuff, 
feminism, 
I 
think 
of 
truefeminists 
and 
I 
would 
say 
]probably 
am 
a 
true 
feminist 
that 
wants 
rightsfor women at 
home ". 
Ettie 
was also 
aware 
of 
issues 
of sexism 
in her 
own 
and other 
gendercd 
fields: 
Ettic: 
Oh 
yes, 
I 
think 
there's 
more now, 
a 
lot 
of women, 
but 
I 
still 
don't 
think 
they 
are as 
celebrated 
as men. 
if 
you 
look 
on 
the 
television 
and 
such 
and 
such 
a 
hairdo 
they 
bring 
in, 
it's 
nearly 
always 
a 
guy 
and 
he 
could 
do 
anything, 
he 
could urinate on 
the 
hair 
and stick 
a 
-[Laughter] 
[ 
... 
] 
Just 
like 
chefs, 
the 
master chefs 
if 
it 
- 
AP: 
- 
if 
you 
were 
doing 
it in 
the 
home. 
[Laughter] 
Ettie: Domestic 
engineering. 
[Laughter] 
"' 
It 
must 
be 
said 
that 
Michelle did, 
as 
a 
feminist, 
consciously 
reject 
feminist 
'taste'. 
184 
irrelevance 
or 
awareness 
of 
feminist 
fashioning 
was 
known 
only 
as a vestigial, 
half-memory 
of media 
caricatures. 
120 
Class 
In 
both 
the 
popular 
press 
where 
the 
'bimbo' 
and 
the 
'slapper' 
are a cheap, 
media generated 
phenomena 
and 
the 
feminist 
press where a void 
prevails, working-class 
women's 
tastes, 
pleasures 
and 
fashioning 
excesses 
remain misrepresented 
and caricatured. 
In both 
fields, 
to 
a greater 
and 
lesser 
degree 
women's 
excessive 
fashioning has been 
associated 
with 
a 
lack 
of self-knowledge 
and a symbol 
of sexual 
availability. 
121 
Hairdressers 
and women who 
fashion 
to 
excess 
are still 
frequently 
cited 
as 
polarised 
from 
those 
engaged 
in 
political, 
intellectual 
and academic 
Work. 
122 
Though 
hairdressing 
has 
a 
small, 
gentrified, 
celebrity 
niche, 
the 
field 
as a 
whole 
is 
perceived 
as unskilled, 
unprofessionalised, working 
class 
and 
feminised. Although 
feminist 
researchers 
have begun 
to 
examine 
the 
role 
of women workers 
in 
beauty 
and 
related 
industries 
in 
more 
nuanced 
ways, caricatured 
assumptions 
about 
hairdressers 
and 
salon 
goers 
persist. 
123 
The 
professional 
isation 
of 
the 
top tier 
of 
the 
industry 
from 
the 
late 
1980s, 
has 
involved 
the 
coining 
of new 
professions, 
for 
example 
'stylists' 
and 
'colourists' 
and 
lucrative beauty 
and 
hair 
salons, 
retreats, 
treatments, 
designer 
products 
and celebrities 
now 
proliferate. 
124 
Their 
120 
Unfortunately, 
at 
the time 
of 
writing up 
this 
chapter, 
unreconstructed 
feminist 
spokespersons 
appeared 
just 
as unlikely 
to 
seek 
out 
dialogue 
with 
those 
engaged 
in fashioning 
femininity, 
or 
in 
opening up 
the 
discourse 
in 
this 
field. Critiquing 
the 
re-launched 
journal Feminist 
Review 
in 
a 
recent 
Feminist 
Library Newsletter 
Wolfe 
states, 
"Issue 71 
(2002) 
is 
'Fashion 
andBeauty'a 
subject 
which 
some 
more 
unreconstructedfeminists might 
be 
surprised 
tofind 
in 
an academicfeministiournal 
'(Wolfe, 2002) The 
perception 
of 
feminist 
body 
policing, 
described 
by Michelle, 
is 
hinted 
at 
in 
Wolfe's 
tone 
apropos 
of 
inappropriate 
fashionings: 
"In 
a 
local 
supermarket, 
I 
spoiled a 
Far East 
Asian 
young 
woman, 
maybe 
Chinese 
or 
Vietnamese, 
with what 
looked like 
a chain 
store 
bought 
stencilled 
henna 
pattern on 
her hand. 
fflen 
it 
comes 
to 
mercenary 
considerations, 
nothing 
is 
sacred" 
(ibid. 
). 
"I 
Skeggs 
notes 
that 
big 
hair, 
short skirts and 
lots 
of make-up 
are read 
as 
"devalued 
class 
signifiers 
ofexcess 
" 
(Skcggs, 200 
1, 
p. 
302). The 
term 
bimbo 
was 
feminised 
around 
the 
1920s (at 
the 
inception 
of 
the 
first 
publicly 
used 
salons 
... 
) 
coming 
to 
mean 
dumb 
blonde, 'often 
aprostitute' 
(Cassell's 
Dictionary 
of 
Slang, 
1989 
cited 
in 
Cox, 2000, 
p. 
4). 
Pam 
Cox is 
one 
of 
the 
few 
feminist 
academics 
that 
has 
sought 
to 
interpret 
the 
meaning of a specific 
contemporary 
style 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
the 
so-called 
Essex 
Girl, "the 
archetypal 
blonde bimbo 
of 
the 
1980s ", 
However 
Cox 
acknowledges 
albeit 
to 
an 
academic conference audience 
that 
growing 
up 
in Essex 
in 
the 
1980s, 
she 
had 
tried 
"to 
put as much 
distance 
aspossible 
between 
myselfand 
her kind". 
Cox 
interprets Essex 
Girls 
as 
within 
a 
trajectory 
of 
female folk 
devils, 
"aform 
of 
'the 
degradedpopular'which 
has been 
symbolised 
b 
images 
oftertain 
white working class-women 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
1). 
IT2 
For 
example, 
when 
the 
list 
of 
the 
first 
Peoples' 
Peers 
was attacked 
'as 
ajoke' 
(Michael, 
2001, 
p. 
7). (The 15 
selected self. 
nominated 
Peoples 
Peers 
included 
seven 
knights 
and 
three 
professors) 
hairdressing 
was 
used 
by 
Lord 
Stevenson, 
the 
Commission's 
chairman 
as 
the 
exemplar of 
'less 
hi-faluting 
people'. 
He 
conceded 
that 
a 
number 
of people 
had 
applied 
to 
sit 
in 
the 
Lords 
with 
some 
"less 
hi-faluting 
achievements. 
" but 
noted 
"You 
haven't 
golyour 
hairdresser 
in 
this 
list ". Subsequently, 
the 
GMB 
put 
forward 
the 
name of 
Maria Hicks, 
a 
27 
year old 
hairdresser 
from 
Sheffield 
who 
stated: 
"I 
talk topeople 
ofall ages and 
different 
backgrounds 
every 
day 
and 
I 
think 
it is 
prejudiced 
to 
say 
only 
certain 
types 
should 
become 
peers. 
"(The 
Guardian, 
28 
April, 
200 1) The 
remoteness 
of 
Essex Girls 
from 
academics 
is implied in Cox's 
comments 
that 
"Maybe 
the 
Mail 
ofSunday's 
answer 
to the 
question 
' fflatever 
happened 
to 
Essex 
girl? 
'will be 
proved 
right 
- 
'That 
she 
grew 
up 
and 
became 
a 
university 
project'. 
And 
maybe 
that 
won't 
be 
such a 
ludicrous 
idea 
after all 
" (Cox, 
2000, 
p. 
9). 
"' 
According 
to 
hair 
historian 
Caroline 
Cox, 
"The 
hairdresser 
is 
invariably 
assumed 
to 
be 
either 
an 
Insincereflatterer 
who 
imposes 
the 
latestfashions 
on 
dupedfemale 
customers, 
or a rather 
common 
sixteen 
year 
old 
who 
asks about 
holidays 
in 
Ibiza 
with an 
ear on 
Radio 
One. 
There 
is 
also 
the 
salon as 
local 
gossip 
shop where 
old grannies 
gofor 
therapy" 
(Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
6). 
"' 
Bourdieu 
has 
discussed 
the 
process 
'inventing 
new 
labels' 
for 
existingjobs, 
of 
physiotherapists 
"who 
count on 
this 
new 
title 
to 
separate 
themselvesfrom masseurs" potters 
who 
call 
themselves 
art craftsmen 
and 
so 
forth. 
In 
this 
sense 
I 
read 
stylists as 
(bourgeois) 
hairdressers 
who are capitalising 
literally 
on 
their 
agency 
to 
appropriate 
words 
"donning 
the 
mostflattering 
ofall 
the 
available 
insignia... 
-a 
paper chase aimed 
at ensuring constant 
distinctive 
gaps, 
tend to 
produce 
a steady 
inflation 
of 
185 
spokespersons 
and 
profiles 
in 
the 
broadsheet 
media consistently 
highlight 
the 
difference 
between 
these 
leisure 
industries from local 
salons. 
125 
Glossies 
and 
broadsheets, 
have 
followed 
the 
avant garde 
style 
magazines 
in 
celebrating 
a 
brand 
of 
"brazen 
new 
barneteers" 
(Anderson, 
1998, 
p. 
3). 
Connections 
are 
made 
between 
these 
new, experimental 
'wild 
men of 
hair' inevitably 
set against 
the 
"bog 
standard 
snipping-parlours" 
(ibid), 
and 
their 
counterparts 
in 
the 
canon of 
art 
history. 
126 
Both 
self-styled 
'Performance 
Artist' 
Johnny 
Drill 
and 
colourist 
Nichola 
Clarke 
utilise 
'the 
artist as 
discover' (i. 
e. appropriation), 
Dubuffet-like 
methods 
in 
their 
'research 
work'. 
127 
Drill 
was 
"Inspired 
by lobotomised hairdressing 
- 
looking 
at 
diagrams 
ofteople 
having 
brain 
operations. 
Clarke 
"is 
afamiliar sight 
in 
clubs, 
the 
history 
sections 
of 
W1 
bookshops 
and on 
her 
local 
(post 
Clerkenwell, 
and suddenly 
a 
bit 
trendy) 
Kings 
Cross 
streets 
- 
where 
shefearlessly 
photographs 
prostitutes 
and eccentrics 
". 
128 
Keen 
to 
emphasise 
the 
difference 
of 
her 
work 
from 
that 
of others 
"Nichola 
admits 
that 
she 
is 
not 
into 
making 
small 
talk 
while 
at 
toil" 
(ibid. ). 
Whilst 
visionary creativity 
is 
much sought 
after, 
the 
antithesis 
is 
seen 
as 
the 
literally 
outmoded, 
common customer 
with a 
taste 
for 
excess. 
A 
senior 
stylist 
at a 
top 
London 
salon 
confessed 
the 
worst 
crime 
the 
promoted 
'client' 
could 
commit: 
"The 
worst 
style 
to 
be 
askedfor 
is 
a 
big 
'do'- I'm 
talking 
Dolly Parton 
comb-outs. 
It's 
so 
outdated 
and 
b1mbo-ish. 
One 
ofmyformer 
clients 
had 
bleached 
blonde hair 
and 
by 
the 
time 
she 
left 
the 
titles.... these 
classocations are 
the 
product ofthe 
struggles 
between 
the 
classes 
and 
depend 
on 
the 
power 
relations 
between 
them" 
(Bourdicu, 
1979, 
p. 
48 1). 
I" 
The 
broadsheets 
have 
suggested 
an 
intellectual 
isation 
of 
the 
field. 
In 
a 
Guardian 
article 
entitled 
'Beauty 
and 
the 
Brain', Tader 
beauty 
editor 
and 
author of 
the 
7hinking 
Woman's 
Guide 
to 
Beauty, Kathleen 
Baird-Murray 
stated: 
"Beautypages 
aren'tjustfor 
bimbos. Clever 
girls 
like lipstick 
too 
". She 
confesses 
her 
embarrassment 
about 
having 
such 
a 
lowbrow 
profession, 
finding it 
easier 
to 
lie 
about 
her 
profession 
than 
out 
herself 
as such 
at 
dinner 
parties and 
face 
social 
disapprobation. 
After 
demonstrating 
her 
insider 
credentials 
(she has 
literary 
and 
lawyer 
friends) 
she 
justified 
her 
work 
on 
the 
grounds 
that 
others 
with 
'intellectually 
demanding 
careers' 
are 
increasingly 
both 
using 
beauty 
industries 
and 
investing 
in 
them. 
She 
cites 
Maria 
Kilgore: 
"a 
savvy 
33 
year oldNew 
Yorker 
who created 
the 
bliss 
spas 
in 
New 
York 
and 
London 
who 
reports, 
'The 
bankers 
and 
the 
barristers 
think 
it is 
intelligent 
to 
look 
after 
themselves. 
"' 
Baird Murray 
concludes: 
" Ifyou 
are 
still 
not 
prepared 
to 
oulyourselfas 
a 
beauty 
addict, 
remember 
this: 
Kilgore 
recently 
sold 
70% 
ofher 
company 
to 
VVMHfor 
an estimated 
$30m(flft Did 
somebody 
say 
b1mbo? 
(Baird Murray 
2002, 
pp. 
8-9). 
116 
"Ofall 
the 
wild 
men ofhair, 
probably 
the 
most 
in 
demand 
is 
36year 
old 
Guido Guido 
is 
keen 
to 
emphasise 
that 
'I 
don't 
set out 
simply 
to 
shock. 
I 
am 
classically 
trained, 
though 
I've 
since 
broken 
all 
that 
down. But 
the 
training 
was 
important, 
otherwise 
you 
don't 
really 
know 
whyyou 
are 
doing 
something 
and 
itsJust 
gratuitous. 
I 
(no 
does he 
think 
he 
is, 
Picasso? 
) 
(ibid. ) 
Although 
celebrity 
hairdressers 
are 
deemed 
worthy 
of 
criticism, 
The Guardian's 
tone 
is 
merely 
disdainful 
of 
the 
world of 
the 
working-class 
salon. 
In 
an 
article on 
the 
history 
of 
the 
haircut, 
illustrated 
with 
shots 
from 
the 
sneering, 
camp, 
coffee 
table 
volume 
Bad 
Hair 
Unnes-Smith 
and 
Webb, 2002) 
Guy 
Browning 
writes: 
"Women's 
Barbers. 
There 
Isn't 
really an equivalent 
ofa 
barbersfor 
women 
where 
you can get a quick 
trimfor 
under 
a 
tenner. 
instead 
there 
is 
a 
shadowy 
underworld 
ofback-street 
hairdressers 
whoyou 
only 
get 
to 
hear 
about 
through 
word 
ofmouth. 
This 
hairdresser 
Is inevitably 
called 
Debbie 
and 
used 
to 
work 
in 
a posh 
salon until she 
had 
children and 
now she 
workspart 
time 
doing 
select 
ladies 
hair 
... 
she 
often 
has 
to 
improvise 
with a 
Black 
and 
Decker Strimmer 
". Ironically 
a method 
more 
likely 
to 
be 
championed 
by 
Drill, 
see 
below 
(Browning 
2002, 
p. 
21). 
127 
Jean 
Dubuffet, 
b. 1901 is 
the 
Modem 
artist most closely 
associated 
with making work 
inspired 
by 
the 
unschooled 
art of 
'outsiders', 
children, 
street 
artists and 
the 
art of 
the 
insane. 
His 
fascination 
with 
'primitive' 
art 
culminated 
in 
his 
classifying 
of 
such 
art as 
Art 
Brut, 
triggering 
the 
industry 
of 
Outsider 
Art 
(MacGregor, 
1976; Greenberg 
1949; 
Hainsworth, 
1992). 
"I 
The 
fascination 
with 
'underworlds' 
including 
the 
sex 
industry 
and 
foreignness is 
a 
trope 
of 
Modernism. 
In 
stark contrast 
to 
Ronnie Spector's 
account 
of 
being 
inspired by 
fashioning 
excesses 
in 
the 
streets 
in 
her 
neighbourhood 
(cited 
in 
Chapter 
1) kan 
Shrimpton displays 
a 
typically 
voyeuristic 
detachment in 
relating a 
fleeting, 
bohemian 
episode 
in her life 
with 
'Bailey': "We 
could not get 
into 
a 
hotel 
anywhere 
in 
the 
eight arrondisment 
[Paris] 
andfinished up 
in 
a realfleabag 
ofaplace 
in 
the 
Algerian 
quarter near 
Belleville. It 
could not 
have 
been less like 
our 
usual 
watering 
holes. 
Not 
that 
we 
were 
bothered 
Where 
we 
slayed 
never concerned 
us overmuch. 
]found 
the 
quartlerfascinating. 
I 
was 
hanging 
out 
ofthe 
window, 
trying tofind 
out 
how 
the 
prostitutes got 
their 
beehive 
hairdos 
all 
of 
twofeet 
high. " 
(Shrimpton, 
199 
1. 
p. 
. 
92). 
186 
A 
salon 
it 
was aboutfivefeet 
high 
- 
really 
hideous. 
Id 
have 
rather 
have 
shaved 
it 
off' 
(Red 
magazine, 
August 
2002, 
p. 
80). 
129 
The 
literature 
on 
hair, 
and 
the 
accounts of 
participants 
suggest 
that 
hairstyles 
are 
perceived 
as 
indubitably 
classed 
with 
big, 
artificial 
hairstyles linked 
to 
both 
working-class reality and 
myth. 
130 
In 
contemporary 
culture, 
excessive 
femininity 
engenders a paradoxical 
allure/repulsion 
for broadsheets 
such 
as 
the 
Independent 
and 
The 
Guardian; 
a 
foil 
to 
an underlying, 
historical 
allegiance 
to 
Modernist 
fashion 
agenda 
or 
alternatively, 
a camp 
joke. 
131 
Ettie 
detailed 
the 
economic reasons why 
some 
women, 
from 
the 
1960s 
on, would 
require 
the 
lacquered 
'up' 
hairstyles 
- 
hairstyles 
that 
could 
be 
respectable and/or 
glamorous 
and 
that 
lasted 
We 
wouldnae 
get away with 
blow-drying, 
it 
was something 
I 
had 
to 
master 
there 
- 
there 
was 
no 
such 
thing 
as showers 
then, 
every week 
they 
would come 
in 
for 
a 
set and 
in between 
that 
they 
would 
maybe 
come 
in for 
a 
brush 
up, so 
the 
'up' 
hairdo, 
we 
used 
to 
lacquer it, it 
was solid. 
[Laughter] 
It 
never moved. 
[ 
... 
] 
Windy 
day 
or 
not, 
it 
stayed, 
so 
they 
would 
come 
in 
and get 
it 
tidied 
up 
or 
brushed 
up and 
that 
would 
be 
half 
the 
price 
of 
their 
hairdo 
- 
perms. 
132 
She 
described 
the 
big hair 
that 
came 
to 
be 
associated with 
working-class 
women as 
being 
even 
further 
exaggerated 
or 
fashioned in 
the 
case of 
prostitutes: 
"Idput 
it 
this 
way, 
the 
prostitutes 
were way 
out, every 
bit 
exaggerated, 
flick 
ups 
- 
if 
it 
was up 
it 
was, you 
know, 
big 
hair". 
In 
the 
same period, a 
"' 
The 
tendency 
for 
middle-class 
appropriation 
of 
working-class 
culture 
(interestingly, 
Johnny 
Drill 
was 
trained 
at a salon called 
'Sweaty 
Betty's) 
where 
today's 
'common' 
is 
transmuted 
into 
an 
item 
with 
fashion 
gravitas, 
is 
wittily 
played out 
in 
Street 
Talk: 
The 
Coronation 
Street Dictionary. 
"Common: low life, 
a person 
considered 
to 
have 
appalling 
taste 
and 
dubious lifestyle. 
The 
social rule 
in 
Weatherfleld 
is 
topretend to 
be 
on 
a social 
rung 
higher 
thanyou 
infact 
are, 
and 
never admit 
thatyour 
circumstances 
may 
have 
causedyou 
to 
slip 
lower. 
'Common'is 
a 
derisive 
term 
aimed at all 
with 
'airs 
andgraces'beyond 
their 
station, or 
those 
that 
dress 
up with 
more pretension 
to 
style 
than they 
may 
actually 
possess. 
As 
In 
'allfir 
coal 
and 
no 
knickers, 
or 
'mutton 
dressed 
as 
lamb. 
Thus 
Annie Walker 
considered 
Elsie Tanner 
to 
be 
'rather 
common'and 
Elsie 
in 
turn thought 
Hilda 
Ogden 
to 
be 
'a 
bit 
common. 
Hilda 
saw 
Elsie 
as 
?roper 
common, 
but 
not 
Annie 
Walker, 
Vera 
Duckworth, 
on 
the 
other 
hand 
is 
considered 
'common'by 
everybody. 
Paradoxically 
Bet Lynch's 
leopard 
skin coat 
might 
be 'common'ln 
Weatherflield, but 
trendy 
in 
London. 
This 
means 
-a 
co)lfusingpointfor 
outsiders 
here- 
that 
Bet's 
coat 
is 
literally 
uncommon 
in 
Coronation Street, 
but 
common among 
New Wave 
enthusiasts 
in 
London. 
Ifsomething, 
therefore, 
is 
'common'it Is 
quite 
likely 
to 
be 
uncommon 
- 
unlike 
Vera 
who 
is 
reassuringly 
'common'all 
the time. 
For 
those 
interested 
in 
thefine tuning 
ofsuch 
matters 
Jack 
Duckworth, 
who 
likes 
wearing 
medallions 
and 
slashed 
to 
the 
waist 
shirts 
is 
'dead 
common'while 
Vera, 
by 
common 
consent 
is 
'as 
common 
as 
muck'. 
Being 
common 
is 
clearly 
in 
the 
eye ofthe 
beholder. 
" 
(Nown, 
1986, 
pp28-29) 
"0 
Antoine, 
the 
first 
celebrity 
hairdresser 
set 
the 
agenda 
cautioning 
women 
to 
beware 
of 
'old 
Marcels'and 
Cox 
notes 
that 
cheap 
versions 
became 
"a 
style 
associated 
with a 
rather 
tarly 
type 
of woman 
". Beauty 
historian 
Hanckel 
notes 
that the 
style was 
"practically 
unknown 
in 
the 
West End, but 
more 
in 
evidence 
among 
a 
certain 
type 
ofthe 
working 
class 
". 
(Hanckel 
quoted 
in 
Cox, 1999, 
p. 
142). 
131 
As 
in Cox's 
comment 
that: 
"7here 
are still strongholds 
ofthe 
style 
[for 
big 
'artificial' 
hairstyles] 
though, 
a 
Jurassic Park 
of 
klisch hairdosfound 
In 
American 
trailerparki 
and country 
and western 
chanteuses, 
where 
it 
is 
a 
significant symbol 
ofsurvival' 
(Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
11). A 
somewhat 
voyeuristic 
fascination 
is 
articulated as paradoxically 
dismissive 
appropriations. 
"Pioneered 
by 
the 
big haired 
soulster 
James 
Brown, 
the 
bouffant 
is 
a silly 
style 
that 
can't 
understand 
why 
it 
is 
not 
taken 
seriously... 
[However] 
The 
boqffant 
has 
been 
reclaimedand 
re-coiffured 
by 
many 
offashions 
big 
names, 
most 
noticeably 
the 
house 
ofO7T, 
Versace 
(Independent 
unaccredited, 
24 
September, 2000, 
p. 
5). 
"' 
For 
working-class 
schoolgirls 
like Elizabeth 
and 
her 
sisters, 
their 
mothers' 
tight 
budget 
and 
interpretation 
of respectability 
meant 
theirs 
would 
be 
very 
short, 
long-lasting haircuts: 
"Certainly 
when 
I 
was at school 
my 
mum 
insisted 
that 
Ididgo 
to 
the 
hairdressers 
and 
have 
my 
hair 
cut and 
I hated 
it 
because 
she 
used 
to 
have 
it 
cutfar, 
far 
too 
short 
because 
it 
was money 
again 
[ 
... 
] 
have 
it 
cut 
short 
to 
save 
money, 
I 
mean my 
hair 
didn't 
grow 
veryfast 
anyway 
". 
187 
28. 
Brigitte Bardot, 
illustration 
in 
Film 
Show 
annual, 
1962, 
page 
38. 
Jean 
Shrimpton, 
undated photograph, reproduced 
in, 
Decades 
of 
Beauty, Kate 
Mulvey 
and 
Melissa 
Richards, 
1998, 
page 
145 
want 
to 
have 
It 
cut? 
Tr 
out 
thesi 
styles 
and 
you 
can 
loot different 
lay 
- 
so 
start 
now 
for 
a 
etely 
now 
youl 
D -LLi 
.r 
PRN1,, 
N, 
I 
6Aqn 
T 
DDD 
M 
T110 
P 
Y 
OU'LL 
need 
lots 
of 
hairgrips 
and special 
covered 
elastic 
hair 
bands 
which 
are on 
: ale at 
most 
chemists 
and 
department 
tores. 
Ordinary 
rubber 
bands 
or* rough 
and 
will 
break the 
hair 
shaft 
as 
they 
rub 
along 
the 
hair, 
so 
don't 
uss, 
them. 
Now 
you're 
ready 
for: 
-- 
A 
ty 
FBesuty 
B0xj 
IP 
lop 
MODEL-GIRL 
Pull 
all 
the 
hair 
up 
on 
the top 
of 
your 
head 
and secure it with 
a 
band, 
then 
luck 
all 
the 
ends 
under 
and secure 
them 
with 
grips, 
This 
will 
make 
a 
tight 
little bun 
that looks 
really 
good 
and will stay 
foi hours. 
it you 
pin 
it 
up 
pioperly 
a 
BALLERINA 
CHIGNON 
This 
is 
a 
htll? 
bun 
at 
the 
back 
of 
the 
n-k 
just 
pull 
all 
the 
hair 
to the Uack 
into 
a 
ponytail 
held 
with a 
band, 
then 
turn 
the 
ends 
under 
and 
secure 
them 
with 
grips 
to 
make 
a small, 
nest 
bun 
Let a 
few 
wisps of 
hair 
escape 
to 
SEVENTIES 
PONYTAIL 
Great 
... 
just 
pull 
the 
hair 
together 
to 
a point off cantre 
and 
close 
to the 
front 
of 
your 
head 
and secure 
with 
a covered 
band. 
If 
your ponytail 
flops 
over 
and 
you'd 
rather 
have 
it 
straight 
try 
back-combing 
the 
ends 
a 
little 
to 
make 
it stitl 
IVY 
I 
PRE-RAPHAELITE 
BUNCHES 
Nice 
11 
or shoulder-length 
or 
longer 
hair 
All 
you 
do 
is 
wash 
your 
hair 
and plait 
it 
into 
lots 
of 
tiny 
plaits 
while 
It 
S st 1 
11 
well 
Let 
it 
dry 
naturally, 
then 
undo 
the 
plaits and 
you'll 
find 
you've 
got 
lovely, 
crinkly 
hair 
Make 
two bunches high 
on 
the 
sides 
of 
your 
head, 
secured 
with 
THE PINEAPPLE 
Gather 
all 
your 
hair 
together 
and secure on 
top 
with 
a covered 
band. Leave 
the 
ends 
to 
bounce 
loose 
as shown. 
This 
is a 
bubbly 
style 
that 
looks 
great 
for 
parties 
., 
try 
a simple 
pair 
of 
ear. 
rings 
to 
finish 
off 
the look 
Part 
youthair in 
the 
middle 
and 
make a plait each side 
starting 
at 
ear 
level. 
Pu 
II the 
plaits 
up across 
your 
head 
and secure 
them 
with 
grips. 
This 
style 
will 
show 
off 
your 
ears. so 
earrings 
will 
look 
really 
good. 
All 
these 
styles 
will 
look 
best 
If 
your 
heir's 
clean 
and 
shining, to make 
It 
a 
rule 
to 
wash regularly with 
a shampoo 
that's 
made 
for 
your 
heir-type 
... 
greasy, normal 
or 
dry, 
or 
use 
a mildm9dicated 
shoMDOO 
FIFTIET 
PONYTAIL 
This 
is 
really simple' 
Just 
draw 
all your 
hair 
into 
a 
band 
high 
up 
at 
the 
back 
of your 
head 
then 
tie 
a 
really 
bright 
ribbon 
into 
a super 
bow 
for 
a 
really 
lively 
rock 
n 
roll 
fifties, 
look' 
HEADPHONES 
Try 
this 
one 
just 
for 
tun' 
Part 
your 
hair 
in 
the 
middle 
and plait 
each side, 
starting 
at ear 
level. 
Coil 
each 
plait 
care- 
fully 
into 
a wheel. over 
your 
ears, 
and 
pin securely 
so 
the 
coils 
sit over 
your 
ears' 
If 
you 
hove 
dandruff. 
Visit 
a 
good 
hairdresser 
every 
six 
weeks 
far 
a 
trim 
and 
don't 
be 
afraid 
to 
experiment 
with 
differ. 
*nt styles. 
Your heir 
tells 
p*cWle 
a 
lot 
about you, 
to 
don't 
neglect 
Ill 
29. 
'Be 
right 
on 
top': 
an array 
ofhair 
identities 
including 
'Ballerina 
chignon' 
and 
'Pre-Raphaelite 
bunches' 
in Jackie 
annual, 
1979, 
page 
33. 
minority 
of middle-class youth were adopting 
freer 
hairstyles, 
arguably 
part of 
the 
inverted 
snobbery 
underpinning 
Habitat-style 
peasant chic. 
133 
Some 
participants, working-class 
girls 
who attended 
Grammar 
Schools 
or 
schools 
with an 
intake 
from 
distinct 
social 
areas, 
vividly 
remembered 
the 
class 
divisions 
between 
modes of 
fashioning, 
for 
example 
Elizabeth 
commented, 
Well, 
I 
definitely 
think 
the 
Brigitte 
Bardot 
long 
hair, 
or 
being 
allowed 
to 
grow 
your 
hair 
long if 
you 
were 
lucky 
enough 
to 
have 
that 
sort 
of 
hair, 
it 
was 
definitely 
middle class, 
yes, 
to 
me 
it 
was 
tied 
up 
a 
lot 
with 
like for 
example 
girls 
who 
were art 
students 
always seemed 
to 
have 
this 
sort of 
hair 
and 
girls who went 
to 
ballet 
class 
always 
had 
this 
sort 
of 
hair 
you 
know, 
and 
I 
always 
felt, 
and 
when 
you 
think 
about 
it 
you 
know, 
female 
art students 
you 
know, 
to 
me 
[ 
... 
] 
was you 
know, 
like 
a 
kind 
of an epitome of 
femininity 
at 
that 
time 
and 
certainly 
ballerinas 
and 
ballet 
dancing 
and 
of 
course 
the 
two 
went 
together 
you 
know, 
I 
would 
loved 
to 
have 
gone 
to 
ballet 
class 
but 
my 
parents 
couldn't afford 
it 
so 
I 
think 
it 
was 
very, 
very 
much, 
you 
know, 
a middle-class 
thing, 
for 
example, 
I 
can 
remember going 
to 
- 
of 
course 
when 
I 
went 
to the 
Grammar 
School it 
was 
the 
very 
first 
time 
that 
I'd 
mixed 
with a 
lot 
of 
middle-class 
girls 
and 
the 
majority 
of 
them 
went 
to 
ballet, 
even 
if 
they 
had 
- 
usually 
they 
had 
their 
hair in 
plaits 
at school, 
but 
whenever 
we went 
to 
parties, 
which 
occasionally 
we 
did 
at 
one 
an 
others 
houses 
except 
mine 
-[Laughter]- 
I 
had 
a crap 
childhood, 
the 
girls always 
had ballet 
slippers 
on and 
their 
hair 
long 
and 
it 
was 
just 
like, 
those, 
these 
were 
the 
girls 
that 
were 
in 
these 
illustrations 
in 
these 
books 
you 
know, 
the 
girls 
that 
went 
to 
boarding 
school and 
they 
were 
at 
Grammar 
School 
and 
everything 
so, 
and 
I 
envied 
them 
having 
the 
kind 
of 
parents who 
allowed 
them 
to 
be like 
this, 
encouraged 
them 
to 
be 
feminine. 
I 
think 
was 
a 
big 
thing 
for 
me you 
know 
I 
was 
not encouraged 
to 
be feminine because 
everything 
was 
tied 
up 
with your spending 
time 
on yourself, 
your 
being 
vain. 
' 
134 
133 
For 
the 
avant 
garde 
both 
respectability 
and 
Hollywood-style 
glamour 
were 
being 
decried 
as out-moded. 
Model 
Jean Shrimpton 
was 
expected, 
at 
the 
start 
of 
her 
career 
in 
the 
early 
1960s, 
to 
fashion 
her 
own 
hair for 
shoots 
without 
the 
assistance 
of a stylist 
even 
on 
occasion 
for Vogue. 
In 
the 
process 
she 
helped 
to 
construct 
the 
incipient 
style-that-is-not-fashioned approach 
that 
still prevails 
in 
bourgeois 
fashion 
culture 
and was 
the 
antithesis of 
the 
respectab 
iIi 
ty/gI 
amour sought 
by 
many 
contemporary 
working-class salon-goers: 
"Unfortunately 
I 
was 
never very good 
at 
it. 
I 
used 
to 
rush 
around 
London 
with 
my 
hair 
in 
rollers 
under 
a scarf or 
try 
my 
best 
with 
the 
ratty 
hairpieces 
that 
werefashionable 
at 
the time. 
Not 
surprisingly 
I 
wasn't 
doing 
ioowell 
until 
Bailey 
createdtheJean 
Shrimpton 
look, 
which 
needs 
hardly 
any 
hairdressing 
or make-up. 
After 
that 
I 
wasn't 
called 
upon 
to 
do 
much 
to 
my 
hair 
except comb 
it 
(sometimes 
not 
even 
that). 
1put 
it 
up 
or wouldpull 
it into 
a 
larty 
ponytail 
as an 
alternative, 
but 
it 
was 
never 
what 
you 
would call a style 
" (Shrimpton, 
1991, 
p. 
52). 
Shrimpton 
and 
Bailey 
cultivated 
a stylistic 
intellectualism 
that 
was 
the 
antithesis 
of 
Hollywood 
and were 
disingenuous 
about 
glamour 
in 
fashion. 
Shrimpton 
found 
Bailey 
"naturally 
artistic. 
We 
went 
to 
art 
movies 
-film 
like 
Last Year 
in 
Marienbad 
and 
Jules 
elJim. 
He 
lovedJacques 
Tali 
movies'(Shrimpton, 
1991, 
p. 
62). In 
fact, 
Shrimpton's 
hair 
fashioning 
can 
be interpreted 
as a 
British 
take 
on 
Bardotesque 
French 
styling. 
In 
the 
1962 
Preview 
film 
annual 
Eric Warman 
interviews 
that 
French 
star 
Mylcne Demongeot 
and 
asks 
"There 
seems 
to 
be 
afashionfor 
French 
stars 
to 
wear 
their 
hair 
untidy. 
What 
do 
you 
think 
about 
this? 
MD: 
I 
suppose 
my 
hair 
often 
looks 
untidy. 
But I 
am 
sure a 
woman gains nothing 
by, 
spending 
hours 
and 
hours having her 
hair 
curled 
I 
wash 
mine 
myself and never curl 
it... 
this 
is 
a 
waste 
of 
time 
" (Demongeot 
in 
Warman, 
ed. 
1962, 
p. 
37). 
"' 
Being 
dyed 
blonde 
had 
a significantly 
different 
meaning 
for 
participants 
than 
natural 
blonde 
as 
Carol's 
comments on 
Joni 
Mitchell 
suggest. 
This 
following 
memory 
work 
text 
foregrounds 
dress, 
hair 
and 
shoes as 
signifying 
status 
in 
a 
High 
School 
setting: 
On 
thefirst 
day 
at 
High SchoolA 
met 
girls 
who 
lived 
in 
its 
vicinn),. 
The 
school was 
a 
bus 
ride away 
and 
in 
a posh 
area 
oftown 
that 
was 
unknown 
to 
her. 
A 
noted 
that 
many were 
blonde, 
thin 
and 
beautiful. She 
realised 
that the 
name 
Susan (the 
name 
of 
her 
aunly 
and 
cousin) 
could 
be 
'posh'. 
Their 
uniforms were 
a 
better 
quality 
than 
hers. A 
fell 
sad 
when 
she remembered 
that 
their 
expensive 
lightweight 
blazers 
were 
the 
ones 
that 
her 
grandma 
had 
rejected 
in 
the 
depressing 
school ou?rlllers infavour 
of 
her 
thick 
wool 
version. 
Their 
shirts 
seemed 
new 
and 
blue 
white 
and 
they 
hung 
on 
their thin 
bodies. 
A 
recognised 
the 
expensive 
sensible 
Clarks 
shoes. 
She 
was conscious 
of 
her 
own 
inadequate 
thin 
hair 
that 
seemedpathelic, 
unstyled 
and colourless 
next 
to 
Susan 
#I's 
unusually 
thick, 
natural, 
blonde 
bob 
withflicks 
that 
had 
been 
meticulously'tonged'. 
A 
was 
made 
aware 
through 
little 
affectionate 
remarks 
that 
Miss M, 
the 
form 
teacher, 
knew 
the 
posh girls and 
their 
parents. 
188 
In 
the 
1970s, in 
a 
break 
with 
tradition, 
many 
working-class 
girls 
experimented 
with 
variations 
on still 
fashioned 
but 
short 
skinhead 
styles 
including 
the 
ubiquitous 
'feather-cut'. 
Ellen 
remembered 
these 
in 
contrast 
to 
the 
'freestyle', 
'poshies' look. 
"Yeah, 
the 
hard 
nuts 
were sometimes 
quite 
short 
and 
quite 
cropped and 
the 
normally 
ones 
would 
- 
it 
wasjust 
all 
that 
hippy 
stuff, 
long 
and 
they 
still 
had 
it 
pulled 
hack 
all 
the time. 
" And 
Michelle 
noted 
that 
at 
secondary 
school 
in 
the 
1980s: 
Michelle: There 
was 
a class 
divide 
with 
hairdos, 
a 
big 
class 
distinction 
knowing 
it like, 
different 
girls 
from 
different 
areas 
would 
have 
different 
hairdos. 
AP: 
And 
can you 
define 
that 
at all, 
can 
you 
remember? 
Michelle: 
Curly 
perms 
seemed 
to 
be 
dead 
working 
class 
and 
scraped 
into 
a 
pony-tail, 
working 
class 
and 
kind 
of 
-I 
mean 
I 
was at 
Shawlands 
Academy 
so 
we 
had 
a 
big, big 
catchment 
area so a 
lot 
would 
be 
from 
the 
Gorbals 
and stuff 
used 
to 
come, 
a 
lot 
of 
the 
posher 
ones 
from 
Newlands 
and 
Shawlands 
used 
to 
go 
and 
they 
were all 
that 
private 
look 
the 
soft, 
blonde, 
flicked hair. 
AP: 
Was 
that 
dyed hair 
then? 
Michelle: 
No. 
AP: 
No, 
just 
naturally 
blonde, 
short 
hair? 
Michelle: 
Long 
Ellen's 
impression 
was 
that 
affecting 
a 
middle-class 
disregard 
for fashioning 
feminine 
excess 
has 
increasingly 
come 
to 
characterise 
'art 
student 
style' 
over 
the 
past 
twenty 
years. 
135 
Ellen 
articulated 
However, 
from 
another 
perspective, 
the 
allure of 
dissident 
fashions 
by 
the 
'sensibly 
-shod' 
Michelle 
is 
remembered 
in 
this 
account: 
"Sheila 
and 
I 
always got 
shoes 
out ofClarks, 
like 
proper 
shoes 
and when 
I 
went 
to 
Shawlandr&ademy 
I 
had 
moved 
from Drumchope 
I 
to 
Shaw 
lands 
in 
the 
summer 
h 
olidays 
between 
leaving 
Primary 
and 
Se 
condary 
and 
goingfor 
the 
day 
to 
see 
the 
school 
and 
I had 
on 
these 
Clarks 
shoes 
that 
kind 
oflooked 
like 
Kickers 
but 
they 
weren't, 
they 
were 
Clarks 
and going 
ballistic 
to 
My 
MUM 
and saying, 
TM 
not wearing 
these 
shoes. 
I'mjust 
not wearing 
these 
shoes 
because 
everybody will 
know 
they 
are 
Clarks'and 
sure 
enough 
everybody 
had Kickers 
on 
and 
I 
remember 
throwing 
a real 
temper 
tantrum 
about 
not wearing 
these 
shoes, 
maybe 
that's 
where 
/I 
all started with 
those 
Kickers. 
So 
eventually 
I did 
get 
a pair 
ofKickers. 
" 
i's 
A 
student 
herself 
in 
the 
1970s 
she remembered 
both herself 
and 
her brother, 
cultivating a 
hippyish, 
'arty' 
style 
- 
her Emmylou 
Harris 
period. 
A 
specific 
aspirant 
middle-class 
trope 
was 
to 
self-consciously 
combine 
thrift 
shop, 
second-hand or ethnic 
items 
withjeans, 
what 
Ettic 
remembers 
from her 
trip to 
America 
as, 
'high 
class 
hippy': 
"Well, Ithink 
like 
in 
generalpeople 
do dress 
in 
a certain 
way 
to 
be 
identified 
with a certain 
type 
ofperson 
kind 
of, 
I 
mean, 
its 
like 
students, 
the 
ones especiallyfrom 
Glasgow, 
the 
ones 
that 
look 
the 
most 
like 
students are 
the 
ones 
that 
are absolutely 
minted, 
from 
like, 
parts 
ofGlasgow 
- 
so 
it 
ja conscious 
effort 
to 
look 
this 
way 
I 
think 
like, 
I 
don't 
know, 
I 
mean, 
I 
don't 
think 
even 
people 
who 
think 
they 
are opting 
out 
because 
they 
have 
got a 
specific 
look 
as 
well. 
I 
would 
say 
so, 
definitely 
that 
because 
that's the 
thing that 
amazes 
me nowadays, 
because 
you 
see people 
coming 
into 
the. 
4rt School 
building 
like 
andyou 
think 
'nedf'just 
because 
ofthe 
way 
they 
are 
dressed 
andyet 
they 
arenot, 
they 
are 
students 
whereas 
really, 
twenty 
oddyears 
ago, students 
were 
tweedyyou 
know, 
that 
kind 
of 
tweed, 
anda 
dej7nite look 
Nobody 
really escapesfashion 
". 
189 
the 
essential 
formula for 
such 
a style 
"taking 
a sort 
ofgIamorous 
item 
and 
mixing 
it 
with 
denim 
". 
But 
having 
worked 
in 
a 
liberal institution 
for 
two 
decades, 
she was 
now 
cautious 
about 
such 
claims 
to 
individuality: 
I 
think 
the 
Art School 
isn't 
really as 
liberal 
as, 
I 
mean 
[ 
... 
) it 
is 
quite 
old 
fashioned 
in 
some 
senses, 
as 
for 
the 
students, 
I 
think 
maybe 
not as 
much now, 
but 
back 
times 
it 
would 
have been 
easy 
to 
look 
at a student 
and you 
would 
know 
which 
department 
they 
came 
from, 
like 
me 
in 
my 
denims 
and 
my 
blooming 
pin-striped 
top, 
I 
thought 
I 
was 
so 
individual 
and 
different 
and 
I 
wasn't, 
I 
was 
part of 
that 
group, 
I 
mean 
you 
could 
tell 
the 
students, 
you could 
tell 
the 
photography 
students, 
I 
think 
you 
can 
even 
now, you 
would 
have 
a 
rough 
idea 
of 
which student 
belonged 
to 
which group. 
The 
media 
association 
between 
working 
class-women's 
fashions, 
sexual availability 
and/or 
stupidity 
is in 
part 
reflected 
in 
the 
experiences 
of 
research 
participants. 
Ann 
remembered: 
In 
the 
job 
I 
did [teaching 
a 
beauty 
course], 
though 
I 
was 
in 
working 
with women 
all 
the time, 
my 
bosses 
have 
always 
- 
the 
main 
senior 
management 
have 
always 
been 
men. 
But 
when 
I 
was 
eventually 
a 
Head 
of 
Department I 
was 
in 
with a 
lot 
of 
men 
at 
these 
meetings 
and 
I 
think that 
the 
assumption 
always was 
that 
I 
was 
thick 
because 
of 
my appearance, 
because 
I 
would 
probably 
be 
quite made up and 
with 
my 
hairdo, 
and 
there 
were 
assumptions made 
there 
and 
I 
don't 
know 
whether 
it 
worked 
to 
my advantage 
or 
disadvantage, 
because 
the 
thing 
was, 
I 
would 
be 
quite 
canny and 
I 
ended up with 
the 
most 
successful 
department 
if 
you 
like, 
because 
- 
and 
you 
know, I 
don't know 
whether 
that's 
because 
they 
assumed 
that 
I 
wasn't 
listening 
and 
they 
would 
be 
surprised 
because 
of 
the 
assumption 
of 
the 
way 
I 
looked. 
Many 
participants remembered parental 
attitudes 
that 
demonised 
themselves 
or 
other women 
who 
dressed 
to 
excess. 
Frequently 
such 
attitudes 
linked 
excessive 
femininity 
with prostitution. 
Ettie 
who 
remembered, 
"My 
mother was most ashamed 
ofme 
dyeing 
my 
hair black 
- 
she 
said 
I 
looked 
like 
a 
prostitute". 
Jean 
also noted, 
The 
style was 
unisex 
in 
theory. 
Ellen's 
most prized 
garment 
from 
this 
period 
had been 
a retrojacket 
inherited from her 
aunt 
She'd 
earlier 
lost 
a 
battle 
over 
her 
aunt's musquash coat with 
her 
record 
shop-managing 
brother. 
Theiacket 
worn 
withjeans, 
completed 
an 
iconic, 
still cherished 
look: "It's 
a gorgeous 
littlefortiespeplum 
and 
it 
goes 
In 
and 
out with 
the 
one 
button 
and 
it 
s 
dark, 
dark, 
navy 
blue 
and 
it'sjust 
gorgeous 
and 
I 
used 
to 
wear 
it 
with my 
denims 
and 
maybejust 
a wee plain. 
not a 
tucked in 
thing 
a 
thing 
that 
hung 
over 
and 
when 
I 
came 
backfrom Canada 
and 
I'd 
never 
had 
a sun 
tan 
in 
my 
life because I don't 
do 
the 
sun and 
I'm 
not 
that 
keen 
on 
it 
and 
I 
was 
a nice, not 
a golden 
brownjust 
a 
colour, 
a 
dfferent 
colour 
and 
there 
was a 
picture 
of 
me and 
I 
can't 
even 
remember 
where 
it 
is 
now 
but I 
remember 
when 
I 
look 
at 
that 
I 
think 
'that's 
it. 
'f... 
II 
can probablyfindyou 
a picture 
ofihe 
top 
and 
the 
denims because I 
wore 
themforfive 
years. 
" 
[Laughter] 
190 
Oh 
it 
wasn't, 
it 
was 
that 
kind 
of godly 
thing, 
it 
wasn't right 
to 
be 
this 
way 
and 
to 
be 
over 
made 
with 
make-up 
and clothes 
too 
short, you 
know, 
skirts or 
dresses 
or 
low 
cut 
- 
you 
know, 
there 
wasn't 
that 
problem 
with me certainly 
but [Laughter] 
but 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
That 
was 
always 
still 
- 
AP: And 
what 
do 
you 
think 
the 
associations 
there 
were 
there 
of somebody 
with 
cleavage? 
Jean: 
Prostitution 
and 
it 
wasn't godly. 
136 
Elizabeth's 
fascination 
with 
her 
friend's 
mother 
provoked 
her 
parents' 
disapproval. 
137 
and 
her 
aunty 
Hilary's 
fashionings 
were 
also viewed 
ambivalently 
by 
her 
mother 
having 
as she 
did 
painted 
nails, 
dyed hair 
and an 
'exotic' 
look: 
"Oh 
yes, 
I 
mean 
it 
was 
wonderfulfor 
me 
to 
think 
ofmysej(having 
an 
exotic 
aunty, 
you 
know, 
the 
women 
who 
my 
mum 
was ashamed 
of, even 
though 
she 
looked 
up 
to 
her 
in 
lots 
ofways. 
" However, 
social 
and 
parental 
attitudes 
failed 
to 
deter 
Elizabeth from 
experimenting 
with 
fashioning. 
13' 
Ellen's 
aunty 
similarly 
caused 
fascination 
in 
her 
niece 
and 
disapprobation 
in 
her 
sister-in-law: 
Well 
she 
must 
be 
well 
into her 
sixties 
now 
and 
she was a 
dancer 
when 
she 
was 
young 
and she 
wears 
these 
enormous 
high heels, 
I 
mean 
big, 
big, 
red, 
high 
heels. [ 
... 
] 
She 
has 
got 
the 
piled up 
hair 
and 
the 
gold, 
she goes 
to 
Las 
Vegas 
twice 
a 
year and 
she 
has her 
hair done, 
she 
has it 
done 
twice 
a week, 
full 
shampoos 
and sets, 
I 
mean 
Mum's 
very, 
Mum 
wasn't 
that 
fond 
of 
Dad's 
family 
because 
they 
were a 
bit low 
class, 
which 
wasnae 
their 
fault 
but 
they 
were 
a 
bit 
low 
class 
(Laughs) 
but 
the 
ones 
that 
went 
to 
Canada 
are 
nice people 
and 
they 
are, 
they're 
all 
very 
Catholic 
and 
Catholics 
have 
a real 
tendency, 
and 
I know 
that 
it's 
probably 
isn't 
right 
to 
say 
but it is 
true, 
they 
have 
a 
kind 
of 
forgiving, 
niceness 
about 
them, 
a 
kindness, 
my 
aunt 
Moira is 
the 
kindest 
person 
you 
could 
ever wish 
to 
meet, 
but 
there 
was 
aunt 
Moira 
and 
her 
sister 
Margaret 
and 
her 
mother, 
who was my 
Dad's 
aunty 
Maggie, 
and 
they 
were 
like 
the 
Three 
Degrees, 
(Laughter) 
[ 
... 
] 
Pink 
kaftans 
and 
big 
piles 
of 
hair, big 
rings 
and 
lashes. 
Adele: 
Nail 
vamish? 
" 
Although 
there 
is 
no 
scope 
in 
this 
thesis to 
discuss 
the 
links 
between feminine 
excess, cleavage, 
ethnicity and 
class a comment 
made 
still 
be 
made 
about 
Modernist/Ferninist 
preference 
for 
representing women 
without 
it. Again, 
Shrimpton 
(and Twiggy) 
rovided 
something 
of an archetype: 
"It 
was always 
a 
terrible 
strainfor me 
to 
appear 
to 
have 
bosoms 
"(Shrimpton, 
1991, 
p. 
86). 
" 
"Her 
mother 
workedfor 
a start off and she 
did 
something 
terribly 
disreputable 
in 
that 
she 
worked 
on 
the 
Tole 
and 
she 
was 
always very, 
very 
glamorously 
dressed, I 
think 
my mum and 
neighhours with similar 
views 
to 
her, 
saw 
Mrs 
Botham 
as 
hardly 
more 
than 
a prostitute 
because 
you 
know, because 
she, you 
know, 
she 
did 
work 
at 
the 
Tote 
which 
wasyou 
know, 
tfnot 
a scandal 
you 
know, I 
mean, 
not 
a nice 
thing 
to 
do ". 
... 
Yes, I 
did 
wear 
lipstick 
and 
it 
was 
very pale pink 
and 
I 
think 
it 
was 
influenced 
then 
by 
the 
Italian 
thing 
in 
the 
1950s, 
very 
much 
influenced 
by Sophia 
Loren 
and, 
oh yes, 
I 
remember 
the 
first 
time, 
I 
know 
it's 
not 
hair, 
but 
the 
first 
time 
I 
wore 
-I 
painted 
my nails, 
John, 
my 
Dad 
went 
absolutely 
mental 
because 
that, 
that 
was, 
it 
was 
only 
prostitutes 
in his 
idea, 
his head 
that 
painted 
their 
nails 
and 
it 
was red, 
I 
painted 
them 
red 
and 
that 
was 
like, 
you 
know, 
and 
1just 
didn't 
understand 
why 
he 
was 
so angry. 
[ 
... 
I 
One 
time 
he 
did 
say, 
"You 
go 
out 
trying 
to 
look 
like bloody 
Sophia 
Loren 
" 
so 
I 
think 
I 
must 
have 
done 
a 
decentjob 
on 
myself. 
191 
dollop: 
a shapeless 
lump. 
As 
in, 'Sausage, 
egg and 
a 
dollop 
of mashed 
potato, 
Phyllis luv. 'In 
everyday 
use 
in 
North 
America. 
dollyblue: 
a 
blue 
twist 
of 
fabric 
containing an agent 
for 
whitening 
clothes. 
donkevatone: 
a soft stone 
used 
to 
colour or whiten 
a 
doorstep 
or 
window-sill. 
30. 
The 
character 
Bet 
Lynch 
defines 
'dolled-up' in 
Street 
talk, 
the 
language 
of 
Coronation 
Street, 
1996, 
Jeffrey 
Miller 
and 
Graharn 
Nown, 
page 
35. 
Ellen: 
Nail 
varnish, 
aunt 
Moira 
was a nail 
vamisher yes, aha. 
She 
gave me 
her 
cast off 
cat 
suits, 
I 
usually 
-I 
mean we are 
talking 
here like 
leopard 
skin cat 
suits, 
she 
has 
got 
the 
most 
fantastic 
figure, 
she 
still wears a size 
ten 
now, and 
she's always 
kept 
really 
trim, 
she's 
fantastic 
looking, 
fantastic. 
139 
Participant's 
accounts produced an array 
of 
information 
about 
social 
degrees 
of respectability 
in 
the 
fashioning 
of 
femininity 
in 
specific 
historical 
moments. 
Elizabeth 
noted 
how 
the 
emergence 
of 
the 
tousled 
look, 
read 
by her 
as 
both 
expressing 
and 
being identified 
with 
by 
middle-class 
girls, 
represented 
an assault 
on prevailing 
notions of 
respectability: 
It 
represented 
a massive, massive change 
because 
prior 
to 
that 
what mattered 
more 
than 
anything 
was 
respectability. 
You know, 
that 
was 
the 
message 
that 
was 
coming 
through 
from 
parents 
all 
the 
time 
in 
the 
1950s, 
there's 
absolutely 
no 
doubt 
about 
that 
at 
all you 
know, 
you 
have 
to 
be 
respectable 
above absolutely 
everything 
else 
and 
to 
have had, 
I 
mean 
even 
if 
you 
had 
a perin 
at 
that 
time the 
perm was 
- 
you still 
looked 
respectable, 
you 
had 
to 
have 
a respectable 
looking 
perm. 
140 
Women 
also shared 
information 
about 
their 
own 
hair 
histories, 
shifting 
identifications, 
and 
view 
of 
themselves 
and others 
in 
terms 
of appropriate 
and 
inappropriate 
fashionings. 
Ann 
outlined 
the 
difficulties 
in 
defining 
'tartiness' 
or 
'tackiness' 
precisely, 
but 
related 
such 
terms to 
notions 
of class and 
taste. 
141 
Maureen 
felt 
strongly 
that 
people's value 
should not 
be 
judged by 
their 
hair, 
implying 
that 
she 
knew 
this 
to 
happen: 
"' 
The 
notion 
of 
being 
'dolled-up' 
is 
a pejorative accusation 
of vanity 
in 
women, 
the 
antithesis 
of respectable 
demureness. 
In 
a 
memory 
work 
text 
A 
remembered 
it 
as 
a 
term 
used 
by her 
granddad 
to 
tease 
her 
or 
other 
female 
relatives 
and 
their 
attempts 
at 
glamour. 
The 
term 
was 
imported from 
America 
in 
the 
pre-war 
period: 
"Dolled 
up: 
dressed 
in 
one's 
best 
clothes, orfinery, 
for 
a 
special 
occasion. 
As 
in 
'Where's 
she off 
to 
all 
dolled 
up? 
'The 
wordformally 
became 
British in 
1934 
when published 
in 
an 
appendix 
of mostly 
US 
expressions 
in 
the 
Concise Oxford 
Dictionary 
" 
(Nown, 
1986, 
p. 
35). 
140 
Durbin 
also 
connected 
respectable 
fashioning 
with class 
and 
destiny 
"We 
were 
of course 
Good 
Girls 
and 
Alice 
Boys [the 
boys 
had 
crew 
cuts 
the 
girls 
should 
length 
page 
boys] 
well-behaved 
middle class children, 
thefuture 
leaders 
of our country 
" 
(Durbin 
1973, 
p. 
14) 
The 
impact 
of an outlaw, 
home-made 
Dusty-type 
peroxide 
boulTant 
or 
beehive 
even 
by 
the 
mid 
1960s 
can 
be 
measured 
in 
part 
against 
the 
demure 
styles recommended 
for 
teenagers 
by 
contemporary magazines. 
In 
the 
Women's 
Own 
Book 
of 
70 
Fabulous 
Hairstyles 
You 
Can Set Yourself 
(2 
April, 1966) 
perhaps 
the 
most 
daring, 
Style 
28 "an 
ultra modern stylefor 
Miss 
1966" 
reflects 
the 
influence 
of 
Sassoon. 
"I 
"Yes, 
yes, 
I 
suppose 
there's 
always 
- 
ifyou 
are 
talking 
about 
a sort 
of class 
thing, then 
I 
suppose 
there 
would 
be 
there's 
the 
sort of 
tarry, 
ifyou 
like, 
end, 
which 
would 
be 
-I 
don't know 
where 
that 
is 
because 
I 
think 
I 
am 
quite naturally quite 
tartyJaced 
and 
always 
have 
been 
and 
I don't 
know 
why 
that 
is, 
you 
know, 
Ijust kind 
ofhave 
and some 
people 
have, 
sort of 
have 
that 
kind 
of 
face. 
I 
suppose 
more 
middle-class women 
wouldperhaps 
have 
less 
tacky 
tastes. 
" 
Just 
as 
I 
was 
unprepared 
for 
and 
bemused 
by 
Ann's 
self-identification 
as 
'tarty', 
other 
participants' 
self-identifications 
often 
did 
not square 
with 
my 
own perceptions of 
their 
fashioning. 
Michelle's 
self-identification 
highlighted the 
complexity 
of constructing 
an embodied 
sense 
of self, 
in 
contemporary 
culture: 
"Well, I 
think 
ifyou 
were 
looking 
at 
me 
thenyou 
wouldsay 
this 
kind 
of 
iruddle-class, 
maybe 
affluent 
looking, 
just 
because 
the 
clothes 
that 
I 
wear 
aren't 
cheap 
clothes, 
but 
its 
not 
to 
say 
that 
I'm 
not 
trying to 
project 
that 
image 
[ 
... 
I Well, I 
mean 
comingftom a working-class 
background, 
been 
involved 
infemmistpolitics, 
raised 
in 
a 
single 
parent 
household 
in 
quite 
a nice 
part 
of 
the 
city, 
I 
mean 
Shawlands 
- 
its 
not 
- 
so 
its 
definitely 
- 
now 
its 
definitely 
a 
middle class 
- 
but 
then 
we're all socialists, 
we're 
all, you 
know 
". 
192 
I've 
known 
people 
who 
- 
that 
don't 
even, 
I've heard 
people 
saying 
that 
they 
don't 
comb 
their 
hair 
and 
I 
don't 
comb 
mine 
and 
look 
at 
the 
state of 
mine, 
but 
I 
think 
it's 
just 
like 
a 
lot 
a 
people 
think 
it's just 
like 
a 
fantasy 
thing that's 
no 
big 
deal. [ 
... 
] 
It doesn't 
make 
you 
a 
better 
person, 
it 
doesn't 
make 
you any 
better 
than 
them, 
but 
people 
think 
that 
are 
the 
better 
and 
they 
are 
above 
you. 
Gabrielle 
had 
also 
experienced 
discrimination 
on 
the 
grounds 
of class 
at 
the 
hands 
of 
hairdressers: "Yes 
there's 
been 
one 
or 
two 
hairdressers 
where 
I 
haven't 
liked 
because 
they 
seem 
as 
though 
-I 
sort 
of 
wasn't 
best 
enoughfor 
their 
clientele, 
sort 
of 
thing, 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
A 
bit 
snobbish 
andI 
went 
about 
three 
orfour 
times 
andl 
stopped". 
142 
She had 
only 
had 
the 
opportunity 
to 
consider 
spending 
money 
on 
herself 
after 
she 
started 
work, 
visits 
to 
the 
hairdresser 
had 
became 
an 
occasional 
treat: 
They 
seem 
to 
look 
down 
and 
intimidate 
you 
somehow. 
I didn't 
feel 
comfortable 
there 
[ 
... 
]I 
think 
it 
was 
-I 
think 
it 
was 
me 
working 
in 
a 
factory 
and 
there 
was 
a 
lot 
of 
women 
there that 
was 
always 
dressed 
up when 
they 
went. 
Well 
I 
didn't 
go 
dressed 
up, 
I 
thought, 
'I'm having 
my 
hair 
done 
and 
I'm 
not going 
dressed 
up 
I'm just 
going-', 
in 
fact, 
I 
used 
to 
go 
from 
work 
many 
a 
time, 
you 
know, 
in 
my work 
clothes. 
Gabrielle 
and 
Jean had found 
the 
fashioning 
of 
nouveau 
riche 
middle-class women 
to 
be 
excessive 
and 
inappropriate: 
Gabrielle: 
There 
are one or 
two 
women 
where 
I 
go 
now, 
they 
always 
have 
a 
lot 
to 
say, where 
me, 
I 
just 
go 
there to 
get 
my 
hair 
done 
and 
not 
-. 
Well 
there's 
one woman 
in 
particular 
that 
goes 
there, 
she 
used 
to 
be 
a 
business 
woman 
and 
she 
owned 
some 
sort 
of 
DIY 
store 
which 
has 
closed 
down 
now, 
she 
talks 
and 
talks 
and 
talks 
every 
- 
she 
has 
her 
hair 
blow 
dried 
and 
when 
Joyce 
has 
finished 
she always gets 
up, picks 
the 
spray up 
and 
does 
it 
all 
herself 
again, 
sprays 
it 
all 
you 
know, 
but 
she seems 
to 
me 
like 
she 
thinks 
she's a 
bit 
cut above you 
know 
... 
I" 
Following 
the 
widespread commercialisation 
of 
the 
beauty 
industries 
it 
became 
possible 
for 
some 
working-class 
women 
to 
replicate 
the 
fashions 
of 
their 
so-called 
betters. 
Hairdressers 
like 
Ettie, 
who 
were 
"I 
After 
our 
interview, 
her 
daughter 
Evelyn 
revealed 
that 
on 
a 
special 
occasion 
Gabrielle 
had 
booked 
into 
Vidal 
Sassoon's 
and 
had 
left in 
tears 
after 
feeling 
judged. 
Jackie 
said 
that 
she 
had 
once 
gone 
to 
Rita 
Rusk's 
exclusive 
Glasgow 
salon 
for 
a 
hairdo 
but 
had been 
very 
put 
off 
because 
they 
had 
given 
off 
the 
impression 
'artist 
at work'. 
"' 
During 
her 
period 
working 
at a 
Jewish 
women's 
hair 
salon, 
McRobbie 
noticed 
that 
it 
was 
her 
wealthy clients 
that 
were 
scomed 
for 
aping 
the 
middle classes. 
Their 
vulgarity was expressed 
in 
their 
ostentatious 
display 
of 
'feminine 
excess: 
' 
"Our 
ladies 
[ 
... 
I 
eschewed 
natural 
maternal 
looks 
infavour 
ofsheer 
artifice, 
some[ 
... 
] 
wore 
too 
much 
make-up 
and 
too 
many 
bracelets" 
(McRobbie 
1986, 
pp. 
16-17). 
193 
fashioning 
everyone 
from 
stars 
to teachers, 
prostitutes and 
beauty 
queens, 
the 
means 
of 
fashioning 
diverse 
hair 
identities 
became 
possible. 
Both Ettie 
and 
Sandy 
experimented on 
themselves, 
friends 
and co-workers: 
"It 
was 
all make-up, 
flicks 
thatflicked 
out, 
the 
cottage 
loaf, 
French 
roll, 
the 
bun, 
you 
know, 
the 
artistic 
bun, 
or 
theplain, 
you 
know, 
tendrils, 
Eton 
crop, 
I 
used 
to 
crop 
-I 
got 
to the 
stage where 
I 
cropped 
my 
hair 
and 
my 
mother 
went mad 
at 
that 
as well, she went 
mad at everything 
". 
[Laughter] 
The 
explosion 
of 
home hairdressing 
products 
in 
the 
1960s led 
to 
what 
I 
am 
tempted to 
define 
as 
the 
democratising 
effect of 
bouffanting, 
a style 
ultimately 
adopted 
across class 
divisions 
but 
cherished 
by 
many 
working-class 
women. 
The 
style 
could 
be 
easily achieved 
without 
resort 
to 
a salon and 
regardless 
of 
hair 'quality'. It 
required 
the 
most 
rudimentary of 
tools: 
a comb 
and 
lacquer, dye 
and 
optional 
hairpins, 
only one 
basic 
technique 
was 
essential, 
back-combing, 
and yet 
from 
the 
late 
1950s 
it 
symbolised 
variously 
femininity, 
dissidence 
and 
glamour. 
The 
pleasures 
of 
bouffanting 
and 
the 
association 
of 
home 
hairdressing 
with somewhat 
unregulated, 
dissident 
hair 
fashioning 
by 
women was 
curtailed 
by 
the 
impact 
of new 
self-consciously 
natural and yet 
ironically 
unattainable 
stylings 
epitomised 
for 
Elizabeth 
by 
the 
tousled 
Brigitte 
Bardot 
and 
the 
Modernist 
young middle-class 
chic of 
Quant 
and 
Sassoon. 
Elizabeth: 
When, 
after 
bouffant, 
when 
I 
suppose 
I'd 
be 
in 
my 
twenties 
then 
[ 
... 
] 
the 
mod period 
came 
in 
and 
yes 
Mary 
- 
it 
was absolutely 
fantastic 
the 
impact 
of 
Mary 
Quant 
and 
what's 
he 
called? 
AP: 
Vidal 
Sassoon? 
Elizabeth: 
Vidal 
Sassoon, 
definitely. 
And 
I 
think 
it 
was 
then that, 
again, 
I 
had 
this 
massive 
feeling 
that 
I 
couldn't 
be 
feminine, before 
-I 
couldn't 
have 
yards 
of 
- 
[Laughter] 
- 
you 
know, 
wonderful 
hair 
and 
then 
suddenly 
I 
couldn't 
have 
-I 
could 
have 
a 
bouffant 
because 
everybody 
could, 
because 
of 
the technique 
you 
know, 
but it 
was 
hair lacquer 
and 
all 
this 
sort of 
thing 
but 
this 
natural, 
you 
know, 
this 
cut, you 
had 
to 
have, 
you 
could 
only 
look 
like 
that 
if 
you 
had 
strong, 
thick 
hair, 
straight 
hair, 
which 
I 
didn't have, 
so 
I 
tried 
to 
achieve 
it 
through 
rollers 
and 
that 
sort 
of 
stuff 
but 
it 
was 
just, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
just 
so unsatisfactory. 
144 
114 
Elizabeth 
also 
stated 
that 
she 
felt 
that 
she 
could never 
have 
been 
a 
Mod 
with curly 
hair, 
like 
her 
sister. 
194 
As 
the 
Hippy 
aesthetic 
overlapped 
with 
Mod 
fashioning 
a 
proto 
-feminist 
fashioning 
for 
women 
emerged 
shifting 
the 
perception 
of 
'good' 
hair 
towards 
a post-Sassoon 
Modernist free-styling, 
a 
relinquishing 
for 
many 
women 
of 
the 
emancipatory 
promise of 
the 
bouffant. 
145 
Within 
the 
hairdressing 
field, high 
and 
low-class 
salons 
were 
recognised 
by 
participants 
and are 
clearly 
identifiable, 
by location, 
price 
and 
marketing, 
if 
any. 
Some 
participants 
had 
had 
experience 
of 
either 
visiting 
or working 
at salons 
generally 
frequented 
by 
working-class 
or 
middle-class 
clientele. 
Sandy 
noted 
some 
differences 
in both 
the 
way customers 
and 
hairdressing 
staff 
were 
treated. 
I 
did 
go 
to 
work 
in 
a 
very, 
very middle-class, 
Jewish 
women's 
salon 
in 
King 
Street, 
yeah, and 
there 
was 
a 
massive 
difference 
about, 
just 
what 
you 
are 
talking 
about, 
because 
in 
'Marjory's' it 
was very 
much 
left 
to 
us 
but 
- 
certainly 
more 
to 
Marjory 
really 
than 
us 
-I 
mean, 
it 
was 
like, 
she'd 
tell 
us what 
to 
do 
and 
it 
was, 
like, 
standard 
there, 
was 
about 
four 
different 
hairstyles 
and 
that 
was 
it, 
you 
know, 
and 
it 
would 
be 
like, 
"Do 
you 
wantflick-ups, 
love? 
" 
or 
"Do 
you want 
it 
back 
love? 
" 
or 
"Doyou 
want- 
"I 
mean 
we 
used 
to 
call 
them 
'homed 
curls', 
"Doyou 
want 
horned 
curls, 
love? 
" 
it 
was 
just 
that, 
you 
know 
"Do 
you 
want 
..? 
", I 
mean, 
the 
only other 
question 
was, 
"Do 
you 
want 
back-combing 
love? 
", 
you 
know, 
and 
it 
was 
just 
like, 
there 
were 
about 
-I 
mean, 
there 
weren't 
- 
there 
were, 
sort 
of, not 
many 
variations 
on a 
theme, 
but 
when 
- 
that 
is 
so 
completely 
different 
to 
when 
I 
started 
working 
on 
King 
Street 
at 
this 
salon 
there, 
and 
it 
was 
these 
two 
very, 
very middle-class 
sisters 
and 
they 
used 
to 
drink 
gin while 
they 
were 
doing, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
like 
a set 
thing, 
you 
know 
- 
it 
- 
there 
was 
nothing 
peculiar about 
it, 
they 
used 
to 
drink 
gin and 
tonics 
while 
they 
were 
doing 
the 
hair. 
It 
was 
back-washes 
and 
everything 
then 
and 
the 
clients were called, 
you 
know, 
clients 
and 
they 
used 
to 
come 
in 
they 
said 
"What 
doyou 
fancy 
today, 
darling? 
" 
you 
know, 
and 
"Ohh 
darling. 
Oh 
take 
it 
up 
here 
", 
you 
know, 
and 
they 
had 
- 
it 
was 
really 
- 
so 
I 
am glad 
I 
had 
that 
experience. 
I didn't 
last 
a very 
long 
time there 
because 
it 
was a 
total 
culture shock 
to 
me, 
but 
that 
was so 
different. 
The 
more 
directive 
approach of 
both 
salon 
managers 
and 
customers 
in 
up-market 
salons 
was 
reflected 
in decisions 
made 
on stylings 
of 
both 
clients 
andjunior 
staff- 
Sandy: 
I 
had 
my 
hair 
cut off 
in fact 
actually 
the 
first 
time, 
I 
had 
long 
hair 
until 
I 
went 
to that 
'Joan 
Partington's' 
and 
theyjust 
-I 
started 
and 
they 
said, 
"We've 
got 
to 
culyour 
hair" 
and 
they 
cut 
my 
hair 
into 
a 
bob, 
a 
bouncy 
bob 
and 
they 
gave 
me 
some 
fine 
streaks. 
[ 
... 
] 
"' 
One 
of 
the 
triggers 
for 
the 
direction 
of 
this 
research 
came 
through 
discussions 
with 
feminists 
and 
lesbians 
including 
lean 
about 
their 
choice 
of men's 
barbers 
as 
hairdressers. The 
ideological 
logic 
of 
this 
in 
terms 
of 
equality 
issues 
or on an economic 
or 
political 
basis 
or 
the 
argument 
that 
they 
were getting 
a 
'unisex 
cut' 
seemed 
unconvincing 
to 
me, 
but 
yet more evidence of 
an 
aspect 
of 
feminist 
taste 
paradox 
that 
stated 
do/don't 
look 
like 
men. 
195 
AP: 
So did 
the 
- 
did 
any 
of 
the 
customers 
in 
either 
of 
the 
salons 
ever 
bring 
in 
a 
picture of 
something 
that 
they 
had 
seen 
either on 
- 
wherever, 
and 
ask 
you 
to 
do it, 
you 
know, 
to 
do 
one 
of 
ihem? 
Sandy: 
Well, 
certainly 
at 
'Marjory's' 
that 
would 
have 
been 
a rarity and 
it 
was 
only young 
girls who 
- 
that 
did 
that, 
but 
young 
girls 
did it, 
and 
they 
did it 
like for 
the 
weddings 
and 
things 
like 
that, 
you 
know [ 
... 
] but 
certainly 
in, 
in 
the 
King 
Street 
salon 
that 
I 
worked 
in, 
which 
was 
called 
'Miss 
Partington's' 
[ 
... 
] 
they 
did, 
they 
brought 
magazines 
in 
and 
they, 
sort 
of, 
came 
in 
with 
an armful 
of 
magazines 
and 
there 
was 
a 
lot 
more 
time 
to 
spend on 
talking 
about 
the 
hairstyle 
and planning 
it. 
As 
much 
time 
as 
doing 
the 
hair, 
which 
was 
the 
complete 
opposite 
to 
- 
at 
'Mar' 
T, 
yeah. 
146 
jory 
Ettie, 
who 
had 
worked 
in 
the 
widest 
range 
of 
hairdressing 
contexts 
was critical 
of 
the 
atmosphere 
to 
be 
found in 
the 
high 
status 
salons: 
The 
majority 
of 
hairdressers 
want 
to 
be 
the 
glamour 
- 
and 
I 
had 
my 
day 
at 
that, 
I've 
had 
my 
day 
of spoiled 
women 
and 
there's 
a 
lot 
of spoiled 
women 
as 
well, 
it 
wasn't 
all 
nice clients, 
there 
were 
horrible 
clients 
because 
you'd 
hardly 
touch 
---?'You`re 
hurting 
my 
head, 
you'repulling 
my 
hair" 
you 
know, 
they'd 
maybe 
had 
a 
bad 
night 
at 
home 
or 
whatever 
rich, 
spoiled, 
not 
- 
there 
were 
some 
lovely 
rich people, 
don't 
get 
me 
wrong, 
but 
they 
wouldn't put 
their 
hand down 
their 
own 
loo 
to 
clean 
their 
own 
toilet. 
Sandy 
disclosed 
some 
activities 
in 
'Miss 
Partington's', 
up-market 
salon 
that 
would 
not 
have 
been deemed 
respectable at 
'Marjory's': 
Sandy: 
I 
can certainly 
remember 
having 
sexual 
contact 
with 
customers. 
AP: 
Oh? 
Sandy: 
Yeah, 
and 
I 
don't 
mean 
that 
in 
sort 
of 
- 
but 
just 
sort 
of, very 
subtle, 
very 
soft, 
kind 
of, 
you 
know, 
[ 
... 
] 
grabbing 
hold 
of you 
and, 
you 
know 
- 
and 
there 
was 
loads 
- 
but 
that 
was 
rife at 
'Miss 
Partington's', 
they 
used 
to 
use my 
chest 
as 
a 
pillow 
for 
the 
women's 
heads 
while 
they 
plucked 
their 
eyebrows 
and 
they 
used 
to 
say 
- 
and 
even 
then 
I 
had 
quite 
a 
sticky-out 
chest 
- 
and 
I 
used 
to 
say 
- 
and 
they 
didn't 
- 
they 
were all quite 
flat-chested, 
and 
they 
didn't 
wear 
bras 
and 
things 
like 
that, 
these 
women 
they 
were 
really 
big, 
they 
were 
like 
tall 
sort 
of 
Vogue 
type 
women, 
these 
two 
sisters 
who 
ran 
this 
place, 
and 
they 
used 
to 
say, 
"Oh 
she's 
got 
a 
lovely 
little 
chest 
come 
on, 
darling, 
put your 
head 
on 
" 
Interestingly, 
Mrs 
Lochead 
was 
the 
only 
customer at 
Ta 
Paris' 
who 
admitted 
that 
she 
had 
brought 
images 
into 
the 
salon 
for 
hairdressers 
to 
copy. 
196 
there 
isn't 
that 
a 
lovely 
pillowfor you? 
", 
but 
there 
was 
like 
real sexual 
undertones 
to 
it 
for 
sure. 
No 
doubt 
about 
it. 
And 
when 
they 
came 
in, 
they 
used 
to 
undress, 
now 
that 
was 
just 
- 
at 
Marjory's 
it 
wouldn't 
have 
ever 
been 
- 
they 
used 
take 
their 
clothes off 
and 
j 
ust 
put a 
gown on 
and 
they 
used 
to 
j 
ust 
take 
their 
clothes off and 
put, you 
know, 
and 
there 
was 
like 
real 
- 
at 
'Joan 
Partington's' 
it 
was 
like, 
it 
was 
quite 
a sexy, sexy 
thing, the 
whole 
thing 
having 
your 
hair 
done 
and 
that 
and 
- 
As 
has 
already 
been 
noted, 
for 
some 
women 
working 
in 
the 
context 
of salons 
ensured contact with a 
spectrum 
of 
customers. 
For 
others, 
like 
Ettie 
it 
was 
a route 
to 
a 
better 
life. 
She 
found 
Manhattan 
to 
be 
relatively 
classless 
with greater 
opportunities 
for 
herself 
and 
her 
husband. 
in 
this 
account 
Ettie 
described 
how 
her 
own 
ambitions contrasted with 
her 
aunt's 
expectations. 
Ettie's 
aunt 
had 
warned 
that 
she 
was 
lucky 
to 
have 
found 
a 
salon 
where she was 
paid 
the 
same 
as 
in 
Glasgow: 
I 
was 
a good 
hairdresser. 
I 
said, 
"No, 
ifthat's 
the 
way 
he 
pays 
me, 
like 
this" 
-I 
was earning 
that 
at 
home, 
[ 
... 
] 
that 
was 
like 
thirty 
odd 
dollars. 
"I 
didn't 
cross 
the 
Atlantic" 
I 
said, 
"I'm 
here 
to 
make 
money. 
" So, I 
knew 
at 
that 
point 
I 
needed 
to 
make 
it 
quick, 
I 
was with 
child 
so 
I 
went 
into 
Manhattan, 
looked 
up 
- 
phoned up 
- 
Bill 
Bailey 
was 
the 
name 
of one of 
the 
fabulous beauty 
salons, 
43d Street 
and 
Lexington 
Avenue, it 
was 
in 
the 
lobby 
of 
the 
Belmont 
Plaza 
in 
New 
York. 
"That's 
a 
high-class 
salon 
" 
says 
my 
aunt, 
I 
said, 
"Well 
I'm 
a 
high-class 
hairdresser. 
[Laughter] 
because in 
comparison 
I 
had 
to 
stay 
in 
the 
salon 
'Cut 
and 
Curl'. 
I 
gave 
a week's 
notice. 
Young 
people 
in 
the 
sixties 
were 
very 
quick, 
they 
didn't 
need 
a 
book 
of 
instructions, 
you 
cottoned 
on very 
quick, maybe 
because 
it 
was 
where 
I 
came 
from, 
you 
were 
streetwise 
as 
they 
call 
it 
now, 
you 
weren't aware 
then, 
you 
had 
to 
make 
- 
suss 
things 
out very quickly, 
make 
your 
decisions, 
however, 
[ 
... 
] 
My 
aunt 
was quite 
annoyed 
at 
me stepping 
out 
of 
my station 
and 
I 
wasn't 
- 
and 
I 
think 
others 
should 
know 
that 
you're not, you 
shouldn't 
be 
what 
people give 
you, 
you 
should 
be 
yourself. 
Hairdressing 
as 
a 
low 
status 
profession 
for 
women 
Notwithstanding 
the 
development, 
particularly 
from 
the 
1960s 
on 
of 
an 
elite 
strand of 
hairdressers 
and 
salons, 
the 
field 
has 
suffered 
from 
low 
esteem 
to 
the 
degree 
that 
pursuing 
this 
profession 
is 
regarded 
even 
at a governmental 
level 
as a 
specific 
sign of 
lack 
of 
ambition 
in 
women. 
147 
In 
sharp 
contrast 
to 
masculinised 
industries in 
Glasgow 
where 
the 
Red 
Clydesiders 
have been both 
"' 
For 
example, 
Now Labour's Baroness Jay 
and 
Tessa Jowell 
the 
former 
minister 
for Women 
in 
the 
Commons 
were criticised 
in 
2000 
for 
their 
'patronising' 
attitudes 
to 
young 
women 
in 
both 
the 
ill-receivcd 
'anorexia 
summit' 
at 
10 Downing Street 
and ain 
their 
endorsement 
of 
a 
Government 
report urging 
girls 
to 
consider 
alternatives 
to 
hairdressing 
as 
a career 
(Prescott? 
2000, 
p. 
16). 
Feminist 
and 
governmental 
neglect 
of 
the 
'glass 
ceiling' 
in 
hairdressing 
may 
be 
a 
spurious 
criticism 
but feminism's 
generaliscd 
critique 
of 
fashioning 
femininity 
requires 
revision. 
197 
romanticised 
and canonised 
in 
arts representations, 
heritage 
industries 
and museums, 
this 
feminised 
field 
has 
remained poorly paid, 
perceived 
as unpoliticised 
indeed 
counter-revolutionary 
and an 
appropriate 
subject 
for 
comedy. 
Being 
a 
largely 
non-unionised 
field 
with 
many 
temporary 
and 
part- 
time 
workers, 
careers continue 
to 
be 
problematic 
particularly 
for 
women 
with 
dependants. 
149 
Nevertheless, 
Ettie 
regarded 
hairdressing 
as 
a vocation, 
a 
more 
desirable 
field 
than 
shop 
work or 
accounting: 
I 
was 
unsettled 
in 
Copelands, 
up 
in 
the 
counting 
house 
I 
was 
and 
I 
hated it, in 
an office 
I 
used 
to 
think, 
Oh 
god 
forbid 
that 
I'll 
ever 
spend 
my 
life 
with 
the 
same 
people everyday. 
I 
wanted 
to 
be 
in 
a 
hairdressers, 
where 
the 
world 
is 
put 
to 
rights, 
really, 
people 
coming 
in 
and 
I 
wanted 
this. 
To 
me 
it 
was 
like 
a 
theatre, 
that's 
what 
to 
me 
it 
was 
like 
- 
everyday 
changing 
-different 
clients 
coming 
in, different 
needs, 
different 
professions, 
different 
worlds 
coming 
in 
to 
you, 
that's 
what 
I 
loved 
about 
it. 
149 
For 
aspirant 
first-generation 
Irish 
immigrants 
to 
Scotland 
like 
Ettie's 
mother, 
her daughter's 
ambitions 
were 
considered 
a 
'disappointment': 
150 
Ettie: 
She'd 
great 
dreams 
of a 
doctor, 
a 
lawyer, 
a 
teacher, 
a whatever, 
professional, 
another 
word 
that 
I 
hate I've 
got 
to 
say 
because it's 
tagged 
onto 
- 
it is 
discrimination 
and 
they 
need 
to 
get 
that 
out 
the 
road 
and 
value everybody, 
from 
the 
girl 
that's 
serving 
us 
here 
right up 
to 
the 
guy 
that 
made 
it, 
right 
up 
to the 
whoever 
owns 
it, 
you 
know, 
and 
the 
interior 
designer 
that 
made 
- 
so, mummy 
had 
this 
great 
plan 
of 
her 
two 
daughters 
making 
it, 
God love 
her, 
a 
big disappointment, 
she 
actually 
said 
that to 
me, 
when 
I 
went 
into 
hairdressing, 
"What 
a 
disappointment 
PO 
AP: 
Why 
did 
she say 
that? 
Ettie: 
Because 
she wanted 
- 
she 
had 
- 
and 
society's 
the 
same, 
she wanted 
doctor, 
lawyer, 
teacher, 
respect 
- 
respected professions. 
"' 
Many 
women 
reluctantly 
interrupted 
careers 
where 
there 
is 
negligible 
organised 
childcare 
support. 
Ettie 
gave up a 
potentially 
rewarding 
career 
in Manhattan 
and 
returned 
to 
Glasgow 
because 
of 
a 
pregnancy. 
Ann, 
who 
became 
Head 
of 
Department 
of a 
Beauty 
Course, 
lost 
touch 
with 
her best 
friend 
another 
promising 
student who 
left 
for 
an 
arranged 
marriage. 
Pauline 
took 
ten 
ars out 
of 
her 
hairdressing 
course 
to 
marry 
and 
have 
children. 
Sandy 
and 
Ann 
both 
noted 
the 
usefulness 
of 
their 
training 
in 
hairdressing for 
their 
future 
careers. 
Ettie 
still 
hairdressers 
for 
free 
at 
hostels 
for 
the 
homeless 
indicating 
that 
her 
work was 
never 
merely 
a means 
to 
an end. 
I" 
Ettic 
demonstrated 
her 
awareness 
of 
the 
racism and class 
struggles 
that 
her 
mother's generation 
had had 
to 
endure: 
"Very 
Intelligentpeople, 
but 
they 
were 
given 
the 
menialjobs. 
She 
ended 
up 
in 
the 
laundry 
in 
Oakbank 
Hospital, 
but 
she 
hada 
thirstfor 
education, 
buying 
all 
the 
books 
-a 
lot 
of 
myJamily 
is 
educated, 
so 
my mother 
did 
quite 
well, 
not 
by 
today's 
standards, 
but 
she 
got a 
dairy, 
she 
was 
a 
business 
woman, 
she started 
working 
in 
the 
dairy 
and 
then 
bought 
the 
place 
that 
she worked 
in 
at 
14, 
and 
that 
was 
a 
lot 
to 
do, 
a 
big 
achievement 
then 
". 
198 
Despite 
offering 
little in 
the 
way of career 
opportunities 
or 
rewards, and 
requiring 
a significant 
investment 
of 
time 
and 
money, 
Ettie 
had been 
committed 
to the 
field: 
I 
went 
into hairdressing, 
couldn't 
get 
in 
so 
easily, 
it 
was 
a 
bit like 
the 
Art School, 
you 
don't 
get 
in 
the 
first 
time, 
that 
was 
back 
then, 
because 
you 
had 
to 
pay a 
fee, 
and 
that 
was 
a 
lot 
of 
money, 
six, 
I 
think 
it 
was 
f. 65, 
now, 
that 
was 
what, 
six weeks wages 
because 
at 
that 
time 
a 
good 
wage 
was 
;C 
10 
a week, so 
it 
was a 
big 
outlay 
for 
my 
mother 
to 
put 
in. 
So 
I 
appreciate 
her 
very much 
for 
that, 
she never said 
"No, 
you're 
not". 
It 
was a 
disappointment, 
she 
wanted 
a 
professional. 
I 
think 
she accepted 
that 
she 
couldn't 
change 
and 
funded 
- 
which 
I'm 
ever 
grateful 
to 
her for 
and 
I 
always 
looked 
on 
it like 
a 
profession, 
just 
as 
important 
as 
the 
doctor, 
the 
chiropodist 
because 
you are 
raising people's 
spirits. 
She 
viewed 
her 
work as an 
important 
profession 
despite 
her 
experience 
of 
related 
health 
problems, 
unsociable 
hours 
and 
poor 
pay 
and conditions-151 
Well 
any profession, 
and 
I 
call 
it 
a 
profession 
still, 
that 
works 
for 
people 
for 
nine and 
ten 
hours 
and 
that's 
what 
it 
was 
then, twelve 
hours 
I did 
in 
Partick, 
this 
is 
after 
I 
got 
married, 
from 
nine 
in 
the 
morning 
to 
nine 
at 
night with 
half 
an 
hour 
off, 
no 
tea 
breaks 
outside 
of 
that. 
[ 
... 
]- 
I'm 
calling 
it 
a career, 
profession 
I 
would 
call 
it 
- 
it's 
not 
treated 
as a 
profession 
it's 
treated 
as 
- 
it's 
like 
nothing, 
it's 
no value you 
know, 
hairdressers. 
She 
had 
found 
more recognition and 
better 
pay 
in 
Manhattan: 
I'd 
be 
doing 
a 
head 
of 
hair 
and 
he'd 
come 
over, 
[The 
manager] 
"Oh 
my 
God 
what's 
that? 
" 
with 
your 
name 
on 
a 
cheque, 
"That's 
your 
monthly 
bonus, 
honey. 
" 
and 
I'd 
say, 
"That'sfantastic 
Sixty-five, 
or 
sixty-seven, 
or 
sixty-eight, 
sixty 
something, 
in 
one month. 
[ 
... 
] it 
was a 
lot 
of 
money, 
it 
was 
like 
a week's 
wages added 
on 
so, 
that 
was 
great, 
and 
they 
loved 
to 
hear 
you 
speaking, 
I 
said, 
"Well, 
that's 
great, 
thank 
Godyou know", 
"Glad 
to 
see 
you get 
it, 
honey" 
that 
was 
the 
attitude 
of 
the 
boss 
there. 
If I 
could 
have 
brought 
the 
job 
back, 
and 
the 
attitudes, 
and 
the 
value, 
how 
they 
valued 
you. 
[ 
... 
]I 
might 
have 
stayed 
there 
for five 
years 
if 
I 
hadn't had 
a child. 
Ettie 
signalled 
an 
awareness 
both 
of 
the 
continuing 
degraded 
status 
of 
the 
job, 
regardless of 
experience 
and 
the 
particular 
skills 
required over 
and 
above 
dressing hair. 
152 
'51 
Ettic 
had 
had 
two 
operations on 
her 
varicose 
veins and a 
thrombosis 
that 
had 
curtailed 
her 
volunteer 
hairdressing 
work at 
a 
homeless 
persons 
refuge: 
"So 
I 
wouldgo 
to 
them 
and enjoy 
the 
crack on 
a 
Tuesday 
night 
andl 
did 
thatfor 
about 
sixyears 
at 
the 
refuge 
andl 
had 
to 
get a 
leg 
operation, my 
varicose veins 
donefor 
the 
second 
time 
and 
limited 
to 
two 
hours 
as 
long 
as 
I 
could 
stand, 
so 
while 
I 
was 
away getting my 
operation, 
thank 
God, 
another 
hairdresser 
took 
over, 
so 
Ijust 
do 
the 
hostelsJust 
now. 
" 
199 
Men 
and 
hair fashioning 
In 
the 
concluding 
section 
of 
this 
chapter 
I 
address 
issues 
of 
gender 
in 
the 
hair 
fashioning 
field 
in 
an 
attempt 
to 
further 
contextualise 
the 
data, 
and 
the 
references 
made 
to 
men 
in 
participants' 
accounts. 
An 
ironic 
aspect 
of 
the 
hairdressing 
industry 
is 
that 
although 
today 
it 
is 
perceived 
as a 
feminised 
field, 
its 
canon, 
the 
elite 
stylists 
and 
characteristic 
signature 
branding 
in 
product 
lines 
are 
almost 
comprehensively 
male. 
153 
In 
the 
early 
part 
of 
the twentieth 
century 
Antoine 
styled 
his 
career 
on 
the template 
created 
by his 
contemporaries 
in 
the 
world 
of 
fashion, 
Coco 
Chanel 
and 
Madeleine 
Vionnet, 
the 
first 
couturiers 
to 
be 
'canonised(ibid. 
p. 
92). 
154 
For 
Antoine 
and 
Guillaume 
an 
association 
with 
the 
developing 
Modernist 
aesthetic 
was 
of 
the 
utmost 
importance 
in 
both 
ensuring 
serious 
critical 
attention 
and 
dissociation from feminine 
excess, 
and 
the 
banality 
of 
commercial 
concerns. 
The 
dominance 
of male 
stars 
in 
the 
British 
hairdressing 
industry 
began 
with 
Raymond, 
Freddie 
French 
and 
Rend, 
and, 
as 
Cox 
has 
stated, 
"by 
the 
end 
ofthe 
1950s 
the 
domination 
ofmen 
in 
the 
hairdressing 
industry 
was 
taken 
as a matter of course 
and 
the 
standard 
textbookfor 
the 
prospective 
employee, 
The 
Craft 
oftadies'Hairdressing, 
still 
directed 
its 
advice 
entirely 
at 
the 
young 
man 
who 
wanted 
to 
enter 
the 
profession" 
(ibid. 
p. 
93). 
155 
Sassoon' 
s 
heroic 
conception, 
the 
five-point 
cut 
became 
the 
apotheosis of 
Modernism in 
hairdressing, 
15' 
His 
directive 
approach 
provided 
the 
model 
for 
contemporary 
stars 
being 
centred 
on 
the 
132 
"nen 
I 
went 
Into 
the 
employment exchange 
last 
week 
and 
looked 
at what 
they 
were 
offering, 
what was 
it 
U. 50 
to 
f5 
depending 
on experience 
and 
I 
thought 
Z5 
an 
hour, 
for 
a craft. 
and 
it 
really 
is 
a 
craft 
God, 
you get counselled 
now 
ifyou 
trip 
over 
the 
pavement, 
however, 
we were 
the 
counsellors 
unpaid". 
153 
Cox 
has 
noted 
that 
at 
the 
outset 
it 
was a 
field 
controlled 
and 
dominated 
by 
men. 
The 
census 
taken 
in 
London 
at 
the turn 
of 
the 
19/2011 
century 
showed 
that 
"only 
one 
in 
ten 
people 
involved 
in 
hairdressing 
work 
were women and 
they 
were 
mainly cashiers 
". 
(Cox, 1999, 
p. 
7 
1). 
Hairdressers 
today 
with 
their 
own 
product 
ranges 
include Charles 
Worthington, 
Nicky 
Clarke, James 
Brown, 
Toni 
and 
Guy, 
Vidal 
Sassoon, 
Trevor 
Sorbie 
and 
John 
Frieda. 
In 
black hairdressing 
the 
most 
well 
known 
and 
prestigious 
is 
Errol 
Douglas, 
the 
only 
Black 
person 
to 
be 
nominated 
for 
a 
Hairdresser 
of 
the 
Year 
Award. 
As 
striking 
as 
the 
'glass 
ceiling' operating 
in 
this 
field 
may 
be, 
there 
has been little 
social 
ist/feminist 
activism 
or 
campaigning 
to 
address 
it. 
154 
Like 
Chanel, 
Antoine 
capitalised on 
the 
notion of 
claiming 
for 
his 
work 
an artistic 
aura and 
disingenuously 
underplaying 
the 
commercial 
aspects 
of 
the 
field. 
Antoine 
saw 
hairdressing 
"as 
an 
artform 
like 
sculpture 
". 
Guillaume, 
based 
in 
Paris, 
the 
, 
Ficentre 
of 
the 
early 
20'h 
century 
hairdressing, 
created 
the 
styles 
for 
the 
presentation 
of 
the 
New 
Look (ibid. 
p. 
92). 
e 
3 
Rose 
Evansky 
was 
one 
of 
the 
very 
few 
women 
hairdressers 
of 
renown 
in 
the 
industry, 
(Sassoon, 
1968, 
p. 
28) 
Sassoon's 
account 
of 
leaming 
from 
the 
Parisian 
masters 
is 
a 
familiar 
narrative 
-the 
story of 
an 
artistic 
post 
war 
diaspora 
of proto 
Modernist 
hairdressers 
mirroring 
that 
used 
to 
describe 
the 
pan-European 
and 
American 
influence 
of 
the 
imigrds 
from 
the 
Bauhaus: 
"I 
came 
under 
the 
influence 
not only 
ofRaymond, 
but 
ofolher 
great 
artists, 
Like Freddie 
French 
and 
Rene, 
who 
had 
come overfrom 
Paris 
to 
set 
up 
a 
salon 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
69). 'Canonical' 
artists 
and 
visionary 
themes 
are 
restated 
in 
several 
episodes 
recalled 
from 
his 
early career: 
"So 
one 
night 
I 
wandered 
down 
to the 
Hairdressing 
Academy in 
Charlotte 
Street. 
There 
senior 
men 
demonstrated 
their techniques, 
their 
styles, 
their 
ideas, 
while 
the 
younger 
ones 
watch and 
learn. 
Obid 
p. 
56)[. 
- . 
11 
used 
to 
watch 
Freddie 
at 
the 
Academy. 
I 
would 
stand 
there 
enthralled, 
but, 
I 
am sorry 
to 
say, 
I 
was 
one 
ofthe 
veryfew who 
understood what 
he 
was 
doing. 
He 
was so way 
out, 
so 
new so 
utterly 
different, 
that 
some of 
the 
audience 
laughed, 
which 
used 
to 
make 
mefurious. 
They did 
not 
realise 
that 
here 
was 
a man 
who was going 
to 
change 
hairdressing, 
sweep 
away 
the 
rigid, 
set 
look 
and replace 
it 
with something 
ji 
and 
simple, 
fresh. 
natural and swinging 
in 
every 
sense 
of 
the 
word 
" (ibid. 
p. 
69). 
1 
According 
to 
Sassoon, 
the 
cut was 
conceived on an 
unwilling, 
hysterically 
protesting woman 
clim as 
disciples 
slowly 
gathered round 
the 
master 
at work: 
"Andthat 
children 
is 
how 
thefive-point 
cut was 
born. 
Iregardit 
as 
thefinest 
cut 
1have 
ever 
created; 
the 
geometric 
design 
in 
its 
purest most 
classicalform 
... 
the 
only 
real 
worry 
I 
had 
was 
about 
Clare. 
4fter 
all 
it 
was 
her 
hair 
and 
I 
had 
made 
her 
unhappy 
" (ibid. 
p. 
145). 
Cox 
states 
that 
the 
five-point 
cut 
was 
created 
by 
Sassoon 
to 
be "the 
purest, 
200 
3 1. Vidal 
Sassoon 
learns from 
a master. 
Adolf 
Cohen 
on a visit 
to 
Sassoon's 
Bond 
Street 
salon 
in 
the 
early 
1960s. 
Uncredited 
photograph, 
illustration 
34, 
in Sorry 
I 
kept 
you 
wailing madam, 
Vidal 
Sassoon, 
1968. 
author 
of 
a so-called 
'signature' 
cut. 
"' 
Sassoon's 
referencing of 
Modernist 
principles, 
was 
a 
blueprint 
for 
the 
elite 
hairdressers 
who would subsequently 
position 
themselves 
in 
the 
canon. 
His 
affiliation 
with 
Mary 
Quant, 
mirroring 
Antoine's 
with 
Chanel 
before 
him, 
consolidated 
his fame. 
Sassoon 
claimed 
that 
whilst 
cutting 
Quant's 
hair he 
uttered 
the 
Modernist 
mantra 
"I'm 
going 
to 
cut 
the 
hair 
like 
you 
cut 
the 
material. 
Nojuss. 
No 
ornamentation" 
(Sassoon, 
1968, 
p. 
12 
1 ). 
Stellar 
hairdressers 
today 
have forged 
associations 
with 
both 
artistic 
and 
design 
communities. 
158 
Following Sassoon, 
Drill's 
approach 
was explicitly 
about 
authorship, 
he 
stated 
"You 
had 
no 
choice 
you 
got 
what you were given 
... 
I 
wasn't 
that 
interested 
ifpeople 
liked 
it 
or not 
" 
(Anderson, 
1998, 
p. 
3). 
159 
With 
the 
emergence 
of 
Drill, 
a somewhat 
self-conscious, 
post-punk 
masculinity 
was 
being introduced 
into 
the 
elite 
field. 
160 
This 
departure 
can 
be 
viewed 
in 
a 
context 
where 
exaggerations 
of 
both 
masculinity 
and 
femininity 
have 
been 
seen 
as necessary 
commercial 
consequences 
for 
men 
to 
succeed 
in 
the 
field. 
161 
"Hairdresser's 
developed 
strategies 
to 
cope 
with 
these 
popular 
notions 
realising 
that 
'the 
majority 
of women 
thought 
that 
unless you 
were 
both 
queer 
and 
French 
you 
could 
not possibly 
be 
a good 
hairdresser. 
"' (Raymond 
cited 
by 
Cox, ibid. 
p94) 
162 
Although 
she 
had female 
co-workers, 
also 
Ettie 
remembered 
that 
in 
the 
1960s 
"We 
had 
boys 
working 
in 
the 
salon, 
lovely boys, lovelyyoung 
boys 
andyour 
boss 
was always, nearly 
always, 
a 
male 
in 
those 
days ". 
Despite 
its 
perceived 
feminisation, 
the 
field 
of 
hairdressing 
remains 
patriarchal 
in 
structure. 
The 
contemporary 
hairdressing 
elite 
reiterates 
the 
masculine/feminine, 
artist/model 
or 
muse, 
active/passive 
binary 
oppositional 
paradigm. 
However, 
in 
the 
accounts 
of participants, 
of 
their 
own 
and 
others' 
fashioning, 
men 
make 
up 
a complex 
heterogeneous 
group 
at 
variance 
to 
this 
model 
of 
power. 
Partners, 
most 
modernist 
style 
he 
could envisage with 
Bauhaus 
principles 
at 
its 
core" 
(Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
121). 
He 
"applied 
the 
[Bauhaus] 
principles 
offunctionalism 
and 
truth 
to 
materials 
to 
develop 
a 
pared-down 
lookfor 
hair, 
redefining 
the 
1920s bobfor 
a 
1960s 
audience" 
(ibid. 
p. 
123). 
157 
Much 
like 
the 
media 
construction of 
the 
trademark 
volatility 
of 
celebrity chefs 
in 
Britain 
in 
the 
1980s. 
"' 
The 
celebrity 
status 
of 
contemporary salon 
managers 
is 
reflected 
in 
the 
salaries 
earned, 
L 100,000+ 
per annum, 
by 
this 
elite 
group 
(Edgar-Jones 
2003). 
"' 
in 
a recent 
'performance' 
at 
East London's Dazed 
and 
Confused 
gallery 
an 
audience 
had 
their 
hair 
cut 
by Drill 
and 
then 
were 
featured 
in 
an exhibition 
of 
the 
'artists' 
work. 
160 
He 
has 
stated, 
"Ifyou 
look 
at old school 
barbers, 
itsfucking 
wicked 
My 
work 
is 
essentially 
tailored 
barbered 
haircuts 
with 
deliberate 
mistakes. 
" He has 
used shears 
and sellotape 
in 
his 
work 
(Anderson 
, 
1998, 
p. 
3). 
" 
Cox 
notes 
that 
historically 
a 
social 
problem existed 
in 
the 
notion 
of 
men's 
proximity 
and 
intimacy 
with 
female 
salon 
clientele. 
This 
was 
assuaged 
by 
the 
invention 
of 
a safer relationship? 
between 
effeminate 
hairdresser 
and 
female 
client, 
'freefrom 
sexual 
misunderstanding" 
(COX, 1999, 
p. 
94) 
making 
hairdressing 
arguably 
the 
only profession 
where 
heterosexual 
men 
have 
been 
willing 
to 
'pass' 
as 
gay. 
At 
Northend, I had 
experienced 
this 
unusual 
working 
environment where 
men could 
be intimate 
with 
women 
in 
a 
de-sexualised 
manner 
in 
the 
course of working 
with 
participants. 
Janey: 
- 
and 
with 
me only 
having fine hair I 
knew 
I 
couldnae 
get 
it 
so 
I 
just 
got 
my 
own 
kind 
of 
hair. 
AP: 
Well, 
I've 
got 
very 
fine 
hair 
-f... 
] [without 
a pause or saying 
anything 
Michael, 
a 
trainee 
hairdresser, 
with whom 
I had 
barely 
exchanged 
greetings, 
takes 
a 
lock 
of 
my 
hair 
and examines 
it 
and 
agrees 
with 
me. 
] 
"' 
Cox 
notes 
that 
barbers 
aimed 
to 
compensate 
for 
the 
ferninisation 
of 
their 
field 
by 
virtue 
of 
its 
association 
with women's 
salons 
and 
the 
intimacy 
of 
their 
practices. 
She 
calls 
this the 
'something for 
the 
weekend aesthetic 
"to 
offset 
associations 
withfemininity 
or 
vanity 
" (Cox, 
1999, 
p. 
29). 
The 
association 
of 
'foreignness', 
glamour and 
queered 
feminine 
excess 
arguably 
precipitated 
the 
201 
friends 
and sons 
are sometimes 
described 
as 
helpmates 
in 
women's 
fashioning 
contexts, 
expressing 
little 
anxiety 
in 
otherwise 
women-only 
environments. 
Some 
were 
active 
in 
adapting 
or constructing 
makeshift 
fashioning 
environments. 
Michelle's father 
was 
a 
former 
hairdresser 
himself 
and 
Jean 
remembers 
identifying 
strongly 
with 
her 
own 
father's 
flamboyant 
tastes. 
163 
Notwithstanding 
the 
punitive 
attitudes 
of some 
fathers 
to 
their 
daughters' 
fashioning 
regimes, 
participants' 
accounts 
suggested 
other roles 
for 
men 
have 
been 
constructed. 
Michelle 
revealed 
that 
her 
brother-in-law, 
David, 
was usually 
in 
the 
domestic 
space when 
weekend 
fashioning 
marathons 
took 
place 
( 
"- 
in 
all 
rooms 
with mirrors') 
He 
was 
described 
as 
passive 
and 
static 
whereas 
Michelle 
and 
her 
sister, 
whose 
fashioning/clubbing 
routine 
has 
not 
been 
curtailed 
since 
she 
married, 
and 
their 
friends 
commandeered 
the 
flat 
for fashioning 
purposes: 
Michelle: Although 
he's 
Sheila's husband 
now, 
they're 
onlyjust 
married 
and 
he 
[David] 
lives 
in 
the 
house 
and 
he 
was 
always 
there, 
but 
he 
was 
always 
like, 
you 
would 
just 
say, 
"Doyou 
like 
this 
ouyllt? 
Doyou 
like 
that? 
" 
or, 
"Doyou 
like-" 
andjust 
ask 
his 
opinion 
without 
really 
listening 
to 
it 
to 
be honest'. [Laughter] 
AP: And 
he 
- 
is he 
getting 
fashioned 
at 
the 
same 
time? 
Michelle: 
No. He's like 
trying to 
watch 
the telly 
and 
we're 
running round 
him, 
Michelle's 
friend, 
Clive 
had 
a 
more active 
role 
in 
Michelle's 
fashioning 
regimes. 
Michelle: 
He 
would 
go 
through 
the 
whole 
thing 
with 
me, 
I 
mean 
everything 
he 
would 
come 
up 
and 
he 
would say, 
"Oh 
I 
like 
your eye 
colour, 
that's 
different. 
" 
and 
he'd 
notice 
everything 
and 
the 
way 
I'd 
done 
my 
hair 
and 
he 
would 
say, 
"Don't 
wear 
those 
shoes or 
they 
shoes 
- 
or, 
"Don't 
wear 
this 
don't 
wear 
-" 
AP: 
So 
where 
did 
he 
get 
his 
skills 
from 
in 
fashioning 
then? 
Do 
you 
know 
where 
- 
why 
he 
acquired 
those 
skills? 
Michelle: 
I 
don't 
know 
whether 
it's 
just 
being 
surrounded 
by 
us 
so much 
and 
then 
being 
forced 
to 
listen 
to 
it 
no, not even 
- 
[Her 
mobile 
phone 
rings] 
I bet 
that's 
him 
now. 
[Laughter] 
1" 
adoption 
by British 
hairdressers 
of 
French 
names 
for 
example, 
Nigel Davies 
to 
Justin 
de Villeneuve. The 
re-defining 
of 
male 
hairdressers 
as 
heterosexual 
was arguably 
heralded by 
Warren 
Beatty's 
performance 
in Shampoo 
(Ashby, 
1975) 
163 
Including 
decorative 
cravats and 
'exotic 
oils'. 
I" 
But 
even 
Clive's 
enthusiasms 
were viewed as 
different 
from 
those 
of 
women 
friends. 
"Guys 
would 
sayyou 
look 
good 
in 
anything, 
particularly 
the 
sort of 
lower, 
gaudier 
- 
it is, 
I 
mean, 
that 
is 
a 
bit 
of a generalisation. 
Most 
of 
the 
men 
I 
know 
aren't 
that 
savvied 
up, 
particularly 
like 
Clive, 
he 
- 
but 
even still, 
he 
verges on 
the 
cheap and 
nasty 
somehow, 
but 
whereas 
it's 
the 
women 
who 
are 
involved 
In it 
that 
know 
and 
they 
will 
tellyou 
when 
you 
don't 
look 
goodas 
well 
". 
[Laughter] 
202 
Notwithstanding 
the 
changes 
that 
have 
been 
brought 
about 
through 
the 
osmotic 
process 
of 
feminism, 
noticeable 
in 
the 
relatively 
free 
use 
women 
can 
now 
make 
of 
domestic 
space 
and 
their 
freedom 
to 
fashion for 
reasons other 
than 
attracting 
men, participants 
appreciated 
differences 
in 
the 
quality 
of 
experience of 
inhabiting 
women-only 
spaces 
for 
specific 
purposes. 
165 
Following 
the 
introduction 
of 
key 
themes 
in 
'Fashioning 
Dusty', 
this 
chapter 
provides 
further 
evidence, 
in 
the 
form 
of 
participants' 
accounts 
of 
the 
significance 
of 
fashioning 
and 
cosmetic 
acts, 
specifically 
hair 
fashioning in 
constructing 
feminine 
identities, 
identifications 
and 
subjectivities. 
I 
analyse 
the 
ethnographic 
findings in 
relation 
to 
ideas 
of 
dissidence, 
pleasure, 
intimacies 
between 
fernininities 
and within a context 
where 
all 
of 
the 
above 
are 
subject 
to 
disdain. 
I 
demonstrate 
how 
bouffanting, 
dyeing 
and other 
highly fashioned 
modifications 
that 
have 
been 
perceived 
as 
associated 
with 
working-class 
femininity 
and 
as 
paradoxically 
troubling 
and 
inspiring 
to the 
taste-making 
elites. 
It 
is 
apparent 
that 
women 
have 
milked pleasures 
from 
the 
routines, 
identifications 
and 
intimacies 
associated 
with 
fashioning 
in both 
the 
domestic 
and salon 
space. 
These 
identifications 
and 
intimacies 
in 
turn 
are 
associated 
with 
sororial 
and 
familial 
relationships 
that, 
for 
many 
have 
become 
treasured 
memories 
as 
well as significant 
ongoing 
fashioning 
regimes. 
Levels 
of 
disdain 
for 
such 
activities 
are 
identified 
across 
mainstream 
and 
feminist 
texts 
and 
where working-class 
fashioning 
environments 
and 
so 
called 
low-class 
hairdressers 
are routinely 
demonised. 
This 
theme, 
the 
demonisation 
and 
disdain 
of 
working 
class 
fashioning 
is 
emphasised 
in 
the 
final 
chapter, 
'Queening 
It. 
I 
also 
elaborate 
on 
the 
'fashioning 
inertia' 
introduced 
in 
'Fashioning 
Dusty' 
and 
discussed 
again 
here in 
relation 
to the 
&subjugated 
knowledges' 
of 
hair 
fashioning. 
'Queening 
It' 
shifts 
the 
focus 
from 
participants 
personal 
and 
collective 
memories 
to 
a 
broader 
cultural 
analysis 
of 
feminine 
excess 
through 
the 
most 
culturally 
freighted 
trope 
of 
fashioning 
excess, 
jewels, 
as 
it 
is 
discursively 
presented 
across 
the 
terrain 
of 
popular 
culture. 
165 
Ann: 
Women 
prefer 
to 
be 
with women 
I 
think, 
in 
my experience 
anyway, we 
tried 
to 
introduce, 
well 
we 
did introduce 
men 
if 
you 
like, 
we 
ran 
salons and clinics 
for 
men 
and obviously 
we 
treated 
men at 
Kingstone 
[bums 
hospital 
- 
Ann 
was 
heading 
up a 
department 
of 
cosmetic 
camouflage] 
on 
a 
regular 
- 
in fact 
it 
was often more 
men 
than 
women, 
so 
there'd 
a 
lot 
of 
men 
there, 
so 
their 
needs 
were 
just 
the 
same 
[ 
... 
] 
their 
need 
for 
assistance 
if 
you 
like, 
was 
exactly 
the 
same 
as 
for 
women, 
but it's 
not as 
easy 
for 
them. 
Anyway, 
what we also 
did 
try 
was 
a 
mixed clinic 
with 
men 
and with 
women 
and 
we 
- 
it 
really 
didn't 
work, 
the 
women 
didn't 
like 
it 
and 
the 
men 
didn't like it. We 
tried 
screening 
off 
areas with 
men 
and women 
mixed 
together 
and 
they 
still 
didn't 
like 
it, 
and 
some 
of 
the 
women would say, 
"Is 
there 
a 
man 
in? 
" And 
we'd 
say, 
"Well, 
yes 
but 
he's 
in 
a cubicle 
and 
he's... 
" 
but 
they 
still 
weren't 
happy 
about 
it, 
and so actually 
it had 
to 
kind 
of 
be 
a women's 
clinic or 
a 
man's 
clinic 
and 
all 
the 
men 
would 
be 
fine 
together 
they 
would 
all come 
in 
and 
have 
a 
facial 
or a 
massage or whatever 
and 
have 
ajolly 
time 
and 
it 
would 
all 
be fine, 
even 
though 
women 
would 
be 
working with 
them, 
working 
on 
them, 
whatever, 
that 
was 
OK, 
but 
not 
to 
have 
other 
women 
clients 
there, 
and 
the 
women 
were 
the 
same. 
They 
didn't like having 
men, not 
really 
it 
- 
as 
OK 
some 
of 
them 
were 
OK but 
I 
would 
have 
said 
they 
definitely 
would 
have 
preferred 
it 
to 
be 
all women. 
203 
'Queening 
it: 
class, 
jewels 
and 
the 
disdained, 
dissident 
will 
to 
adorn 
Taste, 
a 
class culture 
turned 
into 
nature, 
that 
is, 
embodied, 
helps 
to 
shape 
the 
class 
body... 
It 
follows 
that 
the 
body 
is 
the 
most 
indisputable 
materialisation 
of class 
taste 
(Bourdieu, 
1979, 
p. 
190). 
6.1 Introduction 
In 
this 
chapter 
I 
discuss 
the 
meanings ofjewels and 
jewellery 
for 
working-class 
women and 
indicate 
the 
social, 
historical 
and 
cultural contexts 
within which 
their 
taste 
is 
expressed and 
interpreted. 
' 
I 
mark 
the 
gulf 
between 
participants 
perceptions 
of 
their 
pleasures 
in 
and views 
concerning 
fashioning 
and 
the 
widespread 
disdain for 
popular 
tastes 
reflected 
across a 
spectrum of 
media 
and 
how 
specific 
media 
stars and other 
texts 
have 
helped 
shape collective 
tastes 
for 
dissident 
fashionings 
of 
femininity. 
I 
critique 
contemporary 
journalism 
in 
sustaining 
conservative paradigms 
of 
good 
and 
bad 
taste 
and explore 
the 
media rhetoric 
of 
naturalness, 
inauthenticity 
and 
demarcations 
of 
in/appropriate 
tastes. 
2 
This 
chapter 
then 
is 
an attempt 
to 
explore 
the 
meanings 
ofjewellery 
at 
moments 
in 
post-war 
British 
culture 
and 
discusses 
this theme 
in 
relation 
to 
broader 
issues 
of 
taste, 
class and 
femininity. I 
highlight 
how 
new 
and yet 
historically 
resonant 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
were 
minted 
in 
Britain 
in 
the 
1950s, 
and 
how, 
in 
subsequent 
decades, 
cheap and glamorous 
forms 
of 
ornate 
femininity 
have 
proliferated 
notwithstanding 
the 
aesthetic 
hegemony 
of 
Continental 
Modernism, the 
impact 
of 
feminism, 
and 
a 
rhetoric 
of 
disdain 
articulated across 
high 
and 
low 
media. 
Indeed, 
I 
argue 
that 
distinct 
audiences 
of 
women 
are 
interpellated 
by 
an expanded array 
of accessible 
forms 
of excess 
at 
the 
end of 
the 
twentieth 
and 
the 
start 
of 
the 
twenty-first 
century. 
In 'Fashioning 
Dusty' 
and 
'Fashioning 
Hair' 
my 
focus 
was 
empirical 
data, 
here 
my 
aim 
is 
to 
contextualise 
participant accounts 
in 
a 
mosaic 
of 
media 
and 
other 
texts 
that 
have 
constructed 
and 
reflected 
tastes 
in 
femininity. 
Research 
participants 
highlighted 
the 
significance 
ofjewellery 
in 
their 
fashioning 
regimes and 
early 
memos 
in 
the 
(working-class) 
field, in 
salons and at 
Northcnd 
College 
logged 
the 
widespread, 
almost 
universal 
use of 
what 
I 
have 
called 
'working-class' 
or 
'East 
End' 
essentially 
cheap, 
omate 
jewellery 
by 
women 
of all 
ages. 
Their 
comments 
and 
jewellery 
fashioning 
at 
our 
meetings 
led 
me 
to 
new 
research 
questions. 
Reviewing 
texts 
on 
fashioning 
femininity 
I 
found little 
or 
no academic 
or 
feminist 
sources 
on 
jewellcry, 
although 
this 
theme 
was 
a striking 
one 
in 
popular 
literature 
for 
girls. 
For 
example, 
comics 
and annuals 
for 
girls and 
women 
from 
the 
mid-1950s 
on 
illustrated 
an 
array 
of 
forms 
of omate 
femininity. 
In 
annuals 
from 
the 
1960s 
and 
1970s, 
jewels, 
ballct 
costuming, 
the 
fashioning 
of 
female 
Royals 
and 
other 
forms 
of omate 
femininity 
were 
found 
to 
be 
significant 
motifs. 
Pleasures 
in 
jewelled 
forms 
of 
feminine 
fantasy 
were 
evident 
in 
my 
own 
memory 
work, 
the 
accounts of 
participants 
(for 
example 
Elizabeth) 
and work 
by 
feminist 
academics. 
For 
example, 
see 
Walkerdine, 
1997, 
passim, 
21 
argue 
that 
media 
texts 
about 
working-class 
girls and women 
in 
this 
period 
reveal 
reactionary 
notions, of 
fascination 
and 
repulsion 
based 
on 
perceptions 
of gender, 
taste, 
sexuality 
and 
class. 
These 
ambivalences, 
indicative 
of 
bourgeois 
taste 
(makers) 
in 
relation 
to 
perceptions 
of working-class 
feminine 
excess 
miffor 
the 
Ncgrophilia/Negrophobia 
of 
White bourgeois 
Modernists 
outlined 
by 
Mercer 
(1994). 
204 
In 
an 
introductory 
section 
I discuss 
the 
appeal 
of glamour 
and 
ornate 
forms 
of 
femininity 
for 
female 
consumers, aspiring stars 
and 
audiences 
of women and 
challenge 
the 
notion 
of 
feminine 
excess 
as 
passivity. 
This 
is 
followed 
by 
two 
sections 
that 
discuss 
how 
these 
tastes 
have 
been 
interpreted. 
'. 
Finally, 
using 
the 
definition 
Royal/Vulgar 
Taste, 
I 
explore 
the 
further 
paradoxes 
of excess 
that 
characterise 
the 
post 
war phenomenon of working-class 
women's 
will 
to 
adom 
and 
its 
resistance 
to 
the 
Modernist 
aesthetic 
hegemony. 
41 
argue 
that 
the 
popularisation 
of 
Royal/Vulgar 
excesses 
occurred 
in 
part 
through 
the 
growth 
of 
film 
and media 
genres 
and 
through 
the 
modelling 
of 
disdained 
and 
dissident 
fashioning 
by 
white and 
Black 
music, 
film 
and 
TV 
stars. 
In 
an 
historical 
and 
cultural 
context 
where 
working-class 
women's 
cultures and 
fashioning 
are 
perennially 
scorned, 
I 
discuss 
how 
spectacular 
forms 
of 
femininity 
from 
the 
1950s 
on represented 
in 
a 
range 
of 
texts 
and 
accounts 
reveal 
the 
extent 
of 
working-class 
women's 
identifications 
with 
forms 
of 
aristocratic 
excess 
and 
taste 
in 
their 
fantasies, 
consumption 
and 
fashioning 
of 
femininity. 
5 
6.2 
Gallus 
glamour 
and 
fearsome 
femininities 
The 
complex 
individual 
and collective 
desires 
of women 
for 
forms 
of 
fashioned 
femininity 
remain 
under-researched, 
however, Walkerdine, 
Stacey, 
Furman 
and others 
have 
contributed 
to the 
process 
of 
understanding 
the 
social, 
historical 
and 
cultural 
motivations 
for fantasies 
of glaMoUr. 
6 
For 
example, 
Walkerdine 
has 
claimed 
that 
a working-class 
will 
to 
adorn 
has 
impacted 
on and 
reflects 
aspects 
of 
twentieth 
century 
Anglo-American 
media 
and 
that 
the 
working-class 
performances 
of 
glamour 
therein 
represent 
"the 
strugglefor 
something 
better". 
She 
contrasts 
this 
working-class 
desire 
to 
fashion 
to 
excess 
with what 
she 
interprets 
as 
the 
middle-class 
fashioning 
of 
feminism, 
ironically 
in 
some 
instances 
involving 'dressing 
up' 
in 
the 
garments 
associated 
with working-class 
men. 
First, 
I 
examine 
how 
the 
rhetoric 
of good 
and 
bad 
taste 
has been 
reflected 
in 
broadsheet 
and 
feminist 
media 
texts. 
Widening 
my 
critique, 
I 
go 
on 
to 
discuss 
the 
antipathy 
to 
working-class 
taste 
reflected 
in 
the 
broader 
context 
of 
the 
contemporary 
mainstream 
media 
and 
address 
the 
paradoxical 
demonisation 
and appropriation 
of working-class 
women's 
and 
Black 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
and 
glamour 
by 
the 
fashion 
and 
style cognoscenti. 
II 
attempt 
to 
account 
for 
the 
perennial 
appeal of royal 
taste 
and aristocratic 
allusions 
in 
working-class 
cultures, 
noticeable 
in, 
for 
example, 
the 
naming 
of 
Glasgow hair 
salons: 
'A 
cut above', 
Aristocuts, 
Kensington, 
Toffs, 
Top 
Notch, 
Twinset 
and so 
on. 
5 
Illustrations 
are 
used 
throughout. 
Their 
purpose 
is 
twofold: 
to 
reflect 
directly 
ideas in 
the 
thesis 
and, more 
symbolically 
to 
indicate 
the 
increasing 
saturation of 
British 
culture with 
images 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
this 
period. 
'Reflecting 
on 
the 
media 
disapprobation 
concerning 
the 
popular 
TV 
programme 
Minipops, 
a programme 
based 
on 
the 
Stars 
in 
their 
Eyes 
formula, 
where 
children rather 
than 
adult amateurs 
compete 
as 
'soundalike' 
stars, 
Walkerdine 
critiques 
the 
ways 
that 
girls 
fantasies 
of 
glamour 
as 
expressed 
by Minpops 
performers 
are caught 
in 
the 
double 
bind 
of 
the 
scxualisation 
of 
girls 
and 
women, 
s representation 
that 
simultaneously 
erases 
their 
agency 
and 
desire: 
"In 
this 
[media 
journal 
ists'] 
analysis 
there 
is 
no 
room 
for 
little 
girls 
to 
havefantasies 
that 
helong 
to 
them, 
asfeminists 
in 
thaipsychoanalytic 
mode 
argued, 
hecause 
theirfantasies 
are 
shaped 
entirely 
hy 
the 
availahle representations: 
there 
are nofantasies 
that 
originate with 
girls 
only 
thoseprojected 
onto 
them' 
(Walkerdine, 
1997, 
p. 
166). 
Walkerdine 
highlights 
the 
economic 
and 
social situation 
of working-class 
girls, 
changing 
little 
in 
the 
post-war 
period 
"Being 
looked 
at stillpresents 
one ofthe 
only ways 
in 
which working-class 
girls 
can escapefrom 
the 
routines 
of 
domestic 
drudgery 
oftoorlypaid 
work 
into 
the 
duhious 
glamour 
industries, 
so 
despised 
hyfeminists 
" (ibid. 
p. 
143). 
205 
32. 
illustrations 
from 
'Tips 
for 
tent-peggers' 
in 
Sunshine 
bookfor 
girls, 
1962, 
page 
34. 
NO 
UNL 
gues 
to 
lwd 
oarly 
in 
Spain, 
but 
at 
fiv?, 
i 
tune 
it 
seems 
as 
it 
no one 
oes 
to 
bed 
at 
11! 
The 
square and 
streets are 
97mg 
with coloui--(i 
lanterns 
and 
bright 
garlands 
of 
flowers; 
all 
niqht 
9 
ou 
can 
hear 
the throb 
f 'tars 
and 
the 
chatter 
9 
of 
castanets. 
Wildo 
Zrenco 
dancing 
and 
singing 
is 
going 
on 
in every 
wineshop, 
and 
crowds 
stroll 
in 
the 
streets as 
if 
it 
were 
midday. 
When 
the 
last 
dance has been 
danced 
and 
the 
last 
song sung, 
when all 
the 
wine 
is 
finished 
and 
it's 
time to 
find 
the 
way 
home 
at 
last, 
there's 
one 
last 
thought 
as 
consolation-if 
you can 
keep 
awake 
long 
enough 
to think 
it: 
there 
will 
be 
another 
fiesta 
soon! 
SEVILLE, 
the 
ancient 
capital 
of 
southern 
Spain, 
is particularly 
fond 
of 
fiestas. 
Its 
April 
fair 
lasts four 
days. 
A 
procession of 
cars and 
carriages 
makes 
its 
way 
to the 
central 
square 
of 
the 
city, 
which 
is 
taken 
over 
by 
hundreds 
of 
canvas 
booths. 
Mother 
and 
daughter 
dress 
in 
traditional 
style, often 
in 
gay 
dresses 
with polka-dot patterns. 
Fathers, 
husbands 
and 
brothers 
ride 
their 
donkeys, 
the 
harness 
decorated 
with 
bells 
for 
the 
occasion, 
looking 
very proud of 
the 
fine 
ladies 
perched 
behind 
them. 
The 
sehoritas 
and 
sehoras 
vie 
with each other 
over 
the 
magnificence 
of 
their 
dresses. 
lIxtract 
from 'Fiesta', 
inSunshine 
bookfor 
girls, 
1962, 
page 
57. 
TIPS 
FOR 
TENT-PEGGERS 
Walkerdine, 
Stacey, 
Stern 
and others 
have 
indicated 
specific 
blind-spots 
in feminist 
attention 
to 
and 
understanding 
of 
girls' motivations 
for fashioning 
excess, 
and, 
following 
Walkerdine 
and 
Skeggs, 
I 
suggest 
that 
some 
neglect 
has been 
precipitated 
by 
class 
tastes. 
Examining 
research 
participants' 
comments 
and 
media 
texts, 
I 
aim 
to 
analyse 
forms 
of 
femininity 
more 
usually 
neglected 
by 
feminist 
research, 
those 
constructed 
for 
and 
consumed 
by 
British 
working-class 
girls. 
Ballerinas 
and 
Royals: 
consuming 
excessive 
costuming 
in British 
girls' 
annuals 
of 
the 
1960s 
and 
1970s 
In 
the 
genre 
of 
1960s 
and 
1970s 
girls 
annuals, 
the 
display 
of 
feminine 
excess 
was presented 
as 
a 
desirable, 
fantasy 
but 
was 
precariously counterpoised 
with 
advice 
for 
readers 
to 
avoid 
excess 
in 
their 
own 
fashioning 
regimes. 
7 
The Sunshine 
Bookfor 
Girls 
(1962) 
presents 
a 
typically 
ambivalent 
message. 
Articles 
such 
as 
'Tips 
for 
Tentpeggers' 
and 
'Be 
Beautiful, 
' 
endorsed 
a 
healthy, 
natural 
model 
of 
British 
"beauty 
out 
of 
doors", 
an 
unadorned almost 
ascetic 
non-look, 
policed 
by 
parents. 
' 
But 
these 
monotone 
images 
and 
prescriptive 
messages 
were contrasted 
with 
models 
of excess 
that 
suggested 
that 
girls' 
'urges' 
for 
glamour 
might 
exceed 
such 
banal 
representations. 
In 
'Fiesta', 
a 
full 
colour 
feature 
on 
Torremolinos, 
an 
emphasis 
on 
feminine 
excess 
was accentuated 
. 
..... 
his 
sister 
is 
arrayed 
like 
the 
best 
Spanish 
ladies in 
a 
longflounced 
dress, 
set off 
by 
a comb 
in 
her 
hair, 
and 
coloured 
beads 
and 
bangles 
". 
Fiesta 
"is 
a 
timefor 
exciting 
music, 
dancing 
gorgeous 
dresses 
and all 
possiblefinery. 
The 
children 
wear 
beautifully 
decorated 
dresses 
and 
the 
grown 
ups 
put on 
their 
most 
lavish 
costumes 
(ibid. 
p. 
56). 
9 
'The 
Story 
in Pictures 
of 
Princess 
Anne' 
presented 
her in 
excessively 
fashioned, 
glamorous 
scenarios: 
as 
bridesmaid 
to 
Princess Margaret, 
visiting 
the 
Trooping 
of 
the 
Colour 
and 
meeting 
Alicia 
Markova 
at 
the 
Royal 
Academy 
of 
Dancing. 
(ibid. 
pp76-79) 
An 
aspirational 
photo 
story 
'Ballerina's 
Progress' 
traced 
the 
fantasies 
of a 
young 
poet/narrator/ballerina. 
10 
' 
Walkerdine 
cites 
girls' 
comics 
as 
texts 
that 
have 
constructed and 
mirrored working-class readers' 
fantasies 
and 
desires. 
My 
analysis 
of 
girls' 
annuals 
found 
an abundance 
of similarly 
discursive 
signifiers 
of 
femininity. 
For 
example, 
it 
is 
apparent 
that 
during 
the 
1960s 
and 
1970s, 
girls' 
annuals 
championed 
and 
idealised feminine 
excess 
in 
ways 
linked 
only 
indirectly 
to 
fashion 
itself 
but 
through 
the 
fashionable 
retro 
aesthetics 
of 
Victoriana 
(e. 
g. 
typefaces, 
comic 
strip 
storylines) 
dance 
(ballet 
and 
ballroom 
stories, 
flamenco, 
fancy 
dress 
costuming) 
film 
costuming 
(with 
an emphasis on 
fantasy 
and 
historical 
models) 
and 
royalty. 
In 
1963, 
one 
source 
stated 
of costume 
jewellery 
use 
"Sound 
sense 
department: 
don't 
ever 
wear 
bracelets 
on 
both 
arms 
at 
once; 
don't 
wear 
rings 
at 
all untilyou 
are 
engaged; 
don't 
ever wear 
drop 
earrings 
by 
day 
"(Green, 
1963, 
pp. 
35-41). 
"Girls 
grow 
up 
quickly 
these 
days, 
and 
manyfeel 
the 
urge 
to 
pretty 
themselves 
with 
make-up 
during 
the 
early 
teens. 
What do 
parents 
think? 
Mostly 
they 
don't 
mind 
as 
long 
as 
thefinal 
effect 
is 
pretty, 
not overpainted 
and 
unsuitable. 
How 
oldyou 
are 
when 
YoufIrst 
wear 
lipstick 
will 
depend 
on you 
- 
andyour 
parents! 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
36). 
Indicating 
that, 
even 
by 
196 
1, 
British 
girls' 
fashioning 
was 
still 
more 
reserved 
than 
European 
and 
American 
models 
Preview 
annual 
featured 
a 
pro-lipstick 
article 
"On 
with 
The 
lipstick! 
Says 
delightful 
French 
actress 
Nicole 
Maurey ". Maurey 
claimed, 
"This 
'natural'look 
which 
has been 
so 
popular 
over 
here 
[in 
Britain] 
-I 
think 
it 
is 
not natural 
at 
all. 
". Sophia 
Loren 
and 
Doris 
Day 
are 
also 
imaged 
as part 
of 
the 
pro-lipstick 
campaign 
(Warman, 
196 1, 
p. 
12 
7). 
9 
All 
features 
implied, 
as 
one 
stated, 
'It's 
Fun 
Dressing Up'. Caricatured 
ethnicities 
(a 
Red 
Indian 
Squaw, 
a 
Welsh 
Girl 
... 
provided 
potential 
party 
outfits. 
The 
article 
suggested 
that the 
key 
to 
becoming 
a 
'Mexican 
Peon' 
was 
to 
" 
-borrow 
a pair 
of 
Mummy's 
goldgypsy 
earrings" 
(ibid. 
p. 
85 
-88). 
") 
"To 
be 
a 
ballerina 
/ 
Nobody 
could 
he keener 
than 
me 
You 
seel 
I 
don't 
wear 
a 
tinsel 
dress 
- 
And 
though 
you 
wouldn't 
knowl 
One 
day 
my name will 
glowl 
In 
lights [ 
... 
J/ 
Now here's 
the 
substance 
of 
our 
dreamsl The 
goal ofall 
our 
youthful 
206 
li 
vi 
.y 
4r- 
33. 
The 
first 
Royal 
pantomime, 
Princess 
Elizabeth 
as 
Prince 
Florizel 
and 
Princess Margaret 
as 
cinderella, 
page 
64, 
The 
Little Princesses, 
Marion 
Crawford, 
1950. 
Ballet 
was 
the 
pre-eminent 
theme 
across 
the 
genre 
but 
occasional articles 
highlighted 
the 
excesses 
of 
dance 
costuming 
in 
other 
territories. 
In 
'Look 
at 
me 
I'm 
dancing' in 
the 
Girl 
Film 
and 
TV 
annual 
(1962) 
the 
writer 
reviewed 
the 
TV 
ballroom dancing 
phenomenon 
Come 
Dancing 
emphasising 
the 
otherness 
of 
the 
spectacle 
(Frank, 1962, 
pp. 
21- 24). " They 
seem 
to 
move 
in 
the 
rarqfied 
air of some 
dream 
world 
remotefrom 
the 
everyday 
business 
of workaday 
lift, 
- 
as exotic 
as 
beautifulfish 
in 
an 
aquarium 
"(ibid. 
). 
" 
Articles, 
or 
more precisely 
illustrations 
of 
fairytale 
and 
real 
Royals 
featured 
prominently 
in 
girls' 
annuals 
from 
the 
1950s, 
indeed 
many 
titles 
are specifically 
dedicated 
to them. 
12 
Film 
and 
TV 
annuals 
began 
to 
fashion 
the 
Queen 
as 
a 
star 
in 
annuals 
leading 
up 
to 
and 
following 
the 
Coronation. 
" 
In 
some 
instances, 
annuals 
presented 
spectacles 
of 
doubly 
orriate 
costuming: 
Cinderella 
interpreted 
through 
ballet, 
ballroom 
dancers 
in 
flamenco 
mode, 
the 
royal 
princesses 
attending 
weddings 
or 
performing 
in 
their 
annual 
Christmas 
pantomime. 
" 
Typically 
the 
effect 
was 
'glittering', 
'spectacular' 
or 
'lavish'. 
" 
schemeslTo 
dance 
the 
parts 
that 
brotightgrealfame, 
' 
To 
many, a glittering 
ballet 
name" 
(ibid. 
p. 
58). 
Although 
not a 
dedicated 
'Ballet 
Book' 
the 
annual 
included 
further 
features 
on 
this 
theme 
'[Ballet] 
Stars 
at 
work', 
'[Ballet) 
First 
Night', 
'Where 
do 
ballets 
come 
from? ' (ibid. 
pp. 
92-93) 
and 
a 
'Gallery 
of 
Ballet Stars' 
(ibid. 
pp. 
106-107). 
Emphasising 
the 
point 
that these 
were 
fantasies, 
one 
feature 
stated: 
"Ballet 
owes a 
lot 
to 
people who 
dream, for dreams 
are 
the 
stqff 
that 
ballet 
is 
made of 
NoIjust 
the 
important 
dreams 
composers 
dream, 
hut 
all 
the 
little dreams 
as well... 
the 
dreams 
maj, 
be 
a ), 
oungster 
dreams 
as 
she sits at 
the 
never-ending 
task 
of 
darning 
the toes 
of 
her 
'points'. 
Dreams 
she 
dreams 
when 
she 
tries 
on 
her 
veryfirst 
costumefor 
her 
very 
first 
performance 
before 
an audience 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
92). Some 
regular comic 
books 
for 
girls, 
for 
example 
Princess 
Tina 
published 
annuals 
with 
ballet 
as 
a central 
theme. 
Ballet 
Book 
no. 
7 
(undated 
but 
early 
1970s) 
contained 
little 
text 
but 
full 
page saturated 
colour 
illustrations 
of 
dancers, 
and 
lavish 
costumes 
including 
'exotic' 
(and 
arguably 
erotic) 
features 
including, 
'Russian' 
dancing, 
'A 
strange 
Spanish 
story', 
'Talent 
from 
Trinidad' 
and 
'French 
dancers- 
modern 
style. 
' 
" 
In 
1960 
The 
Guardian's 
Mary 
Crozier 
had 
reviewed 
it 
from 
a 
similarly remote 
perspective: 
"On 
the 
BBCafter 
Panorama 
saw 
part 
of 
Come 
Dancing 
a 
pursuit which 
as seen 
in 
this 
programme might 
well 
be 
examined 
as afascinating 
line 
in 
anthropoloSy. 
These 
ballroom 
championships 
(this 
it-as 
a/ 
the 
National Ballroom 
Queen 
contest) 
let 
us 
in 
on 
a 
complete, 
remote 
world 
with 
its 
customs, 
costumes, 
rituals 
and 
honours. 
The 
crowning of 
the 
Queen 
who 
sinks 
billowing 
in 
masses 
offluffy 
skirt 
into 
a 
throne-like 
chair 
and 
is 
solemn1j, 
crowned 
with a 
glittering coronet is 
like 
a super-pantomune 
erupting 
into 
real 
life 
(Crozier, 
1960). 
Come 
Dancing 
is 
the 
BBC's 
longest 
running programme. 
Even 
Helen 
Shapiro's 
first 
eponymous 
annual 
had 
as a 
lead 
feature, 
'The 
Travelling Princess' 
(Alexandra). 
For 
example, 
the 
Girl 
Fibn 
and 
Television 
1959, 
contained articles about 
the 
filming 
of 
the 
Coronation 
and 
the 
Royal Ballet. 
This 
is 
detailed 
and 
illustrated 
in. The 
Little Princesses, by former 
Royal 
nanny, 
Marion 
Crawf'ord. In 
the 
first Royal 
pantomime 
Princess 
Elizabeth 
dressed 
as 
'Prince 
Florizel', Princess Margaret 
as 
'Cinderella' 
(Crawford, 
1950, 
p. 
65). 
" 
Memory 
work 
texts, 
participants' 
accounts 
and 
the 
academically execrable 
often ghosted 
auto/biographies of 
stars suggest 
a 
map 
of 
collective 
fantasies 
of 
excess reflecting 
themes 
of 
fairylale 
royalty, glittering costuming 
and 
Jewels. 
At 
intervals in 
this 
chapter, 
I 
discuss 
Julie 
Goodyear 
and 
the 
character 
'Bet 
Lynch' 
as models 
of 
gallus, 
fearsome 
femininity. In her biography 
of 
Goodyear, 
Queen 
of 
the 
Street, Beck 
charted 
her 
early 
fascination 
with 
fairytale 
excesses. 
As 
a young 
girl 
she would 
be 
"allowed 
her 
to 
pull 
out 
the 
drawer 
in 
her bedroom 
and root 
through 
its 
contents. 
It 
wasfidl 
of 
interesting 
bits 
andpieces she couldplay 
with, 
and 
she 
spent 
hours 
creating 
a rich 
and colouifid 
kingdom. [ 
... 
I 
aged 
5, [ 
... 
J Julte'sfavourite 
dq?-dream 
centred 
on a 
pile 
of 
coloured 
buttons 
she 
kept 
crammed 
in 
ajar. 
Picking 
tip each 
one, 
she pretended 
they 
were 
diamonds, 
pearls and emeralds, 
and 
she 
would 
lie 
on 
thefloor 
making tip 
stories about princes 
and 
princesses wearing 
thejewels 
" 
(Beck, 
1995, 
p. 
4). Such 
romanticised 
hagiographies, 
nevertheless 
bear 
resemblance 
to 
memory 
work 
texts 
'A 
had 
collected 
and 
swapped 
beads 
and 
pearls'and 
'diamonds'at 
infants'school. 
Swapping beads 
was 
a 
long-term 
dinnertime 
activiii, 
amongst afew of 
the 
girls. 
It 
was 
wonderful 
to 
possess 
as she 
had, 
big, 
pearlised 
beads 
like balls 
salvage4fromftmale 
relative's 
broken 
necklaces 
and rarest 
and 
most 
valued 
of all a 
handful 
of c? ysial 
and 
diamante. 
Reviewing 
celebrity. jeweller 
Kenneth 
Jay Lane's 
work 
(discussed 
in 
more 
detail 
later 
in 
this 
chapter) 
McFadden 
claimed 
that 
here 
was 
"everything 
to 
turn 
a 
woman 
magicallj? 
into 
Cinderellafor 
the 
night". 
Lane 
said 
ofh 
is 
work 
*'They, 
are 
a 
diversion. 
The. 
1, 
make 
you 
happy. 
That's 
whatievvels 
arefor 
" 
(Becker, 
200 
1, 
p. 
13). 
207 
Romford 
brides, 
soap 
weddings and 
fairytale 
princesses: 
feminine 
excesses 
in 
popular 
media 
Girls' 
literature 
and popular media 
directed 
at audiences 
of 
women 
in 
the 
post-war 
period 
charted 
and/or 
constructed 
a growing 
fascination 
with 
the 
spectacle 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
despite 
the 
simultaneous 
proscriptions against 
the 
decorative 
and 
the 
detail 
inherent 
in 
Modernism 
and 
feminism. 
The 
approximate 
decade from 
the 
early 
1950s 
to 
early 
1960s 
presented 
an 
opportunity, 
however 
fraught 
with 
social constrictions, 
for 
women 
to 
indulge 
in 
or 
fantasise 
about 
excessive 
fashioning. 
But 
the 
rhetoric 
of naturalness, 
a 
default 
standard 
for 
British 
women 
in 
the 
post-war 
period, 
reasserted 
itself 
in 
an 
expanded 
array 
of 
Modernist 
influenced 
forms. 
16Tbe 
so-called 
traditional 
wedding 
increasingly 
offered, 
at 
least 
for 
some with 
means, an ambivalently 
sanctioned 
focal 
point 
for 
both 
individual 
and 
collective 
fantasies 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
Such fantasies 
were 
literally 
and 
vicariously 
consumed, 
against 
rising 
levels 
of 
critical and political 
scorn 
for 
brides. 
17 
Ann 
noted 
how 
disdain 
for 
bridal 
excesses, 
was 
in 
evidence 
in 
1940s 
when 
her 
own mother's 
desire 
for 
"all 
the 
trimmings 
" 
was 
perceived 
as a 
form 
of 
vanity. 
I 
always 
remember 
my mum 
saying 
how 
my 
dad's 
mother 
[from 
a monied 
background] 
was 
horrified 
that 
she was 
having 
a 
big 
white 
wedding 
with 
all 
the 
trimmings 
and 
she 
came 
from 
up 
a 
close 
in Govan, 
and she 
thought that 
was 
ridiculous 
that 
somebody 
from 
that 
background 
- 
and 
a 
lot 
of 
her 
family 
wouldn't 
come 
to 
it because 
they 
obviously 
looked down 
their 
nose 
you 
know, 
on 
my mum's side 
of 
the 
family. 
's 
As 
the 
stigma 
of 
divorce 
diminished 
and 
its 
availability 
increased, 
particular 
female 
stars 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
provide 
models 
of serial 
weddings spectaculars 
through 
the 
lens 
of 
British film, 
TV, 
and 
so. 
called 
gossip 
media. 
19 
In 
such 
representations, 
fashioning, 
jewels, 
fantasy 
and 
excess 
are 
fore- 
" 
Beat 
and 
Mod 
existentialism, 
tousled 
Bardot-esque 
hippy 
chic, 
lesbian 
and/or 
feminist, 
Boden 
devotees 
(rurner, 
2003) 
and 
utility 
chic 
etc. 
In 
this 
brides 
are 
viewed 
as submissive, 
duped 
by 
marriage 
but 
also 
directive 
and 
wholly responsible 
for 
the 
excess 
of 
the 
event. 
Grooms 
are 
often 
caricatured as 
long-suffering, 
reluctant 
and 
passive 
in 
the 
process. 
"Janey's 
wedding 
in 
1959 
produced an 
iconic 
memory of 
incomparable 
glamour 
of 
modelling 
an elaborate, 
home 
made 
gown. 
Her 
dancing 
and 
ice-skating 
commitments 
also 
provided 
Janey 
with 
opportunities 
for 
extravagances 
in 
dressmaking, 
including 
the 
use 
of 
sumptuous, 
unfunctional 
fabrics. She 
omitted 
to 
describe 
her bridegroom's 
appearance. 
My 
memory 
text 
of 
being 
a 
bridesmaid, 
had 
a 
distinct 
iconic 
vividness 
since, 
inevitably, 
family 
photographs 
recorded 
the 
event. 
I 
remembered 
the 
bride 
but 
not 
the 
bridegroom's 
appearance. 
it 
is impossible 
to 
extricate 
the 
desire for 
fantasy 
costuming 
from 
the 
hopes for 
a 
fairytale future, 
however, 
some 
participants, 
including 
Ettie, 
used 
this 
idea 
metaphorically 
in 
evaluating 
her 
relationship: 
"I 
have 
to 
give 
back 
to 
God 
what 
he has 
given 
to 
me, 
he's 
given 
me 
sft 
children, 
the 
ability 
tojeed 
them, 
Jimmy 
andl, 
a marriage 
that 
lasted, 
there 
was 
no smooth 
running 
marriage, 
it 
was 
hardgoing to 
make 
it 
work, 
we 
had 
-I 
won't go 
into 
that, 
but 
It 
wasn't afairy 
tale 
marriage 
ofPrince 
Charming 
and 
Cinderella, 
maybe 
a- 
but 
we 
made 
it 
work". 
Gabrielle 
used 
the 
metaphor 
ofjewels 
to 
describe 
her 
own 
long-term 
partnership 
with 
Ralph: 
"People 
that 
are quite 
well 
off 
they 
wear 
diamonds, 
real 
diamonds. 
I 
mean, 
well, 
such 
as 
me 
I don't 
think 
I've 
got 
a 
diamond, 
only 
Ralph 
" 
19 
Marriage 
collapse 
and 
divorce, 
an 
increasingly 
widespread 
social 
phenomena 
in 
the 
post-war 
decades, 
can 
be 
seen as 
in 
inverse 
proportion 
to 
the 
scope 
for bridal 
excesses 
performed 
in 
social 
and 
media 
representations. 
Most 
weddings 
have 
become 
a 
media 
event 
of 
sorts 
given 
the 
development 
of video and photographic 
technology. 
208 
34. 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
and 
Larry Fortensky, 
uncredited 
photograph, 
in 
Elizabeth Taylor, 
the 
illustrated 
biography, 
1999, 
James 
Christopher, 
page 
57. 
grounded, 
providing pleasures 
for 
many 
female 
audiences 
increasingly 
disabused 
of 
and/or 
indifferent 
to 
claims 
of 
lifelong 
fidelity. 
Stars, 
soaps 
and gossip: 
fashioning 
wedding 
excess 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
is 
a 
model 
for 
excess on 
a 
range of registers 
for 
female 
audiences, 
consumers, 
readers 
and 
fans in 
the 
post-war period. 
In 
later 
passages 
I 
discuss 
Taylor 
as 
a 
model 
of 
RoyalNulgar 
excess, 
an 
astute 
manager 
of popular 
cultural 
forms 
and 
as 
the 
pre-eminent 
figure 
associated 
with 
usurping 
the 
Royal 
prerogative 
to 
stage 
displays 
ofjewels. 
Elizabeth 
Taylor's 
excesses 
were 
tirelessly 
charted 
in 
girls' 
and 
film 
annuals 
for 
at 
least 
two 
decades 
from 
the 
1950s. 
Her 
personal 
and 
film 
costumes 
represented 
(mock 
historical) 
expressions 
of excess. 
Her 
tastes 
were 
increasingly 
pilloried 
in 
criticism 
but 
she 
remained 
popular with audiences 
and 
consumers 
throughout 
this 
period; 
providing 
both 
a 
beacon 
of 
unabashed 
feminine 
excess 
in 
her film 
roles, 
fashionings 
serial 
marriages 
and 
synonymy 
with 
4glittering 
tokens 
,. 
20 
Sartorially 
and 
matrimonially, 
Taylor 
appeared 
to 
sanction 
to 
audiences 
of 
women 
levels 
of 
self-conscious 
pleasures 
in 
excess and 
fantasies 
of 
femininity, 
notwithstanding 
scathing 
media 
criticiSM. 
21 
In 
Taylor's 
wake, 
Pat Phoenix 
and 
Julie Goodyear, 
two 
germinal 
British 
soap 
stars 
who 
created 
iconic 
characters 
by 
embracing 
the 
mantle of excessive 
femininity, 
had 
refused conventional 
expectations 
of 
matrimony 
whilst 
apparently 
delighting 
in 
the 
glamorous 
fashioning 
marriages 
20 
Her 
first 
marriage 
in 
1950, 
to 
Nicky 
Hilton, 
heir 
of 
the 
hotel 
empire, 
lasting 
two 
weeks 
according 
to 
Taylor, 
was 
"afairytale 
match 
of 
business 
wealth 
and 
Hollywood 
glamour" 
(Christopher, 
1999, 
p. 
3 7). 
Her 
most 
recent, 
her 
seventh 
in 
1991 
to 
construction 
worker 
Larry 
Fortensky held 
at 
Michael 
Jackson's 
Neverland Estate 
at 
Rancho 
Mirage, California 
received 
"the 
biggest 
blast 
ofpublicity 
since 
Prince Charles 
married 
Lady Diana 
Spencer 
[doing] 
no 
harm 
at all 
to 
sales 
ofher 
latest 
perfume'White 
Diamonds 
"'(ibid. 
p. 
150). 
Her 
first 
wedding 
dress 
was 
the 
epitome of 
New Look 
romanticism 
in 
white satin 
with 
tiara 
and voluminous 
net 
veil, 
the 
last 
was 
more 
flamboyant, 
an 
eccentric 
beribboned 
milkmaid's 
costume 
with sprigs of 
applicludd 
roses, 
puffed sleeves 
and 
a 
large 
pink 
bow 
at 
the 
waist, 
totally 
at odds with 
contemporary 
designer fashion, 
the 
garments' 
excesses competing 
with 
ostentatious 
jewellery. 
On both 
occasions, 
some 
forty 
years 
apart, 
the 
bride 
wore 
her 
trademark 
Cleopatra 
eye 
make-up. 
21 
Freeman 
is 
an 
exception, 
having 
noted 
"Her 
multiple marriages, 
instead 
of 
looking 
like 
proof 
of emotional 
instability, 
affirst 
seemed 
more 
the 
actions 
ofa woman who 
was 
having 
a 
damn 
good 
time, 
and 
couldn't 
care 
less 
what 
the 
very 
conservative 
MGM 
publicity 
department 
(or 
Debbie Reynoldsfor 
that 
matter, whose 
husband, 
Eddie Fisher 
she 
scandalously stole) 
thought 
ofit 
all 
(Freeman, 
2003, 
p. 
8). 
Commentators 
have 
suggested 
that 
Taylor's 
excesses 
fuelled 
the 
construction of 
a new 
genre 
of media representations 
of 
femininity 
in 
the 
1980s, 
the 
soap 
opera 
wedding, 
against 
the 
modernist 
and 
feminist 
grain 
of 
realism and anti 
-romanticism. 
Rabinovitz 
notes 
that 
from 
the 
1950s 
to the 
1970s US 
television 
weddings were 
'simple 
affairs': 
"The 
wedding 
ceremony, 
itself 
set 
injamiliar 
surroundings 
that 
were not 
separaleftom other 
narrative 
lines, 
functioned 
as 
both 
closure 
and 
crisis 
in 
ongoing 
plot 
developments. 
Before 
the 
1980s, 
there 
was 
liltlefanfare 
prefiguring 
the 
wedding 
and 
no 
advance 
publicity 
outside 
the 
serials 
to 
encourage 
viewer 
curiosity about 
the 
wedding 
and 
its 
meanings 
[ 
... 
] 
Although 
the 
weddings 
became 
'bigger'events 
throughout 
the 
1970s, it 
was 
Luke 
and 
Laura's 
wedding on 
General 
Hospital 
in 
Sweeps 
Week 
of 
November 
1981 
- 
the 
early 
years 
of 
the 
Reagan 
era and 
the 
season succeeding 
Prince Charles 
and 
Lady 
Di's 
media 
saturated 
wedding 
- 
that 
shifted 
the 
representation 
andjunclion 
ofsoap 
opera 
weddings. 
[ 
... 
] 
With 
a 
large 
crew on 
location 
at 
a 
replica 
ofa 
Norman 
French 
chateau, 
[ 
... 
I 
producers 
went 
all out 
to 
stage an 
extravaganifantasy 
wedding, 
complete with 
movie 
star 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
in 
attendance 
as 
a 
mysterious 
wedding guest 
" 
(Rabinovitz 1992 
p. 
279). 
Taylor's 
playful, unconsciously 
post-modem 
use of 
soap 
opera 
genre 
is 
evidenced 
in her 
promotion 
of 
her fragrance 
'Black Pearl'. 
She 
appeared 
in 
a 
string 
of 
her favourite 
soaps 
- 
The 
Nanny, 
Can't 
Hurry 
Love, Murphy 
Brown 
and 
High Society 
- 
"as 
a 
deranged 
cameo 
ofherself 
lookingfor 
a 
mysterious 
gem 
she 
hadpretended to 
have 
lost 
on 
location. 
It 
was 
an 
ingenious 
piece of advertising" 
(Christopher, 
1999, 
p. 
154). 
209 
f 
35. 
Julie 
Goodyear 
after 
her 
marriage 
to 
Tony 
Rudman 
at 
Bury 
Parish 
church, 
1973, 
in 
Queen 
q 
the 
Street, 
Sally 
Beek, 
1995, 
unpaginated. 
One 
of 
'Bet 
Lynch"s 
marriages, 
to 
'Alec 
Gilroy' 
photograph 
in 
Coronation 
Street, 
the 
inside 
story, 
Bill 
Podmore 
and 
Peter 
Reece, 1990, 
unpaginated. 
!a 
'A 
OT 
1, 
36. 
Cover, 
Hello!, 
July 
13,1996, 
Issue 415 
Beckhams 
enthroned 
at 
their 
marriage 
reception, 
in 
OK!, 
16 July, 1999, 
Issue 
170, 
page 
88. 
The 
Beckhams 
at 
Luttrell 
Castle, 
OV 
16 
July, 
1999, 
Issue 
171, 
page 
48 
Beckhams 
marriage, 
OK!, 30 July, 
1999, 
Issue 
172, 
page 
59. 
afforded. 
In 1973, 
arriving 
for her 
second marriage 
in 
an 
"ostentatious 
gold 
gown 
", 
three 
years 
after 
joining 
Coronation Street 
as 
'Bet Lynch' Goodyear 
staged 
a 
'flashy, 
wedding 
at 
Bury 
Parish 
Church. 
Goodyear's 
identification 
with aristocratic and 
Hollywood 
precedents 
was 
thinly 
veiled. 
22 
The 
popularity of soaps and gossip 
magazines 
from 
the 
late 
1980s 
grew 
tangentially 
with 
representations 
of 
the 
spectacle of 
(apparently) 
real 
and 
fantasy 
weddings 
to the 
extent 
that they 
became 
a principal 
selling point. 
23 
In 
response 
to 
the 
proliferation of 
industries 
connected 
to 
weddings 
Independent 
journalist 
Louise 
Levene's 
indictment 
reads 
as a critique 
of 
the 
vanity 
of 
Northern 
brides. 
The 
bride 
first 
selects 
The Dress, 
usually 
a 
large 
white 
lampshade 
more 
suited 
to 
an 
amateur 
revival 
of 
the 
King 
and 
I 
than 
a register 
office 
in 
Hartlepool. 
Having 
made 
the 
big decision 
about 
the 
'attire' 
(a 
word now 
exclusive 
to 
bride 
speak) 
she 
will 
then 
shop 
for 
a 
panoply 
of 
tat, 
the 
vulgarity 
of 
which 
is 
exceeded only 
by its 
expense 
- 
small 
net 
bags 
containing 
five 
sugared 
almonds 
(; 
E1.50) 
and commemorative garters 
which can 
be 
colour 
coordinated 
with 
the 
'theme' 
of your 
wedding 
(f 16.95) 
[ 
... 
j 
Vanity 
is 
everywhere... 
(Levene, 
1996, 
p. 
4). 
Such 
critiques 
of 
consumption 
failed 
to 
acknowledge 
the 
collective, 
pleasurable 
investment 
for 
many women 
for 
whom 
the 
wedding 
ceremony 
was 
a 
longed 
for 
performance 
of 
ultra 
femininity. 
The 
iconic 
memories 
of participants 
were 
frequently 
linked 
to 
notions 
of 
fairytale 
princesses, 
the 
adulation 
of an 
audience, 
and 
dramatic 
transformation. 
An 
absorption 
in 
wedding 
attire, 
disdained 
in 
Levene's 
article, 
may 
indeed 
centre on 
the 
pleasures 
of 
specific 
often 
banal 
objects 
possessing 
extra-ordinary 
haptic 
or 
visual 
qualities. 
Such 
objects 
can 
be 
the 
focus 
for 
real 
pleasures 
as 
Sandy 
suggests: 
" 
"Julie 
arrived 
at 
the 
church 
in 
an 
open 
topped 
vintage 
car, 
a 
1920 Vauxhall. 
The 
men 
of 
the 
Kings Own 
Royal 
Border 
Regiment, 
who 
had 
adopted 
her 
as a 
pin-up, 
formed 
a 
guard 
of 
honour 
on 
the 
church 
steps 
with 
rifles 
andfixed 
bayonets... 
at 
one 
stage 
a 
Saracen 
lank 
came 
into 
view, 
Julie 
was staggered, 
she said, 
7've 
made 
hundreds 
ofpublic 
appearances 
but 
I've 
never 
seen 
anything 
like 
that 
crowd. 
You 
could 
haveforgiven 
usfor 
thinking 
it 
was a 
royal 
wedding 
"' (Goodyear 
in 
Beck, 
1995, 
p. 
109). 
The 
identifications 
between 
royal 
ceremonies and 
'bridal 
fantasies' 
are 
alluded 
to 
Kuhn's 
account 
of 
the 
Coronation, 
the 
post war 
apotheosis 
of 
Royal 
spectacle 
buoyed 
by 
public patriotism 
(Kuhn, 1995, 
p. 
69). 
The 
Coronation 
provided 
a prototype 
of 
excess 
emulated 
and 
'vulgarised', 
in 
national 
street 
parties 
where 
the 
Coronation 
was re-enacted 
and, subsequently 
wedding 
ceremonies 
where 
'ladies 
in 
waiting', 
the 
elaborate 
white 
gown, 
train, 
and 
symbolic 
jewel 
lery 
were 
deployed. 
23,, 
In 
1981 
more 
people 
tuned 
in 
to 
Ken 
and 
Deirdre's 
wedding 
on 
Coronation 
Street 
than 
they 
didfor 
Charles 
and 
Lady 
Di. 
(Bonner 
1995 
p. 
4-5). The (real) 
celebrity 
wedding as cover story 
crystallised 
in 
the 
marriage 
of 
'Gazza 
and 
Shazza' 
and 
reached 
an apotheosis 
over 
three 
issues 
with 
the 
fairytale/Royal 
wedding 
of 
'Posh 
and 
Becks' 
issues 
170,171 
and 
172 
of 
OK! 
magazine 
(July, 
1999) 
focussed 
on 
the 
Beckhams' 
'Secret 
Chapel 
Wedding 
Service', 
the 
Post-wedding 
costuming, and 
'coverage 
of'The 
Wildest 
Wedding 
Party 
Everl' 
respectively. 
Paul 
and 
Cheryl 
Gasgoine 
were marr 
ied in 
a similarly 
flamboyantly 
fairytale 
manner 
with 
both 
bride 
and 
groom 
dyed 
blonde 
and wearing white 
(Hello! 
13 
July, 1996) 
Both 
events 
marked new 
heights 
in 
media 
representations 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
presumptuous 
appropriations 
of aristocratic 
taste 
and 
an 
absorbing 
engagement 
for 
both 
stars 
and 
readers 
in 
sentiment 
and 
nostalgia and 
the 
possibilities of 
an 
ornate 
fantasy 
wedding 
habitus. 
I 
am grateful 
to 
Simon Frith 
for 
drawing 
my 
attention 
to the 
vogue 
for 
celebrity 
remarriages; 
-a 
further 
rite 
to 
legitimate 
excess, 
promote celebrities 
and 
sell 
magazines. 
The 
Scottish 
wedding magazine, 
I 
Do! 
profiled 
former 
Wet 
Wet Wet 
star 
Tommy 
Cunningham 
who renews 
his 
wedding 
vows 
at 
a 
ceremony 
every 
5 
years 
(Patience, 
1998). 
210 
Sandy: 
I 
can 
remember 
having 
- 
and 
again 
from 
my 
Aunty 
as 
a 
preseM 
some 
patent 
leather 
shoes 
that 
were 
pointed at 
the 
front 
you 
know, 
and 
they 
were 
just 
beautiful, 
and 
I 
was 
so 
- 
oh, 
these 
shoes, 
I 
mean, 
you 
know, 
the 
way 
I 
cared 
for 
them, 
and 
I 
remember 
putting 
Vaseline 
on 
these 
shoes 
to 
make 
them 
even 
more 
shiny 
and 
cleaned 
them 
with 
- 
and 
everything, 
and 
they 
were 
just 
gorgeous, 
we certainly 
had 
those 
sort of 
like 
Princess, 
you 
know, 
Cinderella 
slippers 
or whatever 
they 
were, with 
the 
high 
heels, 
we 
had 
those, 
you 
know, 
but 
the 
first 
proper 
pair 
of 
shoes 
that 
I 
can 
remember 
that 
were 
anything 
about 
fashion 
you 
know, 
that 
weren't 
tough 
girls 
shoes 
and 
that 
- 
and we wouldn't 
have 
got 
them 
at 
home, 
but 
my 
Aunty 
bought 
these 
patent 
leather 
pointed shoes and 
the 
strap 
on 
them 
was 
a chain, 
it 
was 
a 
gold 
chain 
across 
there 
[gestures 
to 
front 
of 
foot] 
yeah, 
and 
they 
were 
so 
gorgeous, 
yeah. 
Glamour: 
Ispangly', 
'glittery' 
and 
'solid 
gold, 
Research 
memo: 
After 
we 
left 
the 
cafd, 
Ettie's 
final 
words 
to 
me, 
by 
way 
of 
goodbye 
were, 
'You 
know 
we 
are 
both 
twinklers'. 
I 
used 
to 
love fairy 
stories, 
fairy 
tales 
[ 
... 
II 
used 
tojust 
live 
in 
them. 
And 
I 
was 
so 
impressed 
byjewellery. 
Back 
then, 
I 
thought 
anyone 
who 
had 
a clean 
house 
was 
rich. 
Anything 
that 
glittered, glistened, 
I 
thought 
one 
day 
I'd 
have 
that 
too 
... 
[ 
... 
] looking 
fancy 
was one way 
to 
fill 
up 
the 
days, 
and 
dreamin' 
was 
another. 
I 
kind 
of 
lived 
in 
a 
fairy 
tale. 
I 
was 
Cinderella 
or 
a princess. 
I 
wanted 
folks 
to 
be 
happy 
to 
see 
me 
comin' 
and 
to 
remember 
me 
when 
I 
walked away 
... 
[ 
... 
]I 
dreamed 
of 
the 
time 
that 
I'd have 
money 
and 
I'd 
be 
rich, 
and 
I 
would 
have 
pretty clothes 
and 
make-up 
and 
jewellery 
and 
cars 
and 
houses 
- 
big 
cars and 
houses. 
And I 
dreamed 
of singin' 
and 
I dreamed 
of 
being 
famous 
and 
loved. 
It 
was 
like 
a 
fantasy life. 
I 
thought 
about 
being 
a 
king 
or a queen 
and 
just 
likin' 
people 
and 
having 
everyone 
likin' 
me 
(Dolly 
Parton 
cited 
in 
Berman, 
Grosset 
and 
Dunlap, 
1977, 
pp. 
18-19). 
Her 
dress 
embroidered 
and sparkling 
with 
beads, 
pearls, 
silver, 
gold 
and 
diamante, 
the 
queen 
may wear 
the 
Garter 
sash or an 
order 
of 
the 
country 
she 
is 
visiting, 
invariably 
wears 
long 
white 
gloves, and 
is 
ablaze 
with 
magnificent 
jewels 
(The Queen's 
Clothes, 
Robb, 
1997, 
p. 
65). 
Garments, 
cosmetics and 
hair 
that 
expressed 
a 
flamboyant 
glamour 
appealed 
to 
many 
participants, 
for 
others, sequins and 
spangles, 
diamante 
and 
leopard 
skin 
were read 
as 
excessive 
or 
inappropriate, 
in line 
with 
high 
and 
low 
media 
disdain. 
24 
Many 
objects 
remembered 
with 
joy from 
childhood 
fused 
glamorous 
or rare 
(representations 
of) 
textures, 
costumes 
or 
finishes 
with 
lush 
musical 
24 
For 
example, 
Ann 
noted 
that 
'spangly' 
makeup was 
inappropriate 
for 
older 
women. 
Ellen 
found 
the 
shiny 
suits of 
Motown 
male 
artists 
excessive. 
211 
experiences. 
For 
example, a 
1960s 
silver 
album 
cover, 
a 
finish 
both 
unusual 
and 
glamorous, 
made 
an 
impression 
on 
Jean: 
"Thefirst Motown 
album 
I 
bought 
was 
a silver 
cover 
and 
oh, 
I 
can't 
describe 
the 
design, 
it 
was 
silver 
but 
it 
had 
shades 
ofsilver 
going 
through 
it 
with 
all 
the 
names 
ofthe 
you 
know, 
the 
singles 
on 
it, 
smallyou 
know, [ 
... 
] 
the 
designs 
on 
the 
cover 
were 
lovely". 
And 
sparkly 
and slinky 
glamorous 
excess 
was an evocative aspect 
of 
Shirley 
Bassey's 
appeal 
for 
Gabrielle: 
"I 
liked 
the 
way 
she 
used 
to 
sing, 
the 
way 
she 
used 
to 
wave 
her 
arms about, 
the 
way 
she 
dressed 
and 
lovely, 
long, 
slinky 
dresses 
and 
I 
thought 
she 
had 
a 
beautifulface 
and 
her 
eyes, 
her 
eyes sort 
oflit 
up 
and 
sP25 
sparkled.. 
Bassey's 
costumes and aura evoke 
Hollywood 
star 
precedents. 
In 
their 
examination 
of 
the tastes 
of 
female 
audiences 
for 
movie 
stars 
of 
the 
1930s 
and 
1940s, 
Herzog 
and 
Gaines 
noted 
the 
appeal 
of 
costumier 
Adrian's "artisticflamboyance" 
for 
stars and 
filmgoers 
alike, 
significantly, 
his 
use of 
detail, 
decoration 
and 
otherworldly 
fabrics, 
for 
"unconventional 
effeCri. 
26 
In 
their 
wake, 
British 
music, 
film 
and 
TV 
stars 
like Bassey, Phoenix 
and 
Dors 
constructed 
a 
glamorous 
aura using 
costumes 
freighted 
with 
signification 
and pleasure 
for 
female 
audienceS. 
27 
The 
rhetoric 
and appeal ofjewels 
andjewellery 
is 
extended 
across 
the 
spectrum 
of cosmetic 
acts 
and 
found 
in 
the 
most modest 
fashioning 
contexts. 
Maureen 
had 
found 
a creative 
partner, 
a 
hairdressing 
student 
at 
Northend, 
who enabled 
her 
to 
achieve 
a 
glamorous 
look 
and 
'unconventional 
effects' 
in 
hair 
colouring. 
21 
In 
a review 
of 
a 
performance 
in 
2003 
Simpson 
noted 
that 
Bassey 
wore 
"waterfalls 
ofd1amond; 
". 
After 
an 
encore she 
departed, 
"to 
anotherflurry 
ofgifts 
including, 
bizarrely, 
a 
huge 
diamond 
ring"(Simpson, 
2003, 
p. 
28). Elizabeth, 
in 
a 
post-interview 
comment 
stated 
that 
any sparkly or 
out of 
the 
ordinary 
fabrics 
were a 
delight 
to 
her, 
growing up 
as 
she 
did in 
post-war 
austerity. 
There 
is little 
scope 
in 
this thesis 
to 
make connections 
with 
international 
female 
performers 
who express 
to 
excess, 
however, 
Steward's 
obituary 
of 
the 
Mexican 
singer 
Lola Beltran 
who 
died in 
1996 
hints 
at 
the 
more 
widespread 
appeal 
for 
performances 
by 
those 
embodying 
so-called rags 
to 
riches 
triumph 
of ornate 
fashioning, 
glittering 
jewels 
vocal 
and 
gestural 
drama: 
"La Grande 
[ 
... 
] 
would 
be 
decked 
out 
In 
afrilled 
dress, 
Jewelled, 
flashing 
gorgeous rings, 
andpuffing 
the trademark 
shawl 
across 
her 
shoulders. 
Then, 
in 
exaggerated 
despair, 
backed 
by 
a 
vast 
mariachl 
band 
she 
would slipfrom 
coqfidentiality 
and 
barely-sung 
whispers 
into 
long 
dramatically 
held 
notes, 
her 
voice suffused 
with 
tears. 
Her 
signature 
tune 
Cu 
curru 
cu cupaloma 
is 
an 
extraordinary 
example ofher skill, 
complete with an 
Imitation 
ofa 
dove's 
cooing 
" (Steward, 
1996, 
p. 
11). 
26" 
Women 
would 
know, 
for 
instance, 
that 
one ofAdrian's 
trademarks 
was 
'emphasis 
above 
the table'- 
detail 
which 
was 
made 
especially 
interesting 
around 
the 
neck 
with 
tucks, 
flaps, 
inserts, 
beading 
or 
unusually shaped collars. 
Adrlan'. 
v 
work 
was 
also 
characterised 
by 
lavish 
use of expensive 
materials 
such 
as 
lamd, 
chiffon, crepe, 
taffeta, 
stain, 
voile, 
fur 
sequins and 
bugle 
beads. 
He 
might, 
for 
an 
unconventional effect, 
use expensivefabric 
in 
a ratherfunctional 
item, 
as seen 
in 
Crawford's 
memorable 
lame 
polo 
coal 
" 
(Herzog 
and 
Gaines, 199 1, 
p. 
8 1). 
27 
For 
example, 
Bassey's "Diamond 
Dress, 
encrusted 
with 
Swarovskl 
crystals 
and 
trimmed 
with 
lilac 
ostrichfeathers 
[with] 
its 
matchingfloor 
length 
cape, made entirely 
oftieredpurple 
ostrichfeathers 
[and] 
the 
goldandsilver 
sequinnedand 
beadedgown, 
forever 
associated 
with 
her 
theme 
songfor 
Goldfinger 
"(Barton, 
2003). Bassey 
claims: 
V 
still 
have 
myfirst 
gownfrom 
when 
I 
was eighteen 
years 
old. 
Doug 
Darnell 
made 
that 
onefor 
me. 
it 
was sexy, 
and 
it 
was 
heavy 
because 
it 
was 
all 
diamante 
" 
(Bassey 
1998, 
p. 
187). 
She 
records an 
alternative 
account 
in 
SAGA 
magazine: 
"Michael 
Sullivan, 
the 
man 
who 
discovered her 
singing 
in 
a 
theatre 
in 
Jersey, 
was 
married 
to 
a woman who 
made 
Shirley 
herfirst 
stage 
outfit. 
Vt 
was 
black 
andu 
hadmink 
round 
the 
bust. 
, 
4s. 
voon 
as 
Iput 
//on, 
I burst 
into 
tears. 
I 
was 
too 
young 
to 
wear 
black So 
she 
made 
me 
one 
in 
while"' 
(Bassey 
cited 
in 
Barber, 
2003, 
p. 
60). 
The 
significance 
of 
the 
long 
skirt 
or gown 
in 
signalling 
evening 
glamour 
was 
attested 
to 
by 
participants 
including 
jenny 
whose 
dressing 
up regime 
included 
"my 
make-up. 
my 
lipstick 
[Laughter] 
and 
my 
long 
skirts 
" In 
choosing 
long 
skirts 
and 
dresses, 
some 
participants seemed 
to 
be identifying 
with 
the 
tradition 
of stars 
like Bassey 
who 
have 
patronised stage 
rather 
than 
fashion 
designers, 
eschewing 
fashion 
for 
glamour. 
Unequivocally 
signalling 
that 
dressing 
UP 
was one of 
her 
real pleasures, 
when 
asked 
if 
she 
worejewellery 
when going 
out 
Jenny 
stated 
"Ohyes 
aha, 
I've 
got 
that 
many 
earrings 
Idon't 
know 
which 
ones 
toput 
onp, 
[Laughter] 
212 
Maureen: Red 
isn't it? 
[to 
the 
hairdresser] 
On 
the 
front 
of 
it. 
It's 
a 
gold 
is 
it? 
It's 
a red 
and 
a 
gold 
aye, 
so 
I 
think that 
might 
- 
we're 
hoping 
that 
will 
match 
the 
front. 
AP: Oh I'm 
sure 
it 
will. 
Cheryl: 
The 
gold one with 
the 
red at 
the 
front [showing 
me 
the 
satnple 
hair 
cards] 
and 
she's 
got 
a mixture of 
both 
one after 
the 
other. 
[ 
... 
] 
And 
it'll 
be 
solid 
at 
the 
front, 
solid 
gold. 
28 
Staging 
visions 
of excess 
In 
some 
early 
post 
war 
Royal 
annuals 
the 
relationship 
of 
identification 
between 
readers 
and 
Royals 
bears 
striking similarities 
in 
the 
star 
performance 
and 
audience 
pleasures 
in 
consumption. 
One 
annual 
recording 
the 
Royal 
tour 
of 
1954 inferred 
that 
the 
star 
did 
not 
disappoint, 
The 
most rigorous guard 
was 
kept 
over 
[the 
Queen's jewels 
as 
they travelled 
with 
her] 
and 
the 
care 
expended 
in 
selecting and guarding 
them 
was 
amply 
repaid 
by 
the 
evident 
delight 
of 
the 
women 
of 
the 
Commonwealth 
when 
they 
saw 
her 
majesty 
dressed 
as 
they 
had 
always 
imagined 
her 
to 
be- 
resplendent 
and regal 
in 
her 
magnificent 
jewels 
(Talbot 
and 
Vaughn 
Thomas 
[undated 
but 
probably 
1954] 
p. 
92). 
Techniques 
of 
awe-inspiring 
fashioning 
deployed 
by 
the 
Royals 
have 
been 
appropriated 
for 
star 
purposes 
and vice 
versa. 
But 
the 
impact 
of 
glamorous 
and 
excessive 
fashioning 
in 
stage 
performances, 
is 
routinely 
read, 
even 
in 
contemporary 
accounts 
as 
uniquely 
4MeriCan. 
29 
Memory 
work 
texts 
and participant accounts' 
problematised 
a reductive 
reading 
of 
women 
who 
fashion 
to 
excess as representing 
powerless 
objects 
for 
patriarchy, 
and speciflc 
female 
soap, 
music 
and 
fllm 
stars 
demonstrate 
that 
feminine 
excess 
may 
be deployed 
un/wittingly 
to 
create 
a 
powerful, 
wilfid 
or 
fearsome 
effect. 
Contributing 
a 
moment 
of 
insight 
for 
this 
research, 
Maureen 
made 
the 
following 
comment 
about 
her 
earrings: 
21 
In 
Gimlin's 
research, 
middle-class professional women salon-goers 
identified 
"bromy" 
i.. 
C. artificial 
hair 
as 
the 
most 
despised 
along 
with 
"big", 
'flashy", 'frilly" 
and 
styles 
with 
"too 
muchpomp 
" 
all signified 
"tacAy", 
"low 
class 
" 
tastes 
(Gimlin, 
1996, 
pp. 
519-520). 
29 
As 
illustrated 
in 
this 
interpretation 
of 
Parton's 
live 
performance 
"British 
retinas 
struggle 
to 
contain 
the 
shimmering, 
rhinestone-clad 
vision 
ofJoy 
that 
hasjust 
arrived onstage. 
[ 
... 
] 
Fivefoot 
three 
in 
heels, 
petite 
and)vtfrom 
so 
many 
angles 
teetering 
undisappoinfingly 
enormous" 
(McDaid, 
2002, 
p. 
12). 
Such 
excesses 
have 
generated 
strong emotions 
in 
British 
audiences. 
Through the 
agency 
of camp appropriation and 
a qucering of 
feminine 
excess 
even 
Ellen, 
who 
otherwise 
sought 
to 
distance 
herself 
from 
'sappy' femininity, 
could register 
her 
appreciation of 
Parton's 
'glitz' 
and 
'gloss'. 
"Dolly. Ijust 
thought 
Dolly 
wasJust 
so 
up-front 
ifyou'll 
excuse 
the 
expression 
[Laughter] 
you 
know, 
she wasjust 
so 
blumming larger 
than 
Itfe 
and 
whatyou 
see 
is 
whatyou 
get, 
andyou 
know, 
she 
has 
this 
Dollywoodplace. 
I 
have 
this 
really 
big 
thing 
about 
kitsch, 
Ijust 
love 
like 
glitzy, 
glossy, 
kitschy 
things 
and 
I 
think 
Dolly 
is 
the 
human 
epitome 
of 
kitsch 
". 
213 
I 
wear 
big, 
they 
are 
like 
big, 
gallus 
things 
with 
- 
big, 
big 
ones all 
coming 
down, 
so 
my 
ma, 
she 
got me a new pair 
for 
Christmas 
and 
they 
are 
- 
all 
light 
up. 
[ 
... 
I 
Soon 
as 
the 
dark 
comes 
on 
and 
it 
I 
ights it 
up. 
[ 
... 
] 
Aye, 
they 
light 
up, all 
different 
colours, 
I 
wear 
them 
when 
we're 
going 
somewhere special and 
I 
put 
them 
in 
and 
I 
feel 
quite 
good, 
but 
see, 
with 
the 
likes 
of 
when 
it's 
dark, 
so 
they 
put out all 
the 
lights 
and 
they 
all 
light 
up. 
Maureen's 
use of 
the 
word 
'gallus' is instructive. 
3' 
The 
term, 
chosen 
with 
pride 
to 
identifying 
her 
own 
fashioning, 
seemed apposite 
to 
describe 
other 
women 
who 
fashioned 
to 
excess; 
for 
example, 
Goodyear's 
wearing of 
large 
earrings, 
"which 
sportedphotographs 
ofthe 
Prince 
and 
Princess 
Of 
Wales " 
when meeting 
the 
Queen 
as she, 
the 
Queen, 
opened 
the 
new 
Coronation 
Street 
set 
in 
1982, 
provoking an unpublished 
comment 
by 
Her 
Majesty 
(Little, 
1993, 
p. 
122)3 
1. 
But 
this 
gallus 
behaviour 
is 
characteristically 
subordinated, as 
in 
Irvine's 
notion 
of 
working-class 
female 
passive 
dupes 
eclipsed 
by 
a 
more 
knowing 
audience 
of gay 
men. 
And 
who 
are we? 
Coronation Street's 
audience 
is 
susceptible 
to 
being 
stereotyped 
as 
chip 
butty 
eating 
northern 
lasses 
chained 
to 
the 
ironing 
board. 
But 
Bet 
Lynch is 
a gay 
icon 
as 
much 
as 
a 
housewife's 
heroine. Of 
course 
there 
are 
the 
outrageous 
clothes. 
Bet dresses 
like 
a 
drag 
queen 
and 
drag 
queens 
have 
often returned 
the 
compliment. 
But 
it 
is 
her 
diva 
qualities 
in 
the 
face 
of 
tragedy that 
make 
her 
a 
gay 
heroine in 
the 
mould of 
Judy 
Garland 
(Irvine, 
1995, 
p. 
17)32 
The 
terms 
used 
in 
media 
texts 
and 
some 
participants 
accounts 
to 
describe 
women 
who 
fashion 
to 
excess 
revea 
ed 
misogynistic, 
and classist 
tendencies, 
for 
example, 
'bimbo', 
'slag', 
'tarty', 
'pikey', 
'over 
the 
top', 
portio'. 
'taken 
too 
far', 
'trashy', 
'flashy', 
, 
brassy' 
and 
'cheap' 
etc. 
I 
had 
been 
introduced 
to 
the term 
gallus 
in 
my 
first 
weeks 
living 
in 
Glasgow. 
I heard 
it 
used 
in 
relation 
to 
a woman 
who 
I had 
read as embodying 
the 
ineffable 
traits 
of 
feminine 
excess 
that 
are 
now 
focus 
of 
this 
research. 
I 
subsequently 
mis-used 
this term 
over 
the 
next 
20 
years. 
Locating 
the 
definition 
of 
the term, 
I 
found 
that 
gallus 
did 
not mean, 
as 
I 
had 
thought, 
a 
big, 
beautiful, 
life-loving, 
expressive 
and 
dramatically 
adomed 
woman 
but 
a 
"bold, 
daring, 
rash, 
wild, 
unmanageable, 
impish, 
mischievous, 
cheeky" 
person. 
(http: 
//www. 
scots-oniine. 
org/dictionary/search. 
asp). 
31 
'Gallus' 
might 
also 
describe 
Taylor's 
hauteur 
on outglitzing 
Princess 
Margaret, 
or participant 
Jane's 
spectacular 
'Bitch' 
pendant. 
I 
would 
argue 
that 
gallusness 
is 
a characteristic 
recognised and appreciated 
by 
at 
least 
Scots 
female 
audiences 
in 
Phoenix, 
Bassey, 
Dors 
and others. 
" 
Low 
and 
high 
media 
increasingly 
link 
the 
characterisations 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
soaps with 
camp 
and 
queer 
culture 
and 
real/imagined 
gay 
community. 
Smith 
claims: 
"Soap 
opera 
whether 
it is 
big 
hair 
andshoulderpads 
or 
hairnets 
andhotpots, 
hat 
always 
hada 
special 
appeal 
to 
gay audiences 
" 
(Smith, 
2003, 
p. 
24). Nouveau-Crossroads 
producer 
Yvon 
Grace 
attempted 
to 
engineer a 
camp 
appeal 
"I'm 
almingfor 
the 
gay audience 
[ 
... 
] 
we've completely 
revamped 
It 
to 
make 
it 
camp, 
witty 
and 
gjamoro us. 
Itsju 
11 
of 
sex, w 
ith 
lots 
of 
sm 
ou 
Idering, 
p 
len 
ty 
of 
heaving b 
osoms, 
great 
ha 
1r, 
pe rfe ct 
nails. 
A 
nd at 
the 
top 
of 
the 
pyramid 
we 
have 
Jane 
Asher 
as a 
bitch 
goddess 
in 
a 
designerfrock 
"(Grace 
cited 
in Smith, 
ibid. ). 
However, 
such 
identifications 
should 
be 
understood 
in 
the 
broader 
media 
context 
of camp 
hegemony. 
For 
example, 
gay 
icons identified 
in 
a recent 
article 
includes 
Nikki 
Sanderson 
('Candice' 
in Coronation 
Streel), 
"The Wombles, 
Jude 
Law, 
Anne 
Robinson, 
7inky 
WinAy, 
Micheal 
Portillo 
and 
Vinnie 
Jones"(Wilson, 
2000, 
p. 
17). Goodyear 
has 
somewhat unconvincingly 
attempted 
to 
demonstrate 
a 
postmodcrn, 
camp 
sensibility 
post-Coronation 
Street. 
Lynda 
Murdin, 
writing 
for 
the 
Yorkshire 
Post 
was 
happy 
to 
take 
the 
bait 
in 
her 
article 
promoting 
Goodyear's 
stint 
in 
the 
musical 
La Cage 
Aux Folles 
touring 
Yorkshire 
theatres. 
'A 
Happy Goodyear 
- 
former 
soap-star 
Julie Goodyear has 
reinvented 
herself 
as a 
gay 
icon' (Murdin, 
2002, 
p. 
7). 
Soaps 
as 
camp 
and women 
as 
drag 
queens 
have been 
adopted 
by 
academic researchers. 
In 
her 
thesis 
High heels 
and 
hoovering.. 
femininity 
in 
1990s 
culture, 
Janine Liladhar, 
argues 
that 
femininity 
in 
soap opera 
has been 
defined 
by 
theorists 
in 
association 
with 
domesticity, 
family 
life 
and other 
interpersonal 
relationships 
"However 
largue 
that 
the 
inclusion 
of 
the 
soap 
queen 
in 
the 
programmes 
complicates 
this 
notion. 
Drawing 
on 
Queer 
Theory 
I 
suggest 
that 
the 
soap 
queen, 
with 
her 
resemblance 
to 
the 
drag 
queen, 
offers 
aperformance 
ofgender 
" 
http: 
//www. 
shu. 
aC. 
uk/schools/-cs/enplish/reLeirdiLwHsSdlgnMU&htmL 
08/06102. 
214 
Birch's 
memorialising 
of 
'Bet 
Lynch' 
comes 
closer 
to 
linking 
the 
character's 
gallus 
fashioning 
appeal 
for 
audiences 
of 
women, 
and 
an 
understanding 
of 
the 
term 
as 
connoting 
defiant, 
female 
street 
saVVY. 
33 
"So 
after 
25 
years 
as 
the 
nation's 
favourite 
barmaid, 
you've 
pulled 
your 
last 
pint, 
had 
your 
last 
'Bet Lynch 
breakfast' 
(a 
cup 
of 
tea 
and 
a 
fag 
- 
with 
a cigarette 
holder, 
of 
course) 
taken 
your 
stupendous cleavage 
(Newton 
on 
the 
left, 
Ridley 
on 
the 
right) 
and 
tottered 
off, 
beehive 
and 
false 
eyelashes 
stiff and 
proud, 
to 
the 
netherworld 
of 
chat 
shows 
and 
panto 
known 
as 
life 
after 
soap. 
Bet 
Lynch 
stars 
as 
Widow Twanky 
on 
Blackpool 
pier 
-I 
can 
see 
it 
now. 
If 
the 
stiletto 
fits, 
wear 
it. 
You 
brought 
the 
Street 
something 
else 
too, 
a 
defiant 
glamour 
that 
countless 
others 
from 
Lily 
Savage 
to 
Margi Clarke 
have 
tried 
to 
imitate. 
You 
were 
the 
back-street 
diva 
who 
knew 
that 
a 
bit 
of slap, 
a slash of 
lippy 
and a 
barbed 
quip 
could 
help 
staunch 
the 
deepest 
wound. 
Get 
the 
Polyfilla 
and 
CFCs 
out girl, as you 
so 
memorably 
advised 
Raquel 
when 
she 
fell 
apart 
after 
being 
cheated 
in love. 
You 
sounded wise 
in 
your 
role of 
matriarch 
precisely 
because 
you 
spoke 
from 
experience. 
Your 
earrings 
and 
leopard 
skin 
were 
inspirational; 
your 
way 
of 
handling 
a 
crisis, 
pragmatism 
itself' 
(Birch, 1995, 
p. 
3). 
Birch's 
interpretations, 
that 
women 
who 
fashion 
to 
excess, 
of 
which 
'Bet 
Lynch' is 
an 
exaggerated 
but 
recognisable 
characterisation, 
are 
aware 
of 
artifice 
rather 
than 
labouring 
under 
false 
consciousness 
about 
the 
deceit 
of making 
Up. 
34 
'Bet 
Lynch"s 
gallus 
femininity 
is 
indubitably 
a 
masquerade, 
understood as 
such 
by 
character, 
actor 
and 
audiences, 
but 
this 
masquerade 
does 
not 
(merely) 
collapse 
into 
camp 
irony; 
this 
is 
an awareness 
of 
irony 
and 
artifice, 
but 
not 
a 
performance 
that 
barely 
conceals 
disdain. 
For 
female 
audiences 
well 
aware 
of 
the 
perils 
and rewards 
of 
fashioning 
'slap', 
'Bet 
Lynch' 
demonstrated 
in 
extremis 
an 
ironic 
pragmatism 
in 
the 
face 
of 
the 
reality 
of 
endlessly 
repeated 
cosmetic 
acts. 
35 
Far 
from fixing 
and containing sexuality 
and 
restricting 
selfhood, 
knowledge 
and 
awareness 
of 
the 
mechanisms 
and pleasures 
of artifice, 
figures 
such 
as 
Dors 
and 
Phoenix, 
gave 
rise 
to 
fearsome, 
and 
Notwithstanding the 
inevitable 
allusion 
to 
Goodyear 
as a 
transvestite 
man/pantomime 
dame. 
It 
endorses 
Stem's 
view 
that 
women 
who 
"traverse 
the 
narrative 
every 
day 
that 
they 
remove 
their 
make-up 
", 
are 
not 
unaware 
of, 
111hefact 
ofthe 
continual 
renewal 
ofthe 
masquerade 
effort" 
(Stem, 1997, 
p. 
192). 
35 
In ne 
Language 
of 
Coronation Street Miller 
and 
Nown define 
Slap 
as 
"Alakeup, 
cosmetics: 
As 
Bet Lynch 
says 
'Getyour 
slap 
on, 
and 
we'll 
go 
out on 
the 
r=le 
"'. 
The 
term 
is hardly 
indicative 
of 
subtle 
dissembling 
and 
self-deceit. 
They 
traced 
its 
etymology 
from 
theatrical 
slang, probably 
from 
slapping 
on 
make-up 
"Face'is 
an alternative 
expression: 
as she 
was 
driven 
away 
hy 
amhulancefirom 
the 
Roversfire, 
Bet, harely 
conscious 
asked 
'Canyou hang 
on 
while 
. 
1put 
myface on? 
"' 
(ibid. 
p. 
79). 
In 
her history 
of 
the 
Tiller 
Girls, 
Vernon 
noted 
the 
'crime' 
of 
matter 
(slap) 
out of 
place 
"Theface 
make-up 
was 
known 
as 
fle., 
hing', 
it 
was 
then 
a 
natural colour, not 
the tan 
that 
hecamepopular 
later 
on. 
The 
white 
dustingpowder 
over 
thefleshing 
was 
sometimes 
corrtflower. 
Every 
evening 
the 
make-up 
would 
he 
wiped offwith 
a 
towel... 
The 
higgest 
crime 
ofall 
[in 
the 
first 
decade 
of 
the 
nineteenth 
century] 
was 
to 
go round 
to 
thefront 
of 
the 
house 
or 
into 
the 
street 
in 
; 
(ull 
slap'" 
(Vernon, 
1988, 
p. 
38). 
215 
gallus performances 
that 
confounded rather 
than 
confirmed notions of 
British 
femininity 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
early 
1960s. 
36 
Rules 
of adornment: policing gallus 
femininities 
A 
dissident 
will 
to 
adorn 
is 
a cultural 
trait, 
a subjugated 
knowledge 
amongst 
girls 
and 
young 
women 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
This 
is 
evident 
in 
subcultural 
fashioning 
trends, 
mimetic 
identifications 
with stars, 
memory work 
testimonies, 
recorded 
in 
academic 
and 
popular 
literature 
and 
participants' 
accounts. 
It 
has 
necessitated parental and more 
broadly, 
social 
and 
cultural 
regulations 
and restrictions 
evidenced 
in 
advice metered out 
in 
girls and women's 
magazines, 
books, 
annuals, 
school 
rules 
and 
other 
texts 
. 
31 
Accounts 
of 
dissident 
and 
disdained 
fashioning 
episodes 
at 
school 
such 
as 
those 
gathered 
by Christine Griffin 
and 
discussed 
by 
Ettie 
in 
relation 
to 
her 
own 
and 
her 
daughter's 
fashioning, 
is 
arguably 
present 
in 
most state 
school 
and college settings; 
suggesting 
use of cosmetics 
acts 
and 
jewellery 
by 
young women 
is 
anti-institutional 
and 
beyond 
control. 
38 
Ellen 
raised 
the 
notion of 
inappropriate fashioning in her 
observations on 
a mutual colleague. 
' 
According 
to 
Lusted, Diana Dors: "Established 
initially 
as a sex symbo4 
she refitsed 
the 
connotations 
ofdumb sexuality. 
Always 
je&onscious 
of 
the tjpe, 
she 
wastedfew chances 
to 
expose 
- 
through 
exaggerated 
gestures 
offemale 
sexuality 
and a 
ye 
sm. s 
16&11,1 
e 
disdainfor 
on screenpredatory 
males 
(no-one 
curled a 
liplike 
Dors) 
-its 
construction 
of male vo 
uri 
Yet kyh 
license 
of 
her 
own sexuality 
was not 
lost 
In 
the 
process 
and 
the 
sense 
of woman 
in 
control, manipulating 
within 
the 
constraints, 
wasparamount. 
As 
she aged she pushed 
at 
the 
connotations ofa variant 
Ope 
known 
as 
'the 
good 
time 
girl'retaining 
its 
characteristic 
sel(-regulating searchfor 
pleasure. 
but denying 
its 
characterisation 
as $in... 
Her 
challenge 
to 
these 
conventions 
(e. 
g. 
her 
risqu6F 
performances 
on chat 
shows etc. 
) 
made 
her 
a 
risk 
to the 
institution. 
hence 
the 
short 
term 
irregularity 
of 
her 
appearances, 
but 
this 
merely served 
to 
imbue 
her 
appearances 
with 
critical 
resonance. 
Dors 
offered 
a 
challenging 
model 
in 
antagonistic relation 
to the 
meaning 
of roles customarily 
allocated 
to 
(especially 
working-class) women 
and 
it is 
likely 
that 
the 
model 
would 
connect with 
the 
experience andaspirations ofthat gendered 
audience" 
(Lusted, 1991, 
pp. 
257-258). 
" 
Respectable/Modernist 
exceptions 
to 
proscriptive 
rules of adornment are 
illustrated 
in 
a 
memory work 
text 
and 
illustrated 
opposite. 
The 
plethora 
of advice available 
to 
young 
women across 
a spectrum of 
texts 
at 
almost any moment 
in 
the 
post-war period 
suggests 
that 
fashioning 
appropriately 
in 
specific contexts 
remains 
imperative 
and 
that 
adornment 
is 
fraught 
with risk/barely 
under control. 
Jewellery has 
its 
own 
history 
of 
ab/use. 
In 
1986, 
Accessory Chic 
advised: 
"7he 
type 
ofring(s)you 
wear 
is 
a 
highly 
personal choice, 
but 
make 
sure 
it 
co-ordinales with 
allyour otherpieces and 
styles ofjewellery. 
Be 
careful 
that the 
combination 
ofyour ring with otherjewellery 
never 
overpowersyou. 
For 
example, combining 
a 
chunky mouldedsilver 
ring 
with 
heavy 
silver 
bracelets 
can weighlyou 
down. Conversely, 
several small 
rings on each 
hand 
looksjust 
aiflashy 
and overdone" 
(Roderick, 
1986, 
p. 
51). 
3' 
Griffin's 
research 
focussed 
on 
a 
group 
of 
working-class 
girls 
from 
fifth form 
colleges 
in Birmingham. 
Her interviews 
assessed 
how 
these 
so called 
'typical 
girls' viewed 
the 
world and 
their 
prospects: 
"Maintaining 
some 
control 
over students'appearance 
was 
[an] 
aspect 
ofthe 
school's 
authority. 
and 
this 
was especiallyfocussed 
on young 
women. 
Resistances 
to these 
constraints 
included ignoring 
the 
school 
uniform altogether, or 
wearing a rough approximation 
of 
it; 
wearing clear 
nail 
varnish and 
barely 
detectable 
make-up, 
and 
interminable 
struggles 
overskirt 
lengt& hairstyles 
and shoes'? 
One 
teacher 
was 
more 
lenient 
that 
others, 
but had her 
own 
views 
of appropriate 
fashionings 
of 
femininity 
that 
did 
not 
accord 
with 
those 
of 
her 
pupils 
"WeIII've 
never 
minded 
the 
girls 
wearing 
a 
bit 
of 
make-up. 
Why 
should 
we 
by 
toforce 
15 
or 
16year 
olds not 
to? 
Youjust 
can't 
get away 
with 
it 
nowadays. 
But 
they 
turn 
up with make-up 
all 
over 
theirfaces. 
Great dark 
lines 
over 
their 
eyes 
and 
ka0pay 
round 
to 
their 
ears. 
Purple 
lipstick, 
green 
nails and 
I 
don't 
know 
what else. 
(laugh) 
So 1just 
tell 
them 
to 
wash 
it 
off. 
If 
only 
they 
would 
come 
with 
proper make-up, 
some 
nice 
blue 
eye-shadow, 
a 
bit 
ofmascara, 
lipstick " 
(Griffin, 
1985, 
p. 
2 0. 
The 
Scottish 
TV 
comedy 
sketch 
series 
Chewin'the 
Fat 
caricatures school girls 
fashioning 
dissidence 
and 
the 
overreactions 
of 
a 
puritanical 
teacher to 
'East End'jewellery 
and 
cosmetics; 
she connects 
both 
to 
sexual 
laxity, 
lack 
of 
intelligence 
etc. 
In 
this 
long- 
running sketch 
the 
fashion 
dissidents 
are always 
triumphant. 
In 
a 
memory 
work 
text 
'A' 
remembered: 
"Music Teacher, 
Miss D 
wouldperiodically 
check 
to 
see 
ftlear 
nail varnish 
was 
being 
wom 
by 
girls 
in 
her 
class 
by 
demanding 
that 
theyform 
a 
line, 
extend 
their 
hands 
and 
move 
them 
slowly 
in 
order 
that 
she could 
detect, by 
the 
light 
they 
reflected 
whether 
they 
were 
'guilty 
' 
or not. 
'% 
216 
of 
any 
kind, 
a note 
to this 
affect must 
be 
sent 
to the 
Headmaster 
and such 
items 
are 
to 
be 
left 
in 
the School 
office 
during 
school 
hours 
for 
safe-keepIng, and 
the 
required 
dose 
taken 
there. 
10. 
Dress 
and 
Appearance. 
(i) 
All 
pupils are 
expected 
to 
be 
clean, 
well- 
groomed 
and 
neatly 
dressed 
in 
the School 
uniform 
in 
force 
for 
the 
time 
being. 
(ii) 
School 
uniform 
will 
be 
worn 
on all school 
occasions 
unless permission 
to 
the 
contrary 
has been 
granted. 
(iii) 
No 
J*wsllory 
will 
be 
worn 
and 
no 
make-up 
of any 
kind is 
permitted. 
Earrings 
axe 
not 
allowed 
but 
girls may-wear 
plain 
studs 
or 
sleepers. 
coat 
badges 
- 
only 
badges 
of official organisations 
may 
be 
worn 
and 
no 
more 
than 
one 
badge 
at any 
time. 
(Lv) 
Boys 
must 
be 
clean 
shaven 
and 
sideboards 
must 
not extend 
below 
the 
bass 
of 
the 
ear. 
(V) 
in 
the 
came 
of 
boys, 
hair 
should 
not 
extend 
below 
the 
collar. 
11. 
conduct. 
M 
PUPL13 
are expected to 
behave 
in 
a quiet 
and 
orderly manner 
and 
to 
show 
courtesy to 
and 
consideration 
for 
others 
inside 
and 
outside 
the School. 
Their 
conduct should at all 
times 
reflect 
credit on 
the school. 
- 
(ii) 
Pupils 
must 
keep 
to 
the 
right 
in 
corridors 
and 
on 
the 
stairs. 
Running in 
the 
corridors 
is 
forbidden* 
(iii) 
The 
main 
Ontraws 
to 
either 
School building 
is 
to 
be 
used only 
by 
the Sixth 
rom. 
Uv) 
Pupils 
may not 
walk 
on 
the front 
lawns 
at 
Thorne Roads 
(v) 
fisicking 
in forbidden 
an 
school 
priseises 
and, 
in 
School 
uniforaf outside 
the 
School, 
It 
is 
an 
offence 
to 
be 
in 
pcssessl?)n 
of 
tobacco 
at 
School. 
pupils 
are 
forbidden 
to 
frequent 
licensed 
promises 
in 
School 
unifomo * 
37. Extract 
from 
W's 
Form 
list 
and 
school 
rules, 
1978 
-1979 
bkhl. 
gallus 
performances 
that 
confounded rather 
than 
confirmed notions 
of 
British femininity 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
early 
1960s. 
36 
Rules 
of adornment: policing 
gallus 
fernininities 
A 
dissident 
will 
to 
adorn 
is 
a cultural 
trait, 
a subjugated 
knowledge 
amongst 
girls 
and 
young 
women 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
This 
is 
evident 
in 
subcultural 
fashioning 
trends, 
mimetic 
identifications 
with 
stars, 
memory 
work 
testimonies, 
recorded 
in 
academic 
and 
popular 
literature 
and 
participants' 
accounts. 
It 
has 
necessitated 
parental 
and more 
broadly, 
social 
and 
cultural 
regulations 
and 
restrictions 
evidenced 
in 
advice 
metered 
out 
in 
girls and women's 
magazines, 
books, 
annuals, 
school 
rules and 
other 
texts. 
37 
Accounts 
of 
dissident 
and 
disdained 
fashioning 
episodes 
at school 
such 
as 
those 
gathered 
by Christine 
Griffin 
and 
discussed 
by 
Ettie 
in 
relation 
to 
her 
own 
and 
her 
daughter's 
fashioning, 
is 
arguably 
present 
in 
most 
state 
school 
and college 
settings; 
suggesting 
use 
of cosmetics 
acts 
and 
Jewellery 
by 
young 
women 
is 
anti-institutional and 
beyond 
control 
. 
38 
Ellen 
raised 
the 
notion 
of 
inappropriate 
fashioning 
in her 
observations 
on a 
mutual colleague. 
36 
According 
to 
Lusted, 
Diana 
Dors: "Established 
initially 
as a sex symbol, 
she 
refused 
the 
connotations 
ofdumb 
sexuality. 
AlwM 
sel(-conscious 
of 
the 
type, 
she wastedfew 
chances 
to 
expose 
- 
through 
exaggerated 
gestures 
offemale 
sexuality 
and 
a 
disdainfor 
on screen 
predatory 
mates 
(no-one 
curled a 
lip like 
Dors) 
- 
its 
construction 
of 
male voyeurism, 
Yet 
skiNily, 
the 
license 
of 
her 
own 
sexuality 
was not 
lost 
in 
the 
process and 
the 
sense 
of 
woman 
in 
control, 
manipulating 
within 
the 
constraints, 
wasparamount. 
As 
she aged 
she pushed 
at 
the 
connotations 
ofa variant 
type 
known 
as 
'the 
good 
time 
girl'retaining 
its 
characteristic 
sel(-regulating 
searchfor 
pleasure, 
but denying 
its 
characterisation 
as sin... 
Her 
challenge 
to 
these 
conventions 
(e. 
g. 
her 
risqud 
performances 
on 
chat 
shows etc. 
) 
made 
her 
a risk 
to the 
institution, hence 
the 
short 
term 
irregularity 
ofher 
appearances, 
but 
this 
merely 
served 
to 
imbue 
her 
appearances 
with critical 
resonance. 
Dors 
offered 
a 
challenging 
model 
in 
antagonistic 
relation 
to the 
meaning 
of roles 
customarily 
allocated 
to 
(especially 
working-class) 
women 
and 
It is 
likely 
that 
the 
model 
would 
connect 
with 
the 
experience 
andaspirations ofthat 
gendered 
audience" 
(Lusted, 1991, 
pp. 
257-258). 
31 
Respectable/Modernist 
exceptions 
to 
proscriptive 
rules of 
adornment are 
illustrated 
in 
a memory 
work 
text 
and 
illustrated 
opposite. 
The 
plethora 
of 
advice 
available 
to 
young 
women 
across a 
spectrum of 
texts 
at 
almost 
any moment 
in 
the 
post-war 
period 
suggests 
that 
fashioning 
appropriately 
in 
specific 
contexts 
remains 
imperative 
and 
that 
adornment 
is 
fraught 
with 
risk/barely 
under 
control. 
Jewellery 
has 
its 
own 
history 
of ab/use. 
In 
1986, Accessory Chic 
advised: 
"The 
type 
offing(s) 
you 
wear 
is 
a 
hi 
I 
ghy 
personal 
choice, 
but 
make sure 
it 
co-ordinates 
with allyour 
otherpleces andstyles 
ofjewellery. 
Be 
careful 
that 
the 
combination 
ofyour 
ring 
with 
otherjewellery 
never 
overpowersyou. 
For 
example, combining 
a chunky 
mouldedsilver 
ring 
with 
heavy 
silver 
bracelets 
can 
weighlyou 
down. 
Conversely, 
severalsmall 
rings on each 
hand 
looksjust 
asj7ashy 
andoverdone" 
(Roderick, 
1986, 
p. 
5 
1). 
" 
Griffin's 
research 
focussed 
on 
a group 
of working-class girls 
from fifth form 
colleges 
in 
Birmingham. 
Her interviews 
assessed 
how 
these 
so 
called 
'typical 
girls' viewed 
the 
world 
and 
their 
prospects: 
"Maintaining 
some 
control 
over 
students' 
appearance 
was 
[an] 
aspect 
ofthe 
school's 
authority, 
and 
this 
was 
especiallyfocussed 
on 
young women. 
Resistances 
to these 
constraints 
included 
ignoring 
the 
school untform 
altogether, 
or 
wearing a 
rough 
approximation 
ofit, 
wearing clear 
nail 
varnish 
and 
barely 
detectable 
make-up; 
and 
Interminable 
struggles 
over 
skirt 
length, hairstyles 
and 
shoes". 
One 
teacher 
was 
more 
lenient 
that 
others, 
but 
had 
her 
own views 
of appropriate 
fashionings 
of 
femininity 
that 
did 
not accord 
with 
those 
of 
her 
pupils 
"Well 
I've 
never 
minded 
the 
girls 
wearing a 
bit 
ofmake-up. 
Why 
should 
we 
try 
toforce 
15 
or 
16year 
olds not 
to? 
Youjust 
can't 
get away 
with 
it 
nowadays. 
But 
they turn 
up with 
make-up all over 
theirfaces. 
Great dark lines 
over 
their 
eyes 
and 
halfway 
round 
to 
their 
ears. 
Purple 
lipstick, 
green nails and 
I 
don't know 
what else. 
gaugh) 
So 
1just 
tell them 
to 
wash 
It 
off. 
If 
only 
they 
would 
come 
withproper 
make-up, 
some nice 
blue 
eye-shadow, 
a 
bit 
ofmascara, 
lipstick 
" (Griffin, 
1985, 
p. 
2 1). 
The 
Scottish 
TV 
comedy sketch series 
Chewin'the Fat 
caricatures school girls 
fashioning 
dissidence 
and 
the 
overreactions 
of a 
puritanical 
teacher 
to 
'East 
End'jewellery 
and 
cosmetics; 
she connects 
both 
to 
sexual 
laxity, 
lack 
of 
intelligence 
etc. 
In 
this 
long. 
running 
sketch 
the 
fashion dissidents 
arc 
always 
triumphant. 
in 
a memory 
work 
text 
'A' 
remembered: 
"Music 
Teacher, 
Miss 
D 
wouldperiodically 
check 
to 
see 
lfc1ear 
nail varnish 
was 
being 
worn 
by 
girls 
in 
her 
class 
by demanding 
that theyform 
a 
line, 
extend 
their 
hands 
and 
move 
them 
slowly 
in 
order 
that 
she 
could 
detect, 
by 
the 
light 
they 
reflected 
whether 
they 
were 
'guilty'or 
not 
". 
216 
38. 
Cover, 
Motion 
Pic-lure 
magazine, 
October, 1965. 
Ellen: It's 
kind 
of 
like, 
you 
know, 
Ann-Marie in 
your 
department? 
Ann-Marie 
is 
a 
lovely 
wee 
girl, 
she's a 
lovely 
wee 
girl, saddled 
with a name 
like 
Ann-Marie 
and 
coming 
from 
the 
Gorbals 
is 
starting 
off on 
- 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
-I 
was 
thinking 
of 
talking to 
Ann-Marie, 
because 
of 
the 
reasons 
you 
- 
Ellen: 
- 
Aha, 
she 
just 
needs, 
she 
needs 
to 
change, 
she's 
been 
taken 
out 
of an 
environment 
and 
put 
in 
a new 
one, 
[sensing 
my 
dismay... 
?I 
and 
she 
is just 
blossoming. 
AP: 
I 
really rate 
her, 
she's 
a 
smart, smart 
lassie 
she 
really 
is. 
Ellen: 
Today, 
I 
was 
speaking 
to 
her 
today 
she 
had 
her 
tee 
shirt 
on 
with 
this 
flashy 
bit 
here 
[indicates 
slit across 
front] 
she 
looked 
fantastic 
- 
for 
a 
club 
you 
know 
that's 
-I 
felt 
-I 
would 
never 
say 
that, 
but I 
just 
thought, 
you 
know, 
Ann-Marie, 
but 
she 
might 
get 
to 
that 
Stage... 
Ellen, 
who 
had 
grown up 
in 
a 
working-class 
household 
had 
become 
aware 
of 
un/acceptable 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
through 
her 
exposure 
both 
to 
independent 
film 
and 
music 
stars 
and 
the 
cultures 
of 
Higher 
Education. 
She 
expressed 
her 
hopes 
- 
that 
Ann-Marie's 
fashioning 
would 
evolve, 
for 
her 
own 
sake 
- 
and 
fears 
for her 
from 
a position 
of 
knowledge 
on 
the 
meaningfulness 
and 
risks 
of 
inappropriate 
classed 
fashioning 
in institutions. 
" 
Elizabeth 
Taylor's 
fearsome 
fashioning 
of 
femininity 
Being 
the 
most 
frequently 
cited popular 
model of 
female 
beauty 
for 
participants, 
it is 
of 
interest 
that 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
enacted 
on 
and off screen 
representations 
of 
feminine 
excess 
that 
have 
been 
critiqued 
as 
grotesque. 
However, 
her 
eccentric 
take 
on 
fashion 
and 
respectability 
has 
rarely 
been 
interpreted 
(by 
feminists) 
as productively challenging 
notions 
of 
femininity. 
'o 
Taylor's 
construction 
of 
39 
Beck 
has 
recorded 
the 
efforts made 
by Goodyear 
to 
adapt 
her 
uniform, 
she 
had 
a 
relative 
who 
was 
a part-time 
seamstress 
and 
thus 
made 
"Subtle 
alterations. 
" 
A 
school 
friend 
remembered: 
"Her 
summer 
dresses 
had 
cappedsleeves, 
which 
weren't 
regulation. 
Thefashion 
was waspie 
belts, 
so 
she 
had her dresses 
pulled 
in with 
a waspie 
belt. They 
were 
the 
days 
ofpaper 
nylon 
petticoats. 
So 
she 
had 
one 
to 
make 
her 
dress 
stick 
out. 
Her hair 
was 
always 
in 
a 
ponytail 
with a 
little 
kiss 
curl 
dangling 
over 
her 
forehead. 
She 
always 
looked 
stunning 
in 
her 
sports 
shorts" 
(Beck, 1995, 
p. 
26). 
" 
Pauline 
Kael's 
review 
in 
the 
New Yorker 
of 
Taylor's 
role 
in X, Y 
and 
Zee 
(1972) 
comes 
close and 
was 
welcomed 
by 
the 
star, 
according 
to 
her 
biographer Maddox: 
"She 
wears 
her hair 
like 
upholstery, 
to 
balance 
the 
upholstery offlesh. 
The 
weight 
she 
has 
put on 
in 
these 
last 
years 
has 
not made 
her 
gracefully 
voluptuous; she's 
too 
hardboiled 
to 
be 
Rubenesque. 
The 
weight 
seems 
to 
have 
brought 
out 
this 
coarseness, 
and now she 
basks 
in 
vulgarity 
She 
uses 
it 
as 
aform 
of assault 
in 
XY 
and 
Z 
and 
I don't 
think 
she's 
ever 
before 
been 
as 
strong 
a star personality. 
What 
a 
loud 
and 
uncontrolledperformer 
like Taylor 
offers 
her 
audience 
[ 
... 
] 
is 
the 
element 
of accident 
and risk, 
the 
possibility 
that 
something grotesque 
may 
be 
revealed 
But 
there 
is 
also 
the 
excitement 
of 
seeing 
a 
woman 
who 
has 
vast reserves 
ofpersonality 
and 
who wants 
to 
comeforward, who 
wants 
to 
make 
contact. 
There's 
a 
documentary 
going 
on 
inside 
this 
movie 
[ 
... 
j 
It's 
of a woman 
declaring 
herself 
to 
be 
what 
she 
has 
become. 
Like 
everyone 
else 
I 
adored 
the 
child 
Elizabeth Taylor, 
but 
I 
have 
never 
liked her 
as much 
since 
this 
bizarre 
exhibition. 
She's 
Beverly 
Hills 
Chaucerian, 
and 
that's 
as 
high 
and 
low 
as 
you can get 
" (Kael 
cited 
in 
Maddox, 
1977, 
p. 
242). 
Maddox 
noted 
that 
Burton 
would 
ask 
Taylor 
to 
' 
Give 
us 
the 
Look' 
- 
of 
fearsome 
femininity. 
"Everybody knows 
The 
Look. 
it's 
in 
all 
her 
movies. 
Back 
goes 
the 
head. The 
nostrils pinch 
in. 
The 
eyes 
widen and 
the 
power 
of 
a 
thousand 
cold 
blue light 
bulbs 
flares 
out 
it's 
a 
terrifying 
sight, 
accentuated 
by 
all 
the 
little 
winking, 
glittering 
diamond 
eyes 
on 
herfingers 
and 
ears 
" 
(Maddox, 
217 
feminine 
excess was 
beyond fashion 
and 
even 
film 
costuming. 
In her later 
career, 
she 
increasingly 
controlled 
her fashioning, 
a 
form 
of what 
I have defined 
as 
Royal 
Taste 
.41 
Freeman 
has 
summarised 
how 
Taylor's 
fashioning history 
reflects growing 
self-determination, 
a 
model 
of 
anti-fashioning 
identified 
with 
by 
specific audiences of women: 
In 
the 
1950s 
she embodied 
to 
perfection 
the 
studio's 
prescribed 
image 
of 
the 
perfectly 
prim 
sweetheart 
[ 
... 
] 
In 
the 
1960s 
you can 
begin 
to 
see 
her 
taking 
things 
more 
her 
own 
way, 
sexing 
up even 
the 
most 
innocuous 
seeming 
studio-chosen 
outfit, 
raising 
the 
hem 
and 
lowering 
the 
cleavage 
[ 
... 
] 
By 
the 
1970s 
it's 
the turbans, 
the 
heavilyjewelled 
hands, 
the 
purple 
satin 
lounge 
suits 
[ 
... 
] (a 
look 
that 
inspired 
a 
whole 
demographic, 
and 
whose 
influence, 
as 
anyone 
who 
has 
ever 
been 
to 
Florida 
can 
testify, 
persists) 
And 
this 
is 
the 
style 
this 
erstwhile 
fashion 
icon 
has 
stuck 
with 
for 
the 
past 
four decades 
(Freeman, 
2003, 
p. 
8). 
Similarly, 
Phoenix's 
success 
in 
Coronation 
Street, licensed 
her 
to 
wrest control 
of 
Elsie 
Tanner's 
fashioning 
from 
the 
production 
team 
overwhelming 
the 
character 
with 
the 
actor's 
excessive 
taste: 
For 
thirteen 
years, 
from 
earliest 
Street days, 
a succession 
of scriptwriters, 
directors 
and 
producers 
had fought 
to 
win 
control of 
Elsie Tanner's 
wardrobe, 
and 
finally 
declared 
it 
a 
glorious 
failure. 
Pat 
had 
become 
a 
law 
unto 
herself in 
make-up, 
hairstyling 
and 
whatever 
she 
chose 
to 
wear. 
She 
had 
set 
out 
to 
shape 
Elsie 
Tanner into 
a 
screen 
legend, 
and 
in 
her 
book, 
42 
legends 
never 
wore 
old 
coats 
and rollers 
(Podmore 
and 
Reece, 
1990, 
p. 
28). 
6.3 
Sentiment 
and 
excess9 
abstraction 
and 
taste 
Having 
alluded 
to 
excessive 
forms 
of working-class 
women's 
taste 
and 
its 
reflection 
in 
media 
contexts, 
this 
section 
addresses 
the 
disdain 
for 
excess 
expressed 
in 
high-brow 
media 
critiques 
and 
ironic 
high 
fashion 
appropriations. 
As 
in 
the 
broader 
fields 
of 
architecture, 
fashion 
and 
interior 
design, 
jewellery 
tastes 
in 
the 
latter 
half 
of 
the twentieth 
century reflect 
tastes 
that 
acknowledge 
Modernism 
(e. 
g. 
postmodernism) 
or 
appear 
unconscious 
of/counter 
to 
it. 
This 
paradigm 
has 
tended 
to 
broadly 
1977, 
p. 
237). 
Tyler 
has 
interpreted 
this 
as a 
trait 
of 
'phallic 
women' 
including 
characters 
like Alexis Carrington. 
Those 
who 
"oscillate 
between 
being 
the 
subjects and 
the 
obiects 
of1he 
gaze 
andphaffic mastery 
" 
(Tyler, 
199 1, 
p. 
43). 
11 
Maddox 
has 
detailed 
how Taylor 
had 
turned 
up 
to 
play 
Rosie 
Probert 
in 
Thomas's 
Under 
Milk Wood 
at 
the 
1971 Venice 
Film 
Festival 
wearing 
"full 
Cleopatra 
eye makeup. 
When 
it 
was suggested 
that 
this 
was 
inappropriate, 
[for 
the 
part of 
a 
Welsh 
rostitutel 
she 
replied 
7 
always 
do 
my 
own make-up 
"' (ibid. 
p. 
22 
1). 
Podmore 
confirmed 
"Pat 
always saw 
herseffas 
a star and worked very 
hard, 
with 
the 
help 
ofsome very 
difigentpress 
relations, 
to 
make 
sure 
the 
status was 
accorded 
to 
Miss Phoenix 
and not 
Elsie 
Tanner. 
She 
was 
probably 
thefirst 
member 
of 
the 
cast 
to 
be 
widely 
and 
equally 
known 
by 
both her 
real andstage 
names 
" (Podmore 
and 
Reece, 
1990, 
p. 
28). Bassey, 
Diana 
Ross 
and 
other 
female 
representatives 
of show 
business 
royalty 
have 
used 
the 
title 
Miss in 
a 
way 
that 
evokes 
the 
strange 
imperiousness 
of 
the 
Royal 
'We'. 
Penny 
Valentine 
noted 
of 
Dusty "That 
was 
the thing 
about 
'Madam'- 
as 
her 
loyalfriendand 
unoocial 
manager 
Vicki 
Wickham 
and 
I 
called 
her... "(Valentine, 1999, 
p, 
18). 
218 
reflect 
the 
perceived cultures of 
middle-class 
and 
working-class 
tastes 
respectively. 
In 
that 
these 
positions 
are 
not 
biologically determined 
and 
individual 
tastes 
are 
subject 
to 
social, 
cultural 
and 
historical 
factors, 
the territory 
is 
difficult 
to 
navigate 
if 
generalisations 
are 
to 
be 
avoided. 
The 
proliferation 
of objects and 
images, 
the 
growth 
in 
the 
notion 
of 
meaningful 
or 
meaning-laden 
design 
and 
the 
rhetoric 
of postmodernity 
in 
design 
fields 
make 
efforts 
to 
discuss 
class 
tastes 
even 
more 
periloUS43. 
However, 
in 
the 
following 
section 
I 
discuss 
some 
patterns 
of 
dis/taste 
identified 
in 
the 
course 
of 
my examination 
of media 
texts, 
and 
in 
research 
participants, 
contributions. 
Stealth 
wealth 
Although 
working-class 
women 
have been 
the 
primary 
focus 
for 
media 
and 
broader 
political 
and social 
disapprobation, 
non-ironic 
forms 
of 
excessive 
femininity 
are 
subject 
to 
social 
censure 
regardless 
of class 
and gender as 
Jean, 
a working-class 
participant 
who 
regarded 
herself 
as cultured 
articulated: 
Yes, 
well 
I 
know 
I 
have 
always 
been 
quite 
reserved 
about 
my 
dress 
sense 
[ 
... 
] 
and 
I 
don't 
like, 
I 
think 
sometimes 
women 
can 
take 
it 
too 
far 
and 
I 
don't 
like 
it 
and 
I 
think 
it's 
very 
trashy 
you 
know, 
and 
I 
don't know, 
and 
I 
don't 
think 
it 
helps 
other 
women 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
Because 
then 
we are perceived 
as well, 
tarts 
or 
whatever 
[Laughter] 
but 
I 
certainly 
don't 
like 
anything 
too 
done 
up, 
overdone you 
know, 
and 
I 
think 
you 
can 
look just 
as 
beautifial, 
you 
can 
be 
dressed 
up, 
it doesn't 
mean 
to 
say 
that 
you 
need 
to 
be 
an 
old 
frump 
like 
Margaret 
Rutherford 
or 
something, 
but do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
There's 
a way 
of 
dressing, 
you 
have 
that taste 
but 
you 
don't 
go over 
the 
top. 
AP: 
And 
do 
you 
think there 
are any class 
associations 
when 
you are 
thinking 
there 
about 
this 
tarty 
way? 
Jean: 
Oh 
yes, aha. 
AP: 
And 
what would you 
say 
there, tell 
me about 
the 
class 
of 
the 
person 
that 
you 
had 
in 
your 
head 
there 
this 
sort 
of 
-? 
Jean: 
I 
would say middle-class 
tart. 
[ 
... 
]I 
think 
because 
I 
think they 
have 
come 
into 
money 
and 
they 
don't 
really 
know 
how 
to 
dress 
and 
they 
just 
go mad, 
do 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
I 
mean 
people 
who 
have 
it, 
I 
mean, 
I 
think 
it 
depends 
on 
their 
background 
and 
what 
they 
are 
influenced 
43 
Ambiguous 
and/or 
paradoxical appropriations 
of 
low 
fashionings 
for 
high-brow 
consumption 
are 
discussed 
in 
more 
detail 
later 
in 
this 
chapter. 
219 
by, 
today 
you 
know, I 
think 
dress 
sense 
has 
went 
a wee 
bit 
over 
the top 
sometimes, 
you 
know 
what 
I 
mean? 
When 
you 
see certain 
people. 
Ellen's 
middle-class 
tastes, 
cultivated 
and 
expressed 
through 
involvement 
in 
higher 
education 
and 
specific 
music 
and 
film 
consumption 
distinguished her from 
her 
working-class 
family. 
Her 
analysis 
of 
her 
Aunt 
Moira's 
fashioning 
to 
excess, 
found 
excuses 
for her flashiness: 
"Moira 
is 
like 
the 
epitome 
ofyour 
Canadian 
and, 
4merican 
aunly, 
you 
know, 
she's notflashy, 
I 
mean, 
there's 
probably 
a 
lot 
moreflashier than 
her, 
[ 
... 
] 
when 
she comes 
here 
and she's got 
herjewellery, 
she 
wears 
it 
all 
because 
she 
doesn't 
want 
to 
leave 
any 
of 
it 
behindyou 
know ". 
it 
is 
indubitably 
women 
who 
have found 
themselves 
indicted 
as 
the 
emblems 
of 
artifice, 
the 
essence 
of 
the 
decorative. 
44 
In 
media 
texts' 
address 
to 
middle-class 
audiences 
and 
readers 
there 
is 
a 
routine 
castigation 
of 
the 
decorative 
and excessive 
through the 
demonisation 
of women. 
In 
contrast, 
modernism 
and 
an 
invariably 
gendered 
conceptualisation 
of 
minimalism 
are, 
at 
least 
in 
the 
broadsheets, 
perennially 
feted 
and 
fashionable. 
451n 
2000, Lucia 
van 
der 
Post 
defiried 
the 
most 
recent 
diversification 
of minimalist 
and modernist 
taste 
as 
'stealth 
wealth'. 
The 
aim 
of 
its 
proponents 
was 
to 
signal 
wealth 
and 
elitism 
in 
so 
subtle 
a register 
that 
only 
the 
similarly 
tasteful 
could 
intuit 
their 
status, 
engendering 
new 
forms 
of, 
I 
complicated 
snobbisms 
"' 
(Van der 
Post, 2000, 
p. 
6). 
46 
" 
(Notwithstanding 
the 
critiques 
of 
David 
Beckham, 
so-called 
medallion men or 
Black 
male 
fashion 
excesses) 
- 
arousing 
what 
Ruth 
Padel 
has 
described 
Modernism's 
concomitant 
'brutal' 
rejection 
of 
them. 
"AestheticJudgement 
was compromised 
by desire, 
women 
were 
disgustingly implicated 
in 
seductive 
ornament, 
in 
gratification 
" 
(Padel, 
200 
1, 
p. 
43). 
" 
For 
example, 
Rumbold's 
Observer 
article 
entitled 
'The Perfect Family Horne. 
' 
extolled 
the 
virtues 
of 
the 
extreme 
modernism 
of 
British 
celebrity 
architect 
John 
Pawson's 
home, 
a 
perfection marred only 
by 
his 
wife's nostalgia 
and 
clutter. 
Pawson 
mentioned 
his 
wife, 
"in 
connection 
with 
crimes 
against minimalism. 
She 
is 
the 
one 
whofills 
the 
cupboards 
in 
their 
almost 
entirely 
bare, 
white 
bedroom 
w 
ith 
endless 
bags 
of clothes. 
She 
it is 
whoflies 
the 
flagfor 
nostalgia 
and 
insists 
on 
keeping 
a 
pair 
ofwhat 
he 
regards 
to 
be 
hideous 
candlesticks 
that 
once 
belonged 
to 
his 
mother 
" 
(Rumbold, 1996, 
p. 
8). 
His 
self-conscious 
asceticism 
can 
be 
understood 
in 
the 
context 
of 
design history 
as a 
form 
of 
Modernist 
backlash; 
a reactionary 
response 
to 
the 
iconoclastic, 
maverick 
Postmodernity 
that 
followed 
in 
the 
wake 
of 
the 
Memphis 
design 
group's 
innovation 
(Radice, 
1995) 
Pawson 
merely 
reiterated 
the 
Modernist 
truths that 
extend 
back 
to 
Loos 
and 
beyond, 
as 
I 
discuss 
in 
the 
Literature 
Review. 
Far 
from 
being 
a 
lone 
voice 
preserving 
the 
traditions 
of 
Modernism 
from 
the 
crimes 
of 
feminising 
ornament, 
Pawson 
capitalised 
on 
the 
widespread 
renaissance 
of austere 
taste 
amongst 
an 
influential 
section of 
the 
British 
middle 
class. 
In fact, 
Modernist 
taste 
had 
never 
been 
in 
jeopardy. 
European 
designers 
notably 
Dieter Rams 
were 
confidently 
and profitably 
upholding 
Modernism 
in 
the 
white 
heat 
of 
post 
modernity. 
In 
his 1989 
article, 
Omit 
the 
Unimportant 
Rams 
claims 
that 
"Good 
design 
means 
as 
little 
design 
aspossible" 
(Rams 
in V. Margolin, 
1989, 
p. 
I 
11). Bourdieu 
confirms 
that 
"'intellectuals'and 
'artists' 
have 
qffinilies 
with 
the 
ascetic 
aspect 
ofaesthelics 
and 
are 
inclined to 
support all artistic revolutions conducted 
in 
the 
name 
ofturity 
andpurification, 
refusal 
of 
ostentation 
[ 
... 
]and 
ornament. 
" (Bourdieu, 1979, 
p. 
176). 
46 
"New 
money 
doesn't 
give 
a 
tossfor 
many 
ofthe old 
totems 
oftealth. 
New 
moneyprefers 
chinos andpolo 
shirts 
to 
Savile 
Row 
suits, 
m 
inimallst 
pads 
to 
chande 
lier-hung 
mansions, 
hanging 
out wA pals 
to 
while-tie 
charity 
dos. 
New 
money 
isfast 
redefining 
the 
parameters 
of 
modern 
luxury 
- 
more 
youthfu4 morefin and, above 
all, more 
subtle. 
It's 
not about 
show 
and 
It's 
not about 
swank 
[ 
... 
] Stealth 
wealth 
is 
not about 
spending 
less (the 
irony 
is 
that 
it 
can very 
o)? 
en 
cost 
a great 
deal 
more) 
but 
thepower 
and 
the 
swagger 
are 
subtler. 
A 
minimalistpad 
by 
John Pawson 
may 
look 
as 
austere 
as a monk's 
cell, 
but believe 
me, 
it 
doesnl 
come 
cheap. 
[citing the 
partners 
at 
Goldman 
Sachs 
as exponents 
of 
Stealth 
Wealth] Their 
wives 
take 
pride 
in 
spending 
in 
an 
anonymous, 
'below the 
parapet'kind 
of way. 
they 
have 
large 
and 
beautifullyfurnished 
houses 
but 
the 
look 
is 
never 
'showy 
7hey 
dress impeccably 
but 
never swankily 
" (van der 
Post, 
2000, 
p. 
6). 
Despite 
the 
fact 
that 
Van 
der Post is 
herself 
a 
partner 
in 
a 
company 
supplying 
luxuries 
to the 
super-rich, 
the 
rhetoric of 
Stealth Wealth 
preserves 
traditional 
gender 
divisions; 
business 
partners 
are 
men, 
wives 
are 
busied 
in homemaking. 
A 
Modernist 
stealth 
wealth 
ethos was 
evident 
across 
the 
broadsheet 
media 
in 
this 
period, 
for 
example 
"Less 
is 
more'has 
always 
been 
the 
[Jil] 
Sander 
ethos: 
the 
less 
she 
gives 
the 
more youpayfor 
it 
" (Lowthorpe, 2000, 
p. 
7). 
Mary Riddell's interpretation 
of 
New 
Puritanism or 
New 
Frugalism 
merely 
reiterated 
a 
Modernist 
mantra 
"Hile 
being 
rich 
is 
never 
likely 
to 
bepassd, 
looking 
rich 
isfor 
vulgarians 
only" 
(Riddell, 
2000, 
p. 
28). Whilst 
maintaining 
a 
steady campaign 
against 
feminine 
excess 
broadsheets 
have 
enthusiastically 
promoted other 
forms 
of stealth 
wealth 
including 'glamorous 
utility 
style' 
(Sawyer, 
2002 
pp. 
38-39). 
220 
39. 
Spare 
Rib 
fashions, 
Issue 2, 
August 
1972. 
Fashions 
in 
Fab 
208 
annual, 
1970, 
page 
43. 
The 
motivation 
for 
restating elitism 
in 
the 
form 
of 
Modernism 
at 
the 
end 
of 
the 
twentieth 
century 
is 
contestable. 
It 
is 
arguable 
that 
with 
the 
proliferation 
of 
demonstrations 
of 
excess 
by 
soaps 
stars, 
pop 
stars and 
forms 
of 
hip hop 
so-called 
ghetto 
fabulousness, 
a 
more 
fugitive 
language 
of 
exclusivity 
reserved 
for 
the 
self-identified 
legitimate 
rich was 
taking 
refuge 
in 
the 
manner 
of 
Modernism. 
Inevitably, 
stealth 
wealth 
exponents 
were 
dismissive 
of 
flamboyant 
jewellery, 
with 
diamonds 
and gold 
being deemed 
sullied 
by 
their 
perceived 
availability 
to 
working-class 
consumers. 
" 
And 
whereas 
working-class 
icons 
of 
feminine 
excess 
including 
Goodyear 
and 
Viv 
Nicholson 
flamboyantly 
celebrated 
their 
successes 
with pink 
champagne, 
according 
to 
van 
der 
Post 
the 
elite 
was 
more 
likely 
to 
express 
their 
wealth 
through 
bottled 
water, albeit 
from 
Cape 
Grim 
in 
Tasmania 
"where 
the 
rainfallsfrom 
air 
that 
has 
blown 
inftom 
Antarctica, 
making 
it 
the 
least 
polluted 
air 
space 
in 
the 
world" 
(ibid 
. 
)48 
Making 
feminist 
jewellery 
Feminists' 
opposition 
to 
femininity 
raises 
the 
question 
of 
whether 
the 
feminine 
cother 
woman' 
was a 
necessary 
fiction 
in 
order 
to 
produce 
an 
'Oppositional' 
feminist 
identity' 
(Hollows, 
2000, 
p. 
17). 
An 
aspect 
of 
this 
research 
has 
linked 
the 
development 
of 
Modernist 
and 
middle-class 
fashioning 
aesthetics 
with 
the 
notion of 
feminist 
taste. 
Representations 
of 
jewellery 
and 
fashioning 
more 
broadly 
in 
the 
feminist 
magazine 
Spare Rib illustrates 
how 
facets 
of 
bourgeois 
taste 
and 
Modernist 
fashion 
determined 
the 
look 
of archetypical 
British 
feminism 
from 
the 
late 
1970s. 
49 
41 
"The 
whole 
ritual 
engagemeni-wedding-eternity 
rings with 
diamond 
necklacefor 
the 
mistress 
in 
due 
course 
[ 
... 
I has 
become 
rather 
unfashionably 
H Samuel. You 
can after all 
buy 
gold and 
diamondjewellery 
at 
Argos 
these 
days. 
[ 
... 
I 
In 
an era 
of 
Naomi 
Klein 
and 
Gothenburg 
when 
we 
are all 
experiencing 
consumer 
ennui 
it 
is 
no 
longer 
cool 
toflauntyour 
wealth. 
(It 
is 
ok 
to 
have 
it 
ofcourse, 
just 
not 
to 
have 
it in 
a gaudy 
meretricious 
kind 
of 
way. 
) 
Diamonds 
arefor 
never 
in 
the 
modern 
world 
" 
(Bedell, 
200 
1, 
p. 
4). 
48 
Viv 
Nicholson 
celebrated 
her 
pools 
win 
by having 
her hair 
dyed 
"pink 
champagne 
blonde 
" (Constable 
and 
Farrington, 
1994, 
p. 
17). 
Goodyear toasted 
her MBE 
award with 
pink champagne 
"... 
at 
her local 
hotel 
near 
Rochdale, 
after 
arriving 
in 
a gold 
Rolls 
Royce 
and 
buying 
drinksfor 
the 
house "(Fowler, 
1995, 
p. 
1). 
In 
her interpretation 
of 
'ghetto 
fabulous' 
Shephard 
notes 
that 
it 
was, 
-puffDaddy 
who 
set 
the 
style- white 
Rolls Royce, 
pink champagne, 
cream 
Versace 
suit, 
goldand 
more 
gold 
" 
(Shephard, 
2000, 
p. 
43). 
49 
Spare 
Rib 
represented 
feminist fashioning in its 
widespread 
use of photography, 
cartoons, 
advertising 
and 
features 
on 
'Looks'. 
Notwithstanding 
Rib's 
implicit 
claims 
to 
be 
eschewing 
fashion 
I have 
noted 
in 
lectures 
that 
images 
of 
Rib 
advertising 
never 
failed 
to 
trigger 
laughter. 
I have 
interpreted 
this 
reaction as 
part nostalgia and/or 
a 
recognition 
of 
the 
fact 
that 'Nature 
Shoes' 
or 
'Ragged 
Robin' 
wraparound skirts 
were 
indeed 
representative 
of outmoded. 
fashion. 
Walter 
has 
written, 
"There 
is, 
after 
all, 
a 
look 
that 
says 
Seventiesfeminism, 
just 
as 
clearly 
as 
there 
is a 
look 
that 
saysfiffies 
housewife 
or 
Twentiesflapper. 
You 
can 
see 
it, 
for 
instance, 
in the 
photograph of 
the 
Boston 
Women's 
Collective 
thaiftonts 
the 
seventies 
health 
handbook 
'Our 
bodies 
ourselves': 
long 
hair, 
no 
bras, batik 
wraparound skirts. 
There 
was also 
a 
look 
that 
said 
eightiesfeminism 
- 
dungarees, 
short 
hair 
and 
bright 
earrings. 
How 
can we 
trusifeminism's 
traditionalpromise 
to 
release 
usfrom 
the 
demands 
offashion 
when 
it 
seems 
to 
trap 
us 
into 
such 
a 
precise 
range 
of sartorial responses 
"' 
(Walter, 
1998, 
p. 
4). 
221 
40. 
Stepney 
Sisters, 
front 
cover, 
I?pan, 
Rib, 
MaN. 
1976. 
Issue 
46 
41. 
Ad 
vertiscment 
for 
Rita 
Coolidge 
al 
bum. 
back 
cover. 
Spare 
Rib, 
December 
1975.1 
ssue 
42. 
In 
the 
second 
issue, 
the 
styling of 
models 
resembled 
the 
fashion 
illustrations 
found 
in 
contemporary 
girls' 
annuals. 
50 
In 
subsequent 
issues, 
when 
the 
notion 
of 
fashion 
spreads 
had 
been 
replaced 
by 
self-consciously 
natural representations 
of women 
on 
its 
cover", 
the 'models' 
began 
to 
embody 
a 
divergence 
of 
feminist 
taste 
from 
the 
forms 
of 
femininity 
in 
mainstream 
girls' 
and 
women's 
literature. 
Jewellery 
became 
minimal, 
ethnic, 
abstract, 
symbolic 
and/or 
were 
consciously 
political 
attempts 
to 
avoid 
Modernist 
critiques of 
decoration 
and 
feminist 
critiques 
of 
fashioning 
for 
the 
male 
gaze. 
So-called 
real 
women, 
including 
women's 
music 
collectives, 
began 
to 
embody 
Rib's 
taste 
in 
feminist 
fashion. 
52 
From 
the 
mid 
1970s 
the 
will 
to 
adorn appeared 
to 
have 
infected 
the 
readership 
and 
53 
collectives 
as 
the 
first 
range 
of 
feminist jewellery 
was promoted 
in 
the 
small 
ads 
. 
In 
illustrations, 
photographs 
and 
advertising 
graphic, 
humorous, 
often 
political 
feminist 
badges 
become 
ubiquitous, 
supplanting 
brooches. 
Spare Rib 
produced 
its 
own 
bestseller. 
Excessive 
fashionings 
of 
femininity 
were 
still permissible 
in 
specific 
forms. 
The 
critique 
of 
Tammy 
Wynette 
in 
1975 
cited 
earlier 
appeared 
in 
an 
issue 
that 
had 
a 
full 
page, 
back 
cover 
advertisement 
promoting 
country 
rock star 
Rita Coolidge's 
album 
11's 
only 
love, 
Coolidge 
sported 
a 
huge 
mane 
of 
apparently 
unstyled 
hair. 
54 
Her 
representation, 
in 
soft-focus 
monochrome, 
made 
her 
ethnicity 
opaque, 
and 
suggested 
a proximity 
to 
earlier 
exoticised 
'minstrels', 
Baez, 
Felix 
and 
Bufry 
Saint 
Marie 
rather 
than 
her 
sequin-encrusted 
country 
music contemporaries. 
Her 
Native 
American 
styled 
jewellery, 
in 
particular 
omate 
rings 
on each 
finger, 
provided 
the 
focus 
of 
the 
image 
as 
her 
hands 
fanned 
out 
to 
display 
them. 
Silver 
cuffs and necklace 
completed 
a 
vision 
of excess. 
The juxtaposition 
of 
Wynette 
and 
Coolidge, 
signifying 
in/appropriate 
un/acceptable 
forms 
of adornment 
and 
fashioning 
respectively, 
provide 
the 
demarcations 
of 
femininity 
reflected 
in 
Spare 
Rib's 
feminism. 
Editorially 
' 
For 
example 
Fab 
208. 
The 
look 
was 
a retro, 
1940s 
big beads, 
twin 
set and 
pearls 
style and 
included 
the 
first 
of many 
endorsements 
of 
expensive 
Biba 
products 
and stylings. 
51 
With 
the 
exception 
of 
occasional 
stars 
like Jane Fonda 
and 
Marsha Hunt. 
52 
From 
the 
late 
1970s 
the 
Ova 
collective, 
and 
the 
Stepney Sisters, 
could also 
be 
seen 
in 
their 
own pamphlets 
and 
song 
sheets 
wearing 
discreet 
lesbian, 
specifically 
linked 
women's symbol, 
brooches 
and 
chokers; 
made 
from leather 
thongs 
with 
single 
beads. 
Similar 
styles 
and 
tastes 
were 
represented 
in 
contemporary 
feminist 
texts 
such 
as 
Our 
Bodies 
Ourselves, 
(Boston 
Women's 
Health 
Book 
Collective, 
1978); 
Feminist 
Revolution 
(Redstockings 
of 
the 
Women's 
Liberation 
Movement 
eds., 
1975) 
etc. 
By 1964 
a 
bourgeois 
anti urban, 
homespun 
aesthetic, 
in fashioning 
and 
broader 
habitus had 
been 
constructed. 
This 
androgynous 
styling, 
evident 
in 
the 
later Rib fashioning 
impacted 
on 
the 
design 
of 
costumejewellery, 
As 
earl), 
as 
1964 
Alison 
Adburgham, 
the 
Guardian 
Women's 
Page's 
fashion 
correspondent 
noted. 
"The 
young 
have 
embraced 
the 
country- 
into-lown 
look. 
There 
is 
even 
a 
town 
into 
country 
cosiumejewellery 
section 
at 
Harrodsfeaturing leather 
and wooden 
beads... 
The 
wind 
of 
change 
to 
tweeds 
and 
shirts 
and 
sweaters 
hasfawned 
the 
cull 
of 
HIS 
and 
HER... 
matching sweaters. 
for 
husband 
and 
wite, 
mufflersfor 
boy 
and 
girl 
friend, 
shirtsfor 
him 
that 
are worn 
by her, 
deersialker hats 
that 
are 
cosily 
hisextial"'(Adburghani, 
1964, 
p. 
6). 
" 
Predominantly 
simple 
designs in 
silver, 
included labryses 
and 
single 
or 
linked 
women's 
symbols, 
the 
latter 
representing 
lesbianism. 
According 
to 
Mary 
Daly 
labryses 
were 
"Used 
in 
contemporary 
times 
by 
radical 
and 
lesbianfeminists 
to 
indicate 
woman 
identification. 
Labryses 
represent 
'double 
ares'of our 
own 
Wild 
wisdom 
and 
wit, 
which 
cut 
through 
the 
mazes 
ofman- 
made 
mystification, 
breaking 
the 
mind-bindings 
of master 
minded 
doublethink 
"(Daly, 1984, 
p. 
222). 
34 
Not 
unlike 
the 
longed-for 
hair 
of research 
participant 
Elizabeth's imagination, 
so strongly 
associated 
by 
her 
with 
art 
students 
and grammar 
school 
girls. 
222 
42. 
Icons 
in 
The Woman 
Is Hour, 
50 
years ol'women 
in Briiain, 
Jenni Murray, 1996. 
unpaginated. 
Spare 
Rib 
repeatedly 
connected 
good and 
bad fashionings 
with 
good 
and 
bad 
taste 
as 
defined 
in 
the 
Modernist 
tradition. 
Good 
being 
the 
relatively 
unadorned, 
pared 
down, 
functional 
lack 
of excess. 
55 
Liberal 
media 
from 
the 
1960s 
on, 
whether 
The Guardian 
Women's 
Page 
orSpare 
Rib 
was 
not 
immune 
to 
equating 
taste 
in 
fashioning 
with 
sexual 
morality and 
young 
women's 
morals 
are 
still 
frequently 
linked 
to 
fashioning 
in 
contemporary 
Guardian 
articles 
by 
feminist 
contributors. 
56 
BBC 
Radio 
4's 
Woman's 
Hour 
mirrored 
many 
Guardian 
Women's 
Page 
perspectives 
on 
femininity 
and 
fashioning; 
middle-class 
liberalism inflected 
with 
feminism. 
Tellingly, 
presenter 
Jenni 
Murray 
cited 
British 
actors, 
Judi 
Dench 
and 
Glenda 
Jackson 
as epitomising 
Woman's 
Hour's 
role 
models, 
the 
women 
"we 
wanted 
to 
look 
like. " The 
perhaps 
unintentional 
canonisation 
of 
the 
programme's 
own 
taste 
is 
nevertheless 
a revealing 
piece 
of evidence 
of 
the 
appeal of 
unadorned 
femininity 
for 
(white? 
) 
middle- 
class 
audience 
of 
women 
in 
the 
post-war period. 
57 
Notwithstanding the 
prohibitions 
inferred 
in 
aspects 
of 
1970s 
British feminism 
against 
excessive 
forms 
of 
adornment, 
the 
stars of 
the 
Second-Wave 
frequently 
demonstrated 
the 
caveats 
articulated 
by 
Stern. 
Feminist 
jewellery, 
as 
it 
appeared 
in 
Spare 
Rib, 
rejected 
sentimentality 
and 
a 
notion 
of 
romanticism 
coached 
in 
the 
vernacular 
of 
retro 
Victoriana. 
Literal 
prosiness 
inferred 
false 
58 
consciousness 
and 
was replaced 
by 
literal 
sloganeering 
in badges 
and 
T-shirts. 
11 
This 
is 
reflected 
in 
Sandy's 
account 
of 
exchanging 
her 
make-up 
and 
bouffanting 
for 
her 
-dykey 
hair-do 
and 
[her] 
one 
earring 
in, 
"a 
strategy 
of 
identification 
and 
a 
desire 
to 
belong 
to 
a 
feminist 
community. 
As Carolin 
has 
stated, 
Spare 
Rib 
was 
in 
this 
respect, 
one 
of 
the 
few 
texts 
available 
for 
lesbians 
and 
feminists 
to 
construct 
a 
'tribal' 
identification 
(Carolin, 
1998, 
pp. 
30). 
'6 
For 
example, 
Decca 
Aitkenhead 
claimed 
to 
have 
been 
scandalised 
to 
find 
what 
women 
were wearing after 
her 
move 
back 
to 
Britain 
in 
2001 
"Bars 
and 
clubs 
are crowded 
with girls 
who 
couldgive 
a 
Dynasty 
starlet 
a 
runfor 
her 
money, 
andsome. 
It's 
a 
wonder 
the 
gold 
strappy 
high-heeled 
sandals 
can 
bear 
the 
weight 
of so much 
make-up 
and 
hairspray, 
and 
this 
perhaps 
accounts 
for 
the 
precaution 
of 
wearing 
so 
little 
in 
between... 
sequins 
and 
lip 
gloss 
now 
count 
as 
dressing down. 
" 
(Aitkenhead, 
200 
1). 
Resorting 
to 
a 
further 
reference 
to the 
excessive 
fashioning 
of another 
popular 
TV 
serial 
she 
dubbed 
this 
"Dallas 
chic" 
(ibid. ) 
and 
identified 
the 
main 
culprits 
of 
this 
unacceptable 
trend 
as 
girls aged 
between 
I 1- 
18. 
She indicted 
mothers 
too 
in 
a move 
that 
fused 
fashioning 
with 
implied 
sexual 
availability: 
"This 
has 
causedquite 
afiiss amongst 
their 
mothers. 
who 
despite 
being 
happy 
to 
look 
like 
Moscow 
hookers 
themselves, 
think 
it is 
a 
scandalfor 
their 
little 
girls 
to 
go 
out 
dressed 
as 
lap 
dancers. 
Britney 
Spears 
has 
been 
singled 
ouifor 
special 
blame, 
and 
there 
has been 
much 
debate 
on 
where 
herfamous 
virginity, 
figures 
in 
her 
crimes 
as 
fashion 
role 
model, 
for 
there 
are 
doubts 
over whether 
the 
stars'chastity 
can 
really 
be 
said 
to 
'count'when 
she 
looks 
like 
such 
a 
stag" 
(ibid. 
). 
In 
her 
lament 
for 
a 
feminist 
movement 
that, 
she 
claimed, 
ironically, 
never 
was, 
columnist 
Polly 
Toynbee 
echoed 
the 
view 
of 
young 
women 
as 
'sex 
obsessed', 
an 
insight 
read off 
from 
their 
clothing: 
"There 
is 
a 
dangerous 
mythology 
amongyoung 
women 
ofgood 
intent 
who 
imagine 
there 
it-as 
once 
a gloriousfeminist 
movement, 
lost 
somewhere 
in 
the 
mists 
of 
time 
back 
in 
the 
early 
70s. 
They 
look 
atyoung 
women 
nowadays, 
dollies 
and 
ladeties 
in 
strappy 
shoes and 
strapless 
dresses, 
dizzy, 
directionless, 
blotto 
on 
Bacardi 
Breezers 
and as sex-obsessed 
as 
the 
characters 
in 
Sex 
in 
the 
city 
" 
Joynbee, 
2002, 
p. 
8). 
That 
Toynbee 
might 
not 
know 
many 
women 
on 
low incomes 
may 
be inferred from 
her 
need 
to 
go under 
cover/native 
'for 
afew 
weeks 
" 
to 
extrapolate 
information 
about 
the 
experiences 
of 
the 
low-paid 
subject 
in her 
most recent publication 
Hard 
Work' Life 
in 
Low 
Pay 
Britain 
(Toynbee, 
2003). 
5' 
Photographs 
of 
Dench 
and 
Jackson, 
both White, both in 
their 
middlc-age, 
both 
photographed 
with 
short, 
unstyled 
hair, 
neither 
wearing 
make-up, 
both 
wearing white 
shirts 
and 
black jackets, 
Dench 
with 
an ethnic 
styled 
scarf, 
Jackson 
with 
a 
tie, 
both 
wearing 
an 
abstract 
brooch 
on 
their 
right 
lapels 
and 
both 
wearing 
sinal 
I 
gold earrings, 
are 
framed 
by 
the 
text, 
"Humour 
and 
intelligence. 
The 
women 
we wanted 
to 
look 
like. Dame 
Judi 
Dench 
and 
Glenda 
Jack-son 
AIP 
" (Murray, 
1996 
- 
no pagination). 
The 
notion 
of 
Judi 
Dench 
as 
the 
Woman's Hour 
or 
at 
least 
Jenni 
Murray's 
icon 
of style 
was 
reiterated 
in 
a 
feature, 
'What 
is 
Style? 
'on 
13 
May, 
2003 
(BBC, Woman's 
Hour, 
2003). 
5" 
Also 
sold 
through 
Spare Rib 
and 
having 
a 
distinctly Picasso 
or 
Matisse 
inspired Modernist 
form. 
223 
43. 
Ova. 
Ahisicallyspeaking, 
promotional 
leaflet, 
undated 
but 
1982? 
The 
feminist 
taste 
for 
iconoclastic, 
and 
yet 
nonetheless 
detailed 
and 
decorative 
adornments 
was 
to 
inform 
or reflect 
punk 
aesthetics, 
a style adopted more 
or 
less 
seamlessly 
into 
both 
the 
format 
and 
modelling 
of 
fashion 
in Spare Rib. 
59 
Paradigms 
of sentimental 
excess 
and abstract 
taste 
But 
despite 
the 
impact 
of 
feminism, 
punk, 
queer culture 
and 
Postmodernism's 
rejection 
of 
nostalgia 
and 
narratives, 
jewellery 
that 
is invested 
with 
forms 
of 
sentimentality 
and 
prosiness 
has 
enjoyed 
widespread 
and 
enduring 
popularity amongst 
working-class 
consumers 
including 
youth 
markets. 
Being 
non-ironic 
and 
refusing 
Modernism, 
this 
form 
of 
consumption 
could 
be 
said 
to 
resist 
fashion. 
The 
resistance 
of 
aspects 
of working-class cultures 
to 
(post) 
modernist 
diktats, 
including 
4n 
excessive 
emotional 
investment 
in 
ornamental objects and 
decorative 
fashionings 
is both 
critiqued 
and 
underplayed 
by 
spokespersons 
for Modernist 
taste. 
This 
tendency 
is 
pervasive 
in 
an 
array 
of art, 
design, 
music 
and 
fashion 
criticism. 
In 
a 
review of 
a 
Victoria 
and 
Albert 
Museum 
exhibition 
of 
Faberge 
eggs. 
60 
Pearman 
reiterated 
the 
evolutionary 
notion of 
design 
and 
fine 
art 
61 
suggesting 
the 
anachronism 
of 
valuing 
outmoded 
decoration 
and 
functionless 
objects. 
A 
taste 
evolution 
situates 
the 
working 
classes 
and 
women 
in 
particular 
as wilfully 
sustaining 
a 
false 
-consciousness 
about 
design 
and 
art 
in 
their 
taste 
for 
vulgar, 
ersatz 
Royal 
excess, 
expressed 
in 
the 
enduring 
popularity 
of 
the 
Franklin 
Mint. 
Pearman 
commented, 
The 
whole 
idea 
of 
the 
trinket 
has become 
so 
degraded. 
It 
sounds 
horribly 
snobbish 
and 
un- 
politically 
correct 
to 
say 
this 
but 
when 
the 
working class 
was 
truly 
poor, you 
didn't 
get 
trinkets, 
but 
now 
any 
sort 
of 
working-class 
household 
has 
got a mantelpiece 
full 
of 
them. 
It's from 
Faberge 
to 
the 
Franklin 
Mint. 
Collectable 
thimbles, 
sentimental 
statuettes 
[ 
... 
] 
There 
were 
lovely 
little 
things 
that 
royals 
bought for 
one 
another, 
but 
the 
Franklin Mint 
is 
what 
it has 
come 
down 
to. 
We 
can't 
tell 
anymore. 
We 
can appreciate 
craftsmanship, 
but kitsch 
has 
intervened, 
when 
everything 
is 
copied 
and 
replicated 
and 
diluted 
(ibid. 
p. 
2 ). 
62 
"Spare 
Rib 
advertised 
jewellery 
was 
worn 
by 
feminist 
performers 
e. 
g. 
Ova, 
in 
their 
handbill 
'Musically 
Speaking' 
The band 
members 
also 
ironically 
modelled 
leopard 
skin 
and 
lurex 
Subtitled, 
'The 
Tsar's 
trinketeer, 
[ 
... 
] has 
earned 
a unique 
place 
in 
British 
affections 
- 
on 
the 
naff mantelpiece'. 
Hugh 
Pearman, 
Sunday 
Times 
architecture 
and 
design 
critic, 
Sarah 
Kent 
of 
Time 
Out 
and 
Terence 
Conran 
demonstrated 
a 
unanimous 
antipathy 
to 
Faberge 
and 
his kitsch 
successors. 
" 
"11 
was 
an 
opulent 
era 
[late 1880s] 
it-lien 
that 
sort of 
thing 
mattered, and we 
had 
not 
discovered 
things 
such 
as 
Japan 
and 
the 
idea 
of 
simplicity 
" (Pearman 
cited 
in Margolis, 
1994, 
p. 
9). 
62 
Kent's 
critique 
indicted 
women: 
"It 
doesn't 
mean 
anything. 
What 1findparticularly 
appalling 
about 
them 
[Faberge 
eggsl 
is 
not 
a 
quality 
they 
have 
in 
themselves, 
but 
something 
they, 
have 
spawned 
There 
or(, 
millions 
of 
women 
around 
the 
country 
doing 
fake 
Faberge 
and 
doing 
it 
very 
badly " 
(ibid. 
). 
In 
the 
research/exh 
ibition 
Sign 
of 
the 
Times, 
a 
'snapshot' 
of 
taste 
in 
British homes, 
curator 
Nicholas 
Barker 
confirms 
Kent's 
fears 
concl uding 
that the 
'fundamental 
difference 
expressed 
through 
taste 
is 
gender 
". 
A 
difference 
articulated 
in 
resistance 
to, 
or 
adoption 
of 
Modernist 
taste: 
- 
The 
overwhelming 
majority 
of 
men and 
women whom 
we 
interviewed 
revealed 
taste 
preferences 
which 
confirmed 
to 
a wide range 
Qf 
gender 
stereotypes. 
In 
interview 
after 
interview 
224 
FABERGE 
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used 
to 
wear 
about 
four 
rings and 
I 
used 
to 
wear 
chains, 
a 
locket 
and 
I 
had 
a 
fetish 
for 
butterflies 
and 
I've 
got 
a 
lot 
of 
butterflies, 
brooches, 
I've 
got 
a 
little 
enamel 
butterfly 
brooch 
and 
another 
one 
that's 
sort 
of gold 
with 
a 
few 
little 
- 
they 
are 
not 
diamonds, 
stones 
in, 
yes. 
Ellen: 
But 
I 
really 
don't 
even 
think 
about 
it 
and 
I 
don't 
I 
think 
- 
I'm just 
- 
I'm 
not 
that 
unadventurous 
but I'm 
quite 
adventurous, 
I 
remember 
one 
year 
I 
bought 
earrings 
in 
Skye, 
in 
Portree, 
you 
know 
that 
lovely 
wee 
shop 
up 
the 
stairs? 
And 
it 
was a 
knife 
and 
fork, 
a 
silver 
knife 
and 
a 
silver 
fork 
and 
I 
just 
loved 
them, 
they 
were 
like 
twenty 
eight 
pounds 
or something 
and 
I 
thought, 
I 
have 
got 
to, 
but 
those 
earrings, 
they 
are so 
fantastic 
and 
I 
wear 
them 
if 
I'm 
going 
out 
to 
dinner 
somewhere 
posh. 
[Laughter] 
They 
are 
tinkerbells, 
they 
are so 
tiny. 
AP: 
[to 
young 
student 
at 
Northend 
College, 
encrusted 
with 
jewellery 
including 
a 
name 
necklace 
stating 
'Bitch'] 
You've 
got 
some amazing 
jewellery 
on, 
is 
that 
- 
when 
did 
you start 
getting 
interested 
in 
jewellery? 
Yvonne: 
When 
I 
was 
about 
twelve 
or 
something 
when 
I 
went 
to 
secondary. 
AP: 
And 
why 
do 
you 
think 
you started 
being 
interested 
in 
jewellery? 
women 
described 
how 
their tastes 
in 
the 
home 
centred 
around 
concerns 
such 
as 
comfort, co-ordination, ornamentation, 
sentimentality 
andfantasy. 
Men 
on 
the 
other 
hand 
- 
particularly 
the 
tinder 
40s 
- 
seemed eager 
to 
conceal 
the 
evidence 
of 
personal 
emotion, 
were 
irritated 
by 
all 
but 
the 
largest 
of ornaments, 
were embarrassed 
by 
excessive 
decoration 
- 
particularly 
floral 
designs 
- 
and 
preferred 
instead 
to 
be 
surrounded 
by 
things 
which 
they 
considered 
visually 
unpressive. 
The 
patterns 
they 
chose 
were 
generally 
simple 
but 
striking 
and 
theirfavourite 
colours 
ivere repeatedly 
shown 
to 
be 
white, 
black, 
red 
and 
grey 
(Barker, 
1992). 
Critiquing 
on 
the 
popularity 
of 
Faberge, 
from his 
position as 
Britain's first 
popular 
celebrity 
Modernist, 
Conran 
expressed 
a 
stealth 
wealth 
perspective: 
"My 
idea 
of 
hell 
on 
earth 
is 
to 
go 
into 
a roont it-here 
every 
surface 
has been 
coveredwith 
little 
Faberge 
eggs. 
It's 
the 
external 
manifestation 
of wealth 
that 
seems 
to 
me entire4, 
misdirected 
[ 
... 
I Extraordinary 
workmanship 
goes 
into 
it 
but 
to 
me 
to 
have 
objects which 
are purely 
decorative 
and 
have 
no real 
aesthelicjqv 
in 
them 
really 
is 
pointless 
(ibid). 
At 
the 
time of 
writing, 
The 
Franklin 
Mint 
is 
at 
the 
centre 
of 
a court 
case 
that 
looks 
likely 
to 
break 
the 
Diana, 
Princess 
of 
Wales 
Memorial 
Fund. 
The 
charity sought 
to 
prevent 
the 
company 
owned 
by Stewart 
and 
Lynda 
Resnick, 
who, 
according 
to 
TheTunes, 
"compare 
themselves 
to 
the 
Renaissance 
Afedicis 
" 
(Doran, 
2003, 
p. 
8) 
from 
producing 
dolls 
of 
Diana. 
Vivienne 
Parry, 
a 
trustee 
had 
described 
the 
dolls 
as 
"nasty, 
tacky 
and 
stealing 
the 
Princess's 
unage 
and 
dignity, 
"(Parry 
cited 
in 
Kennedy, 
2003, 
p. 
9). The 
judge 
at 
a 
preliminary 
US 
trail 
found 
that there 
was nothing 
to 
stop 
the 
"trinket-pedlers 
" 
(ibid). 
Lynda Resnick 
recently 
bought 
a 
faux 
pearl 
necklace 
once 
owned 
by Jackie 
Kennedy 
and 
jewels 
worn 
by 
tile 
Duchess 
of 
Windsor 
at a 
charity 
auction. 
The 
pieces 
are 
now 
reproduced 
by 
the 
Franklin Mint 
but 
command nothing of 
the 
critical 
acclaim 
accorded 
to 
Kenneth Lane's 
Windsor 
fakes 
discussed 
later. 
225 
Jane: 
I 
don't know, 
just 
cause all 
my 
family 
started getting 
me 
it. 
Ellen: 
Umm. I 
had 
come 
to 
work 
at 
the 
Institute 
and 
I- 
because 
I'd 
never 
had 
my cars 
pierced 
beforehand 
[ 
... 
] 
and 
then 
I 
got 
taken 
under 
the 
wing 
of all 
the 
admin. 
staff, 
people 
like 
Yvonne, 
that 
are still 
there 
and 
Lorraine 
[ 
... 
) 
And 
they 
all 
had 
their 
ears 
- 
they 
were 
the 
- 
they 
were 
the 
same 
age as 
me 
but 
they 
seemed older somehow 
they 
were 
all 
married 
and 
a 
different 
type, 
they 
took 
me 
under 
their 
wing, 
anyway, 
one 
Christmas, it 
must 
have 
been 
the 
second 
Christmas 
I 
was 
there, 
so 
I 
would 
just 
be 
twenty 
one, 
they 
-I 
saw 
these 
earrings 
that 
I 
really 
liked 
and 
they 
were 
wee 
gold 
musical 
notes 
and 
I 
asked my 
Dad 
if 
he 
would 
get 
me 
them 
for 
my 
Christmas, 
they 
were 
out 
of 
Argos 
or 
Index 
or 
something 
like 
that 
and 
the 
poor 
man 
said 
he 
was 
at 
the 
shops, 
you 
know 
how 
they 
are 
always 
out 
of stock, 
he 
was 
in 
about 
fifty 
times 
to 
get 
these 
blumming 
earrings 
so 
I 
got 
my 
ears pierced 
[ 
... 
] 
but 
since 
then 
I've 
never 
looked 
back 
because 
I 
just, 
you 
know, 
I 
could 
go out 
without 
make-up 
but 
I 
really 
feel 
naked 
without 
my earrings 
on, 
I 
just 
don't 
feel 
-[... 
] 
AP: 
( 
... 
] 
you've 
got 
a 
beautiful 
bracelet 
on 
today, 
you've 
got 
what 
looks 
like 
a 
matching 
ring. 
Ellen: 
It's 
a matching 
set. 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
And 
a 
beautiful 
watch 
which 
is 
quite 
decorative 
as well. 
Ellen: 
Oh 
it's 
a great 
watch 
Adele, 
you can't 
tell 
the time 
on 
it 
or 
anything. 
[Laughter] 
it's 
a 
lovely 
watch 
but 
you 
go 
- 
AP: 
it's 
a 
triumph 
of 
form 
over 
function. 
In 
their 
consumption 
ofjewellery, 
many 
of 
the 
research 
participants 
linked 
this 
form 
of 
fashioning 
with 
sentimental, 
nostalgic 
and pleasurable 
identifications 
with 
family. 
63 
Asked 
about 
the 
meaning 
of 
herjewellery, 
Sue 
stated, 
"Jewellery 
can 
getpassed 
down 
and 
that, 
In 
afamily 
an 
all. 
[ 
... 
] 
So 
you 
might 
be 
wearing 
something 
that 
has 
a 
sentimental 
kind 
ofthing. 
That's 
how 
I 
keep 
that 
[shows 
me 
a 
locket 
round 
her 
neck], my 
pal 
always 
tries 
to 
wear 
it 
but 
I 
never give 
it 
her, 
the 
rest 
ofmy 
rings 
areall 
stamped". 
Some 
alluded 
to theirjewellery 
as 
heirlooms. 
Asked 
"So 
where 
doyou 
buyyour 
jewelteryfroin 
then? 
" 
Yvonne 
replied: 
"My 
nana give 
it, 
I 
don't 
buy 
it". 
Yvonne, 
wearing 
an 
impressive 
array 
of 
chains 
and rings 
had 
also 
received 
hers 
as presents 
from 
family 
members. 
63 
None, 
save 
one 
reference 
to 
a navel 
piercing 
experience, 
were 
acquisitions 
expressed as 
driven 
by fashion. 
226 
AP: 
So 
you've 
never 
bought 
any? 
It's 
all 
things that 
have 
been 
given 
to 
you, 
what 
about 
Diane 
[a 
friend 
and 
formidable 
j 
ewellery 
wearer, not present 
at our 
meeting] 
does 
she 
buy 
it 
or 
is 
that 
all 
given 
as 
well? 
Yvonne: 
Most 
of 
it is 
given 
to 
her 
as well. 
She 
got a 
pendant 
with 
a picture 
of 
her 
granda 
on 
it, 
she 
always 
wears 
that 
one. 
Although 
Ann 
conceded 
that 
herjewellery 
included, 
"things 
that 
I've 
boughtfor 
myselfevery 
year" 
she 
wore 
her 
gifts ofjewellery 
from family 
members 
each 
day. 
AP: 
Do 
you 
want 
to 
describe 
what you've 
got 
on? 
Ann: 
[Laughter] 
AP: 
Oh 
go on; 
tell 
me 
about 
this 
amazing 
one 
there, 
[large 
gold 
ring] 
do 
you 
remember 
when 
you 
got 
that? 
Ann: 
Aha, 
my rings 
and 
that 
I've 
had 
for 
about 
8 
years 
now, 
just 
presents 
from 
my mum 
and 
that 
for 
Christmas 
and 
birthdays 
and 
that. 
AP: 
And 
do 
you, 
do 
they 
mean 
something 
to 
you when 
you 
put 
them 
on? 
How does 
it 
make 
you 
feel? 
Ann: 
I 
don't 
know, 
I've 
just 
always g, ot 
them 
on. 
I 
take 
them 
off when 
I 
go 
to 
bed 
but 
when 
I 
get 
up 
in 
the 
morning 
I 
put 
them 
back 
on again. 
I'm 
a 
bit 
bare 
without 
them. 
Gabrielle 
had 
chosen 
items 
ofjewellery 
like her 
mother's. 
Gabrielle: 
I 
just 
like 
the 
plain 
- 
erm 
... 
I 
wanted 
a 
locket 
because 
my 
mum 
had 
a 
locket, 
she 
used 
k 
to 
wear 
a 
gold 
locket 
and 
yes, 
I 
just like 
the 
plain 
gold 
and 
chains, 
you 
know 
In 
his 
critique 
of 
the 
vulgarity 
of 
the 
spawn 
of 
Faberge, 
Pearman 
chose 
a significant 
comparison 
"It's 
rather 
like 
those 
ghastly 
great 
rocks 
that 
Richard Burton 
used 
to 
give 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
" (Pearman 
cited 
by 
Margolis, 
1994, 
p. 
3). Taylor 
has 
occupied a significant 
position 
in discussions 
about 
taste, 
excess, 
pleasures 
for female 
audiences 
and 
'queening 
it' 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
Jewellery 
generated 
a 
sentimental/vulgar 
symbolism 
for Taylor 
and 
her 
audiences. 
Emphasising 
her 
own 
jewellery's 
mythic, 
227 
romantic 
status whilst unconsciously and 
ironically 
echoing 
the 
experiences 
of participants', 
she 
claimed 
"Thejewellery I 
have has been 
given 
to 
me. 
I 
don't 
buyjewelleryfor 
myselr'(Maddox, 
1977, 
p. 
202). 
64 
6.4 
The 
demonisation 
and 
appropriation 
of 
trash. 
Bimbos, 
tarts 
and slags: 
demonising 
the 
fashioning 
of working-class 
women 
The 
very 
meaning and value of a cultural 
object varies 
according 
to 
the 
system of objects 
within 
which 
it 
is 
placed, 
detective 
stories, science 
fiction 
or strip cartoons 
may 
be 
entirely prestigious cultural assets or 
be 
reduced 
to 
their 
ordinary value, 
depending 
on 
whether 
they 
are associated with avant-garde 
literature 
or 
music 
- 
in 
which case 
they 
appear as manifestations of 
daring 
and 
freedom 
- 
or 
combine 
to 
form 
a constellation 
typical 
of middle 
brow 
taste 
- 
when 
they 
appear 
as what 
they 
are, simple 
substitutes 
for 
legitimate 
assets. 
(Bourdieu, 1979, 
p. 
88). 
The 
political, social and cultural repudiation of working-class 
women 
was 
pervasive 
across 
the 
literature 
examined 
in 
the 
broader 
research project; 
this 
chapter 
notes 
the 
imbrication 
of 
distain for 
excessive 
fashioning 
in 
texts 
from 
the 
immediate 
post-war period 
on. 
Characteristically, hair, 
clothing, 
shoes, make-up and 
jewellery 
associated with 
working-class 
tastes 
are 
used 
as 
evidence of or 
represented 
as 
synonymous with stupidity, 
sexual 
immorality 
and criminality. 
Fashionings 
perceived 
to 
be 
associated 
with working-class women 
are routinely 
caricatured 
across 
all 
media 
forms 
of 
popular 
culture. 
Hebdige 
has 
noted 
that 
during 
the 
1950s 
the 
'cartography 
of 
taste' 
in 
Britain 
had 
taken 
on 
"an 
aggressively 
reactionaryflavour 
, 
65 
and 
that this 
impetus 
was 
linked 
to the 
upper-classes' 
anxieties 
about 
class 
movement and post war growth 
in 
consumption 
- 
"to 
clarify 
and redefine 
boundaries 
rendered 
opaque 
bypost 
war 
'affluence "' 
(Hebdige, 198 
1, 
p. 
4 1). 
Caricatures 
of so-called 
uncultured, 
brash, 
Americanised 
forms 
of 
femininity 
germinated 
and were 
frequently 
associated 
with specific 
parochial, 
Northem 
and/or 
industrial, 
urban 
contexts 
or 
alternatively 
seaside resorts which 
were 
perceived 
to 
be increasingly 
subject 
to 
invasion 
by 
the 
working 
classes. 
66 
An 
article 
in 
the 
1956 
TV 
" 
Steven 
Kuhn, University 
of 
Arizona 
and 
colleagues 
at 
Ankara 
University 
have 
recently 
excavated 
shells 
in 
a cave 
off 
the 
Ltvantinc 
coast of 
Turkey 
used as 
jewellcry 
that 
are 
40,000 
years 
old. 
I le believes 
the 
shcll 
jewcllcry 
were 
symbolic 
"indicating 
kinship, 
group membership and 
marital 
status 
" 
(0 Connell, 
2002, 
p. 
10). This 
form 
of 
making/adomment 
is "Indicative 
qf 
the 
first 
signs 
oftruly modern 
behaviour 
and cognitivefluidity 
and 
symbolic 
expression 
" 
(0 
Connell. 
2002, 
P. 
10). 
Exempf 
i fied 
by 
Evelyn 
Waugh 
and 
Nancy 
Mitford's 
cod 
i 
fi 
cation 
ofV and 
I 
Non 
U', 
" 
The 
post-war 
working-class seaside 
holiday 
was 
interpreted 
by 
intellectuals 
of 
the 
left 
and 
right 
as 
indicative 
of 
the 
pemicious 
influence 
of 
American 
culture, epitomised 
in 
1-loggart's 
parody, 
the 
Kosy 
I loliday 
Kamp. 
(I 
Icbdige. 
199 
1, 
p. 
42). 
116dige 
notes 
thatOrwcll 
"imagines 
a modern 
designJor Coleridge's 
Kubla Khan 
consisting 
ofair-conditioned 
caverns 
turned 
Into 
a series Of 
lea-grottoes 
in 
the 
Moorish, Caucasian 
and 
Hawaiian 
styles. 
Vie 
sacred river 
would 
be 
dammed 
up 
to 
make 
an 
arttklally 
warmed 
bathing 
pool, andplaying 
in 
the 
background 
there 
would 
be 
the 
constant 
pulse 
ofmu: 
ak 
to 
prevent 
the 
onset 
qfthat 
228 
so 
we 
Open 
cbe ta 
do 
we 
SW 11 
! 
We 
f-4 
g 
YOML 
! 
Odom. 
im. 
r 
f 
trKk 
wMay 
C 
Aek 
i 
mpwuk 
md 
O"W? 
- 
We 
900 
aw 
on 
't 
P"MmoK 
the 
Teddy 
girt 
fo 
(nck). 
". 
- 
glass 
tiow M. 
a,: 
be-boo 
sli-r 
Ln , 
rr. as- 
ne 
a 
baby 
IL 
a 
baby 
who's 
just 
rattle 
taken 
away- 
wl 
Revnell. 
Here, 
her 
famous 
imper- 
'or 
the 
benefit 
of a 
ror 
photographer 
. 
41 
45. 
Beryl 
Reid 
as 
'Marlene 
of 
the 
Midlands", 
featured 
in 
TV 
Mirror 
annual, 
unpaginated, 
1956. 
Mirror 
annual 
introduced 
an early example, 
comic 
actor 
Beryl Reid's 
creation 
'Marlene 
of 
the 
Midlands, 
the 
Teddy 
Boy's 
gir?friend 
, 
67 
This 
model 
- 
working-class, young, white 
women 
fashioning 
to 
excess 
exemplifying 
stupidity 
- 
was reprised 
continuously 
in homogenised 
and 
caricatured 
representations 
by both 
male 
and 
female 
performers 
from 
the 
immediate 
post-war 
period and, as 
I 
argue, 
is 
at 
large 
across 
contemporary media. 
More 
troubling 
is 
the 
conterminous 
demonisation 
of 
actual 
women 
who 
fashioned 
to 
excess, 
evident 
in 
the 
original 
demonisation 
of 
teenagers 
in 
the 
British 
press 
. 
68 
1 
found 
that 
the 
classist registers 
in 
texts 
from 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
were still 
evident 
in 
contemporary 
media and 
that 
disdain 
for 
working-classes 
fashioned 
bodies 
and 
habitus' 
was 
widespread; 
from 
travel to 
fashion journalism, 
interior 
or 
lifestyle 
features 
and 
music critic 
iSM. 
69 
However, 
in 
the 
tradition 
of media panics about 
plagues 
of 
beehives, 
stilettos, 
platforms 
and panda 
eyes 
demonisation 
was most 
frequently 
articulated 
in 
the 
homogenisation 
of groups 
of girls or 
women. 
70 
in 
2002, 
the 
phenomenon 
of 
Chatham 
Girls 
prompted 
international internet 
traffic, 
chat 
rooms, 
a 
dedicated 'cult 
website' 
and 
interest 
from 
the 
broadsheets 
(Rowan, 2002, 
p. 
5). The Chatham 
dreaded 
thing 
- 
thought" 
(ibid). 
Cynicism 
concerning 
of 
the 
working class at 
leisure 
is 
apparent 
in late 
twentieth 
century 
broadsheet 
media 
as 
I 
go on 
to 
discuss. 
" 
Significantly, 
her 
costume 
featured huge 
"glass 
globe 
earrings. 
68 
The 
Guardian 
Women's 
Page 
generated 
a strand 
of 
voyeuristic 
fascination 
and alarm 
in 
charting 
working-class youth 
fashions. 
For 
example, 
'Bitter 
Sweet Seventeen' 
critiqued 
'Miss 
Teenage 
USA' 
(The 
Guardian, 2 May, 1959), 
In 
'Hockey 
Sticks 
and 
Spike 
Heels', 
Joan 
Tate 
berated 
young 
women 
dressing 
'sexily' 
(Tate, 1959, 
p. 
6) 
WJ Weatherby 
exposed, 
'The 
World 
of 
the 
Beatnik' 
(Weatherby, 
1961) 
adopting 
a similar 
tone that 
emphasised 
the 
distance 
between 
the 
researcher and 
the 
researched. 
Burchill 
has 
commented 
on 
how journalists 
have 
upheld 
notions 
of middle-class 
taste, 
and 
developed 
a 
'sneering' 
tone, 
in 
their 
critiques 
of 
young, 
working-class 
female 
stars. 
In 
such 
criticism 
being identified, 
even 
compared 
to 
working-class 
women 
is 
still 
considered 
damning, 
she 
dubs 
this 
'Social 
Racism', 
evident 
in 
print, 
TV 
and 
internet 
media. 
She 
asks: 
"What 
gives 
them 
the 
right 
to 
call 
the 
kids 
that 
Jamie 
Oliver 
recently 
trained 
up 
'obnoxious lumpen 
proles'and 
'hideous 
losers'or 
to 
decide 
that the 
extremelypretty 
and successful 
Natasha 
Hamilton 
ofAtomic 
Kitten 
has 
a 
'pramface'lo 
quote one 
Sunday broadsheet, 
'a 
pop 
star 
with 
aface 
that 
would 
better 
suit 
a girlpushing 
a prom 
around a council 
estate. 
'Before 
Natasha 
Kitten 
was 
Prom Face 
ex- 
Kitten 
Kerry 
Katona 
was 
known 
by 
users 
of 
the 
websue 
Popbuch 
as 
'chip 
shop'as she 
supposedly 
looked 
like 
she worked 
in 
one 
" (Burchill, 
2003). 
6' 
The 
myth 
of 
saturation 
levels 
of political 
correctness 
suggests 
that 
such overt 
discrimination 
has 
been 
stymied. 
A 
strand of 
criticism 
in 
broadsheets, 
detectable 
in 
texts 
from 
the 
1960s, 
adopts 
an almost 
mock 
anthropological, 
satirical 
tone 
in 
discussing 
working-class 
tastes 
and popular 
culture. 
- 
exemplified 
in 
this 
extract, 
from 
1996, 
of a 
travel 
review 
in The Guardian, 
"Blackpool 
is 
the 
world 
capital 
of 
tal. 
What 
isn't 
a car park 
[ 
... 
J 
is 
glitz 
and glitter and 
razzamatazz. 
[ 
... 
I 
Blackpool 
is 
heaving. 
It's 
only 
9.30am 
and 
the 
place 
is 
wobbling 
with 
humanity- 
queues are 
alreadyformingfor 
the 
car 
parks. 
[ 
... 
] There 
is 
more 
flesh 
on 
display 
here 
than 
on all 
the 
nudism 
beaches 
in 
the 
world, 
and everyone 
here 
is 
dressed 
I 
... 
J There 
is 
a woman who, 
I 
swear, 
has 
arms 
of 
such 
colossal, 
sensational 
thickness 
that 
you might 
think that there 
are 
two 
on 
either 
side. one 
tucked 
inside 
the 
other. 
And 
more, 
the 
promenade 
at 
Blackpool 
is 
like 
the 
Museum 
of 
the 
Moving Image, 
only 
the 
moving 
images 
are permanently 
on 
display 
on 
their 
screens, 
their 
human 
canvasses. 
The 
promenade 
offers 
one 
of 
the 
greatest 
displays 
of 
tattoos 
in 
the 
world 
" (Fort, 
1996, 
p. 
57). 
711 
Caroline 
Haydon's 
analysis 
of 
the 
groups 
of girls 
in her 
neighbourhood was 
typical 
"Known 
as 
Nah-Nahs, Townies, 
Rudes 
or 
Trendies. 
Shazza 
is 
afemale, 
Gazza 
a male, 
[ 
this 
might 
be 
a 
lazy 
recalling 
/rehearsing 
of 
the 
tabloid 
names 
minted 
for 
Sheryl 
and 
Paul 
Gasgoignel 
They 
rangefroin 
while 
girls who 
have 
gelled scraped 
back hair, 
wear 
puffa 
jackets 
and 
tight trousers 
to 
black 
girls 
with 
braided hair 
and 
short 
clingy skirts. 
Both 
sort 
large 
amounts offake 
chunky 
goldjewellery, 
fake 
French 
manicured 
nails, 
fur 
trimmedpaddedjackets 
and collect 
Winnie 
the 
Pooh 
mobile 
phones, 
pencil cases 
teddies 
and 
hair bobbles. 
Anotherfavoured 
accessory 
is 
a 
lollipop 
hanging 
out qf 
the 
mouth or usedas a 
hair 
grip" 
(Haydon, 
2002, 
p. 
4). Thispiecedrew 
on 
the 
interpretations 
of one 
interviewee 
-Haydon's 
daughter, 
Her 
arguably crude 
interpretation 
of 
issues 
of class 
and 
race 
nevertheless 
hinted 
at 
the 
identifications, 
symbolism and 
significance 
of 
constructing 
fashioning 
perceived 
to 
mark 
middle 
class 
and 
working 
class 
and 
raced 
forms 
of 
femininity: 
"In 
the 
inner 
city 
it 
seems 
the 
choices 
are 
often 
made 
according 
to 
colour, 
with 
the 
black 
girls 
optingfor 
the 
Townies 
set and 
the 
white girls, 
largely 
being 
the 
Grungers. 
Grungers 
are 
also 
seen as 
more 
middle 
class. 
'The 
Grungers 
are middle 
class 
and 
trying 
to 
look 
cool and 
scru_ffy 
and street 
wise. 
' 
says 
[daughter] Lizzie, 
'The 
Townies 
are 
more 
working 
class and 
they 
hate 
to 
look 
scrufjfy 
'"(Haydon, 
2002, 
p. 
4). 
229 
Girls 
site 
7' 
adopted 
a mock-anthropological 
stance, 
providing an 
insight 
into 
the 
construction of 
contemporary 
folk 
devils 
and 
the 
misogynistic 
demonisation 
of working-class 
young 
women on 
the 
basis 
of 
their 
fashioning 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
It 
promoted 
the 
view of 
Chatham Girls 
as 
'thick 
slags'. 
(Rowan, 
ibid 
. 
)72 Although 
arguably 
the 
focus 
for 
the 
misogynistic 
obsessions of a small group 
or an 
individual, 
the 
site nevertheless 
reflects 
in 
an 
uncensored 
form 
attitudes 
that 
are 
identifiable 
more 
broadly 
as 
I 
go 
on 
to 
discuss. 
73 
Generalisations 
that 
cast 
Chatham 
Girls 
as a 
drain 
on society; 
they 
left 
school 
"with 
no 
education... 
to 
pursue 
as 
career 
as a single 
parene, 
74 
illustrate 
Greer's 
contention 
that 
"Men 
have 
no 
pityforyoung 
women 
who 
take 
so 
much 
crap, 
violence and 
endure 
illness 
and 
the 
rigours and 
dangers 
ofthe 
IVF 
mill. 
There is 
no political 
or social 
commitment 
to these 
vulnerable 
young women. 
05 
11 
http: 
//www. 
geocities. 
com/chatham_girWfashion. 
htm 
72 
According 
to 
the 
owner of 
Chatham's 
Goldrush 
jewellers, 
(The 
Chatham 
Girl's 'place 
of 
worship') 
Chatham Girls 
were 
passive 
dupes: 
"a 
bit 
too thick 
to 
realise 
they 
were 
having 
the 
piss 
taken 
out 
of 
them 
"- for buying 
excessive 
gold 
jewellery. 
The 
website, 
perceived 
as 
a 
disgrace 
by local 
councillors 
experienced 
meltdown 
in 
2001 
due 
to 
its 
popularity and 
discussions 
in 
related 
chat-rooms. 
For 
example, 
pub36. 
ezboard. con-t/fchathamgirisfrml-23k 
71 
It 
also 
resonates 
with 
the themes 
of 
this 
chapter; 
the 
social and cultural 
links 
between 
jewellery 
worn 
to 
excess and perceptions 
of 
worth, 
ideas 
about 
of 
aspirations 
to 
aristocratic 
taste 
by 
working-class women, 
the 
significance 
of gold and 
diamonds in 
triggering 
an 
array 
of significations 
for 
working-class women and 
their 
critics, 
the troubling 
of 
notions of 
respectability 
through 
working-class 
women's 
adoption 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
a concept 
I discuss 
in 
more 
detail later, 
and 
how 
classism, racism and sexism 
are 
articulated 
through 
disdain 
for fashioning. I 
have 
therefore 
chosen 
to 
quote 
from it 
at 
length: 
"Me 
Chatham 
Girl 
will 
always 
be 
wearing 
CRAP 
earrings. 
It 
is 
something 
in 
their 
genetic 
makeup 
that 
makes 
them 
want 
to 
hang 
kilos 
of 
tacAy 
shitefrom 
their 
earlobes. 
Much 
the 
same as certain 
African 
tribes, 
it 
has become 
a 
tradition. 
They 
will start 
with 
small 
earrings 
[ 
... 
] 
and will 
with 
time 
progress 
to 
ones 
that 
arejust 
too 
ridiculous 
- 
that 
have 
more 
use 
as 
hula-hoops. 
It 
is 
again 
a 
hierarchy 
thing. 
[ 
... 
] 
Ifyou 
are 
lucky 
enough 
tofind 
a 
Chatham Girl 
with 
earrings 
that 
don't 
actually 
hang, but 
rest at a 
slant 
on 
her 
shoulders 
then 
you 
are 
In 
the 
presence ofroyalty! 
[ 
... 
] 
The 
most 
popular 
are 
the 
Diamonique Dangling 
Ball 
earrings. 
7hey 
are 
a 
hoop 
earring 
that 
supports a 
Diamonique 
(crap, 
worthless, 
imitation 
diamond) ball 
on 
the 
bottom 
ofthe 
loop 
[ 
... 
] 
at 
least 
3 
inches 
in 
diameter 
with 
the 
ball 
the 
size ofa marble. 
These 
can 
be 
worn 
in 
ascending sizes 
down 
the 
ear 
with 
the 
largest 
at 
the 
bottom. 
Chatham 
girls 
will 
display lots 
of 
these 
types 
of earrings as 
that's 
mostly what 
they 
spend 
their 
money 
on. 
Be 
it 
dole 
money, 
pocket 
money 
orproceeds 
ofa 
Post Ofjicejob 
[ 
... 
I 
They 
are all 
sadfashion 
sheep 
[ 
... 
I Chatham 
Girls 
will 
always 
wear 
as much 
gold 
as possible 
on 
theirfingers. 
7hey 
think 
it 
makes 
them 
look 
sexy. 
It does 
infact 
make 
them 
look like 
pikeys 
[ 
... 
] The 
classic 
Moschino 
GoldShoe 
is 
another 
trait 
ofthe 
Chatham 
Girl 
They 
will 
be 
worn 
by 
either allofthepackat 
the 
same 
time 
or 
by 
none 
at 
all. 
Social 
standing 
is 
measured 
here 
on 
how 
much she 
can 
make people squint with 
the 
glare 
ofher 
shoes 
[ 
... 
] 7his 
came 
as a 
surprise 
even 
to 
us. 
One 
of 
our 
reporters 
nearly 
dropped 
the 
camera when stumbling upon 
this 
lot. 
Gold 
booliesfor 
kids. Noooo! 
We 
hearyou 
cry. 
The 
gold 
bootiefor 
the 
up and coming 
Chatham Girl. Goes 
nicely 
to 
set off 
the 
gold 
that 
the 
baby 
will 
have 
been 
adorned 
withfor 
thefirst 
3 
months 
of 
its 
life 
[ 
... 
] 
The 
professional 
Chatham 
girl will wear 
an 
array 
ofgold 
chains 
around 
her 
neck, 
from 
which 
will 
dangle 
a variety ofhuge 
gold 
charms. 
Herfavourite 
is 
the 
CLOWN 
[ 
... 
] 
7-hey 
appear 
to 
show 
hierarchy 
within 
the 
pack 
The bigger 
the 
clown 
the 
more 
movement 
it 
has 
and 
the 
amount of 
imitation 
precious 
stones 
it 
has 
inset 
denotes 
how 
high 
the 
Chatham 
Girl 
is in 
the 
hierarchy. 
' 
Clearly 
now 
part 
of 
the 
vernacular 
of urban 
culture 
the 
term 
pikey 
was 
interpreted 
in The 
Guardian 
accompanied 
by 
a 
full-page 
comic 
Roma 
caricature. 
The 
text 
ambivalently 
notes: 
"Much 
in 
use 
these 
days 
as a ratherpolitically 
incorrect 
adjective 
denoting 
absence 
ofqualio? 
the 
word 
?pikey'is 
centuries old and 
comesfrom 
the 
noun 
'piker, 
a 
16" 
century 
termfor 
a 
tramp 
or vagrant. 
The 
original 
?pikeys'were 
vagrants 
who 
travelled 
the turn-pikes 
and 
toll 
roads 
- 
of 
16'* 
century 
England. 
7he 
word still retains 
the 
sense 
of 
traveller 
or 
gypsy 
" (Taylor 
(ed) 2003, 
no pagination). 
The 
Chatham 
Girl 
site 
is ironically 
sponsored 
by 
a 
Chatham 
jeweller, 
Mr 
T. (Rowan, 
2002, 
p. 
5) In 
a 
memo, 
I 
noted 
that the 
first 
articulated 
clown 
necklace 
I 
spotted 
being 
worn 
in Glasgow 
was 
on 
Argyle Street 14 
June, 
2002. 
Clown jewellery is 
now 
ubiquitous 
in 
Glasgow's 
East 
End. 
Other 
fashioning 
traits 
vilified 
by 
the 
website authors 
included, 'use 
of scrunchees', 
'prison 
clean, 
trainers, 
leather-look 
coats 
and 
sports 
clothing. 
The 
site 
authors 
used a 
traditional 
guise, 
that 
of 
the 
artist 
(rather 
than 
the 
anthropologist/researcher) 
in 
order 
to 
pass 
in 
the 
Chatham 
Girls' 
teff 
itory: 
"We 
took 
a 
trip 
dahhhn 
taahn to 
a 
well 
know 
shoe 
shop 
and 
took 
somepics. 
Posing 
as 
'Art 
Students'doing 
aproject 
on 
goldfashion, 
Trying 
not 
to 
snigger as we 
asked 
the 
shopkeepers 
to take 
pics 
". 
' 
In 
this 
the 
authors 
views 
could 
have 
been 
influenced by 
either/both 
Conservative 
and 
subsequent 
New Labour 
Governments. 
Both 
have 
been 
criticised 
for 
pathologising 
young 
women's sexuality 
and 
the 
demonisation 
of 
(female) 
single parents, 
leaving 
this 
group 
as 
one 
most 
vulnerable 
to 
poverty, 
ill 
health 
and 
remote 
from 
access 
to 
employment. 
Figures 
published 
by 
One Parent 
Families 
Scotland 
showed 
that 
in 1990,70% 
of one parent 
families 
earned 
less 
than 
J 
10,000 
per 
annum, and 
since 
the 
introduction 
of 
the 
Child Support 
Agency, 
a 
Conservative 
policy widely 
discredited 
as 
divisive, 
there 
has been 
"no 
signifleant 
increase 
in 
the 
proportion 
of 
lone 
parents 
receiving 
child 
support 
" (http: 
www. 
opfi. 
org. 
uk/factfile/statsO2. 
htmi). 
11 
She 
has 
noted 
the 
irony 
that 
later 
they 
grow up 
and 
reject 
their 
'partnerships' 
with 
men: 
"When 
this 
occurs, politicians 
indict 
womenfurther, 
single 
mothers 
are 
treated 
like 
they 
are 
the 
scourges 
ofsociely. 
Eventually 
these 
women 
dump 
men, 
suefor 
divorce 
and 
decide 
to 
go 
it 
alone. 
Such 
contradictions 
present 
a 
costlypicturefor 
women. 
They 
sufferfor 
the 
love 
ofmen and 
230 
Examining 
the 
Chatham 
Girls 
precursor, 
Cox 
has 
noted 
that 
Essex Girl "could 
certainly 
be 
viewed 
as 
yet 
another 
in 
a series 
oftistorical 
moral 
panics aroundyoung 
single women with money 
to 
spend, 
and 
spending 
it 
unwisely" 
(Cox, 2000, 
p. 
5). 
76 
She 
demonstrates 
that the 
Essex 
Girl's 
prototype 
was 
established 
as early 
as 
the 
1880s 
when 
the 
development 
of resorts 
such as 
Southend 
and 
Clacton 
produced 
a 
tension 
between 
perceptions 
of 
day-trippers 
and 
goodtime 
girls and respectable, middle- 
class 
suburbanites. 
Noting 
a 
trajectory 
of constructions 
of 
girl 
tribes 
from 
the 
1840s 
on, 
she 
has 
highlighted 
common 
accusations 
levelled 
at 
groups 
of 
working-class girls and 
women 
in industrial 
77 
centres 
across 
Britain. 
The 
perception 
of 
Essex 
representing 
the 
"worst 
ofBritish 
rather 
than the 
best", 
and 
where 
the 
worst 
of 
Essex 
is 
the 
Essex 
girl 
is 
a 
perception 
that 
has 
endured. 
78 
Cox's 
research 
illustrated 
how 
the 
construction 
of 
Essex Man 
and 
Essex Girl, 
through 
broadsheet 
and 
tabloid 
media, 
was 
built 
on 
recurring 
themes 
and 
references 
to 
fashion(ing) 
and 
consumption 
"satellite 
dishes, 
shell 
suits, 
goldjewellery, 
Mitsubishi 
shoguns" 
(Cox, 
200 
1, 
p. 
3). 
79The 
trope 
of cheap, 
gold 
jewellery 
also 
surfaces 
in 
Cox's 
delineation 
of 
the 
social objections 
to 
Essex 
Girl: 
"Although Essex Man 
was 
certainly 
ridiculedfor 
his 
consumer 
preferences 
(Capri's, 
Topman, lager) 
it 
was 
the 
Essex 
Girl 
who 
bore 
the 
brunt 
ofwhat 
has 
become 
a systematic and 
highly 
gendered 
denigration 
ofthe 
mass, 
the 
cheap, 
the 
popular 
or, 
as 
Gerald Ratner 
might put 
it, 
the 
crap 
" (ibid. 
p. 
8). 
80 
Cox 
has defined 
the 
social response 
to 
Essex Girls 
as 
'The Sociology 
of 
the 
Sneer', 
One 
of 
the things 
that 
Essex Girls have 
done for 
us 
culturally 
is 
to 
expose 
the 
myth of 
the 
classless 
society 
and 
the 
myth of 
the 
sexually equal 
society 
in 
a way 
those 
[Essex 
Girl] 
jokes, 
they 
are 
funny 
but 
they 
are also 
having 
a good sneer at 
a certain 
type 
of white 
trash 
woman 
in 
a 
children"(Greer, 
2002). Criticising 
New Labour, 
Greer 
asserted 
that 
it 
was 
wrong 
to 
rage 
against 
teenage 
mothers: 
"as 
if 
they 
were 
ram 
raiding 
and creating 
a vast crime wave"(Greer 
in 
Chrisafis, 2003, 
p. 
5). 
11 
Cox 
has 
traced 
how 
the 
Essex 
Girl 
was conceived 
by 
Telegraph journalist 
Simon 
Hefter 
as an 
electoral 
vehicle, 
(Essex 
culture 
epitomising 
Thatcherism) 
and 
as a 
girlfriend, sister 
or 
daughter 
to 
Essex 
and 
later Mondeo 
Man. She 
sees 
Essex Girls' 
predecessors 
as 
Lancashire 
mill 
girls 
of 
the 
1840s, 
munitions 
girls 
in 
the 
first 
World 
War, 
the 
'Docklands Degenerates' 
of 
the 
1930s 
and 
the 
"good 
time 
girls'ofthe 
19501 " 
(Cox, 
200 
1, 
p. 
5). 
Coincident 
with 
the 
creation 
of 
Essex Man 
and 
Girl, Essex 
became 
synonymous 
with 
mindless 
excessive materialism, 
and 
the 
association 
remains. 
In 
a satirical article 
promoting 
thejoys 
of 
Essex, 
Morton 
dubbed 
Posh 
and 
Becks "7he 
patron 
saints 
ofExcessex 
" (Morton, 2003, 
p. 
20). 
" 
"All 
were 
attackedfor 
their 
immorality, 
for 
their 
vulgarity, 
for 
their 
sexual 
laxity 
andfior 
theirfrivolous 
spending 
on cheap 
clothes 
and 
cheap entertainments 
"(ibid. 
). 
m 
(see 
for 
example, 
BBC, Women's 
Hour, 16 
October, 
2001) 
" 
Essex 
Girls 
became 
a 
name 
a national 
figure 
in 
the 
winter 
of 
1991-92 
almost 
exactly 
a year 
after 
the 
creation 
of 
Essex 
Man. 
It 
followed 
the 
1980s 
US 
version 
of 
the 
caricatures: 
Valley 
Girl, 
the 
Bimbo 
and 
blondejokes 
(Cox, 
op. cit., p. 
4). 
11 
Some 
20 
years 
after 
the 
construction 
of 
Essex 
Girls 
the 
recuperation 
of 
Essex's 
legitimacy, 
jeopardised 
by 
its 
association 
with 
such 
disreputable 
women, was 
initiated in 
200 1. 
However, 
for 
the 
broadsheets, 
there 
was 
still scope 
in 
2003 
for 
mining 
the 
Essex 
Girl 
myth. 
In 
his Independent 
article 
in 2003 
'Thejoy 
of 
Essex: 
cash, 
flash 
and 
footballers 
wives 
(oh 
and somejolly 
nice 
countryside)' 
Cole 
Morton, 
himself "a 
resident 
ofwhite 
stiletto 
Essex" 
made a mocking 
defence 
of 
the 
mythical 
land 
of 
Footballers 
Wives 
and 
Essex Wives. 
The 
extent 
to 
which 
mainstream 
broadcasters 
empathised 
with 
the 
message of 
Essex 
Girls 
jokes 
can 
be 
measured 
by 
the 
fact 
that the 
BBC had 
eventually 
to 
ban 
its 
staff 
from 
emailing 
them. 
Significantly, Cox 
suggested 
that 
criticism 
of 
BBC 
for 
this 
action, 
on 
the 
ground 
of sexism 
'helped 
to 
shape 
what 
has 
since 
become 
known 
as 
'new 
laddism' 
that 
newform 
ofelite 
humour, 
which uses 
irony 
as a 
defence 
against 
changes ofsexism'(Cox, 
200 1, 
p. 
6). A Woman's Hour 
piece, 
'Whatever 
happened 
to 
the 
Essex 
Girl? 
' (BBC 
Radio 
4,16 
October, 2001) 
included 
the 
views 
of a 
local 
councillor 
who 
had 
launched 
a website 
to try to 
restore 
the 
reputation 
of 
the 
area 
and 
downplay 
the 
Essex 
Girl 
mythology. 
In 
contrast 
Greer has 
criticised 
the 
demonisation 
and 
alluded 
to 
the 
dissidence 
of 
Essex 
Girls: 
"Her 
existence 
andher 
style 
make 
nonsense 
ofthe 
Labour 
rhetoric about 
"social 
exclusion 
". She 
does 
not see 
herset(as 
outside 
society; 
she 
sees 
herselfas 
belonging 
to the 
real world 
offam 
ily 
loyalty, 
sexual 
unpredictab 
ifity, 
underemployment 
andpelly 
crime, 
and 
the 
Blairs 
as 
pious, 
condescending 
and self-deluding. 
I 
think 
she's 
great 
" 
(Greer, 
200 
1, 
p. 
8). 
231 
way 
- 
in 
America 
you might call 
it 
that 
- 
and 
they 
are 
laughing 
with 
her 
but 
they 
are 
also 
laughing 
at 
her in 
a 
kind 
of a way, 
so 
I 
think 
some 
kind 
of examination 
of what's 
going 
on 
there, 
why we are not comfortable 
with 
this 
kind 
of woman 
(Cox 
cited 
in 
Woman's 
Hour, 
200 1). 
Just 
as working-class 
women who 
fashion 
to 
excess 
have 
been 
perceived 
to 
have 
tainted 
the 
marketability 
of areas of 
Britain, 
over 
the 
same 
period, 
working-class 
consumption 
ofjewellery 
was 
interpreted 
as 
contributing 
to the 
undermining 
of 
the 
economic 
legitimacy 
and 
symbolic 
status of 
gold 
itself. 
81 
In 
its 
recruitment of 
ballet 
star 
Darcey 
Bussell 
to 
represent 
the 
campaign 
to 
re-brand 
gold, 
the 
World 
Gold Council 
were reinforcing 
a 
message 
about 
desirable 
middle-class 
femininity 
and 
appropriate 
displays 
ofjewellery 
that 
has 
historical 
resonances 
in 
the 
literature 
intensely 
targeted 
at 
women 
in 
the 
post-war period; 
the 
promotion 
of 
acceptable 
forms 
of 
fashioned 
feminine 
excess 
set 
against 
a 
disdained 
model of 
Black 
and 
minority 
ethnic 
working-class 
excess. 
92 
Appropriating 
forms 
of working-class 
women's 
aewellery) 
fashioning 
to 
excess 
Class 
domination does 
not 
just 
touch 
the 
working 
class, 
but is 
central 
to 
the 
fantasy 
structures 
and 
defences 
of 
the 
bourgeoisie 
(Walkerdine, 
1997, 
p. 
37). 
The 
appropriation of 
working-class 
stylisations 
of excess 
by 
high fashion 
and 
middle-class 
taste 
from 
the 
mid- 
I 980s 
on was acutely 
ironic 
and can 
be 
understood 
as an aspect 
of 
broader 
themes 
in 
post-punk 
fashion 
and 
design, 
and 
post-modem 
art 
prevalent 
in 
this 
period 
of 
bricolage, 
the 
queering 
of 
excessive 
femininity 
and 
the 
knowing, 
disingenuous 
celebration 
of 
camp and 
kitsch. 
Far from 
attempting 
to 
confer authorship 
to the 
frequently 
anonymous 
makers of 
so-called 
low 
objects 
or 
images 
or 
connoisseurship 
to 
their 
non-ironic, 
traditionally 
working-class 
consumers, 
the 
post-modem 
makers' 
and 
stylists' 
relationship with 
low 
arts 
was 
an 
internal 
dialogue, 
a 
Duchampian 
purloining 
of 
ready- 
mades, 
ostensibly 
to 
revivify 
High 
Art 
by 
introducing 
the 
shocking 
spectacle 
of 
the 
prosaic, 
feminised 
and 
domestic 
into 
its 
orbit. 
The 
work's 
effectiveness 
depended 
on 
it being 
recognised 
as, 
and 
" 
Honigsbaurn 
reported 
that 
"after 
20years 
in 
the 
doldrums[... 
] 
gold 
is 
being 
re-brandedas 
the 
must-have 
metal 
[ 
... 
I 
Afier 
the 
collapse 
of 
the 
gold 
standard 
in 
1968 
and 
the 
decline 
in 
goldprices since 
the 
1980s 
- 
aided 
byjeweller 
Gerald 
Rainer 
?' 
'total 
crap'comment 
of 
1991 
and gold's association 
with 
rappers 
and gangsters 
- 
the 
WGC 
(Warld 
Gold 
Council) believes 
the 
image 
ofgold 
is 
tarnished, 
hence 
the 
re-branding 
campaign. 
" (Honigsbaum, 200 
1, 
p. 
24). 
12 
I'Lastyear the 
WGC hired [Darcey] 
Bussell 
to 
show 
off 
its 
designs 
submittedfor 
is 
Gold 
Virtuosi 
awards at 
Goldsmiths 
hall 
andfollowed 
It 
up with 
an 
American 
print campaignjeaturingfull 
length 
photos 
of 
a 
laughing 
Bussell 
under 
the togline 
'Gold 
Fashioned 
Girls'. According 
to 
the 
WGC 
Its 
aim 
was 
to 
targetyoungfemale 
executives 
with 
a 
household 
income 
of$75,000 
+ 
not 
the 
sort 
of women 
in 
other 
words 
[who 
were] 
wiggling 
their 
butts, Jennifer 
Lopez 
style 
at a 
Puff Daddy 
concert. 
" 
(Honigsbaum, 
200 
1. 
p. 
24). 
Two 
years 
later, 
reflecting 
on 
whether 
the 
Gold 
Council's 
campaigns 
have 
worked 
The 
Guardian 
's 
Sophie 
Radice 
noted 
that 
"It 
so 
happens 
that 
Laura 
[a 
forty 
year old 
lawyer 
who 
lives 
in London] 
andlare exactly 
thesort 
of 
middle-class 
women 
in 
their 
20s, 30s 
and 
40s 
at whom 
the 
World 
Gold 
Council', 
$4m 
autumn 
advertising campaig? 
t 
'Speak 
Gold'is 
aimed" 
(Radice 
2003 
p. 
6). 
But 
continues 
to 
find 
it 
too 
'ostentatious' 
for 
her 
own 
taste. 
232 
26 
OLD BOND 
STREET 
- 
LONDON 
Wl 
46. 
Chanel 
advertisement, 
Vogue, 
early 
1980s. 
Versace 
advertisement, 
Tatler, November, 
2001, Volume 
296, 
Issue 
11, 
unpaginated. 
remaining, 
vulgar. 
83 
This 
mock 
affection 
for 
the 
degraded 
excessive 
and 
the 
overblown 
pastiche 
of 
working-class 
and women's 
taste 
is 
mirrored 
in 
developments 
in fashion from 
this 
period. 
Now 
seamlessly 
woven 
into 
mainstream 
fashion, 
punk can 
be 
seen 
as 
precipitating 
this 
ironic 
turn. 
In 
the 
field 
ofjewellery, 
the 
work 
of an 
American 
designer 
working 
some 
twenty 
years earlier 
was also 
a 
significant 
precursor. 
84 
By 
the 
1980s, 
adopting vulgar 
excess 
in 
parenthesis 
had 
been 
promoted 
vigorously 
in 
campaigns 
by 
couturiers 
including 
the 
erstwhile 
bastion 
of 
classic 
modernist 
good 
taste, 
Chanel. 
Whereas 
Lane's 
references 
were eclectically gathered 
from 
the 
jewels 
of 
the 
social 
elite, 
85 
Chanel's 
post-punk 
collections 
hinted 
at a movement 
towards 
play 
and 
appropriations 
of what 
were perceived 
to 
be 
elements 
of working-class 
style. 
In 
subsequent 
decades 
the 
spectacle 
of excessive, 
ironically 
worn 
Jewellery, 
referencing 
(working-class) 
costume 
jewellery 
or 
street 
style precedents 
became 
ubiquitous, 
fuelled 
by 
the 
mining 
of 
black 
music stars' ghetto 
fabulous 
uses 
of 
jewellery 
in 
the 
last 
three 
decades 
of 
the twentieth 
century. 
86 
The 
appropriation 
of unauthored working-class 
fashionings 
was 
unequivocally 
led by 
the 
couture 
fashion 
houses. 
" 
Despite 
their 
popularity, 
the 
fashion 
excesses of 
Cavalli 
and 
Versace had, 
until 
the 
late 1990s 
been 
deemed 
insufficiently 
self-mocking 
and 
ironic 
to 
be 
adopted 
by 
the 
British 
middle 
class 
fashion 
cognoscenti 
. 
88 
Dolce 
and 
Gabbana's 
work 
was 
frequently 
read 
as 
bosomy 
or 
" 
The 
work 
of 
artist 
Jeff 
Koons 
exemplified 
this 
'New 
Vulgarity'. Dorment 
wrote 
of 
Koon's 
early 
work: 
"The 
collectibles were 
the 
sort 
of 
wood 
or porcelain 
novelty 
items 
and 
'collectibles'sold 
on 
American 
daytime TV 
to 
women 
with 
big hair living 
in 
trailer 
parks. 
Koons 
had 
them 
enlarged 
by European 
master craftsmen, 
making 
them, 
ifpossible, 
more 
hideous, 
more 
outrageously 
camp 
than 
the 
models 
on which 
they 
were 
based 
" 
(Dorment, 
1994, 
p. 
18). 
84 
In 
1962, 
when 
Kenneth 
Jay Lane 
began 
working, costume 
jewellery had 
dubious, 
that 
is 
working-class 
connotations. 
Jewels 
were 
symbolic 
accessories 
worn 
only 
by 
the 
wealthy, 
Lane's 
shocking 
departure 
was 
to 
induce 
the 
upper classes 
to 
don 
costume 
jewellery 
"What 
made 
the 
[Lane 
designed] 
jewels 
so 
unusual was 
thefact 
that 
costumejewellery 
at 
that time 
was, 
in 
Lane's 
words, 
'jewellery 
to 
be 
given 
to 
the 
maid 
"- 
He 
made 
costume 
jewellery 
desirable 
in 
the 
highest 
echelons of society 
" 
(Becker, 
2001, 
P. 
11) 
From 
the 
outset, 
the 
post-modem 
tone 
in 
Lane's 
oeuvre 
is 
apparent. 
Appraising 
his 
career 
Becker 
wrote 
that 
his 
flamboyant, 
fauxjewel 
collections 
were 
originally 
designed 
to 
be 
worn 
"by his 
young, 
female, 
socialiteftiends, 
several 
at 
a 
time, 
with 
tongue 
in 
cheek 
opulence 
" (ibid. 
). 
" 
Chiefly 
copies 
of pieces 
owned 
by 
the 
Duchess 
of 
Windsor. 
' 
Identity 
bracelets, 
multiple 
ring 
wearing, 
two 
and 
three 
finger 
rings or 
'Dukie's', 
charm 
bracelets 
and nameplate 
necklaces 
were 
used 
by 
celebrities 
and 
stylists 
and 
reproductions 
proliferated 
in high 
street 
fashion 
outlets, 
but 
somewhat 
ironically 
the 
cultural 
gulf 
between 
high 
and 
low 
retailers, 
products 
and 
consumers 
remained 
polarised. 
Stylejournalist Sherwood 
illustrates 
this 
in 
a piece 
that 
focuses 
on 
the 
bourgeois 
appropriation 
of 
all 
things 
naff 
"Funky 
Soho 
boutique 
Shop 
is 
selling out 
of 
the 
gold 
'name'necklace 
beloved 
of 
Shazzas 
and 
normallyfound 
at 
Argos 
" 
(Sherwood, 1999, 
p. 
1). 
17 
The 
excess 
in 
couture 
fashions 
from 
the 
1980s 
on 
was widely 
attributed 
to the 
fashion 
hegemony 
of 
Italian designers. 
Miranda 
Levy 
heralded 
the 
rise of 
'The 
New 
Vulgarity' 
in 
fashion, 
where: 
"style 
setters 
[were] 
embracing vulgarity 
with 
total 
abandon 
". 
She 
noted 
of 
Robert 
Cavalli's 
2001 
show, 
that 
"Shameless 
vulgarity 
reigned 
supreme. 
In New York, ftont 
row occupants 
among 
them 
Puff 
Daddy 
and 
Busta 
Rhymes 
sported whitefur and 
diamonds. This 
is 
the 
New 
Vulgarity, 
the 
21" 
century 
trend 
where 
more 
is 
more 
and excess 
is 
again 
a 
measure of success 
" 
(Levy, 
200 
1, 
p. 
19). 
Cavalli 
has 
been dubbed 
the 
'King 
of 
Bling', 
and 
the 
Cavalli 
aesthetic 
"cash-addled 
high-class hooker 
sensibilities... 
extravagantly 
sleazy 
nouveau 
bling 
" 
(Vernon, 
2003, 
p. 
18). 1 
discuss 
bling 
later in 
this 
chapter. 
The 
work 
of 
Versace, 
Dolce 
and 
Gabbana 
and 
Moschino 
was 
frequently 
cast as a 
foil 
to the 
preppy, 
WASP 
hegemony 
of 
American 
designers Ralph 
Lauren, 
Calvin Klein from 
the 
late 1970s 
and 
the 
minimalism 
of 
Japanese 
couture 
characterised 
by Issey 
Miyake, 
and 
Commes des Garcons. 
88 
Compared 
to 
excessiveness 
of 
British 
designers. Westwood 
and 
Galliano's 
excesses 
are 
permitted 
on 
account 
of 
their 
transparent 
playfulness 
and 
post 
modernity 
against 
which 
Moschino's 
wit 
is 
perceived 
as 
laboured 
and more readily 
bootlegged. 
The 
understated 
Prada 
and 
Armani 
are relatively 
feted. 
Their 
vulgarity 
was 
inferred 
in 
critiques 
of 
Muicca 
and 
Gianni 
Versace 
and 
their 
opulent 
lifestyles. 
After 
Gianni Versace's 
murder, 
the 
Independent 
covered 
the 
auction 
of 
his 
estate. 
In 
an 
article 
entitled 
'Gianni 
Versace 
presents 
the 
car 
boot 
sale of 
the 
century', 
(Walsh, 
200 
1, 
p. 
3) 
Walsh 
suggested 
that 
"Only 
the 
most 
233 
meretricious, 
having 
at 
its 
source 
"the 
sartorial 
style 
ofthe 
Southern 
Italian 
matriarch" 
(Mulvey 
and 
Richards, 
1998, 
p. 
197). Cavalli's 
clientele 
was similarly 
vulgarised 
in broadsheet 
critiques, 
but, 
as 
demonstrated 
here, his 
excesses 
could 
be 
rescued, 
by 
the 
knowing 
and 
ironic 
inventiveness 
of 
'fashion 
folk': 
At 
his 
womenswear shows 
it is 
not 
unusual 
to 
see 
his 
fans 
- 
Milanese 
women 
of a certain 
age 
- 
kitted 
out 
like 
their 
daughters: 
all 
big 
blonde hair 
and 
treacle-coloured 
skin, 
proudly 
sporting 
the 
full Cavelli 
regalia at 
two 
in 
the 
afternoon. 
[ 
... 
] 
It 
is 
not 
only 
on 
the 
back 
of every 
big 
rock, 
pop 
and 
rap star, 
from 
Madonna 
to 
Mary 
J Blige 
[ 
... 
I but 
strangely 
fashion 
folk 
- 
traditionally 
the 
most resistant of 
all 
to 
colourfal, 
busy 
clothes. 
A 
pair 
of wildly 
embellished 
jeans 
or a 
brightly 
printed 
chiffon shirt 
is 
now considered 
de 
rigueur, 
worn 
ironically 
with 
a clapped 
out school 
blazer 
and a pair of 
scuffed 
high heels 
(Lowthorpe, 
2001, 
pp. 
25-28). 
89 
The 
widespread popularity, 
appropriation 
and 
bootlegging 
of 
Italian designer 
goods, 
typically 
distributed 
through 
market 
trade 
further 
vulgarised 
the 
Versace 
and 
D&G brands 
and 
lent justification 
to the 
bourgeois 
anxiety about 
such 
expressions 
of excess 
and 
the 
style 
cognoscenti's 
disaffection 
for 
them. 
In 
contrast, 
the 
high 
fashion industry's 
mock 
affectionate 
referencing 
of 
working-class 
and 
Black 
fashion 
excesses appeared 
to 
be 
transparently 
ajoke 
at 
the 
expense 
of 
the 
culturally 
unenlightened. 
Given 
the 
significance 
of 
fashioning in 
the 
demonisation 
of 
working-class 
women, 
high 
fashion 
designers 
and 
consumers play 
with such 
signifiers 
was 
fraught 
with risk. 
However 
disingenuously 
the 
appropriations 
of working-class 
fashionings 
were 
dressed 
up 
to 
appear celebratory 
or 
homages, 
the 
glossies 
made 
it 
apparent 
that there 
were 
dangers 
in 
the 
proximity 
of 
such 
styles 
to 
the 
original 
source. 
In 
an 
Elle 
feature 
in 
March 
2001 'Return 
of 
the 
Beauty 
Queen', 
Jan Masters deftly 
homogenised 
naff 
references 
for 
readers, 
and emphasised 
the 
artfulness 
involved 
in 
creating 
these 
pastiches. 
In 
contrast 
to 
the 
anonymity 
of 
the 
originator's 
of 
this 
look, 
their take 
was 
conspicuously authored. 
Guido, 
the 
most 
successful 
celebrity 
hairdresser 
post 
2000, 
and 
Masters 
were 
carefW 
to 
point out 
the 
risks 
of 
emulating 
the 
raw, 
disdained 
original 
too 
closely. 
90 
outrageously 
well-heelecl extravert 
and 
derangedlyflamboyant 
punters 
andjans 
need 
turn 
up". 
Observer journalist 
Lowthorpe 
has 
described 
Cavalli's 
style as 
the 
"slag-luxefashion 
choice 
ofthefootballer andfootballer's 
wife 
" 
(Lowthorpe, 
2003, 
p. 
16). 
11 
Lowthorpe 
also 
deployed here 
the 
notion of 
fashion 
matter out 
of 
place 
implying 
that 
the 
aware 
would 
know 
that 
it 
was 
only 
appropriate 
to 
wear 
Cavelli 
after 
dark. The 
article's 
title, 
'Happy 
Cavalli'- 
evoked 
the 
ambivalent 
model of 
the 
prosiness 
of 
the 
domestic 
and 
the 
seaside 
town/resort. 
" 
"Along 
with makeup, 
Orlando 
wanted 
to 
do 
brassy, 
brash 
hair: V 
thought 
about 
badperms 
but 
the 
Idea 
wasJust 
too 
horrible, 
so 
I 
decided 
to 
weave 
In 
streaks 
instead 
to 
make 
it 
look 
like 
a 
bad dyejob. 
Good 
call. 
[ 
... 
I 
Oh 
and 
the 
make-up. 
Fred 
Farrugia 
painted 
on 
sugar pink eye shadow 
and 
fuchsia 
lipstick, 
and 
Odile 
Gilbert 
went 
Carmen-roller 
crazy 
with 
the 
hair, 
scooping 
it 
all 
to 
one 
side 
and 
lacquering 
it 
to 
death [ 
... 
] 
Daniel 
Sandler, 
make-up 
artist 
stated 
Ihe 
beauty 
queen 
[... 
I 
typifies 
a 
particular 
kind 
ofaltainable, 
girl-next-door glamour. 
You know, 
how 
a 
Romford 
hairdresser 
wouldlook 
on 
her 
wedding 
day. 
'But 
after 
several 
seasons 
of 
perfectionist 
chic, and with all 
due 
respect 
to 
Romford, 
do 
we 
really 
want 
to 
head 
towards 
naffness? 
[ 
... 
I 
According 
to 
hairstylist 
Guido 
most women will 
get 
it, 
'The 
vulgarity 
isn't 
meant 
to 
offend- 
women 
really 
are 
confident enough 
to 
understand 
234 
Chessex 
girls 
are 
Sloanes 
on 
the 
slide 
I 
47. Liz Hurley 
fashions 
trash 
in 
'Chessex 
girls 
are 
Sloanes 
on 
the 
side', 
Sunday 
Times, 
June 
12003, 
page 
3. 
FASHION 
HoWto be 
pUre 
?ai?erkaSh 
The 
formula 
for 
fashioning 
trash, 
Elle, 
March 
2001, 
page 
274. 
By 
the 
late 
1990s 
the 
appropriation 
of white, 
working-class 
excessive 
fashioning 
had 
been 
distilled 
into 
the 
epithet, 
'Trailer 
Trash'. 
In July 2002 
Vogue 
attempted 
to 
define 
and endorse 
this 
look. 
The 
feature 
is baldly disingenuous in 
its 
avoidance 
of 
reality, 
of 
what 
happens 
to the 
female 
working 
class 
who 
attempt 
to 
move 
into 
positions 
of power 
whilst 
signalling 
trash, 
and 
perpetuates 
the 
strain 
of 
Modernism 
that 
exoticises 
the 
working class. 
91 
Restating 
the 
Cinderella 
motif, 
Bethan Cole 
claimed: 
"Glam 
while 
trash 
or 
GWT 
is 
a 
knowing 
take 
on what 
trailer 
park girls 
wear 
when 
they 
marry 
a 
millionaire; 
white and 
gold, 
tight 
and sexy. 
Think Dolly 
Parton 
meets 
Britney 
Spears. 
At 
the 
moment 
it 
feels 
like 
it is 
taking 
over 
the 
world" 
(Cole, 
2002, 
p. 
38). 
The 
feature 
promoted 
products 
that 
either pastiched, 
mimicked 
or 
rehashed 
(retro) forms 
of 
cheap 
popular 
products 
and 
fashions 
whilst 
"Tight 
clothes 
andjewellery 
[summed] 
up 
the 
style" 
The 
products 
aped 
a 
working-class 
trash/habitus 
with 
two 
critical 
differences 
insulating 
ironic 
consumers 
from 
the 
source; 
this trash 
was 
endorsed 
by 
designer 
authorship 
and 
was reassuringly 
costly. 
11 
Cole 
makes 
her 
case 
through 
her deployment 
of 
'snapshot 
scenarios'. 
She 
casts 
herself 
as an 
undercover 
agent 
suggesting 
that 
'Trash' 
was a sought 
after 
look 
located 
at 
the 
style 
cutting 
edge, 
that 
is, 
endorsed 
by 
stylists 
and 
Sarah Jessica 
Parker. 
9' 
Cole 
emphasised 
the 
knowing irony 
of 
the 
look 
as 
a 
form 
of 
dressing-up, 
by 
attributing 
its 
creation 
to 
the 
young 
British 
style 
aristocracy: 
"GWT began 
as 
the 
whiplash 
style 
gesture of 
mid-nineties 
fashion 
rebels. 
In 
Hoxton 
around 
1997, 
dressing 
up 
like 
a 
lap 
dancerftom 
a 
Georgia 
trailer 
park was 
the 
height 
of 
chic. 
Artist 
Sue Webster, 
designers 
Stella 
94 
McCartney 
and 
Phoebe 
Philo 
and a 
legion 
of 
Dazed 
and 
Confused 
stylists evolved 
the 
Look 
. 
She 
whenfashion 
is 
p*ing with 
pastiche. 
They know 
they 
canjust 
take 
what 
they 
wantfrom 
it 
- 
make 
their 
hairfuller 
orflirl 
with 
a 
more 
sexy 
look" (Masters, 
2001, 
p. 
168). 
Note here 
the 
slippage 
'women' 
used 
generically 
but 
meaning 
Elle 
reading 
cognoscenti. 
" 
The 
strap 
line 
stated 
"It's 
a small 
stepfrom 
Irailerpark 
to 
Park Avenue, 
says 
the 
American Dream. Glam 
white 
trash 
style 
is 
inspired 
by 
those 
who make 
the 
trip 
". 
92 
'Flash 
Your 
Trash' 
showcased 
products 
including 
Agent Provocateur 
lingerie 
(bra 
05, 
briefs 
08), 
a 
gold 
and 
diamond 
lucky 
horseshoe 
necklace 
(LI, 
250) 
and a 
gold plated 
charm 
necklace 
by White 
Trash Charms (from 
L 
100) The 
article 
was 
literally 
framed 
by 
personalities 
deemed 
to 
embody 
appropriate 
forms 
of 
trashiness 
including 
white 
rapper 
Princess 
Superstar, 
"afan 
of 
glam, 
white 
trash 
style 
" 
and 
Britney 
Spears 
"a 
starfirom 
the 
Deep 
South 
", 
alongside 
'trash 
exponents' 
Kid Rock 
and 
Pamela 
Anderson. 
For 
further discussion 
about 
the 
historical 
and 
popular cultural, 
race 
and 
class 
issues 
surrounding 
the 
origins 
and 
use 
of 
the 
terms 
'white 
trash', 
'redneck' 
and 
the 
demonisation 
of white working-class 
Southerners 
in 
modem 
US history 
see: 
Neal 
and 
Gregory, 
1997, 
p. 
230, Reed, 1997, 
passim, 
Campbell, 
1997, 
passim, 
and 
Chadwick, 
1997, 
p. 
263. 
" 
"Some 
snapshotsfrom 
the theme 
park ofgIan; while 
trash 
style. 
Saturday 
morning, 
Camden 
market: 
a stylistfor 
a well-known 
TVpresenter 
rifles 
through 
a rack 
of shoes. 
She has 
clumsily 
streaked 
long 
blonde 
hair 
with a 
heavyfringe, 
and 
wears 
baggy 
jeans 
with 
red cone 
heels 
and 
a milkshake-pink 
hoodie, 
'Look, 
how 
Vegas 
are 
these. 
9'she 
exclaims, 
lighting 
on a 
pair of 
white 
cowboy 
bootsfestooned 
with gold 
chains. 
'Pure 
glam 
white 
trash. 
"[ 
... 
]Sex 
in 
the 
City 
is 
on 
Channel 
4. 
Sarah 
Jessica 
Parker 
swings 
through 
uptown 
[ 
... 
I She's 
wearing 
hacked 
off 
bleached 
denim 
hot 
pants 
with 
a 
light, 
white 
halter 
neck 
and 
a sliver 
of 
gpId 
ankle 
bracelet " (i bid. 
p.. 
3 8). 
94 
The 
mythical 
trailer 
park aesthetic 
assumed 
to 
be 
at 
its 
source 
has 
recently 
been 
critiqued 
by 
a 
writer 
who grew 
up 
in 
America's 
Deep 
South. Noting 
the 
'sick' 
proliferation 
of 
trailer 
trash 
fashions 
in London's trendy 
Shroeditch 
Carrie 
Gibson 
writes: 
There 
seems 
to 
be 
some 
sort of assumption 
that 
these 
unfashionable poor 
people 
have 
chosen 
to 
live 
in 
a 
house 
on 
wheels 
to 
wear 
tacky 
clothes, 
to 
have 
out of 
date 
hairsj?vles. 
But 
here 
we choose 
to 
don 
a costume 
ofpoverty 
because 
we 
Can 
afford 
to 
I Why 
stop 
there? 
f 
... 
] 
Maybe 
a war zone 
look. Or 
refugee chic? 
[ 
... 
] 
What 
next: 
an 
ironic 
dinner 
party 
serving 
up 
Red 
Cross 
rice? 
" She 
predicts 
the 
return 
of 
the 
'scally 
craze' 
or 
"white 
trainers, 
goldiewellery 
and a shell suit... 
council 
estate 
chic" 
(Gibson, 
2003, 
p. 
26). 
235 
Eli 
1, 
ra: 
ks 
v"l, 
NG 
PHWOAi-? 
ACADEM'- 
AlrWie"s 
the 
Brit 
Fbck 
MLE 
QUIZ 
Howfashion 
fabulous 
are 
you 
really? 
'Friends 
are 
Osborne 
and 
A4and 
0 
Y 
A40 
re 
cover, 
A?Jje 
wrl 
Spri 
. 
ng, 
2003. 
--- --- - -I 
FEVER 
. 
-Divine 
to-die-for 
dre 
es 
-: 
Sportswear 
that's too 
stylh 
,- 
The 
new 
trends 
uncoverec 
NY, 
LONDON 
, 
Discover 
your 
;;; ? 
capital 
made 
clear 
that 
white 
trash 
were 
not 
the 
originators, 
Britney 
and 
Pamela Anderson 
et al 
were 
unconscious, 
their 
style 
discovered 
and 
interpreted 
through 
a 
British 
bourgeois 
lens. 
[In 
the 
heady 
early 
days in 
Hoxton] It 
felt like 
a game 
as 
much 
as 
a 
fashion 
gesture: 
who could 
find 
the 
most repugnant 
and 
revolting 
taboo 
of 
trailer 
park 
America 
and 
turn 
it into 
an emblem 
of 
cool.? 
[ 
... 
] 
GWT 
was a rebellion 
against a 
surfeit 
of good 
taste; 
a 
style 
in-joke 
with 
the 
perpetual 
punch 
line 
'that's 
so 
bad, 
its 
good 
(ibid. 
p, 
39). 
91 
Other 
popular 
but 
upmarket 
fashion 
magazines 
promoted 
the 
'Trailer 
Trash' 
look 
including 
Elle. 
in 
a 
fashion 
feature 
in 
Spring/Summer 2001 
the 
author 
attempted 
to 
fuse 
Trailer 
Trash 
with an 
Essex 
Girl/British 
Seaside 
Town/Goodtime 
Girl fonnula 
and 
restated 
British 
designer 
influences 
in 
constructing 
the 
look. 
96 
The 
so-called 
porno 
look 
that 
originated 
in 
the 
wake 
of 
the 
trailer trash 
vogue 
represented 
a 
further 
commodification 
and marketing 
for 
middle-class 
consumption 
of 
a style 
associated 
with 
working-class 
women. 
The 
Tatler's 
Summer 
Lichfield 
stated, 
'Get 
the 
porno 
look', 
in 
the 
November 
2001 
issue. In 
a 
characteristic 
simultaneous 
invoking 
and 
disavowal 
of 
the 
template 
for 
such 
highly 
classed 
looks, 
the tabloid 
and gossip magazine 
glamour 
model 
Jordan 
both 
heralded 
as 
the 
inspiration 
and 
disdained. 
Lichfield 
legitimated 
the 
appropriation 
in 
her 
own 
trend 
setting 
scenario. 
Another 
Thursday 
night at 
Attica 
and 
the 
girls are 
gathered 
round 
their 
table. 
Same faces, 
same 
chitchat, 
but 
amid 
the 
hair, heels 
and 
lip-gloss, 
there 
is 
a new 
greeting: 
'Babe! 
You 
look 
so 
pomo! 
' To 
say 
she 
looks 
porno 
is 
suddenly 
the 
highest 
compliment you 
can pay a 
girlfriend. 
93 
In 
an 
attempt 
to 
claim 
trash 
as 
a 
British 
phenomenon 
Cole 
stated 
that, 
"In 
the 
UK, 
two 
TV 
dramas, 
Footballers 
Wives 
and 
Cutting 
it, 
have 
made 
the 
lives 
of 
Essex 
girls and 
hairdressers 
compulsive 
viewing". 
In 
perhaps 
in 
the 
most 
implausible 
link, 
Cole 
found 
significance 
in 
the 
fact 
that: 
"Julien 
Macdonald, 
a 
designer 
ofsexily ostentatious 
clothesftom 
our 
very own 
Midwest 
(socially 
deprived South 
Wales) 
is installed 
as 
head 
designer 
at 
Givenchy 
" (Cole, 
2002, 
pp. 
38-39). 
' 
"The 
hottest 
holiday 
destination 
this 
summer will 
not 
be St Barts, 
St Tropez 
or 
St 
Lucia. 
IfJohn 
Galliano 
[British 
designer] 
has 
his 
way 
everyone 
will 
be 
staying 
at mother 
Ivys 
caravan 
park 
in 
Cornwall, 
tofit 
in 
with 
the 
Middle-American 
trailer 
trash-cum 
beauty 
queen 
trend 
so prevalent 
on 
the 
catwalk. 
Just 
don'tforgel 
your 
white 
stilettos, 
bleached denim 
miniskirt, 
string 
vest 
and 
tarty 
hairdo... 
" (Elie 
, 
unattributed 
author, 
200 
1, 
p. 
23). 
A 
punk 
Trailer 
Trash 
offshoot 
was 
promoted 
to 
more 
affluent girls 
and 
young 
women 
through the 
glossy 
Elle Girl, 
sub-title, 
'for 
girls 
who 
like 
to 
shop'. 
In 
the 
Spring 
2003 issue, 
cover 
stars 
Kelly 
Osboume 
and 
Mandy 
Moore discussed 
achieving 
the 
Prom 
Princess 
look 
complete with 
mock 
tiaras 
(Hughes, 
2003, 
p. 
30- 
34). Mock 
tiaras 
became 
ubiquitous amongst 
middle-class 
young 
women 
attempting 
to 
achieve 
a 
'New 
Vulgarity' look 
after 
Courtney Love first 
wore 
one with 
heavy 
irony 
and a 
vintage 
nightie 
in 
the 
early 
1990s, 
however, 
more recently 
tiaras 
were appropriated 
as 
a 
less 
ironic, 
more 
Royal/Vulgar 
Taste 
accessory 
by 
Victoria 
Beckham 
(discussed 
later 
in 
this 
chapter). 
Tiaras 
have 
been 
a 
component in 
mass 
produced 
girls' 
dressing 
up 
kits 
since 
at 
least 
the 
early 
1960s. An 
elaborate 
contemporary 
manifestation 
of 
their 
continuing 
popularity 
can 
be 
witnessed 
in 
the 
dressing 
up/Coronation/crowning/photography 
ceremonies 
enacted 
in Girl Heaven 
stores. 
Post-modem 
fashioning 
has 
recruited 
the 
concept 
of 
vintage as 
opposed 
to the 
discredited 
nostalgia. 
The 
offsetting 
of vintage 
with 
contemporary generates 
an 
illusion 
of 
disinterest 
in 
fashion. Consequently, 
Osboume's look 
"is 
a 
cute 
cornucopia 
of 
designer 
covetable, vintagefinds 
and 
homemade 
punk-trash 
trinkets" 
(ibid. 
p. 
33). Feminine 
excess 
is 
advocated within 
the 
frame 
of 
knowing, 
ironic 
eclecticism. 
These 
fashioning 
approaches 
promised 
to 
confer a 
degree 
of 
individuality 
even 
intelligence, 
as 
they 
simultaneously 
pastiched 
and 
critiqued 
the 
spuriousness 
of 
fake 
glamour. 
Osbourne's 
ostensibly 
innate 
post-modem 
eclecticism 
was 
highlighted. 
She 
rehearsed 
the 
Vogue 
perspective 
that 
non-ironic performances of 
feminine 
excess 
were 
inappropriate 
compared 
to 
a 
knowingly 
fake, 
queered 
play with 
excess 
"I 
like drag 
queen make-up, 
but 
not 
like 
Christina 
Aguilera!... 
To 
my prom 
I 
wore 
a scruffy 
pink 
ftilly 
vintage 
dress 
and 
then 
stuck pink rhinestones all 
over 
some 
Puma 
trainers 
to 
match 
" 
(ibid. 
). 
236 
Martin 
Kidman, 
picking up 
the 
club's 
tacky 
chic 
chose 
[Spearmint 
Rhino lap dancing 
club] 
as 
the 
venue 
to 
show 
his last 
collection. 
[ 
... 
] 
Jordan [ 
... 
] in 
all 
her 
top-heavy, 
G-string-flashing, 
pouting 
glory, 
has become 
our 
favourite, 
if 
unlikely, 
new 
style 
icon. 
[ 
... 
] 
you 
don't 
have 
to 
go 
the 
whole 
hog like Jordan 
- 
in fact, it's 
really 
not advisable. 
But 
there 
is 
no 
hann in 
toying 
with 
the trend 
(Lichfield, 200 1, 
p. 
74). 
The 
erasure 
or 
homogenisation 
of 
the 
original 
prom 
princesses, 
lap 
dancers, 
prostitutes, 
pole 
dancers, 
brides, beauty 
queens, glamour 
models and 
black 
and 
white 
trash 
is 
critical 
to the 
reinvention 
and 
discovery 
of such 
exotic 
but 
low 
styles 
by 
named 
designers 
and members 
of 
the 
self-appointed 
rock 
aristocracy. 
97 
Burchill 
has 
noted 
that 
whilst 
working-class 
women 
drew 
the 
wrath of 
broadsheet 
and 
Internetjournalists 
alike, 
they 
were 
frequently 
the 
authors 
and 
originators 
of 
lucrative 
forms 
of 
contemporary 
popular 
culture. 
98 
Beauty 
Queens 
- 
disdained, 
queered and appropriated 
Working-class 
women 
dominate 
a spectrum 
of 
disdained 
media and 
popular cultural 
fields 
and 
genres 
as 
Walkerdine 
(1997) 
has discussed; beauty 
queens 
have been 
arguably 
the 
most scorned 
outside 
the 
sex 
industries. 
99 
The 
demonisation 
of 
forms 
feminine 
excess elaborated 
in 
and 
for 
working- 
class 
cultural 
consumption 
and 
their 
paradoxical appropriation 
by 
middle-class 
audiences, 
fashion, 
media 
and 
beauty 
industries 
is illustrated in 
their 
recent 
ironic 
reclamation. 
The Miss 
World 
competition was a 
hugely 
popular 
post-war 
British 
TV broadcasting 
phenomenon. 
The 
beauty 
pageant 
model 
that 
had 
expanded 
into 
a global phenomenon 
by 
the 
end of 
the 
twentieth 
century 
has 
generated 
a 
divergence 
of cultural, 
social, 
anthropological, 
religious, 
collective 
and 
personal 
interpretations, 
and 
is 
one of 
the 
few 
popularly 
understood 
foci 
for 
Western 
feminist 
criticism, 
arguably one 
of 
the 
principal 
reasons 
for 
its 
(the 
contest's) 
virtual 
extinction 
in 
Britain. 
" 
The 
97 
Or 
a 
representative 
of 
both 
in 
the 
case of 
Stella 
McCartney. 
" 
"Strangely the 
very 
bits 
ofpopular 
culture 
suchjournalists worship 
and 
make 
a reasonable 
livingfrom 
-fashion, 
beat 
music, 
smart-ass 
TV- 
comefrom 
the 
working 
classes 
too. 
It 
is 
the 
middle 
class 
commentators, 
not 
the 
Kittens 
or 
the 
Big 
Brotherettes 
who 
are 
the 
parasites" 
(Burchill, 
2003). 
" 
Some 
would 
argue 
that this 
is but 
another 
facet 
of sex work. 
The 
frequency 
of prostitution, 
brothels 
and meretricious 
fashioning 
being 
appropriated, 
idealised 
and commodified 
in 
the 
art, 
music 
and 
fashions 
of 
the 
upper 
and middle-classes 
is 
too 
broad 
a subject 
to 
chart 
in 
this 
thesis, 
however, 
some 
left 
commentators 
from 
the 
1950s 
on 
have 
identified 
this theme 
in 
opera, 
film 
and 
popular 
music 
forms, 
for 
example, 
Newton 
notes 
"Among 
the 
more 
rebellious 
minorities, mainly 
ofintellectuals 
and artists 
[ 
... 
] 
the 
milieu 
ofgangsters 
pimps andprostitutes 
[ 
... 
] 
was simply 
more 
heroic, 
free, 
innocent 
and 
in its 
roundabout 
wag4just, 
because 
it 
was 
one 
ofoutcastr 
andprotesters 
against 
social 
convention. 
In 
terms 
ofJazz, 
J= is 
good 
music 
because 
it is 
believed 
to 
derive 
not 
simplyfrom 
Negroes bulfrom 
the 
red 
light 
district 
ofNew 
Orleans " (Newton, 
1959 
p. 
265). 
100 
Ballincro 
Cohen 
et 
al 
demonstrate 
the 
spectrum 
of 
political, 
social and 
cultural 
meanings 
of pageants 
globally, 
that 
resist a 
specific 
reductive 
analysis 
(Ballinero 
Cohen, 
1995). 
The 
competition 
retains 
the 
capacity 
to trigger 
the 
mobilisation 
of 
communities 
in international 
contexts. 
The 
event 
planned 
for Nigeria 
in 
2002 
was 
re-located 
to 
London 
after 
three 
days 
of 
rioting 
and 
the 
death 
of over 
100 
people 
after 
clashes 
between 
communities 
in 
the 
Christian 
South 
and 
the 
mostly 
Muslim 
North 
who 
were 
objecting 
to the 
Lagos 
based This Day's 
article 
that 
suggested 
that 
Islam's 
founding 
prophet 
would 
have 
chosen 
a 
wife 
from 
amongst 
the 
contestants 
(Asthill, 
2002). 
237 
I 
;? 
01 
: 
000 
00 
1 
: '. 
49. 
Julie 
Goodyear, 
Miss 
Britvic, 
in 
Queen 
of 
the 
Street, 
Sally 
Beck, 
1995, 
unpaginated. 
rowning 
ceremony an 
iconic 
apotheosis, 
was undertaken 
with 
the 
gravitas 
and 
attention 
to 
protocols 
iat 
characterised 
the 
staging of 
Royal 
events 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
"" 
Although 
for 
British 
audiences 
came 
to 
exemplify a rare validation 
of 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
naturalness 
is figuratively 
alluded 
to 
iroughout 
the 
highly formularised 
event 
format. 
102 
Although 
it had 
American 
precursors, 
The Miss 
World 
Contest 
was 
conceived 
by 
Eric 
Morley, 
i entrepreneur 
of 
British 
post-war popular 
entertainment. 
"'. 
The 
format 
proliferated 
in 
holiday 
imps, 
social 
and 
sports' clubs, 
factories, 
festivals 
and 
fairs. 
104 
Notwithstanding 
a 
feminist 
critique 
of 
the 
events 
as 
engineered 
spectacles 
for 
the 
male 
gaze, 
an 
empirical 
perspective 
suggests 
that 
for 
some 
participants 
and 
female 
audiences 
alike 
Miss 
World 
licensed 
unrivalled 
identification 
with and performances 
and 
consumption 
of 
forms 
of elaborate, 
fashioned 
femininity, 
and 
for 
some, a 
route 
to 
fame. 
"" 
Winning 
amateur 
beauty 
or 
talent 
competitions 
was also 
literally 
associated 
with glittering 
prizes. 
Aspiring 
Mancunian 
actor 
Julie 
Goodyear 
took 
this 
route 
to 
escape 
factory 
bound 
drudgery 
and 
single 
parenthood 
in 
the 
1960s. 
Goodyear 
entered 
many 
contests 
and 
started 
modelling 
in 
an 
effort 
to 
get noticed 
and 
make money. 
'06 
Her 
biographer 
Sally 
Beck 
noted 
"She 
accepted 
the 
crown 
and 
sceptre 
for 
Miss 
Astral, 
Miss 
Langley 
Football Club 
andMiss 
Aeronautical 
Society 
"(Beck, 
1995, 
p. 
77). 
"' 
Although 
I 
argue 
here 
that 
beauty 
queen 
excess 
has 
been 
appropriated 
and 
queered 
the 
programme 
itself has 
resisted 
the 
camp 
hegemony 
that 
has infected 
swathes 
of 
British 
popular 
culture 
to 
include 
the 
queering 
of 
Eurovision 
and 
even 
the 
notion 
of 
historical 
decades; 
The Sixties, 
The 
Seventies 
and 
The 
Eighties. 
A 
significant 
difference 
in 
Royal 
and 
Beauty 
coronations 
is 
in 
the 
televisually 
satisfying surfeit 
of 
emotion 
in 
the 
climax 
of 
the 
ritual of 
the 
latter. 
"' 
The 
paradox 
of artifice 
and naturalness 
is 
also 
at 
the 
root 
of 
the 
American 
pageant. 
The 
early 
promoters, 
sought 
to 
present 
their 
contestants 
as 
"natural 
and 
unsophisticated 
[ 
... 
J 
their 
publicity stressed 
that 
none 
of 
the 
entrants 
wore make-up 
or 
bobbed 
their 
hair 
- 
symbols 
of 
1920s 
modernity 
" (Watson 
and 
Martin, 2000, 
p. 
117). 
In 1938, 
Claire 
James 
was 
denied 
the 
crown 
because 
it 
was 
discovered 
that 
she 
had 
worn mascara 
(ibid. 
p. 
108) 
The focus 
for 
significant 
actions 
by feminists 
in 
US 
and 
Britain 
in 
the 
early part 
of second 
wave 
feminism, Watson 
and 
Martin have 
noted of 
pageants 
that 
"one 
of 
the 
grealparadoxes 
of 
American 
women's 
history 
is 
that 
the 
pageant 
wasfirst 
held 
in 
the 
same 
year 
that 
women 
were 
allowed 
the 
vote 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
107). 
1"3 
A 
quasi-traditional 
annual 
event, 
it 
remained embedded 
in 
British 
working-class 
popular 
culture 
until 
the twenty-first 
century. 
Asked to 
create 
an event 
to 
publicise 
the 
Festival 
of 
Britain. 
Morley, 
who 
also 
introduced 
commercial 
bingo 
to 
Britain, 
was also 
the 
creator 
of 
Come 
Dancing. 
"' 
Butlin's 
holiday 
camps, 
attracting 
millions of working-class 
families 
annually 
across 
Britain 
held 
Holiday 
Princess 
competitions 
nationwide 
from 
at 
least 
the 
start of 
the 
1960s 
(Herald, 
200 
1, 
p. 
25). 
Elizabeth 
remembered 
coming 
second 
in 
a 
"Miss 
Something 
or other contest... 
It 
was a youth 
club 
beauty 
contest 
at 
16, 
it 
was 
youth 
club, 
Doncaster 
Youth 
Club beauty 
queen 
and 
I 
certainly 
didn'tfeel 
equipped at allyou 
know 
there 
were girls 
at 
the 
Youth 
Club 
who 
were 
very skilled 
at 
making 
themselves 
beautiful 
but 
I 
had 
no 
skills at allyou 
know 
I 
wasn'lpracticed 
in 
any 
of 
those 
things 
and 
Ijust do 
not 
know 
why, 
you 
know, 
i 
certainly 
didn'tfeel beautiful 
at 
thatpoint, 
not 
attractive even, 
but 
I 
was 
persuaded 
byyou 
know, [Laughter] 
these, 
my 
pals 
at 
the 
Youth 
Club 
to 
go 
in 
I 
was 
pushed 
into it 
basically... 
" 
"" 
Walkerdine 
has 
claimed 
that 
singing and 
dancing 
are 
also 
amongst 
the 
narrow 
number 
of 
fields 
where working-class 
girls 
can 
imagine 
an 
escape 
to 
fame, 
talents 
"from 
which 
the), 
have 
not automatically 
been 
excluded 
by 
virtue 
of 
their 
supposed 
lack 
of 
intelligence 
or culture 
" 
(Walkerdine, 
1997, 
p. 
50). Winnie's 
experience of 
working 
on 
the 
elaborate 
fairy 
tale 
hair 
fashionings 
of 
Miss 
Universe 
contestants 
in Miami 
in 
the 
mid 
1960s 
remained 
a 
cherished 
memory, 
and 
her 
account 
conveys 
the 
allure 
of 
glamour 
for 
some 
of 
the 
young 
women 
associated with 
the 
event 
"it 
was 
like 
being 
on 
the 
set ofa 
movie 
". 
" 
Her 
character 
in 
Coronation 
Street, 
'Bet Lynch' 
was 
also given 
a similar 
history, 
born 
in 
1940, 'Bet' (Nown, 
1985, 
p. 
49) 
was 
a 
local 
beauty 
competition winner, 
In 1955 
she 
became 
Miss Weatherfield (Little, 
1993, 
p. 
29). 
238 
Who 
wou, 
fd 
win 
t?e 
pop 
Mi88 
Wopfd 
GoRtest 
? 
Every 
year. 
without 
fail, 
more 
than 
half 
the 
population 
of 
the 
British 
Isles 
watch 
the 
Miss 
World 
contest on 
television. 
It's been described 
as 
"like 
a cattle 
market" 
but 
no matter-the 
fuddie- 
duddies 
can 
have 
their 
say 
while 
the 
rest of 
us 
tune 
in 
and watch. 
But 
supposing 
the 
Miss 
World 
contest 
was 
res- 
tricted 
only 
to 
girl singers 
... 
then 
who would carry 
off 
the 
title? 
An intriguing 
thought, 
says 
1. 
And 
at 
the 
risk 
of 
being 
tom 
limb from limb, 
I'll 
put 
down 
a 
few 
personal 
thoughts. 
First, 
let's 
say 
that 
some 
of 
the 
world's 
finest 
singers are 
by 
no means 
pretty 
to 
look 
at. 
But 
then 
again, some 
of 
the 
prettiest 
girls are 
by 
no 
means 
good 
to 
listen 
to. 
With 
these 
excuses 
in 
mind, 
let's 
explore 
a 
little 
... 
How 
about 
Nancy Sinatra? 
The dynamic 
American 
is 
around 
the 
thirty 
mark 
now, 
but 
the 
years 
don't 
show. 
She 
has 
one 
of 
the 
best 
pairs of 
legs in 
the 
business-I 
can 
testify to 
that 
because 
I've interviewed 
her 
several 
times 
and 
she 
was 
always 
in 
the 
miniest of 
mini-dresses. 
She 
also 
has 
a 
tremendous 
personality. 
bubbling 
away 
like 
a 
Dresden 
cauldron. 
She'd 
come 
high in 
the 
world 
ratings. 
But 
what 
about 
our 
own 
Lulu 
girl 
who 
crashed 
into 
the 
pop world 
with 
a record 
"Shout" 
but has 
since 
(a) 
got married 
and 
(h) 
found 
maturity 
50. 
Dusty 
featured 
in 
'Who 
would 
win 
the 
pop 
Miss 
World 
contestT, 
Albert 
Hand, in 
Pop Weekly, 
Teenbeal 
annual, 
1971, 
page 
88. 
BU[99 
HUPER 
M GLAD 
WE 
FOR 
THIS I 
SIS 
EVEN 
T 
'T , 
-N 0. " 
A 
WEE 
YOUNG 
Sue 
Collins 
is 
an 
holiday 
at 
Sotithsea, 
with 
her 
older 
, 
ister, 
Carol, 
who 
has looked 
after 
her 
since 
their 
parents 
died. 
IT 
WAS 
ALL 
m" 
v 
i STILL. 
T? 
T. 
", 
t 
... SL 
back 
to the 
boarchng house. 
L' 
LOOK AjRTFHjI' 
FO YOU 
ENT OR 
ROW? IM SU?IYF, 
DO WFLt 
is 
Ca"A 
to 
ei 
fti 
for 
the 
contest. 
JUDGES AVE HAD 
THEIR 
FINAL 
LOOK 
?CTI-I'P 
TIIE 
GIXS 
AND WE NOW AWAIT THEIR 
ir 11, 
N A H', 
jMIIW 
OH. 
PLEASE 
LET 
-r 
CAROL 
WIN' 
j 
30 
delight Carol 
was chosen as 
Miss 
Sunshine. 
When 
the 
presentation 
was over 
) 
()I[) IT 
GAF OL OH. 
I JUST 
i0L 
WS T 
F-O. - 
IA 
r 
KNEW 
YOU 
W11. I. 
LI, T-7? 
I 
Ile 
I 
Just 
then 
ORGANISERS 
OF THIS CONTES' 
I WAS 
WONDERING WHETHER 
OU "AD IDEAS 
ABOUT A 
)?FL, 
JTURE IN 
THE 
BEAUW 
I 
CONTEST 
BUSINESS ') 
MYSI 
iF 
ANI) 
HE 
HE'S 
FOR 
F 
IF 
IY 
POUNDS 
I 
w2f?? 
IS MY 
FIRST 
THOUGHT 
A 
5 1. 
Extract 
from 
'She's 
a 
super-looking 
sister, 
in 
Diana. 1br 
Girls 
annual, 
1974, 
unpaginated. 
In 
Goodyear's 
early competition 
training the 
alchemy 
for 
a 
specific 
form 
of 
excessive 
and 
glamorous 
femininity, 
with somewhat audaciously 
regal 
undertones 
was absorbed. 
A 
local 
weekly 
paper 
noted 
an early 
success 
in 
1965 
when 
Goodyear 
was 
23. 
"' 
By 
the 
1970s, 
the 
Beauty Queen 
construct 
had 
been 
absolutely 
imbricated 
into 
British 
popular 
culture 
and was referenced 
in 
an array 
of girls' 
texts. 
"' 
The 
influence 
of 
the 
first 
British 
Women's 
Liberation 
demonstrations 
at 
the 
Albert 
Hall 
Contest 
of 
1970 
is imperceptible in 
these 
texts. 
Feminists 
had 
disrupted 
the 
proceedings 
with 
rattles, 
stink 
bombs, 
tomatoes 
and 
flour-filled 
balloons. 
Historian 
Sally 
Alexander, 
a 
demonstrator 
arrested 
on 
the 
night 
has 
claimed 
that 
it 
was not 
the 
beauty 
contestants 
that 
were 
the 
focus 
for 
the 
action: 
The 
demonstration 
was 
not 
against 
the 
contestants 
at 
all... 
that's 
an 
important 
point. 
For 
the 
young women who 
wanted 
to 
enter 
a 
Miss 
World 
contest, 
it 
was a 
way 
out, 
it 
was exciting, 
it 
was 
fun 
- 
that 
was 
their 
choice. 
It 
was 
Mecca's 
activities 
we were 
opposed 
to. 
As 
we were 
arrested 
and 
dragged 
out, we 
bumped 
into 
the 
contestants, 
most of 
whom 
were 
very 
nice 
to 
us, 
and 
said, 
'let 
them 
alone, 
they're 
only 
having 
their 
say'- 
that 
kind 
of 
stuff 
(Wood, 
200 
1, 
p. 
I). 
Any 
potential 
for dialogue between 
feminists, 
beauty 
queens and 
the 
Mecca 
management 
were 
subsumed 
by 
political and 
business 
expediencies 
and 
the 
action 
became 
canonised 
as 
a symbolic 
feminist 
ideological 
confrontation; 
of 
the 
conscious 
versus 
false-consciousness, 
of 
feminine 
artifice 
107 
"A 
week's 
royal 
treatment 
in 
one 
of 
Blackpool's 
leading 
hotels began 
last 
Fridayfor 
model 
Miss 
Julie Goodyear. 
Besides 
VIP 
wining 
and 
dining, 
she 
will 
be 
guest 
of 
honour 
at a 
late 
night 
ball 
- 
all 
part 
of 
her 
prizefor winning 
the 
'Miss 
Britvic'contest. 
[ 
... 
I Julie 
won 
the title, 
in 
theface 
of compelitionfromfifty 
other 
modelsfron; 
all 
over 
the 
country, 
all 
tryingfor 
the 
glittering 
firstprize, 
which, 
in 
addition 
to 
the 
week 
in 
Blackpool, 
includes 
a substantial 
amount 
ofmoney 
andan 
evening 
dress. 
During 
her 
week 
in 
Blackpool, 
Julie 
paraded 
through the 
streets 
on afloat 
wearing 
her 
sash 
and crown, 
and 
wore 
the 
evening 
dress, 
Grecian-style in 
white 
tricel, 
at 
the 
ball" 
(Heywood 
Advertiser, 
23 
July 
1965 
cited 
in Beck, 
1995, 
p. 
76). 
Goodyear 
also 
invested in 
a course 
at 
the 
Manchester 
branch 
of 
the 
Lucie 
Clayton 
modelling agency, 
her 
conduit 
to 
stardom 
in 
Coronation 
Street. Pam Holt, 
the 
manager of 
the 
Northern 
branch 
when 
Goodyear 
attended 
has 
stated: 
"In 
those 
days 
to 
go 
on 
the 
[fashion 
or 
beauty] 
catwalkyou 
had 
to 
learn 
how 
to takeyour 
hat 
off, 
how 
to 
modelwith 
an 
umbrella, 
how 
to 
take 
gloves 
off 
andhow 
to 
useyour 
hands. 
Art 
the 
end of 
the 
course 
you 
graduatedat 
afashion show"'(Holt 
in Beck, 
1995, 
pp. 
78-79). 
This 
reflects 
the 
advice 
in 
Clayton's World 
of 
Modelling 
and 
how 
to 
get 
the 
London 
model-girl 
look 
(Clayton, 
1968). 
Arriving 
at 
her 
interview 
"plastered 
in 
make-up 
" 
with 
a 
beehive hairdo 
and 
wearing a 
tight 
short 
skirt 
and red 
stilettos 
Goodyear 
later 
claimed: 
"I 
wanted 
some 
of 
the 
rough 
edges 
knocked 
off me 
" 
(Goodyear 
quoted 
in 
Beck, 1995, 
p. 
78). Bourdieu 
has 
read 
the 
existence 
of 
'charm 
schools' 
as 
inherently 
classed 
where 
working-class 
girls 
are 
taught 
to 
radically 
transform 
their 
ways 
of 
walking, 
talking, 
sitting 
laughing, 
smiling, 
dressing 
etc. 
(Bourdieu, 
1979, 
p. 
206). Beck 
notes: 
"The 
northern 
branch 
was 
different 
to the 
London 
establishment, 
afinishing 
school which 
taught 
shorlhandand 
typing, 
cooking 
anddeportment 
andgrooming 
to 
daughters 
of 
the 
middle-class 
". According 
to 
Goodyear's 
contemporary 
Carolyn 
Beck 
"It 
was afind-yourself- 
a-husband-school". 
Lucy 
Clayton's 
in Manchester 
concentrated 
on 
training 
girls 
with 
ambitions 
to 
model 
(Beck, 
1995, 
p. 
78). 
They 
provided 
Granada 
Television 
with 
extras where 
Julie 
got 
her 
first 
breaks 
(Beck, 
1995, 
p. 
84). 
108 
For 
example, 
the 
Pop 
Weekly 
Teenbeat 
annual, 
of 
1971 
asked 
of 
Dusty 
and 
her 
contemporaries, 
'Who 
would 
win 
the 
Pop 
Miss 
World 
contestT 
In 
the 
comic 
strip 
'She's 
a 
Super 
Looking 
Sister' from 
the 
Dianafor 
Girls 
annual 
of 
1973 
The 
Miss 
Sunshine 
Beauty 
contest 
held in 
the 
cheap 
holiday 
destination 
Southsea 
provided 
a 
route 
for 
orphaned 
Carol 
and 
her 
sister 
to 
escape 
poverty 
through 
further 
contests and 
modelling 
work. 
Unscrupulous 
contest 
organiser 
George 
Moore 
attempts 
to 
exploit 
Carol 
financially 
but 
she 
is 
saved 
from becoming 
vain and 
spoilt 
by 
a 
car accident, 
subsequent 
facial 
scarring and 
the 
ministrations 
of 
handsome Doctor Reid 
after which 
she 
becomes 
a 
hospital 
beautician 
working 
to 
build 
the 
confidence 
of 
other 
facially 
disfigured 
patients. 
Walkerdine 
has 
discussed 
how 
the 
fictions 
and 
fantasies 
played 
out 
in 
the 
comic 
book 
stories 
for 
girls 
are 
class 
specific 
and 
"run 
counter 
to 
middle-class girls'expeclations 
and assumptions 
about girlhood" 
(Walkerdine, 
1997, 
p. 
5 
1), 
She 
noted 
the 
prevalence of 
orphans 
in 
this 
genre, 
"It 
was 
amazingjust 
how 
many 
of 
the 
stories 
[in 
an examination 
of girls, 
comics 
from 
the 
1970s] 
presented 
their 
heroines 
as 
orphans 
[ 
... 
I Poverty 
then, 
remains 
understood 
as 
cruel and 
oppressive 
circumstances 
in 
which 
cruel people 
exploit and 
oppress 
poor 
orphans 
who 
are 
rather 
left 
to 
struggle 
alone against 
this 
oppression 
" 
(i 
bid. 
p. 
4 7). 
239 
52. 
Diva'S 
queered 
queens: 
Writer 
and 
DJ Valerie 
Mason-John 
began 
dubbing 
herself 
*Queenie' 
around 
the 
time 
of 
her hosting 
of 
the 
Lesbian 
Beauty 
Contest, 
1999, 
featured 
on 
the 
cover 
of 
Diva, 
January/February, 
1999. 
Parminder 
Sakhon 
and 
Poulomi 
Desai, 
the 
'queens 
of 
British 
Asian 
photography' 
featured 
on 
the 
cover 
of 
Diva, 
September, 
2002. 
indicted 
by 
the 
natural woman, 
the 
exploited 
versus 
the 
liberators. 
'O' 
This 
germinal 
feminist 
protest 
was 
understood 
by 
the 
left 
as a repudiation of 
sexism 
articulated 
as 
a 
form 
of 
both 
feminine 
excess 
and 
working-class 
consumption 
of popular 
culture. 
In 
the 
early 
1970s 
a notion 
of 
femininity 
in 
crisis 
was 
forged 
where 
a 
dyad 
of attitudes was 
represented 
in 
both 
left 
media 
and 
feminist 
texts; 
a rejection 
by 
feminists 
of a working-class 
form 
of 
feminine 
excess 
on 
the 
one 
hand, 
and 
a 
volte-face 
by 
some 
gay 
men, 
from 
a political 
rejection of camp 
as a pejorative 
identity 
to 
an almost 
ironic 
assertion 
of 
camp 
and 
drag 
as 
a 
gay 
male 
prerogative. 
' 10 
From 
the 
1980s, 
queer 
ironic 
play 
with 
kitsch, 
camp 
and 
feminine 
excess 
became 
the 
default 
gay 
political position, 
conceptualised 
and 
validated 
in 
academic 
work 
and personified 
by 
a 
heightened 
visibility of 
(gay) 
male 
(popular) 
arts and 
media 
personalities 
playing 
with 
drag. 
"' 
Diva, 
the 
first 
glossy 
British 
lesbian 
lifestyle 
magazine, 
contributed 
to the 
queering 
of 
beauty 
queens 
through 
its 
extensive 
promotion 
and coverage 
of 
the 
Lesbian 
Beauty 
contest. 
Launched in 
1997, 
the 
contest 
ruptured 
further 
the 
divide between 
lesbian feminists 
and 
their 
opponents. 
"' 
Diva had 
been 
launched 
three 
years 
earlier 
during 
the 
white 
heat 
of 
media 
interest 
in 
so-called 
lipstick 
lesbianism. 
The 
title, 
Diva, 
unlike 
its 
predecessor 
Sappho 
was consciously 
referencing 
camp 
appropriations 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
Although 
ostensibly 
rejecting 
the 
reductive 
anti-fashioning 
rhetoric 
of 
the 
second 
wave, 
Diva 
sustained 
through 
its 
regular 
fashion 
spreads and advertising 
a modernist, 
feminist 
and 
punk/queered 
" 
Julia 
Morley, 
now 
the 
competitions' 
producer 
has 
said of 
the 
demonstrations: 
"I 
had 
a 
lot 
of 
sympathyfor 
Women's 
Lib... 
the 
only 
thing 
that 
Ifound 
very 
difficult 
was 
that they 
didn't 
actually come 
to 
see me or 
talk 
to 
me. 
At 
the time, 
I 
was 
actually 
very 
much 
involved 
and 
trying 
really 
hard 
to 
change 
things, 
but 
it 
takes 
lime 
" 
(Wood. 
200 
1, 
p. 
1). 
Although 
the 
political 
views 
of 
specific 
contestants 
have 
increasingly 
been 
made visible 
(a 
number 
boycotted 
the 
2002 
Nigeria 
event 
in 
protest 
at 
the 
sentencing 
of 
stoning 
handed 
out 
to 
unmarried 
mothers), 
feminist 
protests 
against 
the 
competition continue 
to 
occur 
in 
global 
contexts. 
A 
male 
feminist 
activist 
immolated 
himself 
in 
a 
protest against 
the 
competition 
in Bangalore in 
1996 
(Mann, 
2001, 
p. 
15). 
1" 
Assisted 
by 
and 
informing 
the 
ferninisation 
of mainstream 
pop 
culture 
typified 
in 
the 
fashioning 
of 
bohemian 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
by Bowie, 
Bolan, 
Ronson, 
Slade 
etc. 
'11 
For 
example: 
Michael 
Clark, 
Lily 
Savage, Julian Clary, 
Leigh Bowery, 
Boy 
George. Marilyn, 
Pete Bums, 
Eddie 
Izzard, 
Elton 
John, 
Steve 
Coogan, 
etc. 
Alternative, 
annual pageants 
infused 
with 
a parodic, 
ironic 
and 
queer 
sensibility 
proliferated 
following 
artist 
Andrew 
Logan's 
precedent, 
the 
Alternative 
Miss 
World, 
established 
in 
1972. 
Logan has 
claimed 
that 
"The 
model 
was 
not 
the 
Mecca 
Miss World 
but 
the 
Crufts Dog 
Show " 
and 
reflected 
through 
a somewhat 
queered 
nostalgia 
that 
"gender 
became 
ambiguous 
and 
reality 
dissolved 
at 
the 
edges" 
(http: 
//www. 
alternativcinissworld. 
com) 
The 
alternative, 
spoofed 
beauty 
pageant 
was 
even 
dramatised 
in 
an 
off-Broadway 
theatre 
production, 
Pageant, 
in 2000. In 
his 
review 
Michael Billington 
criticised 
the 
saturation 
levels 
of camp 
on 
the 
London 
stage 
by 
the 
end 
of 
the twentieth 
century: 
"The 
reason 
that 
Pageant 
[ 
... 
] 
palls 
after a while 
is 
that, 
having 
struck 
camp, 
it 
has 
nowhere 
much 
to 
go. 
It 
parodies 
the tacky 
vacuity 
of 
beauty 
pageants 
by 
casting 
men as 
the 
rival 
contestants. 
[ 
... 
I 
Thefirst 
night 
the 
prize rightly 
went 
to 
Leon 
Maurice 
Jones 
as 
Miss 
Industrial 
North ". His 
critique 
fuses 
anti 
Americanism: 
"we 
are 
rapidly 
turning 
into 
a cultural 
colony 
of 
the 
US " 
and 
an anti excess, 
pro-realist 
stance: 
"While 
spoofing 
beauty 
contests 
the 
show 
clearly 
delights 
in 
their 
tasteless 
dicor, 
their 
absurd 
pretensions, 
their 
innate 
chauvinistic 
competitiveness 
[ 
... 
I 
on such 
evenings 
Ifind 
mysellyearningfor 
the 
unironed 
reality 
and 
the 
oxygen 
ofauthentic 
passion. 
Camp 
is 
undeniably 
part 
ofthealre, 
but 
if 
it 
becomes 
the 
whole part 
then 
you 
get 
hermetic 
enervation. 
Better 
I'd 
have 
thought, 
the 
grim 
reality 
of 
the 
kitchen 
sink 
than 
the 
sel(delighting 
mockery 
of 
sinking 
kitsch " 
(Billington, 
2000). 
111 
Political 
debates had 
proliferated 
from 
the 
birth 
of 
the 
movement 
for 
example. 
the 
status 
of 
hutch 
and 
femme 
identities 
- 
these 
are 
positively 
promoted 
in 
the 
contest 
(awards 
are given 
to 
Miss Butch, 
Miss 
Femme, 
etc. 
) but 
intensified 
and proliferated 
in 
the 
wake 
of 
gay 
men's precedent 
in 
playing 
with 
gender signification. 
The 
media's 
unabated 
delight 
in 
the 
notion 
of 
lipstick 
lesbians 
and 
the 
promotion 
of 
so-called 
lesbian 
chic reaching 
saturation 
point 
in 
1994, 
fuelled 
antagonisms 
further. 
The 
epithet 
Lipstick 
Lesbianism 
ironically 
highlights 
a 
former 
contradiction 
in 
terms. 
The 
sources 
for 
lipstick 
lesbianism 
are extensive 
and 
ongoing 
but 
see 
for 
example, 
Briscoe 1994a 
passim, 
Sue O'Sullivan, 
1994. 
O'Kelly 
1994. 
Briscoe 1994b, Hamer 
and 
Budge, 
1994 
240 
RETURN 
OF 
THE 
BEAUTY 
QUEEN 
Dig 
out 
those 
old 
Carmen 
rollers, 
beauty 
queen 
glamour 
is 
back 
on 
the 
runway 
and on 
film. 
Jan 
Masters 
asks 
the 
experts 
how 
to 
carry 
off 
that 
tiara 
" 
hl?sctv, 
e 
i, 
it- 
T-, 
?I 
he 
ftashlights. 
The 
swaying 
hips, 
T 
-'?"-mbhng 
lips. Those 
white stilettos. 
)it 
I 
it 
it, 
I 
was mesmensed 
by 
Miss 
VVoria 
when 
I 
was a 
little 
gid. 
I 
adored 
that 
surreal 
swimsurt parade 
-a 
conveyor 
beft 
of 
fixed-grinned 
Barbies, 
all 
dressed 
for 
the 
beach, 
but 
with 
their 
hair 
and 
feet 
dressed 
for 
the 
office. 
I 
was riveted 
by 
the 
voiceovers 
telling 
us 
Miss 
Tahiti 
was 
36-24-35, 
and a 
botany 
student 
with 
a 
talent 
for fir&eab-q 
and 
i, 
d, 
ro 
ss 
i? 
),, 
3t), 
N&, 
& i, 
l 
hostess but 
in 
her 
spare 
time 
trained 
penguins 
to 
work with 
the 
blind 
But 
most 
of all, 
I 
loved 
that 
drum-roll 
of 
a 
moment when 
the 
winners 
were announced 
in 
reverse 
order and 
the 
cameras 
swung 
backstage 
to 
watch 
the 
Queen 
Of Global 
Loveliness 
plucked 
from 
the 
huddle 
of 
Miss 
Didn't-Quite-Make-Its Gasping 
at 
her 
good 
fortune, 
she 
was 
shown to 
her 
throne, 
crowned 
and 
kissed by 
some 
dodgy 
old 
x- 
53. 
'Return 
of 
the 
beauty 
queen', 
Jan 
Masters, 
Elle, March 
2001, 
page 
167. 
inspired 
taste. 
113 
The 
queer queen 
theme 
was 
evident 
in 
Diva's 
fashion features 
and cover 
images, 
for 
example, 
'All 
Jubileed 
Out', 
to 
coincide 
with 
the 
Queen's 
Golden 
Jubilee, 
an 
image 
that 
reprised 
a 
punk, 
anti-Jubilee 
aesthetic 
and rhetoric 
with 
a nod 
to 
contemporary 
fashion's 
obsession 
with pageant 
trash. 
These 
new 
Queens 
were 
also 
strongly referencing 
their 
identification 
with male 
drag 
queens 
precedent 
in line 
with 
the 
widespread relinquishing 
of authorship 
of 
feminine 
excess 
to 
gay men. 
The 
phenomenal 
popularity 
of camp 
for 
media 
audiences 
from 
the 
1990s 
followed 
in 
the 
wake 
of 
the 
reappropriation 
of excess 
by 
queer 
communities. 
' 14 
A 
queered 
stance 
on 
feminine 
excess, 
camp 
and 
kitsch 
became 
widespread 
and 
was 
inflected in 
British 
and 
American broadsheetjoumalism. 
"' 
Nowhere 
is 
the 
artful, 
ironic 
appropriation 
of 
beauty 
queen excess 
in 
the 
queeredfin 
de 
siecle 
more 
obsessively 
at work 
than 
in fashion 
journalism, 
again 
evident 
across 
an 
array 
of 
British 
publications. 
In 
his 
article, 
'Pageant 
Provocateur, beauty 
parades 
are 
fashion's 
new 
fascination', 
John 
Davidson 
wrote: 
Such 
flesh-fests 
are 
a 
recurring 
inspiration for 
the 
great 
Italian 
designer 
duo, 
Dolce 
and 
Gabbana. And 
John 
Galliano 
has 
plundered 
their 
iconic 
paraphernalia 
of 
title 
sashes, 
coronets 
and 
entrant 
numbers 
(together 
of course 
with 
the 
obligatory 
skimpy 
swimsuits) 
for his 
radical 
overhaul 
at 
Christian 
Dior. Yet 
these 
designers 
are 
not striving 
to 
legitimise 
beauty 
pageants. 
The 
genres 
trashy 
glitz and 
kitsch 
has 
simply 
provided 
a 
starting 
point 
for 
runway 
shenanigans 
[ 
... 
] 
the 
glitzy 
kitsch 
epitomised 
by 
the 
American 
beauty 
pageant circuit 
is 
just 
another 
rich 
seam 
of 
iconic 
and 
ironic 
materials 
for 
designers 
to 
mine 
(Davidson, 
2001, 
p. 
11). 
116 
The 
excess 
of 
the 
other 
is 
simultaneously 
demonised, 
in 
its 
original 
unconscious 
state, 
and 
fetishistically 
extolled 
in 
the 
designer's 
discovery 
and 
recovery 
of 
it 
for 
ironic 
purposes. 
"' 
For 
example, 
in 
an 
issue 
entitled, 
'Shopping 
till 
she 
drops', 
the 
writer 
asked, 
'What 
do Diva dykes 
wantfor 
Christmas 
- 
we ve 
chosen 
afew 
things 
andfour 
lesbian 
stereqvpes 
to 
help 
you 
with 
your 
list 
making: 
'Politically 
correct 
lesbian 
', 
'urban 
lesbian', 
'kather 
and 
lace 
lesbian'and 'rainbow, 
lesbian'. 
" The 
model, modelling 
each 
stereotype 
wore 
for 
each 
shot 
the 
same 
sleepers 
and 
stud 
earrings 
and silver 
pinky 
ring with 
the 
exception of 
'rainbow 
lesbian' 
where 
she wears a 
rainbow 
rings 
necklace. 
(Gill, 
Diva, 
1998, 
pp 
30-35) 
"I 
Some 
stars crossed 
seamlessly 
from 
the 
drag 
queen 
circuit 
and 
gay 
venues 
and 
clubs 
to 
mainstream 
television 
in 
this 
period 
for 
example, 
Lily Savage 
aka 
Paul 
O'Grady, 
Amy 
Lame, Julian 
Clary. 
"I 
Corliss's 
Time 
article 
on 
the 
Miss 
America 
Show, 
cited 
in 
the 
Literature Review 
is 
indicative. 
"It's 
gaudy, 
it'sfake, 
it's 
live! 
We 
hate 
it, 
we 
love 
it. 
' " (Corliss, 
1995, 
p. 
123). Vicky 
Allen 
illustrates 
in her 
review 
of 
Miss World for 
Scotland 
on 
Sunday, 
that 
the 
tone 
had 
percolated 
by 
the 
late 1990s 
into 
the 
Scottish broadsheets. 
After 
mock-guiltily 
confessing 
that 
she 
used 
to 
beg her 
parents 
to 
let her 
stay up 
late 
to 
watch 
it 
on 
TV 
she 
stated: 
-The 
Miss 
World 
contest 
seemsjust an empty, 
shagged-out, 
irrelevant, 
old-fashioned 
slip ofa girl 
[ 
... 
] 
to 
gain 
popular appeal. 
it 
really needs 
to 
Eurotrash 
itself 
get 
a 
little 
bit 
brassy, 
introduce 
afew 
more 
silicone 
implants" 
(Allan, 
200 1, 
p. 
19). 
"" 
In 
Elie, 
Masters 
also confessed 
a 
fascination 
with 
Miss World 
as a girl: 
"But 
I 
grew 
up. 
And 
pageants 
only 
survived 
in 
places 
like 
Crapsville, 
Arizona 
[ 
... 
] There 
is 
however 
a 
law 
offashion 
that 
says 
ifyou 
give 
anything 
enough 
time 
and space 
it 
can 
morph 
into 
something 
romantically 
retro, or 
deliciously 
kitsch 
(I'm 
thinkjngpadded 
shoulders, corset 
belts, 
fringing 
ruching 
and 
rar-rar 
skirts) 
[ 
... 
I So 
ifyou 
listen 
very carefully 
this 
summer 
you'll 
hear 
thefaini 
clack 
clacking 
of 
court 
shoes 
[ 
... 
I 
at 
Dior 
trailer 
trash 
met 
tiara 
trash 
in 
a riot 
of cheapftills, oversizefishnets, prints. 
patent 
leather 
and 
itsy 
bilsy denim 
detailing. 
And 
to 
add 
to 
the 
backcombing, 
backslabbing 
atmosphere, 
low 
slung 
stained 
sashes 
identified 
who was 
a 
'winner'and 
who 
was a 
'loser'. 
The 
losers bless 'em 
cried 
silver 
tears, 
painted on 
by Pat McGrath. 
who 
also 
plastered 
the 
cheeks of 
the 
winners 
with 
congratulatory 
lipstick 
prints 
" 
(Masters, 
200 
1, 
p. 
168). 
241 
54. 
Illustration 
from 
'Think 
natural' 
in 
Girl! 
Girl! 
Girl! 
annual, 
1974, 
page 
54 
and 
55. 
illustration 
from 'Ken 
Rodway, 
a sort 
of 
male model', 
in 
Fashion 
Model 
annual 
197 1, 
page 
20. 
Appropriating the 
feminine 
excess of others 
The 
ambivalence 
of 
this 
fascination 
is 
evocative 
of 
the 
paradigms 
of 
Modernism's 
relationship 
to 
others. 
Beauty Queens, 
porn stars, glamour models 
and 
other 
trash 
are 
exotic precisely 
because 
they 
are 
viewed 
at a cultural remove. 
The 
exoticisation, 
demonisation 
and appropriation 
of 
caricatures 
of 
white 
working 
class women's 
fashioning 
resembles 
in 
part 
the 
paradigm of 
racist othering. 
The 
phenomenon 
of 
demonisation 
and appropriation 
of 
Black 
and 
minority 
ethnic 
fashioning 
is linked 
to 
this 
chapter's 
central 
themes, 
expands 
discussions 
on 
the 
meanings 
of 
contemporary 
jewellery 
and 
is 
inextricable 
from discussions 
of popular 
culture and 
fashion 
in 
the 
post 
war period. 
White bourgeois 
fascination 
with 
fashioning 
otherness 
is 
pervasive 
in 
the 
history 
of 
fashion 
and 
design from 
the 
19/20c 
fin-de-siecle. 
"' 
In 
the 
memory work 
generated 
for 
this 
project 
and 
in 
extracts 
from 
participants' 
contributions 
the 
fascination 
with 
Black 
and minority 
ethnic 
otherness 
was apparent. 
Jean's 
self- 
consciously 
arty, 
aspirational 
fashioning 
of 
herself 
and 
her home 
reflected 
the tastes 
of 
her 
grandmother 
and 
much 
loved, 
middle 
class 
father. 
Her 
tastes 
reflected 
specific 
aspects 
of middle-class 
consumption 
and 
mythologizing 
of otherness. 
Yes, I 
mean, 
I've 
always 
been influenced 
by 
Japanese, 
American Indian, 
North 
American 
Indian 
you 
know, 
like 
jewellery, 
Egyptian, 
all 
that 
stuff 
has 
always 
influenced 
me 
and 
I love 
silver 
and 
I 
love 
the 
way 
it's 
crafted you 
know, 
so 
it 
means 
something 
to 
me, 
I 
don't 
know 
what 
it is 
about 
it, but it does 
something 
to 
me, 
it 
gives me a really 
nice 
feeling, 
it's 
really nice 
to 
wear. 
I 
didn't 
have 
an 
awful 
lot 
of 
jewellery 
when 
I 
was 
young, 
it 
- 
when, 
when 
I 
got 
into 
my 
teens 
and 
that, 
that's 
when 
I 
started 
to 
develop 
- 
my 
father 
was 
very 
much 
influenced 
by 
Japanese 
and 
Indian 
- 
it 
was 
him 
that 
influenced 
me 
in 
Indian 
Art 
and 
like, 
also 
he 
used 
to 
bum 
joss 
sticks 
in 
the 
house. 
117 
From 
Japonism 
to the 
Paisley 
shawl, 
from Nancy 
Cunard's 
negrophilia 
to 
hippy 
chic, 
from 
the 
vogue 
for 
Polynesian 
tattooing 
and 
Hawaiian 
shirts 
to 
St 
Laurent's 
appropriation 
of 
Cossack 
costumes 
(see, 
for 
example 
Craik 
1995 
pp. 
1744). 
Extensive 
(memory) 
work 
to 
chart 
the 
significance 
of social 
and collective 
constructions 
of 
otherness 
in 
memories 
of 
the 
body 
or 
the 
fashioning 
of others 
has 
yet 
to 
be 
undertaken. 
In 
work 
for 
this 
project 
an array 
of 
significant 
texts 
were 
generated: 
"Afantasised 
that 
her 
mother 
was 
Spanish. 
The 
cuesfor 
this 
were 
her 
Mum's 'sD?psy 
earrings'and 
black, 
crocheted, 
'Spanish 
shawl'. 
This 
fantasy 
guaranteed 
pleasure. 
A 
had 
relished 
the 
decoration 
and 
detail 
that 
characlerised 
her bestftiend Shaheen 
'sfashioning 
and 
home. 
Shaheen's Mum 
wore 
Indian 
goldJewellery, 
including 
a 
nose 
piercing 
and saris although she 
was while. 
A 
thought 
the 
Indian 
women 
movie stars 
seen 
on 
trips to the 
Asian 
cinemas 
in 
Bradfordwith 
Shaheen'sfamil), 
were 
the 
epitome 
of 
glamour; 
thick 
hair 
and encrusted 
withjewellery 
. 
Significantly, 
Bollywood 
has 
been 
queered 
and appropriated 
as 
camp. 
242 
Although 
vogues 
for fashioning 
otherness 
have 
been 
triggered 
by 
specific 
moments 
in 
colonial 
history Modernist 
tastes 
for 
indigenous 
or native 
jewellery 
have 
endured. 
' 18 
White, 
Modernist 
taste 
has 
adopted 
a 
host 
of 
black 
muses, 
models and 
performers 
from 
Josephine 
Baker's 
iconic 
precedent 
in 
the 
early 
1900s. 
111 
Bohemianism 
and 
romantic 
identifications 
with 
others 
is 
evident 
in 
play 
with exotic 
fashionings, 
interiors 
and 
lifestyles/habitus 
from 
at 
least 
the 
late 
nineteenth 
century 
120. 
A 
renewed 
bohemianism, 
and 
a romanticised 
gypsy 
aesthetic 
resurfaced 
in 
both fashion 
and 
feminist 
literature 
from 
the 
1970s 
on. 
12 
1 
It 
linked 
the 
aesthetics 
of 
British 
uber 
boutique 
Biba, 
aspects 
of 
the 
styling 
of 
Spare 
Rib, 
the 
Body Shop 
(and feminist 
entrepreneur 
Anita 
Roddick herselo 
and 
other 
forms 
of 
feminist 
and mainstream 
taste. 
The 
exoticism 
of 
Ossie 
Clark 
and 
Zandra 
Rhodes 
couture 
also 
paved 
the 
122 
way 
for 
the 
mainstrearning 
of ersatz 
gypsy 
fashioning 
to 
girl 
readers 
through 
comics 
and 
annuals. 
Although 
the 
post 
1970s 
hippy/gypsy 
aesthetic 
settled 
into 
a 
form 
of 
classic 
left, 
liberal 
uniform, 
the 
past 
two 
decades have 
generated 
a 
proliferation 
of versions 
of 
bourgeois 
play with 
paradoxically 
retrospective 
and 
new 
forms 
of exoticism 
appropriated 
from 
outsider 
cultures. 
123 
In 1996 
the 
writer 
Dea Birkett 
"afaint 
hearted 
south 
Londonfeminist 
" 
was 
the 
focus 
for 
an 
Observer 
article 
after 
she 
won a 
Winston 
Churchill 
scholarship 
to 
join 
the 
Italian 
circus 
Americano. 
124 
Firmly in 
the 
mould 
of 
bohemian 
precedents 
Birkett 
offered 
the 
reader 
news 
from 
an 
exotic, 
othered 
place. 
Fore. 
"'For 
example, 
the 
discovery 
by French 
Impressionist 
painters 
of 
Japanese 
prints, 
or 
Post 
Impressionists 
of 
Polynesia, 
the 
opening 
of 
Tutankhamen's 
tomb, the 
expansion 
of 
British 
trading 
interesting 
in 
India 
and 
China 
have 
given 
rise 
to 
design, 
architecture 
and 
fashion 
vogues 
and 
trends. 
Francis 
Newton discusses 
the 
significance of exoticism 
in 
the 
development 
of 
audiences 
forjazz 
in 
white 
'official' 
culture: 
"In 
sofar 
asja= 
has 
been 
absorbed 
by 
official 
culture, 
it is 
as 
aform 
ofexo1kism, 
like 4frican 
sculpture 
or 
Spanish 
dancing, 
or 
the 
'noble 
savage'types 
of exoticism 
by 
means of 
which 
middle 
and 
upper-class 
intellectuals 
try to 
compensatefor 
the 
moral 
deficiencies 
of 
the 
ir 
life, 
especially 
today 
when 
they 
have 
lost 
the 
nineteenth 
century 
confidence 
in 
the 
superiority 
ofthat 
life " 
(Newton, 
1959, 
p. 
17). 
Wearing 
ethnicjewellery 
appears 
still 
to 
be 
one 
of 
the 
few 
conscious 
concessions 
to 
adornment 
permitted 
to 
the 
culturally 
attuned, 
Modernist 
influenced, 
middle-class 
consumer. 
In 
an article 
rather 
anxiously charting 
the 
recent 
proliferation 
of 
men's 
jewellery, 
Charlie Porter 
noted 
that 
a survey 
of 
his 
Guardian 
colleagues 
found 
only wedding 
rings, and 
one solitary 
simple 
hoop 
earring 
worn 
in 
a 
left 
ear. 
Further 
research 
only 
came 
up with 
a confession 
of 
"occasionally 
wearing 
the 
odd 
hippy 
bracelet" 
(porter, 
200 
1, 
p, 
5). 
Oliver 
Bennett 
also 
adopted 
a confessional mode 
and set 
his 
own 
circumspect 
tastes 
in jewellery 
against 
the 
"sheer 
eye-popping 
vulgarity 
" 
of 
David Beckham, 
concluding 
"7hat's 
all very well 
but 
what 
about 
the 
dandy 
rather 
than 
the 
fop? 
"at 
can 
he 
wear, 
that 
is 
actually 
tastefid? 
Here 
I 
must 
coqess 
to 
being 
a 
ring wearer. 
One 
was 
a gj0 and 
is 
one 
ofthose 
Native, 
4merican 
rings 
with 
turquoise 
in it, it 
must 
be 
convincing 
because 
someone 
in 
a 
new 
age shop 
saw 
it 
andasked, 
'areyou 
on 
the 
Shamanicpath? 
"(Bennett, 
200 
1, 
p. 
8). 
"I 
The 
extent 
of 
Baker's 
impact 
is illustrated 
by 
Rose 
amongst others 
(Rose, 1990). 
12' 
For 
an 
illuminating 
history 
of 
the 
notion of 
Bohemianism 
see 
Wilson, 
2002, 
passim. 
121 
Arguably 
influenced 
by 
or 
influencing 
the 
style 
of 
Joan 
Baez, Julie 
Felix 
and 
other 
folk heroines. 
In 
the 
Star 
7YandFjjm 
Annual 
of 
1968, 
Julie 
Felix, from Santa Barbara, 
was 
introduced 
as 
'a 
modem 
minstrel' 
in 
the 
exoticised 
Modernist 
frame: 
"7here 
is 
a 
Spanish 
gypsy 
look 
about 
her. 
Those bright 
brown 
eyes 
the 
lovely 
olive oval 
ofterface, 
the 
black 
v4 
long 
hair. 
Somehow 
a guitar andfolk song 
go with 
thatpicture 
" (Long, 
1986, 
p. 
56). 
11 
In 
a 
typical 
spread, 
from Girl! Girl! Girl! 
entitled 
'Think 
Natural' 
models were 
posed on an anachronistic 
caravan, 
in 
tin 
baths 
and 
by 
haystacks. 
The 
text 
advocated a return 
to 
'natural 
beauty' 
and 
the 
'discovery' 
of 
'natural' 
beauty 
products: 
"Gypsy 
remedies 
with 
nettles, 
herbs 
and 
natural 
ingredients 
have 
been 
handed 
downfor 
hundreds 
ofyears 
and 
Gypsies 
were 
using 
skin 
tonics 
long 
before 
other womenfound 
them 
useful'(Dennis, 
1974, 
p. 
56). 
Another 
article 
from 
the 
same 
publication 
provided 
an 
a-z 
of, 
'recipes 
for 
natural 
beauty'. 
(Usden, 1974, 
ppl4-16) 
and promoted 
the 
use 
of 
health 
food 
stores 
whilst 
recommending 
-natural 
beautyyou 
can 
buy" from 
expensive 
ranges 
including 
Mary 
Quant 
and 
'Beauty 
Without Cruelty'. 
123 
The 
gypsy 
and 
hippy 
styles 
have 
common characteristics, 
both 
more 
indicative 
of 
middle-class cultures. 
Sandy 
noted 
of 
her 
colleagues 
in 
counselling: 
"I 
mean, 
like 
In 
the 
counselling 
circles 
things 
are 
more 
relaxed 
and 
anything 
goejyou 
know 
andyou 
do 
get 
a 
lot 
ofpeople 
in 
sort of counselling 
circles 
who are 
sort of as 
one 
of 
our 
customers 
put 
it 
'hippfed', 
'Oh 
those 
hippified 
iocyou 
know 
... 
... 
124 
She 
toured 
Sicily 
in 
a 
caravan she 
bought for 
the trip. 
243 
grounding 
the 
feminist disapprobation 
she caused 
due 
to 
her 
showgirl 
fashionings. 
125 
For 
Birkett 
this 
was 
a play 
with 
identities, 
a performance 
of otherness. 
Inevitably, 
she conceived 
this 
from 
a 
queer 
perspective 
where, 
notwithstanding 
the 
coaching and 
support 
she 
received 
from female 
circus 
co- 
workers, 
she 
compared 
her 
experience 
to 
that 
of gay 
men 
"compromised 
was 
exactly 
how 
I 
wanted 
to 
feel. It 
was so muchfun 
impersonating 
a woman. 
Ifelt 
as 
subversive 
as 
Lily 
Savage"(ibid). 
The 
appropriation 
of 
(mythical) 
working class, 
ethnic and 
other 
fashionings 
and 
lifestyles 
by high 
fashion 
and 
new 
bohemianism 
is 
also 
exemplified 
in 
the 
Gifford's 
travelling 
circus 
project. 
In 
an article 
'High 
Flyers 
- 
what 
do 
models 
do 
when 
they're 
sick 
of 
the 
catwalk? 
' 
Tamsin 
Blanchard, fashion 
editor 
of 
the 
Observer 
claimed, 
"They 
swap 
labelsfor 
leotards 
and 
run 
away 
to the 
circus. 
" 
(Blanchard, 
2000, 
pp- 
27-29). 
126 
In 
some measure, 
the 
fashionability 
of circus 
performers 
and 
showgirls 
in 
this 
period 
was 
due 
to the 
agency 
of camp and queer appropriation. 
Whereas 
untitled, 
unfashionable 
women's 
involvement 
in 
this 
work 
was 
merely sleazy, 
it 
could 
be 
rescued 
by ironic, 
camp 
appropriations 
as 
Stuart, 
has 
suggested: 
"Most 
modern 
images 
ofshowgirls 
- 
kitsch 
throwbacks 
in 
ostrich 
plumes, 
or 
hitting 
new 
depths 
ofHollywood 
dross 
in 
the 
eponymous 
Paul Verhoeven 
movie 
- 
have 
been 
camp 
at 
best, 
slea: y at worst" 
(Stuart, 1996, 
p. 
8). 
12' 
The 
paradoxical 
allure and 
fear 
of 
others, 
frequently 
articulated 
in 
the 
percolation 
of outsider 
fashioning into 
couture 
and mainstream 
fashion 
was 
expressed 
in 
participants 
and 
other 
commentators' 
memories of 
Barras 
habituees 
and 
enduring 
perceptions 
of 
so- 
called 
Ban-as 
tart 
excess. 
Jack 
McLean's 
memories 
of 
the 
Barras 
in 
the 
1950s 
reflects 
some 
participants' 
perceptions. 
Frankly 
I 
was 
a 
bit 
scared 
of 
it, 
the 
raucous 
traders, 
the 
derelicts 
and 
the 
drunks, 
the tarts 
and 
their 
gaudily 
-clad 
pimps. 
The dreadful 
poverty 
about, 
high-coloured 
women 
with 
their 
pinched 
faces 
right 
out of 
Orwell, 
or women 
older 
than 
their 
years, 
fat 
with cholesterol, 
rough 
I's 
"Myfriends 
are 
generally 
appalled 
that 
I 
became 
a 
showgirl, conniving 
in 
such 
sexist 
posturing, 
'didn't 
youfee4 
well, 
compromised? 
'asked 
one, peering 
critically at 
aphotoofme 
in 
my spangly, scant 
costume" 
(Birkett, 1996, 
p. 
6). 
116 
She 
notes: 
"Giffords 
has 
some 
ofthe poshest 
and 
most 
glamorous 
curtain girls 
in 
the 
business. 
For 
the 
Cotswold 
season 
it is 
the 
turn 
of another 
Storm 
mode4 
Lydia M 
to take 
responsibility. 
[... 
1,4nd 
Edwina, 
another 
of 
[stylist] 
Isabella 
Blow's 
young 
proidgies 
has 
also 
hada 
stint 
on 
[model 
agency] 
Storm's books 
"(ibid. 
). 
Edwina's 
comments 
suggest 
that 
neither 
vocation 
or 
desperation 
had 
driven 
her desire 
to 
work 
in 
this 
field: 
"It's 
such 
a romantic 
idea, 
the 
costumes 
and 
theJantasy. 
Now 
I 
think 
I 
want 
to 
work 
as a cowgirl 
in 
Texas 
" (ibid. 
p. 
29). 
Blanchard described 
how Oxbridge 
graduates, 
couture 
models 
and/or 
members 
of 
the 
minor 
aristocracy 
created 
Giffords. 
The 
troupe 
included Iris 
Palmer: 
"cousin 
offellow 
model 
turnedstudent 
Honor 
Fraser 
and 
niece 
ofLord 
Glenconner. Her 
mother 
is 
a member ofthe eccentric 
Scottish 
Tennant 
dynasty. 
Iris 
was 
an 
international 
mode4 
posingforfashion 
shoots 
in 
Vogue" 
(ibid. 
p. 
27). The 
Gifford's 
fairytale 
has 
been 
embraced 
by 
other 
broadsheets, 
since 
it 
rehearses 
a collective 
bourgeois 
fantasy. Nell Gifford, 
the 
circus 
proprietor 
and 
author 
of 
two 
books 
on 
the 
subject 
is 
cast 
as 
the 
unlikely 
heroine: 
"Circus 
life 
is 
known 
to 
attract 
creative 
misjus, 
freakyperfectionists, 
and 
underfinded 
athletes. 
Certainly 
not 
pony-mad, 
Catholic 
educated 
Oxfordgraduates 
who 
have lived 
Idyllic 
childhoods 
in 
the 
English 
counhyside 
" 7he 
Observer 
has 
recently 
promoted 
Gifford's diversification 
as 
restauranteurs 
(Diski, 
2003, 
p. 
49). 
Inevitably, the 
fantasy 
of cowgirl 
life 
was 
incorporated 
into 
couture 
fashion by 
Spring 
2001. 
The 
style, glitter, 
fringes, 
stitching 
and 
sequinned 
stctsons, referenced 
the 
feminine 
excess of 
low 
popular 
US TV 
singing 
cowboy 
shows 
(French 2001 
p, 
10). 
Its 
endorsement 
came 
from 
Madonna 
who chose 
the 
look, 
and 
thus 
simultaneously 
signalled 
its imminent 
fashion 
obsolescence, 
for 
her 
Music 
album 
and video 
of 
2000. 
1171n 
a 
familiar 
move, 
she 
inferred 
that 
female 
showgirls 
have 
been 
unwittingly 
aping 
male performances 
of 
femininity: 
"A drag 
queen 
before 
the term 
was 
invented, 
the 
showgirl at 
once 
highlights 
women 
Is 
sexualpower 
andreduces 
it 
to 
burlesque. 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
9) 
The 
most 
influential 
of 
the 
Hoxton 
style 
aficionados 
Katy 
England 
fuelled 
the 
drive 
towards 
play with 
erotic 
dancing, 
famously 
persuading 
her 
friends Kate Moss 
and 
Stella 
McCartney 
to 
pole 
dance 
for 
the 
cover of 
Dazed 
and 
Coqfused. 
244 
roustabouts with sideburns and quiffs, 
sleekit 
looking 
men 
in 
expensive 
suits, 
spivs: 
it 
was 
Derby 
day by 
Frith. I'm 
not 
kidding 
about 
the 
harlequin 
and 
his 
little 
girl. 
They 
were 
there 
at 
the 
opposite end 
to 
prince 
Abadou, 
a 
massive 
African 
who. 
Being 
the 
first 
black 
man 
I 
had 
ever 
seen, 
frightened 
me a 
lot. 
He 
sold 
-yes 
there 
really 
was such 
a 
product 
snake 
oil 
(McLean, 
200 
1, 
p. 
i). 
129 
Barras 
traders 
and 
travelling 
people can 
be 
said 
to 
have 
occupied 
a 
liminal 
position 
vis 
a 
vis 
whiteness. 
Dyer 
has discussed how 
'white' 
is 
a category 
that 
is 
"internally 
viable 
and 
unclear 
at 
the 
edges 
". 
129 
For 
some participants, 
including 
Ettie 
whose 
heritage 
was 
Irish, 
adopting 
other, 
excessive 
fashionings 
was 
associated with 
the 
dangers 
of slipping 
out 
of 
whiteness: 
I 
dyed 
my 
hair 
black, 
got 
my ears 
pierced with 
a 
potato 
and a 
needle 
in 
the 
shop, 
my 
mother 
went mad 
when 
she saw 
the 
big 
earrings. 
[ 
... 
II 
said, 
'Mum. 
' 
I 
said, 
"You 
werejust 
going 
to 
walk past me. 
" "'Oh I 
did 
see you. 
" 
she said, 
"I 
was 
ashamed 
to 
say 
hello. 
You look 
like 
a 
Pakistani". 
She 
was a wee 
bit 
racist, 
but 
she 
wasn't 
racist, 
Mother 
was 
open 
to 
everybody 
but 
that 
was 
the 
name 
that 
was given, 
which 
was 
wrong. 
"0 
Ellen 
emphasised 
the 
impact 
ofjewellery 
worn 
to 
excess 
by 
Barras 
traders 
and 
linked 
this 
to 
perceptions 
of 
lifestyles 
fraught 
with 
risk and 
crime: 
Nowadays 
there's 
more 
necklacey 
things, 
years 
ago 
there 
wasn't as 
many 
necklaces, 
maybe 
that's 
because 
people 
can 
pull 
it 
off easily and 
whatever, 
but 
there 
was 
rings, 
loads 
and 
loads 
of 
rings, shiny rings, 
very gold rings, 
lots 
and 
lots 
of 
gold, 
that's 
why 
you 
used 
to, 
you 
know, 
it 
was 
like 
your 
moveable 
fortune. 
131 
12' 
The 
definition 
of 
'spiv' 
links 
dubiousness 
to 
excessive 
fashioning, 
"A hanger 
on 
in 
dubious 
circles; 
a 
man 
cheaply 
overdressed 
without 
apparent 
occupation; 
one 
who 
dressesflashily; 
a petty 
black 
market 
dealer 
" (Cassell, 
199 
1). 
"'According 
to 
Dyer, Jewish 
and 
Irish 
people 
have 
constituted 
the 
'limit 
case 
of whiteness' 
(ibid. 
p. 
53). 
He 
claims 
that 
"nites 
may 
be 
[represented 
and perceived 
as] 
a 
different 
hue 
differentiated 
according 
to 
class... 
Given 
the 
overwhelming 
advantage 
of 
being 
while, 
in 
terms 
ofpower, 
privilege 
and material 
well 
being, 
who 
counts 
as while and 
who 
doesn't 
is 
worthfighting 
over 
- 
fighting 
to 
keep 
people 
out, 
to 
let 
strategic 
groups 
in, 
fighting 
to 
get 
in 
" (Dyer, 
1997, 
p. 
52). 
I" 
The 
specificities 
ofjewellery 
marked 
otherness. 
In 
this 
passage 
Ellen 
linked 
my own 
Creole 
style 
earrings 
worn 
at 
our 
meeting 
with 
both Barras 
tarts 
and 
a 
mutual colleague. 
AP: 
[asking 
about 
the 
specificities 
of 
'Barras 
tart' 
fashionings] So 
they 
had 
the 
earrings, what 
types 
of earrings 
can 
you 
remem- 
Ellen: 
Very 
similar 
to 
yours. 
[Laughter) 
And 
Margaret 
McMahon is 
another 
one, 
gold 
loops, 
loops, 
always 
loops, 
never 
hanging. 
AP: 
Margaret 
McMahon? 
Ellen: 
The 
cleaner. 
[ 
... 
] 
Always 
round 
loops, 
always 
never, never a 
dangler. 
"I 
This 
insight 
- 
of 
portable, 
ostentatious 
declarations 
of wealth 
links 
traditions 
of gold 
false 
or 
capped 
teeth 
in 
both 
Roma 
culture 
and 
African American 
hip-hop 
communities. 
Gold 
caps 
became 
a vogue 
crossing 
to 
urban 
British 
working-class 
cultures 
from 
the 
1980s. Inevitably, 
this 
was appropriated 
as 
sign 
of outsider 
exoticisation 
by fashionistas 
as 
in 
the 
styling 
of 
Madonna 
circa 
1992 
(Erotica) More 
recently 
glue-on gold 
teeth 
caps are sold 
in 
the 
upmarket 
youth store 
Urban Outfitters. 
The 
appropriations 
of 
fantasies 
of working class 
cultures 
and 
fashionings 
by 
the 
middle-classes and 
members 
of 
the 
aristocracy 
can 
be 
seen as perverse 
when acknowledging 
the 
demonisation 
of, 
for 
example, 
Roma 
and 
travelling 
people. 
Legal 
changes 
in 
the 
British 
criminal 
justice 
system 
targeted 
specifically 
at 
travellers, 
and 
an 
intensification 
of 
racism across 
Fortress 
Europe 
against 
Romas 
has 
created near 
impossible 
conditions 
for 
travellers 
and 
their 
families. 
In 
contrast 
to the 
romanticisation 
of 
their 
lifestyles, 
their 
cultures 
are 
perceived 
as 
threatening, 
for 
example: 
"The 
Appleby 
Horse 
Fair 
- 
arguably 
the 
largest 
gathering 
of 
travellingpeople 
is 
an annual 
event, 
protected 
by 
royal charter 
since 
1685. 
Despite the 
profits already 
made 
by 
the 
event 
attracting 
up 
to 
50,000people 
councillors want 
toprivatise 
the 
event 
and 
bring 
in 
an 
events manager 
to 
maximiseprofusfor 
the 
local 
community 
or get rid 
of 
it 
altogether. 
'For 
most of 
theyear 
Appleby 
is 
a 
very 
quiet 
town. 
But 
theproblem 
is 
that 
during 
the 
245 
The 
bling bling hegemony: Black 
jewellery fashioning 
and 
modernist 
taste 
The 
Queen 
is blinging 
(Jehst, 
cited 
in 
Harrison, 
2003). 
In 
his book 
The 
Jazz Scene, Newton 
discussed 
the 
form 
of 
bohernianism 
'turned 
inside 
out' 
that 
characterised 
the 
dress 
of 
many of 
the 
genre's 
pioneers. 
For 
entertainers 
whose 
"art 
[was] 
the 
only 
possible 
way out ofsqualor and oppression". 
Newton 
noted 
two 
ways 
in 
which 
the 
jazz 
bohemians 
were 
distinguished 
from 
their 
white, 
bourgeois 
counterparts; 
the 
former 
had 
none of 
the 
"horror'of 
respectable 
manual 
work" 
and 
for 
them 
in 
the 
'semi-ghettos' 
of 
burgeoning 
commercial 
entertainment, 
survival 
depended 
on 
"behaving 
like 
a 
king". 
132 
Traditions 
of 
flamboyant 
forms 
of sartorial 
Royal 
Taste 
have 
endured 
in 
many contemporary 
urban 
Affican 
American 
communities. 
133 
The literature 
on 
black 
powerjewellery 
use 
is 
scant, 
but 
the 
trajectory 
of 
underground, 
Black 
American 
music 
that 
culminated 
in 
hip-hop 
saw 
a concomitant 
explosion 
of 
meaningful 
excessive 
jewellery 
use 
in 
street 
and 
star 
fashionings. 
134AIthough 
blaxploitation 
stylings 
can 
be 
traced 
in 
the 
hip-hop 
fashions 
that 
developed 
in 
New 
York 
from 
the 
1970s 
according 
to 
Maycock 
they 
"turned 
to 
gold 
and 
[Italian 
fashion 
house] Gucci 
in 
the 
1980s " 
(Maycock, 
2002, 
p. 
3 0). 
The 
look 
was crossed 
to the 
UK 
and 
mainstream 
audiences 
by 
stars 
including Run 
DMC 
and 
Eric B 
and 
Rakim. 
135 
Speaking 
about 
the 
development 
of 
Brooklyn 
street 
fashion 
that 
was 
to 
become 
ubiquitous 
on 
MTV 
the 
photographer 
Jamal 
Shabazz 
has 
stated 
"back 
then 
it 
wasjust 
small 
chains. 
Then, 
after 
Mr. 
T 
[TV's A Team 
comic 
book 
type, 
Black 
character] 
came out, 
all 
the 
bigjewelleryfollowed. 
Jewellery 
representedpower. 
Clothes 
represented 
fair 
it 
changes 
completely 
and 
becomes dirty, 
crowded 
smelly 
and 
uncomfortable. 
I 
wouldn't 
want 
to 
se 
thefair 
go 
but 
I 
Would 
to 
see 
the 
discomfortfor 
local 
residents 
minimised 
"' 
(Ward, 2003, 
p. 
8). 
"I 
"Thej= 
musician 
was 
[ 
... 
] 
potentially 
a 
king 
or a 
duke, 
( 
... 
] his 
subjects 
lived 
in 
the 
slums, 
and 
his 
rivalpolentates 
were 
(coloured) 
gangsters and 
crookedpoliticians, professional gamblers 
andfighters, 
fancy 
women, 
and occasionally 
great 
preachers... 
he 
was an enthusiastic 
andflamboyant 
dresser, 
regarding 
his dress 
as 
a symbol 
of wealth 
andsocial 
status, 
like 
the 
cowboy, 
the 
naM, 
the 
sailor 
and other 
casual 
but 
occasionallyflush 
labourers. 
" (Newton, 
1959, 
p. 
207) 
"' 
For 
example, 
at 
Wattstax 
in 
the 
1960s "the 
biggest 
baddest 
musical 
event 
ofthe 
blackpower 
era 
"excessivejewellery 
was a 
vogue 
amongst male 
and 
female black 
stars and 
activists 
including 
Jesse 
Jackson 
who 
opened 
the 
event. 
Rufus 
Thomas 
was 
medallioned, 
Isaac Hayes 
sported 
a show-stopping, 
politically 
resonant 
gold 
chain 
vest 
and 
Mavis Staples 
wore 
huge 
hoop 
earrings 
(Maycock, 2002, 
pp. 
30- 35). 
114 
With 
the 
development 
of 
Black 
filmmaking 
John 
Shaft 
the 
eponymous 
hero 
of 
Gordon Parks' 
seminal 
1971 
blaxploitation 
crossover 
hit 
set a 
further benchmark 
in 
the 
representation 
of 
Black 
style 
that 
was 
sartorially sharp, 
sexualised 
and 
stylistically 
exaggerated. 
Portia Maultsby 
notes 
that 
African 
Americans 
identified 
specific 
cultural 
symbols 
in 
the 
1960s 
to 
connote 
soul 
and 
these 
included "African-derivedfashions, 
ornaments 
and 
hairstyles 
etc. 
" 
(Maultsby 
in Tate, 
Maultsby, 
Davis, 
Taylor 
and 
Reed, 
1998, 
p. 
270). 
I" 
In 
1980, 
proto-rapper 
Kurtis Blow 
released 
his 
first 
album appearing 
on 
the 
cover 
wearing 
multiple 
gold chains 
after 
which, 
"the 
wearing 
ofwealth 
[was) 
compulsory 
in 
hip 
hop 
circles 
" (Bennett, 
2001, 
p. 
8). 
Significantly hip-hop fashioning 
has 
routinely 
embraced 
un-fashionable 
brands 
with 
a 
high 
class 
resonance 
absolutely 
refiguring 
their 
signification 
for 
example, 
Kangol 
hats, 
Cristal 
champagne 
and, more recently 
Courvoisier 
(Davis, 
2003, 
p. 
15). 
246 
power. 
A 
lot 
ofteople 
didn't 
have 
cars 
so your 
clothes 
were what 
representedyou. 
So 
how 
you 
dressed 
was 
a representation 
ofwhoyou 
were" 
(Shabazz 
cited 
Blanchard 
and 
Paul, 
2002, 
p. 
50). 
136 
The 
appropriation 
of urban 
Black 
style 
by 
the 
white 
middle and 
upper 
classes 
reached an 
apotheosis 
the 
end 
of 
the twentieth 
century 
in 
the 
overhaul 
of 
the 
elite group 
of 
London-based 
jewellers. In 
200 1, 
Jade Jagger, 
a so-called celebutante 
137 
joined 
the 
design 
team 
at 
Asprey 
and 
Garrard's: 
"For 
the 
relaunch 
she wore 
her 
own silver 
'Punk'graffiti 
dog 
tag 
pendant 
and 
another 
similar 
hut 
in 
gold andyellow 
diamonds 
with matching 
knuckleduster 
[Dukie, 
two-finger] 
ring 
" 
(Becker, 
200 1, 
p. 
17). 
138 
Black 
style 
jewellery 
was 
similarly 
appropriated 
by 
"New York's 
trashy 
new 
heiresses 
" 
including Casey 
Johnson, heiress 
to the 
Johnson 
and 
Johnson 
pharmacy 
fortune, 
who 
told 
the 
Independent: 
'7just 
bought 
a 
diamond 
helt 
that 
spells 
out 
'CASH'[ 
... 
] 
And 
then 
I 
got a 
necklace 
to 
match, 
with a 
dollar 
sign, 
from 
Puff Daddy's 
collection. 
People 
were 
like, 
'Oh, 
its 
tasteless, 
hut 
I 
said 
'It's 
such ajoke. 
How 
can 
you 
take 
it 
seriously? 
I 
guess 
it 
takes 
halls 
to 
wear 
it 
"' (Coudenhove 
Weinberg, 
200 
1, 
pp. 
6-7). The 
hegemony 
of 
black fashions, 
including 
trademark 
jewellery, 
music 
and 
dance 
in 
twenty-first 
century 
mainstream 
white 
British 
and 
American 
cultures 
is 
epitomised 
in 
both 
Puff 
Daddy/ 
P Diddy/Searn 
Coombes's 
feminised, 
excessive 
style and 
his 
flamboyant 
entrepreneurialism, 
dubbed 'ghetto 
fabulous'. 
139 
Ghetto fabulousness 
in 
the 
1990s 
came 
to 
define 
Black 
American 
stars 
and 
entrepreneurs 
who 
made money and 
demonstrated 
this 
to 
excess, 
principally 
through 
fashioning, 
cars 
and 
jewellery 
but 
who 
maintained 
street 
attitude 
and/or 
connections: 
"Making 
it 
big 
hut 
not 
betrayingyour 
roots 
" (Shepherd, 
2000, 
pp. 
4244). 
Vaginal 
Davis has 
suggested 
that 
" 
Hip 
hop 
fashions 
were 
recently 
the 
subject 
of reminiscence 
in 
Missy 
Elliot's, 'Back 
in 
the 
Days' 
(Elliot, 2002). 
This 
excessive 
use 
ironically 
exhausted 
its 
signification, 
requiring 
the 
remarketing 
of gold 
as 
I have 
noted earlier. 
Honigsbaum 
cited 
rappers 
specifically 
as 
contributing 
to 
the 
degradation 
of gold: 
"After 
20years 
in 
the 
doldrums, 
the 
hallmark 
ofrappers 
and 
medallion 
men, 
gold 
is 
being 
re-branded 
as 
the 
must-have 
metal" 
(Honigsbaum, 2001, 
p. 
24). 
Bennett has 
noted 
that 
the 
vogue 
for 
excessive 
jewellery 
was 
also promoted 
in 
Jamaica 
from 
the 
1980s 
where 
dance hall 
stars 
wore 
'cargo' 
- 
hawser-like 
gold 
chains 
around 
the 
neck. 
Bennett 
notes 
the 
saturation 
of gold 
in 
Jamaican 
youth 
culture, as 
in 
the 
US has 
led 
to 
a 
vogue 
for, 
'ice' 
diamonds 
and platinum 
(Bennett, 
2001, 
p. 
8). 
Although threatening 
on 
the 
registers 
of 
sex 
and 
gender, 
African 
American inspired 
jewdlery 
excess 
has inevitably 
triggered 
British 
attempts 
at 
ironic 
appropriation 
most notably 
in 
the 
construction 
of 
Ali 
G by 
Sacha 
Baron 
Cohen. 
This 
appropriation 
is 
doubly 
ironic. 
Cohen 
knowingly 
embodying 
the 
'limit 
case of whiteness' 
created 
a 
Black 
character 
for 
the 
1990s in 
Ali G- 
whose 
original 
comic raison 
d'etre 
relied 
on an audiences' 
understanding 
of 
the 
gulf 
between 
middle-class 
politicians 
and 
feminists 
and 
the 
G 
from 
the 
street. 
Not 
only 
did 
the 
purpose 
of 
Ali G, 
a spoof 
character 
to 
ensnare 
unsuspecting 
worthies, 
evaporate 
as 
he became 
more well 
known, his 
characterisations 
become 
caricatured 
and catchphrases 
themselves. 
Cohen's 
ultimate 
cynicism 
for 
the 
overblown, 
British, 
ersatz 
American, 
excessively 
fashioned 
type 
is 
reversed 
in 
the 
process 
of 
Cohen's 
being 
compelled 
by 
the 
media 
industries 
to 
commodify 
himself, 
in 
a 
Sunday 
Times feature, 
'Fashion, 
Innit"Ali 
G' 
promoted 
his 
new series 
in 
a 
fashion 
shoot with 
two 
female 
models: 
"Tracksuils, 
loudjewellery 
and 
gorgeous 
girlf 
- 
what 
else 
does 
a 
celebrity 
gangsta 
need? 
Aft 
G 
who's 
back 
on our screens 
on 
Friday, 
getsfiggy 
with 
this 
spring's 
holiest 
looks 
" 
(Sunday 
Times, 
2000, 
pp. 
14-18). 
1'7 
A 
term 
coined 
by 
Independent 
columnist 
Sophia 
Coudenhove Weinberg in 
2000. 
"' 
Davis 
(2003) 
notes 
that the 
three 
fingered 
rin& 
The 
Dukie, 
originated 
in 
1985, 
popularised 
by 
MC Duke. 
While 
Jagger 
was 
signalling 
street. 
a 
form 
of cultural roughing 
it in 
her 
Dukie 
ring appropriation, 
research 
participant 
Sue implied, 
perhaps 
unintentionally, 
her 
view 
of 
this 
style as posh. 
AP: 
So 
are 
there 
any stars 
whose 
jewdlery 
- 
I'm 
trying to think 
of 
any 
stars 
that 
I 
have 
seen 
whose 
jewellery 
that 
I 
really, 
really 
like, 
I 
don't 
know 
if 
there 
are 
any... 
Sue. 
Sometimes 
you get 
stars 
that 
have double-barrelled 
names 
put across 
their 
rings. 
119 
Destiny's 
Child, Missy 
Elliot, 
Lil' Kim 
and 
Mary 
J 
Blige 
have 
also 
shared 
this 
epithet. 
247 
55. 
Missy 
F. 
1hot, 
The Herald 
magazine. 
II 
January, 
2003, 
page 
12. 
forms 
of 
ghetto 
fabulousness 
in 
New York 
can 
be 
traced 
to the 
late 
1970s 
and 
1980s 
when 
the 
style 
"had 
a spark 
that 
was 
its 
own 
- 
one 
that 
was vested 
in 
equal 
parts 
earnestness 
and 
irony 
" (Davis, 
2003). 
140 
But 
she 
has 
interpreted 
the 
expansion of 
hip 
hop into 
the 
dominant 
youth 
culture 
movement 
in 
America 
as 
heralding 
the 
absorption 
of ghetto 
fabulous 
style 
into 
the 
corporate 
world 
developing 
a 
"dark 
undercurrent" 
(lbid). 
141 
Despite 
being 
under-researched 
Black 
jewellery 
has 
played 
a 
major 
part 
in 
differentiating 
African 
American 
street 
styles, 
signifying musical allegiances, 
and cultural 
formations 
like 
ghetto 
fabulousness 
and 
bling-bling. 
142 
The 
notion of 
fashioning 
feminine, 
and 
in 
some 
instances 
masculine, 
excess, 
relies 
heavily 
on 
the 
conceptual 
isation 
and 
perception, 
literally 
and 
metaphorically 
of an 
idea 
of 
scintillation, 
flash 
and glitter. 
143 
The 
symbolism 
of 
Black 
streetjewellery 
since 
the 
1960s 
reflects 
a 
departure 
in 
the 
politics 
of working-class 
youth 
fashions. 
This 
jewellery 
was 
characteristically 
huge, 
often 
comically 
overstated, 
literal, 
narrative, 
political, 
knowing 
and 
flashy 
to the 
extent 
of aping 
Royalty. 
144 
Missy 
Elliot's 
matriarchal 
role 
and 
ghetto 
fabulous 
pose 
reprised 
the 
hip 
and aloof 
effect 
of 
Motown 
stars 
groomed 
at 
Miss 
Maxine 
Powell's 
pioneering 
Chann 
School in 
the 
1960s. 
Powell's 
ambition, 
in 
line 
with 
that 
of 
Berry 
Gordy's, 
for 
her 
girls 
to 
achieve 
head-tuming 
glamour 
and 
class, 
was 
both 
politically 
and 
commercially 
critical. 
Some 
of 
the 
artists 
were very 
rude and crude 
when 
they 
came 
to 
me; 
some 
were 
from 
very 
humble 
beginnings. 
I 
would say 
to them that 
my 
department 
would 
make 
them 
able 
to 
appear 
before 
kings 
and 
queens, 
and 
so 
I 
treated 
them 
like 
kings 
and queens. 
I 
offered 
class. 
Class 
will, 
turn 
heads, 
so 
in 
that 
way 
I 
was 
teaching them 
self-growth, 
I 
taught 
them 
about 
who 
they 
were 
and what 
made 
them 
tick 
(Powell in 
Abbott, 
200 
I, 
p. 
60). 
11 
Mr 
Style, 
a 
designer 
for Puff 
Daddy/P 
Diddy 
shares 
this 
view: 
"In 
the 
beginning 
gheitofahutousness 
was authentic 
and 
creative 
taking 
material 
icons 
and 
trappings 
and adapting 
them 
to the 
urban 
American 
landscape 
[ 
... 
I 
for 
example 
taking 
the 
Vuitton 
or 
Gucci 
logo 
off 
the 
bag 
and 
putting 
it 
onto 
a velour sweatsuit 
or 
high 
top 
sneakers, 
something 
beyond 
the 
designer's 
scope 
of 
reason 
or 
reality 
" (Mr 
Style 
cited 
in 
Davis, 2003). 
Davis, 
a performance 
artist 
and 
founder 
of 
the 
Afro Sisters 
claims 
her 
brand 
of 
ghetto 
fabulousness 
was 
fusion 
of 
her 
"mother's 
outrageousness 
with 
blaxploilationfashion" 
(ibid. ), 
"My 
riff on 
late 
60slearly 
70s 
urban 
chic 
didn't 
always sit 
well with 
certain 
punk 
and 
post punk snobs 
plus a 
/01 
of my 
looks 
hadn't 
dated 
long 
enough 
to 
be 
considered 
retro. 
But 
thatjust 
comes 
with 
being 
a 
style 
pioneer 
" 
(Davis ibid. 
). 
"' 
This 
view 
is 
echoed 
by 
fashion 
editor 
Glenn 
Belvario: 
" 
With 
the 
loss 
of 
irony, 
ghetto 
fabulousness 
surrendered 
itselfto 
the 
capitalist 
system 
and 
sacrificed 
its 
radical voice 
at 
the 
altar of 
Alammon " 
(Belvario 
cited 
in 
Davis 
ibid. 
). 
"' 
Rapper 
Jehst, 
perceives 
it 
as 
having 
had 
a 
longer 
heritage. 
*Bling' 
connotes 
riches 
and 
"It's 
a slang wordforiust 
beingflash. 
So, 
it's 
like 
people 
have 
been 
bling 
since 
the 
Egyptians 
through to 
Henry 
the 
Eighth 
to 
the 
Queen "' 
(Jehst 
cited 
in 
Harrison, 
2003). 
"" 
This 
is illustrated 
in 
the 
styles 
of gold 
tooth 
caps 
or 
false 
nails 
retailed 
on sites 
such as 
Gold 
Teeth 
NY. 
(http: 
//www. 
goidteethny. 
com). 
11" 
Notably 
in 
the 
comic 
book 
notion 
of 
diamonds 
and gold 
'blinging'. 
In 
a 
recent 
representation, 
music 
performer 
and 
entrepreneur 
Missy 
Elliot 
appears 
to 
deploy 
ghetto 
fabulousness 
to 
subvert 
the 
racist 
kitsch 
of 
Aunt 
Jemima 
in 
her US 
suburban 
breakfast 
bar 
pose 
tucking 
into 
Missy 
Elliot 
Flavor 
Flakes 
and 
sporting 
headlamp 
effect 
bling 
bling 
knuckledusters, 
ice 
and 
hoop 
earrings, 
white 
furs 
and 
French 
salon 
French 
cut 
nails 
(Herald, 
2003, 
p. 
12). 
Elliot's 
stance 
can 
be 
interpreted 
in 
the 
context of 
Black 
Pride 
that 
claimed 
or 
appropriated 
royal 
status 
at 
the 
most 
fundamental 
level 
evidenced 
in 
the 
pantheon of 
black 
stars 
named 
Duke (Ellington), 
Prince, 
Queen 
(Latifah), 
King 
Oliver, 
Count 
Basie, 
Prince 
Buster... 
248 
Forty 
years 
later, 
Elliot's 
self-possession 
and 
appropriation 
of 
pseudo 
regal 
fashionings 
to 
excess 
exaggeratedly 
stated 
her 
wealth, 
ironically 
commented 
on 
the 
limitations 
of claims 
to 
(rock) 
aristocracy 
in 
a 
dominant 
white culture 
that 
routinely 
read gold 
and 
ice 
worn 
by 
Blacks 
as 
trash, 
contradicted 
the 
reductive 
reading of 
Black 
women 
as 
ho's' 
whilst 
maintaining 
her 
ghetto 
fabulous 
status. 
By 
2000, Black 
urban 
American 
street 
fashionings 
had become 
a 
desirable, 
non-ironic 
look 
for 
white, 
Black, 
male 
and 
female 
aspirant 
working 
class 
British 
youth, 
triggering 
expressions 
of 
anxiety 
by (white) 
broadsheet 
columnists. 
The 
obsessional 
concern/fascination 
for 
David 
Beckham's 
fashioning 
and proximity 
to 
Black 
cultures 
intimated 
that 
his 
taste 
in jewellery 
was a 
Black inspired 
4cult'. 
143 
Notwithstanding 
the 
significant 
political 
import 
of 
Black 
working-class 
appropriation 
of 
the 
signification 
of 
gold 
itself, 
the 
excessiveness 
of 
hip-hopjewellery 
use 
has 
undoubtedly 
troubled 
aspects 
of white, 
British 
middle 
class masculinity. 
1411 
When 
Paul MacKenzie 
fronted 
a 
programme 
entitled 
Black 
Like 
Beckham, 
claiming 
Beckham 
as a 
'brother' 
and role model 
for 
Black 
and 
white 
youth, 
the 
broadsheet 
criticism 
was 
derisory: 
Apparently 
it is 
all 
to 
do 
with 
Beckham's 
penchant 
for bling blingjewellery 
and 
ghetto 
fabulous 
clothes, 
plus 
the 
fact 
that 
he drives 
a 
Bentley 
convertible 
and 
has 
even 
called 
his 
dogs 
Puffy 
and 
Snoop. 
Unfortunately 
for 
the 
credibility 
of 
the 
programme 
Beckham 
has 
never 
stepped 
out 
with 
Jennifer 
Lopez 
but 
at 
least 
he has 
Posh 
- 
whose 
short skirts and 
high 
heels 
clearly 
mark 
her 
out 
as a 
bitch 
and 
a 
'ho' 
(Ellen, 2003, 
p. 
5). 
147 
145 
"Mere is 
another 
interpretation 
ofBeck's 
baubles: 
that 
it Is 
his 
bite 
at 
the 
'bling-bling 
' 
cherry, 
the 
hip 
hop 
cult 
offlash 
that 
can 
be 
either 
adjective 
(1hat 
s 
bling-bling 9 
or verb 
(we 
were 
bling-blinging 
9 natever, 
the 
ghettofabulous 
crowdhave turned 
excesstvejewellery 
into 
a cult 
" (Bennett, 
2001, 
p. 
8). 
However, 
for 
Amina 
Taylor, 
editor 
of 
the 
Black, 
Pride 
magazine, 
Beckham's 
embracing 
of 
'bling' 
and 
feminine 
fashioning 
make 
him 
an 
ideal 
'cross-over' icon: 
"We 
only 
have 
to 
talk 
about 
the 
sarong 
incident, 
we 
only 
have 
to talk 
about 
the 
alice-band 
incident. This 
Is 
a guy 
who 
is in 
touch 
with 
hisfeminine 
side. 
He's 
not 
afraid 
oflooking 
either 
a 
little blinging 
or a 
little 
camp 
' (Taylor 
cited 
in Harrison, 2003). 
116 
The 
Guardian's 
Charlie 
Porter 
was 
incredulous 
at 
Beckham's 
allegedly spending 
L20,000 
on 
a platinum 
pair of 
earrings. 
in 
an 
interesting 
if 
predictable 
analysis 
Porter 
linked 
Beckham's 
excessive 
jewellery 
wearing with 
femininity, 
blackness, 
criminality 
and 
effeminacy: 
"His 
luxurious 
hoops look 
as 
though 
they 
could 
have been 
the 
overflowfrom 
his 
wife'sJewellery 
box, 
[ 
... 
I 
They 
are 
Incrediblyfeminine 
[ 
... 
I Beckham's 
ostentatious 
display 
of 
his 
bank 
balance 
is 
clearly 
inj7uenced 
by 
the 
ghellofabulous 
world 
of 
Puff Daddy 
and 
the 
American 
gangsta 
rappers. 
These 
men 
who 
thoughtjewels 
went 
hand 
In 
hand 
with 
guns 
oflen 
oppearedto 
emulate 
Liberace 
in 
their 
collection 
ofiliamondi 
andgold" 
(Porter, 
2001, 
p. 
5). The 
title 
of 
this 
article, 
'Diamond 
Geezers' 
attempted 
to 
situate 
Beckham-likejewellery 
consumption 
in 
the 
so-called 
underworld equivalent 
to 
gangsta 
ghettos, 
London's 
mythologised, 
East 
End 
criminal 
fraternity. 
"I 
Haff 
ison's 
controversial 
programme 
made a case 
for 
Beckham 
being Black. 
Amongst 
other 
claims 
presenter 
MacKenzie 
stated 
"He 
lives 
bling", 
he 
grew up 
in 
a cross cultural 
environment, 
his 
vilification 
during 
the 
previous 
World 
Cup 
resembled 
the 
daily 
racism 
endured 
by 
Black Britains, 
he 
was 
Britain's 
"Number 
I 
cross-over 
icon 
" 
and 
"Our 
mostpopular 
hero 
looks 
like he 
stepped 
out 
ofa 
P Diddy 
video 
"(Harrison, 2003). In May 
2003, 
Beckham 
was 
the 
first high 
profile 
white 
male 
celebrity 
to 
fashion 
com-rowed 
hair 
(Piper, 
2003, 
p. 
3). 
249 
Week 
*Wieg 
May 
2 1953 
p0 
ictureqoer 
THE 
NATIONAL 
FILM 
WEEKLY 
56. 
Filming 
the 
Coronation 
special, 
Picluregoer, 
2 
May, 
1953. 
6.5 
Royal 
Nulgar 
tastes 
Feminine 
excess 
as 
'Royal 
Taste' 
In 
this 
final 
section 
I 
return 
to the 
paradox 
of 
Royal/Vulgar 
Taste 
and 
the 
fascination 
for 
excess 
that 
characterises 
aspects of working-class 
women's 
tastes. 
This definition 
is 
an attempt 
to 
characterise 
the 
post-war 
phenomenon of women's 
will 
to 
adorn 
and 
its 
resistance 
to 
Modernist 
hegemony. I 
argue 
that 
the 
popularisation 
of 
Royal/Vulgar 
excesses 
occurred 
in 
part 
through 
the 
growth 
of 
film 
and 
media genres 
including 
soaps 
and 
through 
the 
modelling 
of 
disdained 
and 
dissident 
fashioning 
by 
music, 
film 
and 
TV 
stars. 
In 
an 
historical 
and cultural 
context 
where 
working-class 
women's 
cultures 
are perennially 
scorned, 
I 
discuss 
how 
spectacular 
forms 
of 
femininity 
from 
the 
1950s 
on represented 
in 
a range of 
texts 
and accounts 
reveal 
the 
motivations 
for 
working-class 
women's 
identifications 
with 
forms 
of aristocratic 
excess 
and 
taste 
in 
their 
fantasies, 
consumption 
and 
fashioning 
of 
femininity. 
The 
post-war 
reinvention 
of 
Royal 
pageantry 
had been 
politically 
expedient. 
148 
A 
significant 
dimension 
to the 
visual 
representation of 
the 
renewed 
Royalty 
was 
jewellery. 
This 
is 
apparent 
in 
girls' 
annuals 
from 
the 
mid 
1950s 
where royal 
jewels 
added 
glamour 
on a similar 
register 
to 
Hollywood 
costuming. 
149 
The 
new 
Royals 
were costumed 
and choreographed 
as 
Britain's 
Platonic 
counterpoint to 
the 
glamorous, 
corrupted 
aura 
of 
American 
movie 
stars. 
"0 
The 
(re)appropriation 
of 
Royal 
glamour 
from 
Hollywood 
occurred 
at a critical point 
in 
the 
construction 
of 
femininity 
in 
post-war 
Britain 
when 
many 
women 
were 
being 
lured into fashioning 
excesses 
by 
the 
US 
film 
industries' 
iconic 
stars. 
The 
glamour 
of 
the 
Coronation 
provided a 
synthesis of 
fantasies 
that 
provided 
a 
home-grown 
spectacle 
of 
excess, 
for 
entertainment 
if 
not emulation. 
"' 
By 
judicious 
use 
of staging 
and 
backdrops 
the 
Beatonisation 
of 
the 
Royals 
amalgamated 
real and 
invented 
regal 
signifiers 
creating 
a 
starry 
gravitas 
"" 
"The 
newly 
elected 
Conservative 
government 
was eager 
to 
reassert 
the 
old 
order, 
to 
reaffirm 
the 
hierarchical 
society 
which 
had 
largely 
disappeared 
[at 
the time 
of 
the 
Coronation]" 
(Strong, 
1988, 
p. 
18). 
` 
This 
is 
evident 
in 
the 
Royal Annual 
where 
the 
first 
chapter 
is 
devoted 
to 
the 
Queen's 
jewellery 
(Talbot 
and 
Vaughn 
Thomas, 
undated). 
Kuhn 
has 
noted 
the 
sumptuousness of 
the 
Coronation 
itself 
was 
a 
welcome 
promise 
of post-war 
reconstruction, 
a 
country 
soon 
to 
enter 
"an 
era of revival, 
innovation, 
plenty 
and 
evenjollity 
" 
(Kuhn, 
1995, 
p. 
70). 
"" 
Cecil 
Beaton, 
a 
theatre 
designer 
and costumier 
was 
a 
critical 
agent 
in 
glamourising 
the 
House 
of 
Windsm 
he 
photographed 
the 
Royals 
for 50 
years 
from 1930-1979. 
Many 
early 
images 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
mirror 
in 
pose, 
lighting 
and 
costuming 
classic 
glamour 
images 
of 
Hollywood 
stars. 
A 
Picturegoer 
special, 
'Filming 
the 
Coronation' 
had 
a 
demure but 
glamorous 
Elizabeth 
(Windsor) 
on 
its 
front 
cover. 
In 
the 
issue, 
the 
Coronation 
is 
treated 
as a 
soon 
to 
be 
released 
blockbuster. 
It 
provided 
illustrations 
of 
the 
camera 
angles 
to 
be 
used 
'behind 
the 
scenes' and contained 
an advertisement 
for 
Pathe's 
': 
full-length 
Coronationfilm 
'Elizaheth 
is 
Queen'in 
wonderful 
Warnercolor 
at 
most 
cinemasftom 
June 
r" 
(Picturegoer, 
weekending 
2 May, 
1953). 
'31 
Although 
Kuhn 
evokes 
through 
memory work 
the 
costumes 
she 
and 
friends 
wore 
at 
Coronation 
parties 
(Kuhn, 
1995, 
pp. 
59- 
66). 
250 
57. 
Unaccredited 
photographs 
of 
the 
Coronation, 
unpaginated, 
The 
Queen's 
Clothes, 
Robb 
and 
Anne 
Edwards, 
London: Book 
club 
associates, undated. 
that 
invested 
his 
sitters with 
an anachronistic 
aura. 
Strong has 
discussed 
how 
the 
art 
historical 
canon 
was 
deployed 
by Beaton 
to 
inject 
added value 
into 
images 
of 
the 
Queen for 
Vogue: 
In 
1940, Beaton 
photomontaged one 
of 
his 
romantic 
1939 
photographs 
of 
the 
Queen 
onto 
a 
series of 
reproductions 
of oil 
paintings 
of earlier 
British 
royalty, 
deliberately 
and accurately 
placing 
his 
work 
for 
the 
Royal 
Family 
in 
a 
direct line 
of 
descent 
from 
the 
court 
painters 
of 
the 
past 
[Holbein, 
Velasquez 
or 
Van Dyck. 
] 
Beaton's 
portraits, 
therefore 
have 
played 
a crucial 
part 
in 
the 
creation 
of what recent 
historians have 
categorised 
as 
'invention 
of 
tradition 
(Strong, 
1988, 
p. 
19). 
Beaton's 
aestheticisation 
of 
the 
Royals, 
to 
create 
a 
"new 
Elizabethan 
Age" 
(Kuhn, 
1995, 
p. 
70) 
was undertaken 
in 
partnership with couturier 
and 
former 
theatrical 
costumier 
Norman 
Hartnell, 
who 
was 
recruited 
to 
Royal 
service around 
the 
same 
time. 
152 
Beaton's 
project 
has been 
interpreted 
as, 
in 
part, 
a 
reaction 
to 
the 
unpopular 
modernisation 
of 
the 
image 
of 
the 
monarchy. 
He 
had 
re-created 
a powerful visual mythology 
for 
the 
Crown 
after 
Edward 
VIII's 
disastrous 
dabbling 
with 
Modernism 
[ 
... 
I 
No 
less important 
was 
the 
establishment 
of 
the 
new 
Queen's 
style as 
the 
antithesis 
to the 
modernistic chic 
of 
the 
Duchess 
of 
Windsor. 
It 
was 
instead 
an 
evocation 
of 
the 
ancien regime 
grandeur 
and 
high 
glamour 
overlaid 
by 
thirties 
romantic 
revivalism. 
What 
in 
retrospect 
is 
so astonishing 
is 
that this 
style 
of 
dress 
was revived 
in 
the 
post- 
war 
period 
(ibid. 
p. 
18). 
The 
authors 
of royal 
annuals and 
other 
books 
for 
girls 
from 
the 
1950s 
153 
promoted 
a similar 
dyad 
to 
that 
evidenced 
in 
non-royal 
therned texts 
in 
this 
genre, 
a satisfying 
emphasis 
on 
detail, 
decoration 
and 
excess, 
alongside 
proscriptive 
advice. 
Descriptions 
of 
the 
young 
female 
Royals 
emphasised 
their 
innate 
demureness, 
their 
disinterest in 
showiness 
and 
immunity 
to 
fashion. 
"' 
The 
"I 
For 
three 
decades 
Hartnell, 
the 
'couturier 
laureate' dressed 
most 
female 
Royals, 
Strong has 
noted 
that, 
on 
occasions, 
Beaton 
and 
Hartnell's 
work 
involved 
the 
iconic 
construction of 
the 
Royals 
en 
masse: 
"On 
great 
stale occasions 
such 
as 
the 
Coronation 
of 
1953 
he designed 
virtually 
every 
dress, 
which 
accountsfor 
the 
harmony 
of 
the 
tableaux 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
24). 
According 
to 
Strong 
both 
Hartnell 
and 
Beaton 
were: 
"skilled 
at orchestrating what was 
injact 
a 
royal 
crowd sequence, 
when 
colours 
and cut 
most 
complement 
each 
other 
and 
in 
which 
the 
monarch's clothes 
must 
be 
seen 
to 
be 
the 
most 
resplendent 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
25). 
The 
correlation 
of 
Busby 
Berkeley 
style 
choreography 
and 
State 
or 
Royal 
pageantry 
is 
evoked 
in 
this 
passage. 
And 
I 
am claiming 
here 
that 
Royal 
annuals 
were 
indeed 
marketed 
and 
edited 
for 
girl 
readers. 
For 
example 
Winn 
stated: 
"Unlike 
most 
girls 
today 
Princess Margaret 
never 
wears earrings, 
and 
/ have 
noticed 
with 
some 
interest 
that 
she 
never 
wears a ring 
either, while 
her 
hands. 
farfrom 
being 
the 
scarlet 
claws 
that 
arefashionable 
tod4, 
have 
only 
verypale 
varnish 
on 
their 
nails" 
(Winn, 195 
1, 
p. 
97). 
However, 
Royal 
moviegoers, 
especially 
Margaret, 
increasingly 
revealed 
through 
her 
self-representation 
how 
Hollywood 
had 
shaped 
her 
identifications. 
251 
sycophancy 
of 
Royal 
watchers and 
hagiographers insisted 
that 
the 
Queen 
possessed 
innate 
good 
taste 
and, 
implausibly, 
found 
her 
to 
be dressed 
modestly 
and 
appropriately 
on all 
occasions. 
135 
Research 
participants 
in 
this 
and other studies 
have 
remembered 
the 
restrictions 
in 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
on uses 
ofjewellery, make-up, 
hair 
products 
and clothes, 
where 
indulgence 
in 
excesses 
was 
read 
as vain and 
inappropriately 
sexualising. 
In 
contrast, 
aristocratic 
expressions 
of 
excess were 
the 
prerogative 
of 
female Royals 
and 
the 
elite models 
employed 
by 
Vogue, 
who 
in 
this 
period 
were 
frequently 
well 
connected. 
As 
aristocrats 
such women 
were at 
liberty 
to 
construct 
womanliness, 
for 
example, 
Dior's 
New 
Look 
that 
was 
to 
dominate 
fashion 
in 
the 
1950s 
was 
flrst 
embodied 
by 
Barbara 
Goalen 
the 
'society 
by 
association' 
mannequin 
for 
Harper's 
Bazaar 
and 
British 
Vogue. 
156 
But 
the 
New 
Look 
was 
itself 
a 
further 
appropriation 
of 
low 
fashioning, 
based 
as 
it 
was 
"on Dior's 
memories 
ofthe 
courtesans 
ofParis's 
Belle Epoche 
around 
1900 
was 
designedfor 
women, 
not 
girls 
" 
(Horwell, 
2002, 
p. 
24). 
157 
Despite 
the 
modernist 
hegemony 
in fashion 
and 
design in 
the 
post-war 
period, 
aristocratic 
dressing 
to 
excess 
sustained 
an ambivalent appeal 
for 
the 
middle classes; 
their 
bohemian 
flamboyance 
a 
knowing 
exception 
to the 
constraints of 
the 
Modernist 
mantra 
that 
'less is 
more'. 
They 
provided 
a 
foil 
to 
self-referential 
forms 
of 
Modernist 
fashioning 
that 
ultimately styled 
women 
as 
boys. 
By 
the 
1960s 
and 
70s 
the 
pedigree 
of 
the 
model, preferably 
exotic 
and/or aristocratic 
intuited 
by fashionistas 
evoked 
158 
the 
romance 
of 
a 
bohemian 
aristocracy, epitomised 
by 
the 
model 
Veruschka. 
Veruschska's 
jewellery 
excesses, 
or 
those 
of 
'society 
by 
association' 
figures 
such 
as 
Nancy 
Cunard 
or 
the 
Duchess 
of 
Windsor 
signalled 
in 
their 
styling 
a 
self-conscious 
awareness 
of 
the 
Modernist 
underpinning 
of 
their 
excess. 
This 
f 
155 
"The 
queen 
has 
natural 
good 
taste 
in 
the 
matter 
ofjewels, 
and 
hasfurther 
received 
the 
benefit 
of 
the 
experience 
ofthat 
ine 
connoisseur, 
the 
late 
Queen 
Mary. 
She 
will 
wear 
nothing 
that 
is 
not perfect 
of 
its 
kind 
She 
alsofeels 
that 
afew 
pieces 
well 
chosen 
to 
suit 
the 
occasion 
arefar 
more effective 
than 
masses ofjewels 
indiscriminately 
worn 
" 
(ralbot 
and 
Vaughn 
Tbomas, 
p. 
90). 
11 
Veronica Horwell 
noted 
in her 
obituary 
of 
Goalen 
that: 
"She did 
not 
have 
to 
work 
Herfather 
was 
the 
owner 
ofa 
Malaysian 
ruhherplantation. 
As 
a 
pre-war 
model 
she 
was 
treated 
as society-hy-association, 
couture 
gowns 
were 
loanedfor 
the 
evening 
( 
... 
I 
chauffeured 
Rolls 
Royce's, 
liners 
to, 
4merica... 
Shefavoured 
a 
lacquered 
bouffant 
which 
she 
stayed 
withfor 
life 
qfter 
experimenting 
with 
the 
gamine 
look 
[ 
... 
I 
She 
made no 
concessions 
to the 
brevity 
ofskirts 
and 
dearth 
ofrealjewellery 
in 
the 
1960s 
[preferring 
her] 
own 
extreme 
style 
" (Horwell, 2002, 
p. 
24). 
According to 
Horwell: 
"Between 
1947 
and 
1954 
the 
British 
queen 
ofhauteur 
was 
Barbara 
Goaten 
Brilain'sfirst 
supermodel 
(came] 
from 
an age 
of 
mannequins, 
debutantes 
and 
couture 
gowns 
" (Horwell, 
2002, 
p. 
24). 
Is' 
Notwithstanding 
their 
brief 
(re-) 
appropriation 
of 
the 
New Look 
(Partington, 
1992) 
working-class 
women 
in 
the 
first 
two 
decades 
after 
the 
War 
remained 
in 
a 
fashioning 
vacuum 
where 
little 
but 
health, 
modesty and cleanliness 
were 
socially 
sanctioned. 
Following 
the 
iconic 
memories 
of 
Jean 
Shrimpton 
cited 
earlier, 
I 
wanted 
to 
remark 
on 
the 
ubiquity 
of references 
to 
prostitutes' 
fashionings 
in 
the 
creations 
authored 
by fashion 
designers 
and 
the 
icons 
created 
in 
popular culture. 
In 
this 
respect 
it 
is 
interesting 
to 
note 
that 
O'Grady's 
creation 
Lily 
Savage 
was 
forged 
in 
part 
from 
a memory 
of prostitutes: 
"When 
he 
[O'Grady] 
starts 
describing 
the 
prostitutes 
he 
came across 
as 
a court 
clerk 
it 
becomes 
apparent 
they 
might 
have 
been 
prototype 
Lilies. 
'7hey'd 
had 
the 
rollers 
ripped 
out 
oftheir 
hair 
in 
the 
cells 
but 
they 
were 
so 
brave. 
I 
used 
to 
admire 
theinfor 
giving 
as 
good 
as 
they 
got... 
O'Grady's 
female 
relatives 
were 
also 
iconic:, 
4nd 
there 
was 
myAuntie 
Chrissie, 
who was a clippie 
on 
the 
buses. 
She had 
a 
hard 
life 
but 
she used 
to 
suck 
her 
cheeks 
in 
andfancy 
herselfas 
Marlene Dietrich 
"'(O'Grady 
interviewed 
by 
Picardie, 
1995, 
p. 
4). 
"' 
Bom, 
Countess 
Vera 
Gottliebe Anna 
von 
Lehndorff, 
her 
father 
was 
a 
Prussian 
count, 
Veruschka 
enjoyed 
something 
of a 
renaissance 
when 
her 
excessive 
look 
was rediscovered 
in 2003 by 
fashion 
designer 
Michael 
Kors. 
Kors: 
"sent 
on 
to the 
catwalk 
a 
collection 
he dubbed Feruschka's 
Voyage, 
a 
holiday 
wardrobe 
gleaming 
with 
gold embroidery 
and 
hot 
pink and 
orange 
t1e. 
dyes. 
Kors 
models 
looked 
like leisured, 
sun 
tanned 
bohemians 
sporting 
collar-bone 
skimming 
earrings made 
of 
linked 
brass 
discs" 
(West, 
2003, 
p. 
3 8). 
252 
generated 
a strain 
of 
Modernism 
that 
produced 
the 
inevitable 
exception 
to 
its 
prohibitions; 
an 
aristocratic 
Modernity, 
a 
judicious, 
artful ornamentation 
as 
opposed 
to 
Royal 
Vulgarity. 
The 
Royal 
family, 
at 
least 
the 
immediate 
female 
members 
during 
Beaton's 
reign, 
signalled 
an 
obliviousness to 
Modernism. 
Rather, 
they 
expressed 
an 
excessive, 
Royal 
Taste, long 
considered 
vulgar 
by 
the 
steadily 
expanding 
middle-class style cognoscenti. 
159 
Royal Taste 
is 
anathema 
to 
Modernism in 
its 
commitment 
to 
narrative 
excess. 
The imperative 
for 
the 
Queen's 
clothes 
to tell 
people 
something, 
is 
illustrated 
in 
an 
homage 
to the 
Queen's 
clothes 
by 
the 
illustrator 
Robb, 
published 
in 
1977 
to 
coincide 
with 
the 
Silver 
Jubilee. 
In 
his 
pious 
introduction 
Hartnell 
described 
the 
literal 
didacticism 
of 
her 
Coronation 
garment 
and 
wardrobe 
for 
a 
Royal 
tour, 
created 
according 
to the 
Queen's instruction. 
160 
A further 
distinction 
between 
Modernism 
and 
Royal 
paradoxically 
Vulgar 
Taste 
is 
in 
their 
respective 
eschewing/embracing 
of 
realism. 
In 
the 
case 
of 
Royal/Vulgar 
taste this 
is 
emphasised 
in 
a shrinking 
or enlarging 
of 
scale, 
the 
miniaturisation 
or 
gigantism 
emphasising 
the 
efforts 
of achieving 
a realistic 
effect 
a 
process 
at 
odds 
with 
Modernist 
orthodoxy 
and as 
Susan 
Stewart 
has 
provocatively 
theorised, 
instilling 
a 
sense 
of 
nostalgia 
and 
craftsmanship 
(Stewart, 1993, 
p. 
69). 
Elizabeth: 
an 
icon 
of 
Royal/Vulgar 
Taste 
The 
proximity 
of 
stars 
to 
Royalty 
increased 
in 
the 
post-war 
period 
and 
that 
audiences 
shared 
in 
the 
pleasures 
of excess 
expressed 
by both. 
Taylor 
played a significant 
role 
in 
carving 
new 
excessive 
models 
of 
femininity 
for female 
audiences 
in her 
equivocal 
position 
as 
Queen 
of 
Hollywood 
Royalty. 
Taylor 
was 
indisputably 
an 
icon 
of 
glamour 
for female 
film 
audiences 
of 
the 
1950s 
and 
1960s 
including 
research 
participants and 
a 
wiMI 
champion 
of vulgar excess 
specifically 
in 
her 
association 
with 
excessive 
jewellery. 
161 
Critics however 
deemed 
her 
career 
irrevocably 
compromised 
by 
her 
Royal 
Tastelessness. 
Freeman 
has 
referred 
to 
Taylor 
as 
"The 
Henry 
the 
Eighth 
ofthe 
cinematic 
world, 
more 
jamousfor 
her 
bizarre 
appearance 
and 
over-weighted 
weddingfinger 
thanfor 
any 
of 
her 
I" 
in 
a recent 
'insolent' 
interview 
the 
historian 
David Starkey 
outed 
the 
vulgar, 
excessive 
roots 
of 
British 
'Royal 
Taste'. 
Asked 
why 
his TV 
series 
on 
Tudor 
England had 
focussed 
on 
the 
detail 
of court 
'haberdashery' 
Starkey 
retorted: 
"Because 
they 
spent 
a 
very 
large 
part 
ofthe royal 
income 
on 
it. 
V'you 
want 
to 
know 
where 
the 
wealthfrom 
the 
dissolution 
ofthe 
monasteries 
went, 
well- 
that's 
where. 
Henry 
VIII died 
with 
the 
world's 
largest 
collection 
of 
tapestry. 
It 
was 
made of 
silk gold 
and 
silver,, 
embroidered 
withpearls. 
Anda 
typical 
court 
ouifit 
wouldhavejewels 
on 
it 
that 
were worth 
in 
their 
money 
- 
i10,000 
... 
that's 
why 
it 
its 
important 
One 
of 
the things 
Modernistsfail 
to 
grasp 
Is 
that 
this 
was 
a wholly 
aristocratic, 
ostentatious 
display. 
At 
the 
risk 
of 
being 
racist, 
this 
is 
aperiod ofAy-rab values, 
the 
values 
ofDonald 
Trump 
" (Starkey 
quoted 
in 
Walsh, 
2001 
b, 
p. 
1). 
160 
"For 
Canada 
it 
was 
the 
maple 
leaf 
in 
green 
velvet 
and 
emeralds 
on 
pale 
green; 
for 
Australia 
the 
yellow 
mimosa 
(or 
wattle); 
for France 
thefleur 
des 
champs 
- 
gold with 
Napoleon's 
busy bee 
in 
brown 
chenille; 
for 
the 
Vatican, 
jet 
and 
diamonds 
on 
black 
lace 
with 
a veilfor 
the 
audience 
with 
the 
Pope; 
for 
Pakistan 
emerald 
beads 
and 
diamonds 
andfor 
Japan 
a mist 
ofpink 
cherr), 
blossom 
cascading 
down 
a 
backcIoth 
ofazure 
chiffon. 
And 
In 
another all 
the 
emblems 
of 
Great 
Britain 
and 
the 
Commonwealth 
clustered 
together 
upon 
the 
dress 
I designedfor 
Her 
Majesty's 
Coronation. 
They 
hang 
there 
not as a 
memoir 
of 
ephemeral 
fashion 
but 
as a reminder 
of 
the 
historic 
significance 
ofall 
the 
great 
State 
visits, 
so 
dutifully 
undertaken 
by 
our 
beloved 
monarch, 
Her 
Majesty 
the 
Queen 
" ('Robb', 1977, 
p. 
7). 
161 
Maddox 
has 
noted 
Taylor's 
treatment 
as 
Hollywood 
Royalty. 
Her 'queening 
it' 
provoked 
Lucille 
Ball 
to 
curtsey 
when 
the 
Burton's 
appeared on 
I Love Lucy 
and she 
referred 
to the 
star as, 
'Your 
Highness' 
and 
'Your 
Majesty' (Maddox, 
1977, 
p. 
233) 
253 
accomplishments" 
(Freeman, 
2003, 
p. 
8). Erasing 
the 
perennial 
fascination 
of 
her 
female 
audiences 
and 
fans he 
places 
Taylor 
in 
a 
"neglected 
and 
embarrassing 
hinterland 
I 
Not 
sutficientl 
t1t 
y 
rag co 
be 
reincarnated 
as 
a camp 
icon, 
not 
ironic 
enough 
to 
be deemed 
worthy 
oftritical 
reappraisal" 
(ibid. 
). 
Criticism 
of 
Taylor's 
excessive 
style characterised 
high 
evaluations 
of 
her 
work 
from 
at 
least 
the 
early 
1970s. 
162 
The New 
York 
Times, 
following 
Burton's 
purchasing 
of 
the 
Cartier 
Burton 
diamond 
for 
Taylor, 
articulated moral 
indignation 
against 
her: 
"In 
this 
age 
of 
Vulgarity 
marked 
by 
such 
minor 
matters 
as 
war andpoverty, 
it 
gets 
harder 
each 
day 
to 
scale 
the 
heights 
oftrue 
vulgarity. 
But 
given 
some 
loose 
millions, 
it 
can 
be done 
- 
and worse, 
admired"(ibid. 
p. 
212). 
Her 
biographer 
Maddox 
enumerates 
criticisms 
byjournalists 
and 
industry 
professionals 
alike. 
163 
For 
example, 
Alan 
Williams's 
description 
of 
her 
fashioning 
at 
her fortieth 
birthday 
party: 
"a 
beautiful 
doughnut 
covered 
in 
diamonds 
andpaint 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
216) 
was 
in itself 
a 
definition 
of 
Royal 
Taste. 
164 
Taylor's 
taste 
remains 
a 
benchmark 
of 
excess. 
Some 
thirty 
years 
after 
Beaton's 
remarks, 
the 
independent 
critiqued 
her in 
a 
queered 
sense 
for 
taking 
excess 
'too 
seriously', 
and 
as 
a 
foil 
for 
Claudia 
163 
Schiffer's 
Modernist 
chic. 
Royal/Vulgar 
Taste: 
costume excesses 
as 
matter 
out 
of 
time 
and 
place 
Even 
in 
contemporary 
critiques 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
the 
strength 
of 
repulsion 
is 
evocative 
of 
a 
form 
of 
Puritanism. 
It 
may 
be 
argued 
that 
exponents 
of 
Modernism 
display 
a 
prudery 
about 
what 
Douglas 
coined 
'matter 
out 
of place' 
(Douglas, 
1966): 
symbolic 
material 
that 
is 
found 
in 
inappropriate 
places 
that 
has 
profound 
social and 
cultural 
signification. 
Distinctions 
and 
calibrations 
of 
good 
and 
bad 
taste, 
appropriate 
and 
inappropriate fashionings 
of 
materials 
and matter 
in 
and 
out 
of 
place 
figure, 
as 
Douglas's 
anthropological 
perspective 
implied, 
across 
Modernist, 
nineteenth 
century 
and 
post-modem 
162 
A 
Village Voice's 
critique 
of 
her 1973 TV 
vehicle, 
Divorce 
His, 
Divorce 
Hers 
noted 
"the 
vulgar 
medallion 
[between 
her] 
projectile-like 
tits" 
and 
her "grossfinger-ring " (cited in 
Maddox, 
1977, 
pp. 
226-7). 
"I 
Elliott 
Kastner 
protested 
"Sim-pli-city, 
Elizabeth!... 
Elizabeth 
has 
taste 
up 
her 
ass. 
If 
she 
were 
low 
key, 
she'd 
leave 
Grace 
Kelly 
in 
the 
dust. " 
(ibid. 
p. 
235). 
Taylor is frequently 
cast as 
competing 
for 
the top 
spot 
with 
Grace 
Kelly 
in 
popular'Most 
Glamorous/Elegant/Beautiful 
Woman' listings. 
Kelly's 
chic, 
understated 
style was rewarded 
with 
real 
Princess 
status 
when 
she 
married 
Prince 
Rainier 
of 
Monoco 
in 
1955. Kelly 
heads 
a recent 
list 
of 
the 
100 
most 
elegant 
women, 
apparently 
selected 
by 
'British 
fashion industry 
experts' 
(Collins 200 
1, 
p. 
5). Milmo, 
appraising 
the 
list 
concluded, 
"Modern 
women 
may 
enjoy 
greater 
fireedom 
andpower 
than 
their. 
/arebears, 
but 
when 
it 
comes 
to 
beauty 
the 
nation 
hankers 
afterjust 
two 
things- 
the 
pearl 
earrings 
and 
clipped 
vowels 
ofyestervear. 
" (Milmo 2001 
no page 
available) 
He 
notes 
that, 
"Elizabeth 
Taylor 
- 
once 
reignedas 
the 
epitome 
ofscreen 
dignity 
- 
ranks 
58'h. 
one place 
behind 
Elizabeth 
1, 
who was 
renownfor 
her 
baldness, 
bad 
breath 
and 
ruthless 
temper" 
(Milmo, 
200 1, 
P. 
5). 
I" 
Beaton, 
from 
an 
incomparable 
vantage 
point, appears 
to 
fuse 
Taylor's 
vulgarity 
with 
Royal 
Windsor 
Taste. 
He 
recorded 
an 
encounter 
with 
the 
Burtons 
in 
1971. 
Vogue had 
implored Beaton 
to 
photograph 
Taylor 
at 
the 
event, 
a 
ball 
hosted 
by 
Marie- 
Helene 
de 
Rothschild 
to 
celebrate 
the 
birth 
of 
Proust 
since, 
according 
to 
Beaton. 
"theyfind 
every 
issue 
carrying 
herpicture 
is 
a 
sell-out 
": "I 
have 
always 
loathed 
the 
Burionsfor 
their 
vulgarity, commonness 
and crass 
bad 
taste, 
she combining the 
worst 
of 
US 
and 
English 
taste, 
he 
as 
butch 
and coarse 
as a 
Welshman 
can 
be [ 
... 
] Round 
her 
neck 
was 
velvet 
ribbon 
with 
the 
biggest 
diamond in 
the 
worldpinned 
on 
it 
On 
herfat, 
coarse 
hands 
more 
ofthe 
biggest 
diamonds 
and 
emeralds 
her 
head 
a 
ridiculous 
mass 
ofdiamond necklaces 
sewn 
together. 
And 
this, the 
woman who 
is 
the 
greatest 
'draw. 
In 
comparison 
everyone 
else 
looked 
ladylike 
" (Beaton 
quoted 
in 
Vickers, 2002, 
p. 
1). 
Beaton 
had long 
considered 
Royal 
Taste 
exercised 
by 
the 
female 
Royals 
as 
vulgar. 
Encountering 
Princess 
Margaret 
a year 
later 
at 
a 
reception 
at 
Windsor 
with 
Laurence 
Olivier 
and 
Joan 
Plowright 
Beaton 
bitched, 
"She 
wore 
harsh 
white and 
hair 
scraped 
back like 
a wealthy 
seaside 
landlady " (Beaton 
quoted 
in 
Vickers, 
2002, 
p. 
2). 
I" 
It 
began 
somewhat 
disingenuously: 
"The 
one 
person 
we all 
trusted 
not 
to 
get 
diamonds 
wrong 
was 
Liz 
Taylor, 
sofamousfor 
her 
addition 
to 
ostentatious 
rocks. 
But 
even 
Liz 
can 
make 
mistakes. 
Last 
week 
at 
a 
Hollywood 
event 
she 
set offbig 
hair 
andscary 
make-up 
with 
a garish earring 
and 
necklace 
ensemble, 
all 
sparkling 
diamonds, 
emeralds and gold, 
leaving 
her 
looking 
like 
an 
over-baubled 
Christmas 
tree. 
Admittedly 
her look 
was 
in 
keeping 
with 
the 
current 
voguefor 
achieving 
high-voltage 
glamour 
with 
glitzy 
accessories, 
but 
it 
is 
all 
too 
easy 
to 
get 
it 
wrong. 
Accessories, 
even 
diamonds 
lose 
their 
impact ifyou 
overload, 
Keep 
to 
one 
extravagant 
piece 
andyou 
are afashion 
player; 
take the 
Dynasty 
took 
too 
seriously, 
teaming 
ab 
Ig 
necklace 
with 
a 
gaudypair 
of 
earrings, 
andyou are 
in 
danger 
of 
being 
branded 
a 
style 
slave. 
[ 
... 
] Claudia 
Schiffer 
[ 
... 
I 
wore 
aplatinum 
and 
diamond 
necklace 
andmatching 
bracelet 
with a simple 
black 
dress, 
urifussy 
hair 
and 
understated 
makeup" 
(Independent, 
unauthored, 
2000, 
P. 
4). 
254 
critiques 
and 
in 
the 
accounts of 
research 
participants 
in 
their 
evaluations 
of 
their 
own 
and 
others 
constructions of 
femininity: 
Ellen: I 
think 
that 
we can 
get away with 
that 
with 
Aunt 
Moira because 
she 
was 
a 
dancer 
so 
she 
wore 
those 
clothes- 
but her 
mother and 
her 
sister 
weren't, 
so 
they 
weren't 
quite 
classy 
in 
the 
sense 
that 
it 
might 
be, 
might 
be, 
might 
be 
more 
- 
looking 
at 
Aunt 
Margaret 
because 
Aunt 
Margaret, 
because 
Aunt Moira 
and 
Aunty 
Maggie 
were 
very 
attractive 
people, 
very 
tall 
and 
elegant 
and 
thin 
and 
looked 
fantastic 
in 
whatever, 
you 
know, 
Aunty 
Maggie 
could 
wear 
something 
from 
the 
Barras, but 
Aunt Margaret 
was 
quite 
stout 
and 
maybe 
didn't 
look 
so 
fantastically 
well 
For 
many, 
jewellery 
was 
to 
be 
handled 
with 
care, 
reserved 
for 
times 
and 
spaces 
when 
and 
where 
it 
would 
be 
'in 
place'. 
Pauline: I 
wearjewellery at 
the 
weekend 
aye, 
I 
don't 
usually 
wear 
it 
during 
the 
week. 
[... 
] 
I like 
costume 
jewellery, 
I 
really 
like 
a 
bit 
of costume 
jewellery 
when 
I'm 
going 
out. 
Maureen: 
I 
don't like 
jewellery 
at all 
no, 
I'm 
not 
fond 
ofjewellerY. 
My 
mum 
she 
bought 
me 
a 
locket 
and 
I 
won't wear 
it. 
[ 
... 
] 
The 
only 
thing 
is, if 
I'm 
really 
going 
out and 
the 
likes 
of 
[indecipherable] I'll 
put on 
blouse, 
I'll 
put 
on 
a necklace 
and 
my 
locket 
and 
I'll 
maybe 
get 
out 
my 
big 
earrings 
so 
that 
means 
I'll 
be 
nice 
going 
out. 
16' 
Soap 
queens and 
the 
appropriation 
of 
Royal Taste 
(i) Post-modern 
appropriations 
of 
the 
iconography 
of 
female 
royalty 
The 
queen 
can perhaps 
through 
long familiarity 
with 
them, 
carry 
off 
with 
regal 
assurance 
more 
diamonds 
than 
any 
fashion 
expert would 
permit: 
diamond 
tiara, 
diamond 
necklace, 
diamond 
chandelier 
earrings, 
diamond bracelets, 
diamond 
brooches, 
and 
diamond 
ring; 
and on 
her 
it 
never seems a 
diamond 
too 
much.... 
Sparkling 
from 
head 
to toe 
she 
has 
never 
looked 
flashy 
or vulgar. 
No 
matter 
how 
elegant 
the 
crowd 
around 
her, 
she 
never 
fails 
to 
steal 
the 
show, and 
not 
only 
because 
her 
diamonds 
are 
bigger 
and 
better. 
She 
has 
I" 
The 
notion of 
nighttime 
and 
daytime fashioning 
is 
acknowledged 
in 
most 
advice 
texts. 
For 
example, 
in 
the 
tM 
Accessory 
Chic, 
the 
author notes 
that 
'daytime 
wear can 
become 
eveningwear 
by 
clipping 
on apair 
ofearrings'(Roderick, 
1986, 
p. 
145). 
This 
reiterates 
ideas 
raised 
earlier concerning 
notions 
of 
inlappropriate 
times 
and places 
for 
fashioning 
(See 
also 
Black, 
2001, 
p, 
9). 
Fawcett 
has 
critiqued 
Newcastle 
girls' 
on 
'the 
toon' 
in just 
these 
terms: 
'In 1999 
both 
summer and 
winter 
clothes 
were 
dominated 
hypink, 
mauve and 
black. 
These 
ouYas 
would 
have 
been described 
aparly 
or 
special occasion 
clothes 
20 
or 
30years 
ago, 
hut 
they 
are now 
worn on any 
night ofthe 
week 
and 
often 
in 
daytime 
situations 
too 
" 
(Fawcett, 2002, 
p. 
13 1). 
255 
58. 
Cover, 
Vogue, 
December, 
2001. 
a personal royal 
sparkle which matches 
her 
dress 
and 
herjewels 
and 
with 
these 
three 
weapons 
she 
obliterates 
the 
competition 
(Robb 
and 
Edwards, 
1977, 
p. 
65). 
Whilst Victoriana, 
sentimentality and mock 
aristocratic 
taste 
defined 
outmoded 
excess 
for 
both Modernism 
and 
feminism, 
mocking 
Royal/Vulgarity 
and 
appropriating 
excessive 
femininity 
(bouffanting, 
fishnets, 
make-up, stilettos, 
tutus 
... 
) 
became 
the 
aesthetics 
of punk. 
The 
aesthetic 
critique 
of 
the 
aura 
of royalty, 
can 
be identified 
in 
the 
paradoxical 
iconic 
iconoclasm 
of 
Warhol's 
screen 
prints 
that 
suggested, 
in his 
selection of subjects, 
an equivalence 
of 
value 
between 
Hollywood 
stars, 
Communist 
Leaders, 
British Royals, 
himself 
and 
Presidents' 
wives. 
Commentators 
have 
privileged the 
role 
of 
Situationist 
and 
Warholian informed 
punk 
in 
deconstructing 
the 
aura 
of 
the 
British 
monarchy. 
167 
Punk's 
own seamless 
capitalist 
capitulation, 
reappropriation 
and 
commodification 
and 
its 
displacement 
by banal 
pop 
products 
seemingly 
untouched 
by its 
anarchic 
proselytising 
has 
in 
recent 
years 
been 
epitomised 
by 
the 
mainstream 
entrepreneurial 
ambitions 
of punk's 
champions 
Malcolm 
McLaren, 
Vivienne 
Westwood 
and 
John Lydon/Rotten. 
168 
Punk's 
aesthetic 
traces 
are 
visible 
in 
the trailer-trash, 
prom 
queen 
bastardisations 
discussed 
earlier 
but 
the 
heavyweight 
fashion 
magazines 
have 
remained 
conservative 
in 
their 
paradoxical 
modernist 
taste 
/indulgence 
of aristocratic 
performances 
of excess. 
Westwood's 
legacy 
was 
however, 
identifiable 
in 
Vogue 
magazine's 
Royal 
special 
(December, 
2001) 
where 
punk 
was 
comfortably 
accommodated 
as a retro 
style. 
Kate Moss, 
the 
current 
queen of 
the 
fashion 
aristocracy 
was 
ironically 
enthroned 
on 
the 
cover. 
In 
this 
issue devoted 
to 
Vogue's 
role 
in 
supporting 
(and 
recreating) 
the 
monarchy, 
a 
trajectory 
was 
traced that 
linked 
Beaton's 
early 
images 
of 
the 
Queen 
Mother, 
his 
first 
"' 
Jamie 
Reid's 
now 
canonical 
punk 
iconoclasm 
gave rise 
to 
a 
paradigni-shifting 
image 
in 
his 
God 
Save 
the 
Queen 
graphics 
for 
the 
Sex Pistols. This 
collage 
depicted 
the 
Queen 
in Royal 
regalia 
deconstructed 
through 
graphic 
processes 
in 
the 
former 
her 
eyes 
and 
mouth ripped 
off 
and 
hijacker 
cut-outs spelt 
out 
'God 
Save 
the 
Sex Pistols' 
(wwwjamiercid. 
uk-net/cgi-bin/ip. 
pi). 
The 
work 
reflected/created 
the 
underground zeitgeist. 
Its 
release coincided with 
the 
Silver 
Jubilee 
celebrations. 
The 
record 
ensured 
a 
mythical 
status 
in 
becoming 
one of 
the 
few 
Number 
I 
records 
banned 
by 
the 
BBC. 
"' 
Punk 
fashion, 
popularly 
attributed 
to 
Westwood 
paved 
the 
way 
for 
the 
designer's 
couture 
career. 
Her 
royal 
appropriations 
and 
interventions 
including 
her logo, 
an 
orb, 
early 
collections 
that 
included 
stuffed 
crowns and 
ersatz 
ermine 
cloaks 
and 
more 
recently 
her 
upstaging 
of 
the 
Queen by 
going 
knickerless 
to 
collect 
her MBE 
suggested 
an 
enduring 
iconoclasm. 
However, 
Westwood's 
identification 
with aspects 
of 
royal 
taste 
and 
her 
self-conscious reinvention 
as 
salon 
hostess 
and 
patriot 
signified 
her 
determination 
to 
play 
with rather 
than 
undermine 
royalty. 
In 
this 
the 
punk 
generation 
resembled 
other 
rock 
rebels. 
Hoskins 
has 
noted 
that 
Mick 
Jagger, 
Bryan 
Ferry 
and 
Madonna 
are 
conservative 
in 
their 
taste 
for 
elite 
institutions 
and 
prefier 
the 
public 
schools 
system 
for 
their 
children, 
Jagger 
and 
Ferry have 
children at 
Eton 
(Jade 
went 
to 
Bedales) 
and 
Madonna 
has 
Lourdes 
down 
for 
Cheltenham 
Ladies 
College 
(Hoskins, 
2001, 
p. 
7), 
Proximity 
to, 
or 
identifications 
with 
Royalty 
percolate 
through 
the 
rock and 
art 
and 
design 
fields. 
Arch 
modernist 
Pawson, 
also 
educated 
at 
Eton 
and 
oxford 
is 
out about 
his 
own 
"aristocratic 
Burgundian 
ancestry 
" 
(Rumbold, 
1996, 
p. 
11). 
256 
ANNUAL 
"I 
-q%l 
v 
X. 
--% 
-- 
10- 
. 
11, 
". 
I 
*. 
-. 
0, 
$04 
p. 
- 
"asp, 
59. 
Elizabeth Taylor 
in 
the 
role 
of 
Cleopatra 
on 
the 
cover 
of 
Film 
Show 
annual, 
1962. 
patron, 
and 
Mario 
Testino's 
posthumously 
published 
images 
of 
Lady 
Di. 
Despite 
this, 
no 
royals 
were 
considered 
fashionable 
or 
ironic 
enough 
to 
adom 
the 
front 
cover. 
169 
(ii) 
The 
subjugated 
iconoclasm 
of 
Royal 
Taste in disdained 
fashionings 
of 
femininity 
Jane: 
You 
should 
see my 
pal 
if 
you 
think 
someone 
in here 
is bad 
with 
jewel 
lery, 
Diane, 
aye, 
all 
her 
rings 
and all 
that. 
She 
gives 
it 
six 
rings on each 
finger 
and 
bangles 
and 
about 
twelve 
chains 
round 
her 
neck 
and 
everything. 
My 
analysis 
of work with research participants, 
of memory 
work 
data 
and 
post-war 
media 
texts 
suggested 
specific 
developments in forms 
of 
feminine 
excess 
in 
post-war 
popular 
culture. 
One 
finding 
is 
that the 
Royal 
aura 
and 
by 
extension, 
the 
plausibility 
of 
Royal 
prerogatives 
have 
been 
eroded 
by 
the 
effect 
of 
appropriation, 
identification 
and 
performances 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
excesses 
by 
working- 
class 
female 
film 
and 
soap 
stars and 
their 
audiences. 
170 
Although 
the 
musical, 
fine 
art 
and 
design 
canons 
have 
tended 
to 
support 
the 
notion of 
the 
agency 
of academic 
iconoclasm, 
I 
argue 
in 
this 
chapter 
that 
female 
soap 
stars 
and others who 
dress 
to 
excess 
can 
be 
seen as 
tarnishing 
the 
aristocratic 
aura. 
171 
The 
fantasy 
of 
encrusted 
femininity 
and of queening 
it 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
have 
been 
realised 
in 
the 
performances 
and 
habitus 
of an array of 
British 
female 
stars of popular 
culture, 
following 
Taylor's 
imperious 
and 
brazen 
model. 
172 
Maddox 
has 
detailed 
Taylor's 
idiosyncratic, 
gallus 
approach, 
In 1968 
just 
after 
she received 
the 
ring, 
[the infamous 
Krupp] 
she 
and 
Burton, 
along 
with 
Noel 
Coward, 
the 
Queen 
Mother 
and 
Princess Margaret, 
went 
down 
to 
Kent 
to 
attend 
the 
wedding 
of 
Sheran 
Cazalet 
to 
Simon 
Hornby. 
It 
was 
the 
society wedding 
of 
the 
year. 
To 
get 
to 
the 
church, 
the 
guests 
had 
to 
walk 
up 
a 
long 
path 
across 
a green 
up 
to the 
church 
door, 
as 
the 
villagers 
169 
The 
message? 
The 
Royals 
have 
not 
been 
wholly 
dispensed 
with 
through 
punk's 
agency 
but 
are 
not 
deemed 
fogue 
fit. 
In 
a 
recent 
tongue 
in 
cheek 
article 
in The 
Guardian, Freeman 
suggested 
that 
designers 
Miuccia 
Prada 
and 
Louis 
Vuitton 
had 
been 
inspired 
in 
their 
last 
collections 
by 
the 
Queen's 
*frumpy', 
'awkwardly 
pleated' 
style 
(Freeman, 
2003, 
p. 
12). 
'Liz 
chic' 
can 
be 
read 
as 
an 
ironic, 
middle class appropriation 
of 
Royal frumpiness, 
a stealth 
wealth 
alternative 
to 
the 
ironic 
tiara 
wearing 
that 
is deemed 
by implication, 
and, 
in 
the 
queered 
vernacular 
sooo 
last 
year. 
"" 
The 
impact 
of such 
changes 
on 
the 
identifications 
of 
female 
Royals, 
the 
notion 
of 
the 
Royals 
in 
this 
period 
as 
consumers 
themselves 
of 
film, 
in Buckingham 
Palace's 
private cinema, 
and 
TV is 
thought 
provoking. 
Bonnar 
has 
noted 
that 
the 
Queen 
requested 
a 
taped 
episode 
of 
Coronation 
Street 
on a state 
visit 
to 
Mexico 
(Bonnar, 1995, 
pp. 
4-5). 
"I 
This 
observation 
should 
be 
understood 
in 
the 
context 
of 
both 
academic 
and 
high 
media 
disdain 
for identifications 
with 
stars 
(and 
Royals). 
Non-ironic 
identification 
with royals and 
stars 
is 
more 
often 
articulated 
as 
an embarrassing, 
Youth 
flu 
Ifaux 
pas 
to 
be 
outgrown, 
a sign 
of cultural 
lack. Ginny Dougray inferred 
this 
in her 
Guardian 
article 
that 
discussed 
the 
impact 
that 
resembling 
Elizabeth 
Taylor 
had had 
on 
her 
as a young woman. 
Adopting 
an 
almost 
apologetic 
tone 
and 
highlighting 
the 
shortcomings 
of 
those who 
uncritically 
model 
themselves 
on 
stars or royals 
she 
claimed: 
"/ 
was 
concerned 
that 
it 
might 
seem 
deranged 
to 
be 
exploring 
the 
idea 
that 
Ifell 
a personal 
connection 
with 
Li: 
because 
someone 
once 
said 
that 
I 
bore 
a passing 
resemblance 
to 
her. 
I 
reminded 
myself 
of 
the 
old 
bag 
in 
afilm 
I 
once saw 
who 
thrust 
a photograph 
of 
Princess 
Diana 
inftoni 
of 
her 
hairdresser 
and 
announced, 
7 
want 
to 
look 
like 
that 
"' 
(Dougray, 
2000, 
pp. 
36-42). 
112 
Reaching 
its 
apotheosis 
on 
the 
screen 
in 
the 
film 
Cleopatra 
(Mankiewicz, 
1963) 
iconic 
stills 
of 
Taylor 
saturated 
Film 
and 
Star 
annuals 
and magazines 
from 1962 
until 
after 
its 
release 
in 1963, For 
example, 
Simmons 
1962, 
andAHC 
Film 
annual, 
1964. 
257 
crowded around 
to 
gawp at 
the 
greats. 
As Taylor 
and 
Burton 
headed 
up 
the 
path, 
Lady 
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, 
another guest, 
recalls, 
'Elizabeth 
removed 
her 
glove 
and 
held 
her 
hand, 
with 
that 
enormous rock 
against 
her 
throat. 
They 
all 
knew 
she 
had 
it 
because 
they 
had 
read 
about 
it in 
the 
papers. 
The 
crowd 
cheered. 
They just 
loved 
it. 
Of 
course 
it 
was 
vulgar. 
You 
wouldn't 
have done 
it, 
I 
wouldn't 
have done it. 
She is 
vulgar, 
tremendously. 
But 
she 
is 
a 
star, 
and 
it 
was 
just 
right' 
(Maddox, 
1977, 
p. 
213). 
173 
In 
her 
second autobiography 
Taylor 
related 
a 
clearly 
treasured 
anecdote 
that 
featured 
her 
royal 
counterpart, 
Princess 
Margaret. The 
passage 
illustrated 
the 
knowingness 
of 
Taylor's 
indulgence 
in 
feminine 
excess 
and 
her 
confidence 
in 
her 
own 
RoyaVVulgar 
taste: 
I 
love 
beautiful 
things 
and 
Richard [Burton] 
responded 
by 
showering 
me with 
glittering 
tokens 
of 
love. 
The 
Krupp 
diamond, 
the 
most 
publicised 
of 
his 
gifts, 
was 
only 
one 
of 
many 
splendours. 
[ 
... 
]I 
remember 
attending 
a wedding 
in 
London 
at which 
I 
was 
seated 
next 
to 
Princess 
Margaret. 
At 
one point 
the 
princess glanced 
at my 
ring and 
said, 
'Is 
that 
the 
famous 
diamond? ' 'Yes. 
' 
I 
responded, 
lifting 
my 
hand 
so 
she 
could 
see 
it 
better. 
She 
took 
another 
look 
and 
said, 
'Its 
so 
large! How 
very vulgar. 
' 'Yes. 
' I 
answered, 
'Ain't it 
greatV 
'Wouldyoumind 
if 
I 
tried 
it 
on? 
' 
continued 
the 
Princess, 
'Not 
at all. 
' 
I 
said 
and slipped 
the 
ring 
into 
her 
hand 
(Taylor, 
1987, 
pp. 
84-5). 
Coterminous 
with 
Taylor's 
usurping 
of 
Royal 
status, 
soap stars 
or queens 
became 
rooted 
in 
British 
popular 
culture. 
174 
In Coronation Street, Phoenix's 
archetype, 
Elsie 
Tanner 
provided 
a 
model, 
significantly 
on and off screen, 
of a powerful 
working-class 
woman 
who paradoxically 
embodied 
an 
excessive 
femininity. The 
notion 
of a 
working-class 
character/personality 
who 
earned 
the 
popular 
(media) 
epithet 
'queen' 
has 
a 
matrilineal 
line 
from 
Phoenix's 
precedent. 
Female 
audiences' 
adoption 
of 
'"Speaking 
of 
the 
Krupp, 
Burton's 
gift 
that 
Taylor 
wore on a 
daily basis, 
Maddox 
infcffed 
a 
political 
context 
to 
its 
appeal 
for 
Taylor: 
"Taylor 
knew 
where 
it 
camefrom- 
the 
hand 
ofthe wife 
of 
the 
German 
munitions 
maker. 
[she 
said] 
V 
think 
that 
it 
is 
nice 
that 
a 
little 
Jewish 
girl 
has 
it 
now. 
"' (Maddox, 
1977, 
p. 
213). Taylor's 
collection of 
gems 
are 
arguably 
as 
well 
known 
as 
most 
of 
her 
husbands: 
"Burton 
bought his 
wife 
the 
Krupp diamond, 
a 
33.9 
carat 
square cut 
diamondfor $305,000. 
Next he 
bought, 
not 
a 
diamond 
but 
a pearl; 
La 
Peregrina 
which 
King Philip 
ofSpain 
gave 
to 
Mary Tudor in 
1554 
which 
cost 
him 
$3,000. 
Then 
came 
the 
inch 
thick 
Cartier 
Burton diamondpriced 
at 
the 
sum associated 
with 
Taylor's 
name, 
one 
million 
dollars 
"(ibid. 
p. 
212). 
In 
2002 
Taylor 
published, 
in 
Freeman's 
view, 
"thefabulously 
awful" 
(Freeman, 
2003, 
p. 
8) Elizabeth 
Taylor. 
my 
love 
ciffair 
with 
jewellery 
(Taylor, Peltason, 
Matsumoto, 
2002). 
The 
tcxt? 
allegedly 
by Taylor, 
tells 
the 
story of 
her 
life 
through 
jewellery. 
Her 
queenly/vulgar 
demeanour 
was 
not 
diminished 
by 
old age 
as critics 
have increasingly 
mapped 
her fashioning 
onto 
unflattering 
notions 
of 
Royal Taste: 
"Elizabeth 
Taylor 
has 
more 
in 
common 
with 
Elizabeth 
11 
than 
a 
high 
voice, 
an 
oddshape 
and 
big 
handbags. 
They 
are growing older 
in 
the 
same 
way, 
taking 
on 
the 
look 
ofsexless 
orientalpolentatel, 
with 
their 
geological 
gems 
and 
turbans 
that 
hide 
every 
shred ofhair 
" (ibid. 
p. 
233). Penelope Mortimer, 
reviewing 
Secret 
Ceremony 
stated 
'in 
spite 
of 
her 
skill, 
I 
have 
an 
Irresistible 
compulsion 
to 
think 
ofher 
as 
the 
Queen 
Motherplaying 
charades 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
242). 
114 
Queens 
in 
other 
fields 
of 
popular 
culture 
are now 
endemic; 
Dolly 
has 
been 
dubbed 
the 
Queen 
of 
Country, 
Arctha 
Franklin 
the 
Queen 
of 
Soul, 
Joan 
Collins, 
the 
Queen 
Mother 
of 
British 
show 
business 
etc. 
(Russell, 
1996, 
p. 
11). 
258 
W. 
1% 
4. 
60. 
Julic (ioodycar 
in 
(hieen 
ot 
MeStreei, 
Sally Beck, 
1995, 
unpaginatcd. 
stars 
as 
queens, can 
be 
seen 
as 
fulfilling 
the 
individual 
and 
collective 
working-class 
aspirations 
of 
both 
stars 
and audiences. 
175 
Tony 
Warren's 
aim 
of constructing 
a working-class 
realism 
in 
the 
text 
of 
Coronation 
Street 
ironically 
culminated 
in 
the 
creation of 
a matrilineal, 
Hollywoodised 
ersatz 
aristocracy. 
176 
Phoenix, 
like 
her 
contemporary, 
Taylor 
revelled 
in 
the 
incursions 
into 
formally 
aristocratic 
fashionings 
and 
habitus. 
177 
Goodyear, 
Phoenix's 
friend 
and 
successor as 
'Queen 
of 
the 
Street' 
has 
been 
dubbed 
with 
the 
inevitable 
camp 
reference: 
"a 
cross 
between 
Queen Elizabeth 
I 
and 
Danny 
La 
Rue 
" (Irvine, 
1995, 
p. 
17). 
179 
In 
fact 
the trope 
of aristocracy 
has 
recurred equivocally 
throughout 
Coronation 
Street's 
run, 
ftequently 
mirroring 
Royal 
occasions. 
Excessively 
fashioned 
Vera 
Duckworth's 
genealogical 
links 
to 
King 
Edward 
VII 
(is 
he 
or 
isn't he her 
great grandfather? 
) had 
been 
periodically 
raised 
in 
storylines, 
most 
recently 
on 
the 
Queen's 
Golden Jubilee 
Day. For 
episodes 
leading 
up 
to 
the 
Queen's 
Silver 
Jubilee 
the 
scriptwriters 
generated 
the 
celebrated 
fancy 
dress 
float 
storyline 
where, 
memorably 
'Annie 
Walker' 
and 
'Bet 
Lynch' 
appeared 
dressed 
as 
Elizabeth 
I 
and 
Britannia 
respectively. 
179 
In 
1983, 
in 
a 
public 
relations 
manoeuvre, 
the 
Queen 
and 
Prince Philip 
opened 
the 
Street's 
new 
set. 
Emboldened, 
in 
2000 
Prince 
Charles 
appeared 
in 
a 
bit 
part, playing 
himself 
shaking 
hands 
with 
'Councillor 
Audrey 
Roberts' 
at 
the 
Weatherfield 
Planning 
Office in 
the 
series' 
live 
fortieth 
anniversary 
edition. 
This 
move, 
a restorative 
one 
for 
Charles' 
flagging, 
post-Diana profile 
was 
ambivalently 
critiqued 
as 
"yet 
another 
... 
In 
one 
of 
her 
autobiographies, 
Phoenix 
noted 
that: 
"We 
[Julie 
Goodyear 
and 
Phoenix] 
care 
about 
ourfans. 
We have 
the 
regulars 
who 
have 
been 
writing 
to 
usforyears. 
One lady 
who 
has 
been 
writing 
to 
mefor 
at 
leastfifteen 
years 
- 
andI 
to 
her 
- 
recentlypassed 
away. 
I 
met 
her 
at afunction. 
She 
sufferedfrom arthritis 
and was 
in 
a wheelchair 
but 
got 
her 
daughter 
10 
take 
her 
to 
the 
shop 
where 
I 
was 
appearing, 
struggling 
to 
push 
the 
chair 
through 
the 
crowds. 
We 
were 
introduced 
and 
on 
impulse 
I 
gave 
her 
apiece 
of 
china 
as a 
memento. 
After 
that 
she wrote 
regularly, always 
starting 
her letters, 
'My Queen 
"'(Phoenix, 
1983, 
p. 
169). 
" 
Producer 
Bill 
Podmore 
noted 
that 
Phoenix 
"completely 
glamorised 
herself 
out 
ofthe original 
Elsie 
mould" 
(Podmore 
and 
Reece, 
1990, 
p. 
29). "She 
wasflamboyant, 
loud 
and 
loving, 
a 
throwback 
to 
the 
magnificent 
mink 
bikini 
days 
of 
Hollywood; 
Seeing 
her 
wrapped 
in 
her belovedfurs, 
[writer] Tony 
Warren 
would 
greet 
her, 
shouting, 
'Here 
she 
comes. 
Catherine 
ofall the 
bleedin'Russias. 
'It 
was 
a 
compliment 
she 
loved, 
and 
the 
one she quoted 
the 
most 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
28). 
'" 
Her 
autobiography 
noted 
"This 
summer 
Ijoined 
the 
select 
rank 
ofpeople, 
including the 
queen 
and 
the 
queen 
mother, 
who 
have 
races 
named 
after 
them 
" (Phoenix, 
1983, 
p. 
150). She 
was 
the 
first 
soap 
star 
to 
have 
a 
state-like 
funeral 
in 
1986 
when 
thousands of 
people 
in Manchester 
lined 
the 
route 
of 
her 
cort?ge. 
Goodyear's 
biographer 
records 
"Julie 
and 
most 
of 
the 
Street 
cast 
had 
attended 
thefineral 
of 
the 
programmesformer star 
Pat 
Phoenix. 
Julie 
was 
heavily 
criticisedfor 
arriving 
in 
a 
huge 
show-stealing 
hat 
up 
staging 
Pat 
at 
her 
ownfuneral. 
It 
seemed 
to 
be 
a case 
of 
- 
the 
Queen 
is 
dead, 
- 
long 
live 
the 
Queen'(Beck, 
1995, 
p. 
179). 
"' 
Her 
trademark wearing 
of 
leopard 
skin, 
the 
most 
ostentatious of 
fake furs, 
on and 
off 
screen, 
became 
a 
form 
of 
substitute 
ermine, 
a 
symbolic 
device 
of 
Royal/Vulgar 
spectacle. 
Leopardskin 
performs 
this 
function 
in 
representations 
of 
other 
working- 
class 
soap 
queens 
but 
was 
indubitably 
infused 
with symbolism 
and nostalgia 
for 
Goodyear. 
On 
leaving 
the 
Street, 
she 
claimed 
"There's 
bound 
to 
be 
one or 
two 
mementoes 
/71 
want 
to take 
with 
me 
when 
Igo. 
I 
can'tpull 
the 
Rovers 
bar 
apart 
butperhaps 
1,11 
take 
Bet's 
leopard 
skin 
hat 
and 
trousers 
than 
I 
can 
sit andwatch 
the 
show 
dressed 
as 
Bet 
- 
hoping 
the 
men 
in 
white 
coals 
don't 
come 
and 
take 
me 
away 
" (Robson, 1995, 
p. 
29). 
I" 
The 
title 
itself 
is both 
banal 
and 
ironic. The 
scriptwriters created 
carnivalesque storylines 
at 
times 
of 
Royal 
celebrations. 
"To 
celebrate 
the 
Queen's 
Silver 
Jubilee, 
Coronation 
Street 
devised 
afloat 
depicting 
Great 
Britain 
through 
the 
ages. 
Bet 
Lynch 
Sal 
resplendent 
as 
Britannia 
... 
hut 
the 
Oscars had 
to 
go 
to 
Annie 
and 
Ena. 
Annie 
was 
superb 
as 
Queen 
Elizabeih 
I, but 
Ena's 
Queen 
Victoria 
was 
so 
lifelike 
it 
drew 
gasps 
evenfrom 
the 
production 
crew. 
When 
these 
two great 
queens 
strode 
towards 
each 
other 
firom 
either 
end of 
Coronation 
Street, I 
think they 
created 
a 
little 
piece of 
history 
all 
of 
their 
own'(Podmore 
and 
Reece, 
1990, 
p. 
86). 
Annie 
Walker's 
character grew 
more and more 
to 
resemble 
the 
incumbent Thatcher 
who, 
herself 
was a usurper 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
(Podmore 
and 
Reece, 1990, 
p. 
122). 
For her 
own 
wedding 
in 195 1, Thatcher 
had 
chosen 
a copy 
of a 
dress 
wom 
by 
Gcorgiana, 
Duchess 
of 
Devonshire 
as 
immortalised in 
Gainsborough's 
painting. 
259 
61. 
Beverley 
Callard 
and 
Prince Charles 
on 
the 
Rovers 
Return 
set, cover, 
Daily 
Record, 
29 
December, 
2000. 
'E. R. 's Enders', 
Pam StClements 
meets 
the 
Queen 
on 
the 
set 
of 
the 
Queen Vic, Daily 
Record, 
29 November, 
2001, 
page 
3. 
'The 
House 
of 
Windsors', 
ScollishSun, 
29 
November, 
2001, 
front 
page. 
mow, 
I---'. 
Z 
, 
--. 
. 
"- 
r--- 
(, 
.I 
tarbara 
\Kindsor 
in 
(It 
I 
IC 
QUCC11 
Ol 
It 
I 
IC 
Set 
Of h 
It, 
rs 
'AI 
be 
rt 
Square, 
I 
)ccembo' 
2001 
-i 
/III 
)ccember, 
-)()() 
1, 
Issue 
092, 
page 
27. 
step 
towards 
the 
ultimate 
dumbing down 
of 
the 
Monarchy 
or merely 
[his joining] 
in 
what millions see 
as a national 
institution 
" (Kwatra, 2000, 
p. 
1). 
The 
risk 
for 
the 
Royals 
appeared 
to 
be 
related 
principally 
to the 
anarchic combination of 
excessive 
femininity 
embodied 
by 
soap queens 
and 
the 
precociousness 
of 
the 
red 
top 
press. 
180 
A 
year 
later, 
the 
Golden 
Jubilee 
year, 
the 
Queen 
made an 
appearance 
on 
the 
Eastenders 
set, prompting 
a similarly 
ambivalent 
royalist 
but 
risqud 
coverage 
in 
the 
British 
press. 
81 
The 
focus 
for 
the 
most roguish 
coverage 
focussed 
on 
the twinning 
of 
Elizabeth 
and 
her 
namesake 
Barbara 
Windsor 
as 
in 
the 
Telegraph's 
'The 
Windsor's 
make 
it 
a 
double 
at 
the 
Queen 
Vic' 
(The 
Daily Telegraph, Nov 
29,200 
1, 
p. 
5). 
182 
In 
2002, 
the 
Queen's 
Golden 
Jubilee 
Year, 
the 
relentless 
fragmentation 
of 
the 
aura of 
the 
monarchy 
necessitated 
further 
risks of 
contiguity 
with soap 
royals. 
Geraldine 
Bedell 
announced, ahead 
of 
the 
celebrations, 
that 
Babs Windsor 
was 
due 
to 
join 
the 
Jubilee 
Parade 
as 
'a 
cultural 
icon' 
(Bedell, 
2002, 
p. 
3): 
"She 
is 
[ 
... 
] by 
royal 
approval, 
a cultural 
icon, 
invited 
to 
join 
Tuesday'sjubilee 
parade 
on 
something called 
the 
'cultural 
icons'float 
". 
"' 
At Buckingham 
Palace Shirley 
Bassey 
played an even 
more prominent 
role, 
a virtual member 
of 
the 
Royal 
party, 
appearing 
inexplicably 
on 
TV 
coverage 
as 
Prince 
Charles' 
consort. 
Bassey, 
another 
champion 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
had 
carved 
a profile 
to 
rival 
Taylor's 
precedent, 
brazenly 
appropriating regal 
habitus 
and associations, 
as 
in her 
annual 
tour 
of 
Stately 
Homes. 
184 
The 
monarchy's proximity 
to 
stars, 
notably 
in 
the 
show 
business 
equivalent 
of 
the trooping 
of 
the 
colour, marshalled 
for 
the 
end 
of 
Royal 
performances, 
celebrations 
and premieres 
can 
be 
180 
The 
mantle of 
feminine 
excess was, 
in 
this 
instance 
born by 
actress 
Beverley Callard 
or 
'Queen Liz Ill 
- 
she chats 
up 
Charles 
on 
Corrie 
debut'(Kerr, 
2000, 
p. 
1). Far 
from 
reading 
the 
powerful potential 
iconoclasm 
of 
the 
feminine 
excess of 
the 
Queens 
of 
the 
Street 
Will Self 
and 
others 
chose 
to 
rehearse 
the 
mantra of 
gay male 
precedence 
in 
their 
critiques 
of 
this 
edition: 
"Corrie 
with 
its 
cone-breasted, 
brassy heroines 
is 
one of our 
gayesl 
icons, 
but 
until now 
no-one 
noticed 
how 
the 
cobbles on 
the 
street 
had 
become 
as camp as 
the 
Yellow Brick Road" (Self, 2000, 
p. 
12). 
1" 
For 
example, 
'Queen 
Liz in 
the 
Queen 
Vic' 
(Rae, 2001, 
pp. 
5-6) 
and 
'It's 
so nice 
to 
meet a 
fellow 
Windsor, 
Babs' 
(Jagasi 
and 
Goulder, 
2001, 
p. 
3). 
182 
Inevitably, 
much 
was 
made of 
Barbara Windsor 
and 
Pam 
St 
Clements 
being inappropriately 
decorated. 
Windsor 
was criticised 
for displaying 
her full 
MBE 
insignia, 
ribbon and 
all, 
"a 
decoration 
normally 
reservedforformal 
dress 
occasions 
" (ibid. ) 
and 
St 
Clements 
in 
her 
'Pat Evans' 
mode was ridiculed 
for 
her 
outsize 
eaff 
ings 
'They're 
this 
big 
maam... 
Pat Evans 
lets 
the 
Queen 
in 
on all 
the 
details 
of 
her latest 
spectacular 
earrings' 
(Jagasi 
and 
Goulder, 
200 1, 
p.. 
5). 
The 
Express 
sought 
to 
undermine 
Barbara 
Windsor 
further 
by 
criticising what 
the 
star 
had 
worn 
earlier 
that 
week 
when 
she 
had 
appeared 
at 
the 
long-running, 
starry 
Royal 
Variety 
Show. 
Windsor 
and 
Cilla Black 
had 
performed 
numbers 
where 
they 
were 
dressed 
as showgirls 
"On 
Monday 
night 
at 
the 
Royal 
Variety 
performance 
Barbara 
was clad 
in 
little 
more 
than 
a sequinned 
basque 
" 
(ibid. 
p. 
3). 
This 
criticism attempted 
to 
indict 
Windsor's 
performance 
for 
lack 
of observance 
of 
the time-honoured 
protocols 
of 
the 
Show, 
where performers 
have 
habitually 
testified 
to 
having been honoured 
to 
appear 
and 
have 
observed 
due 
deference 
to the 
occupants 
of 
the 
Royal 
Box. The 
Show 
is 
a 
theatre 
based, 
televised 
production, where 
a roster 
of 
international 
cabaret 
style 
stars 
perform 
for 
an audience 
that 
traditionally 
includes 
the 
Queen. 
Windsor 
was underdressed 
for 
the 
Royal 
Variety 
performance 
and 
overdressed 
at 
the 
Queen's 
walkabout. 
"' 
Presciently, 
Windsor 
had 
had her 
named 
changed 
from Barbara 
Ann 
Deeks 
in 
Coronation 
year 
"because it 
soundedposher" 
(Bedell, 
2002, 
p. 
3). Babs 
Windsor 
was also 
recruited 
for TV 
promotions 
of 
the 
Jubilee 
Concert, 
launching 
the 
build-up 
to 
TV 
coverage 
announcing 
'Seven 
days 
to 
go. 
' 
featured 
on 
the 
BBC 
News 
outside 
Buckingham 
Palace, 24 
1h 
May, 
2002. 
"" 
in 
2001 
during 
her Stately 
Homes Tour 
Bassey 
played 
at 
Somerley 
House 
Hampshire, 
Tatton 
Park, 
Cheshire, 
Ragley 
Hall 
Warwickshire, 
Belvoir Castle, 
Lines, 
Knebworth, 
Hertfordshire, 
and 
Blickling 
Hall, 
Norfolk. 
Bassey's 
hits, Big 
Spender, 
Goldfinger, 
The Man 
with 
the 
Midas Touch, 
Diamonds 
are 
Forever 
etc. 
express 
lyrically 
and 
in her 
performances 
of emotional 
extravagance, 
the 
lack 
of self consciousness 
about 
the 
desire 
forjewels 
and 
conspicuous 
display 
of 
wealth 
indicative 
of 
Vulgar/Royal 
Taste. 
260 
63. 
Elizabeth Taylor 
and 
Princess Margaret, in 
Princess 
Margaret, 
a 
life 
qf 
contrasts, 
2002, 
Christopher 
Warwick, 
unpaginated. 
Dolly 
Parton 
and 
the 
Queen, in 
The 
official 
Dolly 
Parton 
scrapbbok 
1977, 
Connie 
Berman, 
unpaginated. 
Joan 
Collins 
and 
the 
Queen, in The 
Intlependenf, 
undated. 
- 
STARDOM. 
Barbara 
Windsor 
Mal 
pays 
tri" 
to 
Danjq 
Shirivy 
gassey 
%k 
Ilikkol. 
-tsc" 
Mitsidc 
Buckinglimn 
11,11,1ce, 
In 
ipc 
4. 
c"' 
.I 
interpreted 
as satisfying star and audience 
desires 
to 
queen 
it. This 
most 
traditional 
of 
post-war 
Royal 
encounters, reproduced 
across print and 
TV 
media, 
inevitably 
generated 
images 
centred 
on 
the 
representation 
of 
the 
queen 
with an excessive 
female 
star, 
the 
representation of real and 
ersatz royalty. 
These 
intriguing 
and 
for 
audiences at 
least 
apparently 
endlessly 
satisfying 
vicarious encounters 
provide 
moments of 
twinned 
excess, with 
the 
fake 
increasingly 
threatening 
to 
eclipse 
the 
real. 
'" 
A 
further 
moment 
of 
Bahktian 
instability inheres 
in 
the 
awarding of 
the 
queen's 
honours 
to 
soap 
queens and other popular, excessive 
female icons. 
Royal 
watchers' anxiety 
over 
the 
vulgar 
excess 
and 
inappropriate 
fashioning 
of soap stars and contiguity 
between 
royals and 
commoners, 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
be 
justified 
in 
the 
barely 
contained exuberance 
of soap 
stars' queening 
it. 
When 
asked, 
Goodyear, 
long 
claimed as a 
lesbian 
by 
soap 
watching 
so-called 
lesbian 
communities 
"declined 
to 
reveal 
what 
the 
queen 
hadsaid 
to 
her 
" 
on receiving 
her 
MBE in 
1996. 
She 
stated, 
in 
a 
surely 
unintentional 
double 
entrendre 
"I 
don't kiss 
and 
tell 
- 
that's 
a secret 
" (Unauthored 
news 
item, 
Herald, 
21 February, 
1996, 
p. 
7). And 
in 
a camivalesque 
moment 
in 
2000, 
the 
so-called 
red-tops 
captured/staged 
an 
irreverent 
celebration, 
between 
Shirley Bassey 
and 
Barbara 
Windsor 
outside 
the 
Palace. 
Windsor 
was caught 
in 
mock curtsey 
to 
Bassey 
after 
the 
former 
was awarded 
an 
MBE 
and 
the 
latter 
made a 
Dame 
on 
the 
same 
day (Evening 
Times, July 19,2000, 
p. 
3). 
186 
The 
bannaid 
or 
landlady, 
as characterised 
in 
performances 
by 
excessively 
fashioned 
queens 
Barbara Windsor, 
Anita Dobson, Julie Goodyear, Pam St 
Clements, 
Leticia 
Dean 
and 
Jessie 
Wallace 
is 
a mainstay of 
working-class nostalgia 
and 
soap 
fantasy 
and 
a caricatured 
figurehead 
for 
feminine 
excess. 
The 
barmaid 
character 
caught 
by 
the tabloids 
queening 
it 
with 
the 
Queen 
appears 
to 
represent 
the 
resolution 
of 
actual and vicarious 
fantasies 
by 
stars/characters 
and audiences 
respectively. 
187 
The 
British 
barmaid 
is 
emblematic of 
low, 
working-class, 
demonised 
and 
inappropriately 
fashioned 
femininity. 
'" 
The 
anxiety not 
to 
resemble 
soap 
barmaids 
is 
raised 
in Ellen's half-joking 
comments: 
"' 
Royal 
watchers 
Talbot 
and 
Vaughn Thomas 
tone 
in 
the 
early 
1960s 
suggested 
that 
this 
auratic 
distance 
had 
been 
vigilantly 
guarded 
"When 
thefilin 
star 
Barbra Streisand 
at apremiere 
impertinently 
and 
tactlessly asked 
her [the 
qucenj 
why 
she 
always 
wore 
them 
[gloves] 
Her 
Majesty 
was 
too 
polite 
to 
give 
the 
correct 
answer 
which 
is-as 
that 
she wore 
thein 
because 
she 
had 
to 
shake 
handswith 
so manypeople 
like 
Barbra Streisand" 
(Talbot 
and 
Vaughn 
Thomas, 
P. 
101). 
" 
Betty 
Driver, 
a 
former 
showgirl and 
long-term 
barmaid 
'Betty' 
of 
the 
Rovers 
Return 
received 
her MBE 
and 
noted 
frankly 
"It 
was 
lovely 
meeting 
the 
queen 
I 
... 
] 
she 
had 
this 
huge, 
gorgeous 
diamond bauble 
around 
her 
neck and 
I 
can remember 
thinking, 
'Ooo 
I'd 
like 
that! 
Isn't 
that terrible. 
1.9 "'(Tweedale, 
2000, 
p. 
36). 
"' 
Windsor 
and 
other excessive stars 
appear 
to 
want 
to 
impress 
with excess, 
in 
much 
the 
same way 
as 
some ofthc 
research 
participants, 
wearing 
their 
'best' 
outfits, 
their 
'best', 
and 
that 
may mean 
all 
of 
thcirjewellery, 
hcnce 
the 
donning 
of 
the 
full 
ribboned 
MBE. 
In 
his 
study 
on 
taste, 
Bourdieu 
notes 
that 
when 
asked 
how 
they would 
dress 
if 
asked 
out 
by 
their 
husband's 
boss 
68% 
of 
his 
working-class 
respondents said 
they 
would 
wear 
their 
best 
clothes 
against 
only 
19% 
of 
the 
wives ofsenior executives 
and professionals 
(Bourdieu, 1979, 
p. 
249). 
For 
the 
cognoscenti, 
the 
spectacle 
of 
women 
wearing 
all 
their 
best 
garments 
and 
accessories 
is 
read as a sign of vulgar 
taste 
and 
low 
status. 
lu 
Although 
terms 
like bimbo, 
slapper and 
bitch 
are 
increasingly 
used 
ironically 
in 
youth 
culture, 
the 
phrase 
'brassy 
bimbo' 
was 
being 
used 
in 
a 
derogatory 
way 
to 
describe 
Sharon 
Watts, 
then 
'Queen 
ofthe 
Vic' 
in 
a survey ol'Scottish 
barmaids 
as 
late 
as 
1992 
(Brown, 1992, 
pp. 
20-2 1). The 
soap script 
of 
an 
episode 
of 
Easienders in 
2002 
played 
with 
the 
stereotype 
of 
the 
dumb, 
blonde 
barmaid. 
The Queen 
Vic 
barmaids 
arc 
entered 
as 
a 
team 
into 
the 
pub 
quiz 
by 
the 
landlady's 
daughter, 
'Sam' 
. 
Their 
titlc, 
261 
Ito 
Dolly's 
curly, mountain 
our 
hairstyles have be 
come 
her 
trademark. 
11 
65. 
Dolly 
Ilarton's 
hair, in 
The 
qlficial 
Dolly 
Parton 
scrapbook, 
1977, Connie Berman, 
page 
63. 
I 
think 
that the 
jewellery 
is 
something 
that 
I 
don't 
even 
think 
about, 
I 
don't 
even 
think 
-I 
only 
notice 
because 
people 
do 
say 
to 
me, 
'Fabulous 
earrings. 
' 
and 
then they 
laugh 
and 
they 
used 
to 
call me 
Bet Lynch, 
but 
I'd 
go, 
'God 
she's so 
tasteless' 
but 
obviously 
they 
just 
meant 
because 
they 
were sparkly 
or whatever, now 
I 
keep 
thinking 
of 
Pat 
in 
East 
Enders 
men, 
Outsider 
and 
Unauthorised fashion. 
Feminist 
and mainstream 
critiques 
of women who 
fashion 
to 
excess 
have 
centred on 
notions 
of women 
duped by 
fashion industries 
and cultures of 
waste, of economic and 
sexual 
laxity. 
However, 
many stars 
beloved by 
participants and 
their 
own 
choices 
in 
self-fashioning 
betrayed 
little 
evidence 
of 
an awareness of 
fashion dictates. 
The 
model 
of excessive 
femininity 
defined 
by 
Taylor, Goodyear, 
Parton 
and others can 
be 
understood as 
forms 
of 
femininities 
anchored 
in 
nostalgia 
or 
in 
other 
ways 
resisting 
the 
momentum of 
fashion. 
1'9 
In 
some 
instances, 
as 
with 
Taylor, 
a 
star's 
excessive 
body 
and 
presumed sexuality 
is deemed 
'out-of-date', 
when 
measured against a 
Modernist 
model. 
'90 
Phoenix's 
persona and 
identifications 
were considered anachronistic 
by her 
producer. 
He 
considered 
her 
"an 
actress 
in 
a 
time 
warp where 
the 
guiding 
light 
was 
the 
glitz and 
glamour ofshowbiz" 
(Podmore 
and 
Reece, 1990, 
p. 
28). However, 
the 
so-called 
failure 
of a 
female 
star 
to 
relinquish 
excessive 
glamour 
and 
subscribe 
to 
forms 
of 
Modernist 
fashion 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
be 
strategic 
and 
linked 
to 
assumptions 
about 
audiences' pleasures, as 
Parton has 
noted. 
9' 
'The Dumb Blondes' 
unsettles 
landlady 
'Peggy' 
(Barbara Windsor), Sam 
is 
given 
the 
line, 
"Mum, 
it's 
ironical. 
" 
(BBC 
1,25 
November, 2003) 
This is 
reflected 
and reconstructed 
in 
an 
array of 
forms 
of popular 
culture, 
habitually 
through 
soap 
histories but 
can also 
be 
found 
as a metaphor 
for 
tartiness 
in 
girls 
annuals. 
For 
example, 
in 
a questionnaire, 
'Do 
you mean what you say? 
Your 
Appearance' 
in 
the 
Jackie 
annual, 
1977, 
girls 
were advised 
that 
a 
comment, 
"That 
dress 
is 
reallysexy. 
" 
may conceal 
the 
'insult', 
"So 
longasyou like 
looking 
like 
a 
barmaid" 
(p. 47). 
Her 
low 
status and assumed remoteness 
from 
high 
cultural 
capital, underpins 
thcjoke 
behind 
a 
Sunday Times 
cover 
that 
depicted 
'Bet 
Lynch' 
as 
the 
barmaid in 
a pastiche of 
Manet's, 
A 
Bar 
at 
the 
Folies-Bergere. 
(Sunday Times, 
15 
October, 1995) 
Interestingly 
this 
exact 
formula 
was 
reprised 
in 
a 
Radio 
Times 
feature 
'National 
Treasures' 
where 
TV 
stars 
were 
transposed 
into 
works 
of 
art; 
David Jason 
as 
the 
Laughing 
Cavalier, 
Jonathon Ross 
as 
Gainsborough's 
Blue Boy 
and 
Barbara 
Windsor 
behind 
the 
Bar 
at 
the 
Folies Bergere 
(Graham, 
12-18 July, 2003). 
'29 
In 
a 
further 
resemblance 
to 
Royal 
fashionings. 
` 
Maddox 
wrote 
of 
Taylor 
(and 
Burton) 
"Sexually 
they 
had 
become 
anachronisms. 
Movie 
audiences were 
dominated by 
the 
under 
thirties, 
and 
by 
1968, 
Taylor's 
brand 
ofsex 
in 
particular 
had 
gone 
out ofstyle. 
There 
she was 
in 
The Comedians 
in 
haute 
couture 
and 
leased 
hair, 
reeking 
doom, 
just 
as 
Vanessa 
Redgrave 
was 
removing 
her 
plain checked 
shirt and 
baring 
a 
bony 
chest 
to the 
camera 
in 
Blow- Up... 
The 
sexual revolution 
had 
come. 
Sex 
was 
a giveaway, 
not a 
dare. 
Nudity 
was 
honesty, 
while 
cleavage 
- 
the 
separation, 
but 
not 
the 
breasts 
- 
was 
meretricious" 
(Maddox, 
1977, 
p. 
200). 
"' 
"My 
gaudy 
artificial appearance 
has 
nothing 
to 
do 
with 
the 
kind 
ofperson 
I 
am. 
That's 
part 
of show 
business 
and show 
business 
is 
a phoney world anjivay. 
So 
why 
not 
dress 
the 
parl? 
l 
like 
to 
be 
different 
and 
I like 
people 
to 
pay attention. 
1jusl 
don't 
want 
to 
look like 
everybody else, 
I 
could 
be 
more 
stylish 
if 
I 
wanted 
to 
but 
I'm 
not 
amun'to 
be fashionable. 
My 
hair 
is 
out of 
the 
1960s. My 
clothes 
arefifties 
but 
nobody 
is 
goin'to 
change 
me 
I'm 
a 
kind 
Qfgaudy, 
Liberace 
type 
performer. 
I 
love 
my 
big 
hairdos. 
People 
are 
always pushin'me 
to 
change 
my 
look 
and 
I 
won't 
do 
it. 
/I 
don't bother 
me. 
I like 
looking like I 
came 
out afairytale. 
The 
glare and 
the 
glitter 
is 
a gimmick 
-funfor 
the 
audience, 
funfor 
me, something 
we can share 
together. 
The 
way 
I 
look 
really 
captures 
people's 
attention.... 
I look 
lotally 
one-way, 
but I 
am 
totally 
another, 
l(people 
think 
I'm 
a 
dumb blonde 
because 
of 
the 
way 
I 
look 
then they 
are 
dumber 
than 
they 
think 
I 
am. 
Ifpeople 
think 
I 
am 
not 
very 
deep because 
of my wigs and 
my outfits 
then 
they 
are not very 
deep. I 
want people 
to 
like 
me, 
but 
if 
they 
can't 
see 
beyond 
all 
this. 
then that's 
their 
problem 
" 
(Parton 
c 
itcd in 
Berman, 
1977, 
p. 
56). 
Parton's 
ant 
i-fash ion/nostalgic 
fashioning 
taste 
extends 
to 
her 
hair: 
"Dolly 
Parton 
started 
wearing 
wigs 
in 
her 
late 
twenties. 
Before 
that 
she used 
to lease 
tip 
her 
own 
hair. 
7 
love 
to tease up 
in)- 
hair. 
I 
remember 
it-hen 
I 
was aboulfifteen. 
everybody 
was 
leasin 
up 
their 
hair 
and 
I 
always 
used 
to 
see 
how 
high 
andpuff 
I 
could 
make 
it. 
I 
used 
to 
love 
to 
bleach 
and 
lease 
my 
hair 
and 
have 
this 
big 
haired 
image. 
When 
my 
hairstyle 
went out 
of style 
I 
decided 
I 
would 
keep 
it 
anyway. 
Because 
I liked 
it 
262 
66. 
Julie 
Goodyear 
meets 
the 
Queen, 
1983, in 
Coronation 
Street, 
the 
inside 
story, 
Bill Podmore 
and 
Peter 
Rice, 
1990, 
page 
68. 
111lie 
Goodyear, 
with 
her 
Charles 
and 
Di 
earrings, 
hopes 
her 
Majesty 
is 
arnused 
Writing 
in 
1995 
when 
'Bet 
Lynch' 
retired 
from 
Coronation Street, 
Susan 
Irvine 
reflected 
on 
the 
therapeutic 
effect 
for 
audiences of 
her frozen fashioning. She 
claimed 
the 
character as 
the 
archetypal 
barmaid 
of 
the 
Seventies, 
a 
figure 
seemingly 
frozen 
in 
time 
yet 
still 
gripping 
to the 
millions of viewers 
of 
both 
sexes 
and all classes who are 
aghast 
that 
she 
filmed her last 
Coronation Street 
finale 
this 
week. 
Why 
the 
fuss? 
Perhaps it's down 
to 
the 
British 
penchant 
for 
nostalgia. 
Life 
has 
changed, 
and 
so 
have 
women, 
but 
Bet Lynch, 
tart 
with a 
heart, 
is 
a 
reassuring 
rock, 
a weekly 
dose 
of regression 
therapy 
in 
an alienating 
world 
(Irving, 
1995, 
p. 
17). 
192 
Frozen 
fashions 
in 
jewellery 
'Bet 
Lynch' 
style 
jewellery, 
what 
Ellen 
terms 
'danglers' 
(earrings 
depicting 
Charles 
and 
Di, 
Creoles 
or 
knives 
and 
forks) 
shares an 
aesthetic 
similarity 
with 
the 
products 
to 
be found 
in jewellers 
in 
Glasgow's 
East End 
and other urban 
centres 
and 
in 
shopping 
catalogues, 
that 
is, in 
being 
literal, 
unfunctional, 
unidentifiable 
as 
being 
the 
work of a specific 
designer 
or 
design 
group 
and 
being 
a 
miniature. 
19' 
Romanticism, 
nostalgia, a 
non 
ironic 
notion 
of 
Royal Taste 
that 
is 
ambiguously 
un/related 
to 
notions 
of 
Monarchism 
and mock 
Victoriana 
are all 
characteristics 
found 
in 
the 
field 
that 
are 
antithetical 
to 
both 
Modernism 
and 
feminism. 
Unlike 
fashionable 
products, cheap 
jewellery's 
marketing 
is 
virtually 
imperceptible; 
products 
are sold 
with 
almost 
warehouse 
style 
perfuctoriness 
via 
independent 
outlets 
and 
catalogue 
shopping 
and products 
are 
not 
associated 
with 
a 
designer's 
name 
or a 
company's reputation although a notion 
of craft and authenticity 
is 
emphasised. 
'9' 
But 
Argos 
and 
Index 
and 
I knew 
it 
would get attention. 
1just like 
the 
way 
it 
looks 
on me. 
And I 
am 
only 
a smallperson, 
onlyfiveftel. 
So 
I 
wear 
a 
lolla 
hair, 
with 
it 
piled 
up 
high 
to 
qffsel 
that 
'" 
(ibid. ). 
112 
The 
excessive styling of 
both film 
and soap 
stars 
has 
been 
traced 
by 
some commentators 
in 
the 
wilful 
and 
fearsome 
night 
time 
fashionings 
of young 
working-class 
women. 
Fawcett has 
linked 
the 
'hyper-femininity' 
of 
Newcastle's 
current 
young 
women 
out 
on 
'the 
toon' to 
a 
canon of 
fashioning 
characterised 
by 
northern soap queens 
and 
grants 
them 
a 
parodic 
agency 
that 
exceeds 
the 
limits 
of 
fashion: 
"Such 
minimal 
clothing as 
described 
is 
highly 
impractical 
in 
the 
predominantly 
chill 
Newcastle 
nights 
and at 
times 
appears 
to 
parody 
the 
images 
offashion 
andfemininity 
that 
dominate 
the 
popular 
media. 
Skirts 
are often 
that 
hit 
shorter, 
that 
bit 
tighter 
than 
on 
the 
pages of 
More 
or 
Just 
Seventeen, 
cleavages 
that 
bit 
lower, 
hair 
that 
hit blander 
and 
bigger, 
alluding 
to 
Pamela 
Anderson 
rather 
than 
Kale Moss. 
This 
stylisalion 
could 
be 
read 
on one 
level 
as 
heterosexual 
camp, 
a 
hyper-femininity 
that 
carries 
a 
disorienlating 
visual 
power and 
positions 
women 
centre 
stage 
in 
the 
contemporary 
urban 
landscape. 
Such 
emphatically 
signalledfemininity 
is 
tied to 
traditional 
working-classftmale 
identities, 
as 
represented 
by 
characters 
such 
as 
Bet 
Lynch 
in 
1TVs 
long-running 
soap 
Coronation 
Street. 
" 
(Fawcett, 
2002, 
p. 
138). 
Fawcett 
discusses 
the 
sexualisation 
of 
Newcastle's 
young women, who are 
frequently 
caricatured 
and 
homogenised 
in 
unsympathetic 
journalism. 
This 
is 
borne 
out 
in 
the 
comments 
of 
Wainwright 
who 
reads 
them 
as 
"predatory 
gangs on 
the 
lookoul. 
for 
lager, 
a 
kebab 
and 
the 
chance 
to 
score" 
(Wainwright, 200 
1, 
p. 
13). 
193 
A 
tiny 
percentage of 
which self-consciously aims 
to 
reflect 
fashion. 
In his 
research 
examining 
what and why people 
place art 
objects 
on 
their 
walls 
Painter discovered 
a 
higher 
ratio 
of 
unfunctional 
design 
objects 
used 
in 
the 
working-class 
domestic 
context 
than 
in 
middle-class 
homes. 
Painter 
noted 
the 
"combination 
of 
apparent practical 
utililywith 
visual embellishment 
I 
... 
Ia 
barometer 
shaped 
as a guilar, or 
a 
thermometer 
as 
an anchor' 
(Painter, 
undated. 
) 
As 
in 
my examinat 
ion 
of 
jewellery 
design, 
the 
objects 
owned 
by 
working-class 
households 
frequently 
merely 
alluded 
to 
being 
functional. 
Painter 
also notes 
the 
preponderance 
of 
objects 
I 
associate 
with 
Royal Taste? 
embossed 
brass 
plates, 
imitation 
shields, 
crossed 
swords etc. 
"All 
these 
had 
a significant 
'decoralive'or 
'symbolic'aspects 
and 
usually carried 
images 
or motifs 
" 
(ibid. 
) 
"' 
This 
also 
reflected 
Painter's findings 
that there 
was 
little 
evidence 
in 
working-class 
homes 
of any 
interest 
having 
been 
(akcn 
in 
"those 
aspects 
of 
objects 
with which 
thefine 
art 
world 
is 
normally 
concerned 
-(ibid. 
) 
Working-class 
householders 
were 
generally 
unaware 
of 
signatures, 
labels 
stamps 
or 
trademarks 
on 
the 
objects 
in 
their 
home "It 
seemed clear 
that 
who 
an 
object 
might 
have 
been 
made 
by, 
or 
how 
it 
had 
been 
made 
had 
not 
engaged 
interest 
" 
(Painter) 
263 
67. 
Argos, 
Spring/Summer, 
2003, 
page 
671 
Index, 
Spring/Summer, 
2003, 
page 
54 
Argos, Spring/Summer, 
2003, 
page 
677 
Index, 
Spring/Summer, 
2003, 
page 
39 
(2002) 
catalogues 
demonstrate 
the 
scale and 
variety 
of 
low-cost 
jewellery 
available. 
15 
Argos 
was 
cited 
by 
the 
self-consciously 
cultured participant 
Ellen 
and style 
journalists 
Sherwood 
and 
Bedell 
as a 
knowingjoke; 
as absolutely synonymous 
with 
low 
and 
cheap 
taste, 
a catalogue 
counterpart 
to 
discredited 
retailers 
Ratners. 
196 
In 
the 
course 
of 
my research 
examining 
the 
products 
displayed by 
independent 
jewellers in Glasgow's 
East End 
and 
Argos 
and 
Index 
catalogues, 
I 
found 
common often 
miniaturised 
forms 
and objects; 
hearts, 
dolphins, 
flowers, 
wishbones, 
guardian 
angels, 
moons and 
stars, 
buckles, 
teddy 
bears, 
knots, 
clowns 
keys 
and 
horseshoes 
were 
ubiquitous. 
197 
Some 
symbolic 
devices 
were 
also common 
although still rendered 
in 
a realist 
rather 
than 
abstract 
way; 
in 
this 
case: 
crosses 
and 
crucifixes, 
Claddaghs, 
laurel leaves, 
'horns 
of 
life', 
initials, 
and 
birthstones. 
The 
stylings constitute 
discrete 
vernaculars 
'Victorian', 
'Gypsy', 
'Bamboo', 'Rennie 
Mac', 
'Filigree', 'Creole' 
and 
so on. 
Some 
products 
reflected 
all or 
multiple characteristics. 
'" 
'Timeless', 
nostalgic 
or 
specifically 
'Victorian' 
styled 
items 
proliferated, 
for 
example 
Argos 
offered 
forty-three 
types 
of 
lockets. 
Participants' 
accounts 
ofjewellery 
having 
a sentimental 
value 
linked 
to 
loved 
ones, 
as gifts 
from 
family 
members 
is in fact 
made explicit 
in 
some 
designs. 
For 
example, 
the 
array 
of 
products 
and 
6collections' 
that 
literally 
spelt out, 
'Mum', 
'Auntie', 
'Daughter', 
'Sister' 
- 
the 
gendered 
nature 
of 
these 
products was absolute 
- 
whilst others 
stated 
'Best 
Mum', 
'Precious 
Godchild', 
'Daddy's 
Little 
Girl' 
and 
'Special 
Daughter'. 
199 
Contemporary, 
popular 
domestic 
decorations 
illustrate 
both 
the 
dislocation 
of 
realist 
miniaturism 
from 
Modernism 
but 
also 
the 
possibilities 
for invention 
and pleasure 
in 
their 
production 
195 
The Index 
catalogue 
alone 
featured 
103 
pages ofjewellery. 
" 
Argos 
is 
used as a 
synonym 
for 
naffness 
by 
the 
broadsheets 
as 
in Sherwood's 
recent 
piece 
hailing 
the 
New 
Vulgarity 
entitled? 
'Tiffany 
Heart? I'd 
rather 
have 
a neck chainfrom 
Argos'(Sherwood, 
1999, 
p. 
1). A 
discussion 
on 
this 
thesis 
with 
the 
fashion 
designer 
Kerry Spring 
triggered treasured 
memories 
of pleasurable 
evenings we 
had 
spent 
independently 
as 
girls, 
often 
with 
parents 
or other adults 
(in 
my own case 
babysitting 
for 
an 
Aunt 
who 
catalogue shopped), 
leafing 
through 
Argos, 
ticking 
garments, 
jewellery 
and other products 
that 
would 
never 
be 
bought. 
"' 
These 
are specific 
to 
women's 
jewellery 
although 
men's 
jewellery 
is 
equally 
literal 
featuring 
miniature 
footballs 
and 
boots, 
boxing 
gloves, calculators, 
motorbikes, anchors, 
lions, 
skull 
and 
crossbones, 
dragons 
snakes 
and so on. 
Mock 
Royal 
references 
were 
abundant, 
for 
example: 
'The 
Court Wedding 
Ring. 
Introduced 
in Victorian 
Times' 
(Index) 'Sovereign' 
jewel lery 
ofevery 
description, 'Cleopatra 
style' 
bracelets 
and 
'Prince 
of 
Wales' 
chains 
(Argos) 
and 
'Princess-cut zirconium cluster' 
rings 
(Index). 
"' 
For 
example, 
'Victorian' 
style 
scroll pendants 
containing 
messages 
in 
musical 
presentation 
boxes 
that 
play 
'Love Story' 
when 
opened, 
Heart 
shaped 
'split' 
pendants of which 
there 
were 
15 
variations 
in 
tile, 
li-gos 
catalogue 
where 
the 
heart 
inscribed 
'Big 
Sister'PLittle 
Sister' 
or 
'Best 
Friend' is 
as 
if 
broken 
in 
two, to 
be 
worn 
by 
two 
people, 
rings, 
pendants 
or 
bracelets 
where 
family 
photos 
could 
be 
reproduced 
in 
porcelain. 
'" 
In 
a memo 
I 
noted: 
"Noticedfor 
thefirst time 
in 
late 
July 
2001 
that 
girls on 
Trongate 
were 
wearing 
hooped 
earrings 
wah 
their 
names 
in 
gold 
written 
across 
the 
diameter 
". 
Black 
hip-hop 
superstar 
Missy 
F-iliot 
wore 
a 
comparable style, with 
tile 
initial 
'M' 
across 
the 
hoop 
in 
the 
promotional photos 
for 
the 
sleeve of"Under 
Construction' 
(1. 
', Iliot. 
2002). In 
many ofthese 
themes, 
forms 
and 
motifs 
contemporary 
working class-jewellery 
repeats 
and 
stylistically 
evokes 
a model 
established 
in 
Britain 
at 
tile 
end 
of 
the 
nineteenth 
century 
when 
"The 
most 
common nPe 
ofsilver 
brooch 
I 
... 
I 
was 
the 
name 
brooch. " 
(Doncaster 
Museum 
and 
Art 
Gallery, 
2003) 
The 
patterns of acquisition 
are 
also 
interesting 
to 
note 
since 
-'These 
brooches 
were 
often given as presents 
to 
young 
women 
in 
ivorking-classfamilies. 
Other brooches 
bore 
the 
simple 
inscription, 
'Mother'or 
'Bab), 
'" (ibid) 
Cheap, 
machine-made 
silverjewellery 
had 
gradually proliferated 
from 1860, 
after 
the 
discovery 
of enormous 
deposits 
of silver 
in 
Nevada 
and 
by 
the 
end of 
the 
century 
had 
become 
available 
to 
the 
working 
class, 
In 
1890 
duty 
on all 
silverware 
was abolished, 
According 
to 
the 
curators 
ofthe exhibition, 
'?enlittientalSilverJeii-ellerj,. 
- 
The 
relief 
given 
by 
this 
iax 
concession 
led 
to the 
beginning 
of 
the 
trinket 
frade 
producing 
small 
pieces 
Qf sentimentaijewellerlfior 
the 
popular market" 
(ibid. 
) 
Items 
ofpopular, 
working-class 
jewel 
lery frorn 
the 
extensive 
Hull 
Grundy 
Gill 
indicate 
the 
widespread 
use 
of'syrnholism and 
styles 
found 
in 
tile 
Argos 
and 
Index 
collections, 
hearts, 
anchors, 
lucky 
horseshoes, 
lockets, 
and motil's 
and 
designs 
connoting 
friendship 
and 
love 
and, 
latterly, 
the 
incorporation 
ofphotographic 
portraits 
in brooches, lockets 
and 
pendants 
(ibid. ) 
. 
264 
"" 
I 
L4 01 AI 
Bross 
candlemicks 
sdN 
grace 
the tables 
of 
"miny 
homes 
today 
and. 
depending 
on 
their 
quality. cam 
be 
bought 
from 
17 
upward& 
In 
amlique shops. 
The 
pe"Ay- 
Wkingbirycle. 
invented 
in 
Irm 
by 
James 
Starley 
of 
Coventry, 
is 
making 
a come- 
back. 
A 
certain 
Mitcham 
man 
is 
now 
making 
them 
In 
adult 
and 
children 
min. 
AO 
Many 
things 
from 
grout-granny's 
day have 
found 
a now 
popularity 
today-brass 
candlestick*, 
Victorian 
lamps, 
china 
dogs, 
charming 
little 
ornaments 
hko 
the 
"Snow-Scione" 
glass 
bell 
on 
thocov*r 
end 
even 
penny-farthing 
biCyCl*SI 
Most 
"Snow-Scene" 
toy% 
come 
from Jaiiiiiss 
and 
Hong 
Kong 
nowadays, although 
some 
are mods 
in 
Austria. 
They 
were. 
howtv"r. 
a 
ploasing 
feature 
of 
Victorian 
drawing 
roams 
- 
as an ornament 
rather 
than 
a 
toy 
- 
and 
are 
thought to 
have 
originated 
in 
Russia 
or 
China in 
the 
I 
95N. 
Some 
authorities, 
Pollock's 
Toy 
Museum 
in 
particular, 
think the 
idea 
could 
go 
back 
to the 
ancient 
t9yptions. 
Traditionally 
1%" 
Ole lead* 
from 
water and glycerin* 
wit% 
flakes 
of tuttle-fish 
floating 
inside 
but 
modern version% 
*rnplay 
substitute% 
such 
as plastic 
flakes. 
There 
are Several 
types 
of 
"Snow 
Scene" 
but 
in 
"Mat 
to&*$ 
the 
base 
is 
seated at 
a 
'lid' 
*her 
the 
glow 
dome 
hot 
been filled. 
Alternatively 
there 
may 
be 
a small 
hole 
left 
in 
the 
base 
which 
is 
sealed 
with a 
cork 
after 
filling. 
In 
VictOrimn 
ti-- 
19-Ps 
only 
wrved 
the 
pur- 
POW 
Of 
giving 
out 
light 
but 
nowadays 
they are 
used 
as 
omarnents 
mod 
enhaace 
the 
look 
Of 
any 
room, 
&Vbetber 
lighted 
68. 
Mana. 
lbr 
girls 
annual, 
1974, 
unpaginated. 
and 
consumption. 
The 
array 
of miniaturised 
ornamentation 
created 
in 
the 
spirit ot'Victoriana 
can only 
be 
hinted 
at 
here. 
Indubitably, 
Victoriana 
remains 
a 
ubiquitous 
signifier 
of 
taste 
for 
working-class 
jewellery 
consumers 
. 
2"0 
Addressing 
the 
perennial 
appeal 
of sentimental 
and 
miniature 
ornament, 
Stewart 
has 
noted 
that, 
" 
We 
cannot separate 
thefiinction 
oj'the 
miniaturefroin 
the 
nostalgia. 
1br 
pre- 
industrial 
labour, 
a nostalgia, 
for 
crati. 
" And, 
discussing 
the 
importance 
of 
Victoriana 
twinned 
with 
miniaturism 
she 
suggests 
that: 
Contemporary 
dollhouses 
are 
distinctly 
not contemporary; 
it is 
probably 
not 
accidentally 
that 
it 
is 
the 
Victorian 
period 
which 
is 
presently 
so popular 
for 
reproduction 
in 
miniature, 
not 
only 
because 
that 
period's 
obsession with 
detail 
and materiality 
is 
so analogous 
to 
the 
miniatures 
general 
functions, 
but 
also 
because 
Victorian 
modes 
of production presented 
the 
height 
of 
transformation 
of 
nature 
into 
culture 
(Stewart, 
1993, 
p. 
68). 
201 
Further, 
Stewart 
has 
situated 
the 
miniature 
(such 
as 
the 
make-at-home mock 
Faberge 
egg, 
or 
the 
vernacular 
of popular 
jewellery) 
"at 
a 
place of 
ending. 
The 
productions 
of'the 
hobbyist: 
knickknacks 
(? 
f 
the 
domestic 
collected 
by 
elderly 
women 
[ 
... 
] 
viewedfrom 
a 
transcendent 
position, a 
position 
which 
is 
always 
within 
the 
standpoint 
ofpresent 
lived 
reality 
and which 
thereby 
always 
nostalgically 
distances 
its 
object" 
(Stewart, 1993, 
p. 
69). 
202 
The 
consumption 
of 
this 
unauthored 
material 
out of 
time 
with 
fashion 
nevertheless 
is 
undertaken 
with a consciousness 
of 
it. 
203 
Research 
participants 
Ann 
and 
Ellen 
commented 
that 
their 
jewellery 
wearing was 
so 
habitual 
as 
to 
make 
them 
feel bare 
without 
their 
routinely worn 
items, 
suggesting 
resistance 
to the 
vagaries of 
fashion 
and 
commitment 
to 
a 
look 
forged 
years 
before. 
This 
"" 
Jean's 
working-class 
aspirations 
to 
he 
cultured 
were 
articulated 
in 
her 
pride 
in 
consuming 
antiques, 
creating 
a 
home 
that 
resembled 
a 
Victorian 
salon: 
"I 
think 
lpick 
up 
a 
lot 
of 
stuff 
through 
buying 
older 
things, 
visiling. 
flea 
markets, 
antique 
shopsyou 
know, 
all 
that 
kind 
of 
thing. 
I 
get 
influenced 
by, 
older 
sluff 
20s 
sluff 
the 
colours, 
lictorian 
sluff 
and 
I've 
lended 
lojust 
lakefrom 
that 
andput 
it into 
action, 
ifyou 
know 
it-hat 
I 
mean 
". 
"" 
Stewart 
identifies 
the 
peculiar 
appeal of 
dolls houses 
in 
hilfilling 
this 
function. 
In 
2003, 
The people 
devoted 
a page 
to 
a new 
doll's 
house 
modelled as a miniature 
version 
of 
'Beckingliam 
Palace' 
the 
tabloid's 
dubbing 
for David 
and 
Victoria 
Beckham's 
mansion. 
Suitably, 
the 
doll's 
house 
is 
on 
show at 
the 
Marquess 
of 
Bath's 
estate 
Longleat 
(Kemp, 
2003, 
p, 
35). 
"" 
in 
her 
illuminating book, On Longing, Stewart 
contrasts 
miniaturism 
with 
gigantism 
as 
typified 
ill 
the 
work of' 
[lop 
anists 
Oldenburg, 
Rosenquist 
and 
Warhol, 
where, 
in 
opposition 
to the 
characteristics 
ofthe 
miniature 
the: 
"gigantic in 
pop 
art 
celebrates 
the 
proliferation 
of 
the 
ne 
it, 
[ 
... 
I The 
pop 
gigantic exists in 
the 
abstractspace 
of inass 
production. 
The 
human 
body 
is 
not 
gigantic 
here 
the 
image 
is 
[ 
... 
j 
it 
exists 
in 
an 
abstract and 
aulonomousspace, 
aspace 
of 
lhefia?wdv, 
of consumption 
without 
'meaning 
'" (Stewart, 
1993, 
p. 
93). 
2"' 
The 
Argos 
and 
Index 
catalogues 
contain 
a 
huge 
volume 
of 
modernist 
inspired 
and 
designer 
products 
from 
mobile 
phones 
to 
white 
goods. 
A 
memo 
in 
the 
field 
also 
notcol 
the 
routinised 
incongruity 
of, 
jewellcry 
excess worn 
" 
ith 
designer 
garments 
(c. 
g 
Burberry 
skip 
caps 
and 
Nike 
trainers 
with 
Victorian 
Creoles 
and sovereign 
medallions) 
viewed oil wonicil 
ofall agcs 
ill 
the 
passagiala 
of 
Glasgow's Trongate. 
265 
69. 
Trongate 
shopper, 
June, 
2003, 
photo: 
Adele 
Patrick. 
form 
of 
fashion 
dissidence, 
a 
resistance 
to 
fashion 
and 
a preference 
for 
excess 
is 
reflected 
in 
the 
tastes 
of 
many 
participants 
and 
the 
fashioning 
of post war 
film 
and 
TV 
queens. 
204 
Working-class 
rogue 
fashionings 
Whereas 
since 
1966 
the 
notion 
of 
the 
designer 
product 
intensified 
self-consciousness about 
fashioning 
lifestyle 
and 
habitus, 
a 
trajectory 
of unauthored, outsider 
fashioning 
can 
be 
seen 
to 
have 
developed 
that 
emphasised 
the 
characteristics 
anathema 
to 
Modernism, 
e. g. 
decoration, 
ornament and 
preferably 
glittering 
detail. 
In 
a 
British 
context, as 
I 
have 
argued, 
the 
notion 
of 
Royal Taste 
may 
have 
4n 
t? 
impacted 
on 
the 
imagination 
of 
some girls 
and women 
growing 
up 
in 
the 
post-war period, as 
did 
the 
exuberant 
excesses 
of stars 
like 
Taylor however, 
forms 
of 
American 
vernacular ornate costuming and 
fashioning 
also shaped a rogue, outsider 
strand 
of 
British fashioning 
to 
excess. 
"" 
In 
many of 
the 
fields 
where 
feminine 
excess 
was 
a 
definitive 
aspect of a 
culture, 
including 
country 
and western vernacular 
fashioning 
appears 
styled 
as a 
form 
of 
Victoriana, 
a subset 
being 
'fairytale' 
or 
in 
other ways anachronistic. 
I 
noted 
that 
this 
was a 
feature 
of 
the 
encrusted worlds 
profiled 
in 
girls' annuals where 
'flamenco' 
was a 
spectacle 
dislocated from 
any 
historical 
moorings 
and 
where 
editors reassured 
readers 
that 
"Fashion 
changes 
hardly 
affect 
the 
dress 
requiredfor 
the 
ballroom 
dancer" 
(Frank, 
1962, 
pp. 
21- 
24). 
In 
a 
further 
departure 
from 
Modernism's 
championing 
of 
an androgynous 
youthful 
ideal, 
(and 
in 
contrast 
for 
example 
to 
an aspect of conservatism of 
independent 
music genres) 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
including forms 
of popular 
dance 
and performance 
are 
frequently 
performed 
by 
women 
of all 
ages 
and 
sizes. 
In 
her foray into 
the 
circus 
Birkett 
noted 
"Aly, 
age 
did 
not 
matter; 
showgirlv 
were 
always 
girls 
[ 
... 
] 
showgirls 
don't 
exist 
they 
are created 
Anyone 
could 
be 
made 
into 
a showgirl, 
even 
""Maddox 
notes 
that 
-Tay, 
lorherse?faccepted 
the 
charge. 
She 
would 
sit 
in 
an armchair, 
ivagging 
her 
Krupp. 
'I 
know 
I'm 
vulgar 
"(Maddox, 1977, 
p. 
213). lam 
not 
suggesting 
that 
Taylor's 
knowing 
ownership 
ofthe 
term 
is in 
anyway 
I inked 
to 
my 
understanding 
of 
how 
participants' 
understood 
their 
fashioning 
or 
taste. 
Rather, 
Taylor's 
exposure 
to 
and awareness 
of 
both 
popular, 
Modernist 
and 
indeed Royal 
Taste 
endowed 
her 
with 
the 
insight 
to 
make 
this 
claim. 
I 
read 
this 
as exceeding 
the 
limitations 
of camp, 
suggesting 
a 
pride 
in 
rather 
than 
a critique 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
"" 
For 
example, cowboy, country, 
and 
western 
and 
line 
dancing 
forms 
where 
Parton 
and 
Wynette 
have 
l'ollowed 
queen's 
from 
the 
1940s 
on 
like 
Dale 
Evans 
in 
coining 
a 
form 
ofw, 
orking-class 
glamour. 
In Dale 
Evans 
obituary 
she 
was 
remembered 
as 
"Sporting 
an 
outfit 
offringes, 
satin and sluds she was 
Queen 
to 
Roy, Rogers 'King 
of 
the 
Cowboys 
'" (Bergan, 200 
1). I-ine 
dancing, 
ballroom, 
Dancesport 
and 
disco 
dancing, 
seedbeds 
of outsider 
working-class 
fornis 
offerninine 
excess are 
inevitably 
routinely 
disparaged 
or 
neglected 
as 
valid cultural 
territories, 
other 
thin 
when 
they 
are 
appropriated 
for 
ironic, 
high 
lashion 
purposes. 
These 
are 
highly 
exoticised 
fields 
and all 
have 
fibstered 
alternative 
retail outlets 
tor 
costuming 
None 
observe mainstream 
fashion 
trends although 
their 
devotees 
are 
typically 
young 
women. 
Latin 
ballroom 
and 
Dancesport 
reference 
Latin 
and 
Roma 
cultures 
in 
body 
fashioning 
and 
costuming. 
Country 
and 
Western 
dance 
forms 
arc 
disproportionally popular 
in Scolland 
and 
the 
North 
of 
England. 
Two 
girls 
from Buckie 
recently 
won a 
world 
title 
at 
the 
International 
CounlrY 
dance 
championships 
in 
the 
US 
(Iferald, 
II 
Jan, 
2003, 
p. 
5). 
in 
an 
article charting 
the 
improbable 
successes 
of 
the 
South 
Empsall 
Dance 
Group, 
Peter 
Davies 
notes 
that 
girls 
"marooned 
benveen 
Wakefteldand Doncaster 
" in 
an 
impoverished 
environment 
("Cashless 
society" 
This 
is 
it 
hieralli, -) 
came 
to 
represent 
Britain 
at 
the 
1996 International 
Youth 
Dance 
Festival 
attended 
by 
2000 
dancers 
frorn 
47 
countries 
and 
won. 
(Davies, 
1996, 
p. 
6). 
266 
70. 'A"s 
grandnia 
with 
faux leopard-skin 
collar 
meets 
the 
Queen, Doncaster, 
early 
1970s. 
me" 
(Birkett, 
1996, 
p. 
6) 
206 
In 
contrast 
to 
the 
ageism/sexism 
clearly operating 
In 
the 
independent 
and 
alternative 
music 
fields, Shirley Bassey 
and other excessive 
stars 
have 
maintained 
their 
star status 
and 
their 
(prerogative 
to 
perform) 
sexuality. 
In 
a 
review 
of 
Bassey's 
performance 
at 
Manchester's 
Arena, 
celebrating 
her 
'Golden 
Jubilee' 
in 
2003 
) 
Simpson 
wrote 
"The 
biggest 
surprise 
is 
her 
sexuality; 
not. 
just 
the 
expected 
nudge-wink 
of'Hev 
Big 
Spender, but 
the 
stirring 
sexual volcano 
she 
brings 
to the 
Doors 
Light 
My 
Fire. 
It's 
alarming 
but 
exciting 
to 
discover 
a 
66-year-old 
is 
sexier 
than 
Kylie " (Simpson, 
2003, 
P. 
28). 
6.6 
Conclusion: 
Queening 
it 
and 
faking it 
Other 
countries 
can't 
decide 
whether we're 
a nation 
of 
football 
hooligans 
or 
homosexuals, 
of 
princesses 
or 
slags. 
Because 
we are all and 
none of 
these things 
( 
Sawyer, 
2001, 
p. 
66). 
In 
this 
concluding 
section 
I 
want 
to 
reprise 
and 
highlight 
a 
final 
cultural 
correlation: 
between 
C) 
perceptions 
of 
the 
working 
class as 
prone 
to 
deception 
and 
fakery 
on 
a range 
of registers 
and 
the 
middle 
class 
as arbiters 
of 
taste 
and authenticity. 
The 
paradigm of 
authenticity 
and 
naturalness 
versus 
artifice 
and 
masquerade 
imbricates both 
the 
literature 
on 
femininity 
and 
feminism 
and notions 
of 
class 
and 
taste. 
In 
the 
field 
of 
jewellery, historical 
notions 
of good 
precious 
metals and stones and 
bad 
fakes 
and 
costume 
jewellery 
still predominating in 
the 
immediate 
post 
war 
period, 
have been 
radically 
Z-) 
transformed 
in 
recent 
decades. 
Hollywood 
and show 
business 
paste, 
the 
self consciousness of 
stealth 
wealth 
aesthetics, 
the 
appropriation of 
Royal 
Taste, 
the 
diminution 
of 
the 
Royal 
aura, and 
the 
consumption 
of 
fakes 
by Royals 
themselves 
have 
all 
destabilised 
formally 
normative values. 
207 
In 
1963, 
although 
costume 
jewellery 
was 
gaining 
respectability 
as 
it 
grew 
more 
indistinguishable from 
the 
208 
real, 
girls 
were still 
being 
advised 
to 
avoid 
junk 
. 
Perhaps the 
most spectacular 
evidence 
for 
this 
exists 
in 
the 
form 
of 
the 
showgirl 
troupe 
the 
'Roly 
Polys'. 
Such 
encroachments 
on 
a 
Royal 
prerogative 
to 
dress 
to 
excess 
are 
prefigured 
in 
a range 
ofvvorking-class 
communities 
and 
represent 
a 
widespread 
'will 
to 
adorn'. 
In dramatic 
fashion, 
the 
Culture 
of 
Pearly 
Kings 
and 
Queen's is 
sustained 
in 
London's 
East 
End. 
As 
Mary Braid 
has 
detailed, Pearly 
Kings 
and 
Queens 
evolved their 
own 
family 
button designs 
including 
George 
Major, the 
latest 
in 
a 
line 
of 
five 
generations of 
lives 
"spent 
in 
buttons 
". 
Jade, 
Major's 
granddaughter, 
is 
-77tefirst 
back 
Pearly 
Princess 
" And 
Mejor, 
one 
of 
the 
remaining 
150 
or 
so 
Pearlies has 
stated. 
distilling 
the 
essence 
ofVulgar/Royal 
Taste, 
"Ile 
are 
out 
there 
to 
create a 
little 
glitter 
"(13raid, 2001, 
pp. 
1-2). 
2"' 
As 
in 
this 
annual 
extract: 
"Costumejewellery 
is 
lite 
miracle 
of 
the 
age, 
and 
it 
takes 
a 
diamondexpert 
ivith 
his 
eyeglass 
to fell 
a 
rhinestoneftom 
afamily 
heirloom 
at 
20paces. 
Bill 
don't 
let 
the temptation 
toshine 
lemplyou 
into competition 
with 
a 
lighthouse. 
The 
rule 
about 
glitter 
is 
very 
simple 
-a 
lillic' 
goes 
a 
long, 
long 
way. 
One 
eye-catching 
bracelet 
and 
brooch 
is 
OK. 
Ear 
sluds. if 
they suityou, 
go nicely 
with 
a necklace. 
Too 
much 
glitter 
will 
overloadyou 
and 
detract 
rather 
than 
add 
to 
your 
charms. 
Warning: 
if 
lovingparents 
have 
givenyou 
a real 
gold 
bracelet don't 
mix 
it 
up 
wah 
the 
?unk'fype. 
It 
can't 
compete 
and 
1011 
be 
sunk 
without 
a 
trace 
in 
a 
weller 
offakes 
" 
(Green, 1963, 
pp, 
35-4 1). 
In 
a 
Guardian 
Women's 
Page 
interview 
with 
Brigid 
Brophy 
267 
By 
200 1, Kenneth 
Jay Lane's 
fakes, 
resonating 
with 
the 
zeitgeist 
of 
early 
post-modemism 
and 
associated 
with 
celebrity 
clientele, were 
valued 
more 
highly 
than 
originals. 
Significantly, 
Princess 
Diana 
developed 
a 
"penchantfor 
costumejewellery 
" 
earning 
the 
epithet, 
'The 
Princess 
of 
Paste' 
(Chubb, 1992, 
p. 
50). Simon 
Butler 
of 
Butler 
and 
Wilson, 
the 
faux jewellers 
who 
translated 
the 
Lane 
legacy for 
the 
upmarket 
British 
high 
street 
in 
the 
1980s 
identified 
Diana's importance in 
encouraging 
the 
middle 
classes 
to 
experiment with 
imitations: 
"Any 
stigma 
that there 
may 
have been 
about 
wearing 
imitationjewellery 
has been demolished 
by 
the 
Princess 
of 
Wales, 
who 
is 
perfectly 
happy 
to 
wear 
her 
rhinestonesfor 
public engagements" 
(Butler 
cited 
in 
Chubb, 
1992, 
p. 
59). 
209 
The 
notion of non-ironic 
imitation 
jewellery 
wearing 
as stigmatising can 
be 
understood 
in 
the 
broader 
demonisation 
of 
working-class 
women and 
their 
consumption and/or 
tastes. 
In 
the 
way 
that 
use 
of 
cosmetics 
to 
excess was read 
in 
mainstream 
and some 
feminism 
texts 
as 
indicative 
of 
(self-) 
deception 
and sexually 
laxity, 
wearing 
excessive costume 
jewellery 
or 
gaudy clothing 
as 
in 
McLean's 
description 
of 
habituds 
of 
the 
Barras, is 
read off 
as a sign 
of proximity 
to 
criminality. 
Jewellery 
theft 
has 
both 
a romantic, 
literary 
as well 
as criminal 
legacy, 
compounding 
the 
connection 
ofjewels 
to the 
underworld. 
In 
a 
bathetic 
conclusion 
to 
the 
death 
of 
Princess 
Diana, 
the 
Glasgow 
Evening 
Times 
reported 
an 
inconclusive 
police 
raid 
on a 
Barras 
stallholder's 
home, 
in 
'Hunt 
for 
Di Mum's 
jewelS, 
210 
(Brenton, 
2002, 
p. 
4). 
The 
visibility 
of 
predominately 
working-class 
jewellery items 
as currency 
in 
the 
pawn 
industry 
further 
stigmatises 
these 
items 
as 
IOW. 
211 
Notwithstanding Diana's 
fashionable 
favouring 
of 
faux jewels, 
the 
aristocracy can 
be 
seen 
to 
continue 
to 
use authentic 
jewels 
as a 
flamboyant 
presentation 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
and aura. 
The 
mythology 
of 
specific 
pieces 
conjoins with 
a romanticisation 
of 
lineage 
and sovereignty. 
2 12 
The 
reconstruction 
of 
the 
modem 
monarchy, 
that 
staged and 
fashioned 
the 
Windsors 
in 
ways 
evocative 
of 
a mythical past 
is, 
through 
the 
agency of 
politics, media 
and 
the 
rise of 
new 
queens 
gradually 
perceived as 
being 
more 
dependent 
on 
artifice 
than 
aura. 
As 
notions 
of real and 
fake 
become 
the 
following 
year 
the 
writer 
'confesses' 
that 
her husband 
has 
taught 
her 
the 
pleasures 
of costume 
jewellery: 
"Before 
I 
met 
Michael 
[ 
Levey, 
Art 
Historian] 
I 
would never 
have 
boughtfakejewelleryfor 
the 
sheerpleasure 
of 
it. 
I 
can 
be 
the 
most 
dreadfulpuritan 
at 
heart' (The Guardian, 
5 
February, 
1964, 
p. 
8). 
2" 
New 
Romanticism 
and punk may 
also 
have been 
a 
factor 
in 
dissolving 
the 
rigid 
demarcation 
of good and 
bad, 
real and 
fake 
jewellery. 
Costume jewellery is 
conspicuously 
wom 
by 
Boy 
George 
in his 
eponymously 
titled 
Fashion 
andMakeup 
girls'annual 
of 
1984. 
110 
Mrs 
Shand Kydd having 
had her home 
raidcd 
whilst 
attending 
the 
trial 
of 
Diana's 
butler Paul 
Burrell. 
21 
1 
Associations 
with pawn shops 
are 
perennially 
derogatory. Landlady 
character 
Annie 
Walker 
asked 
her 
son 
Billy 
who 
had 
hired 
Bet 
Lynch: 
"Am 
I 
biased? Or does 
that 
name 
sound as 
tf 
it 
should 
be 
over 
apawn 
shop? 
" (McAuley, 
1995, 
p. 
23). 
212 
Robb 
and 
Edwards 
have inferred 
that 
for 
the 
monarchy 
the 
familyjewels 
are 
viewed 
as commonplace 
family 
inheritances: 
"One 
[of 
the 
Queen's] 
brooches 
incorporates 
the 
third 
andfourthparts ofthe 
Cullinan 
diamondwhich 
the 
Queen 
inherliedfrom 
Queen 
Mary 
who 
had 
it 
made 
up 
into 
what 
is 
now 
the 
queen's 
most valuable 
brooch. 
ThIspricelessplece 
has 
a 
62 
cart 
square 
diamondfrom 
which 
hangs 
a pear 
shaped 
diamond 
of 
92 
carats 
and 
is 
lightly 
referred 
to 
by 
the 
queen 
as 
'Granny 
j chips'" 
(Robb 
and 
Edwards, 
1977, 
p. 
59). 
268 
/r. 
" 
more 
problematised, 
and 
the 
uses and 
appropriations 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
proliferate, 
the 
prerogative 
of 
queening 
it 
has been 
wilfully claimed 
by 
specific 
stars 
and 
audiences 
alike. 
213 
211 
Ile 
phrase 
'qucening 
it' is 
the 
Prince 
of 
Wales'. 
According 
to 
RobbqState 
occasions) 
are 
the 
occasions 
when 
the 
Queenputs 
on 
the 
soe 
which 
Prince 
Charles 
is 
said 
to 
refer 
to 
as 
'dressing 
up 
and 
Queening 
It" 
(Robb, 
1997, 
p. 
65). 
269 
Conclusion 
One 
of 
the 
aims 
for 
this 
thesis 
was 
to 
contribute 
to 
feminist knowledge 
of 
femininity, 
media 
and 
women's 
(pleasures 
in) 
self-fashioning. 
' 
Whilst 
recognising 
the 
totalising 
effect of social and 
cultural 
distaste 
for (working-class) 
women 
who 
fashion 
to 
excess, 
I 
also acknowledged 
the 
momentum 
of 
individuated 
and 
collective 
pleasures 
in fashioning 
and 
suggest 
that 
the 
research 
participants' 
contributions 
add valuable 
perspectives 
to 
feminist 
research 
in 
this 
respect. 
2 
Glamour, 
masquerade 
and questions of authenticity 
have been 
the 
focus for 
criticism 
in 
both 
mainstream 
and 
feminist 
discourses 
on 
female 
performers and 
their 
audiences. 
I 
claim 
that 
there 
may 
be 
a 
broader 
array 
of relationships 
between 
women 
consumers, 
audiences and stars 
that 
can galvanise 
3 
profound 
feelings, 
identifications, 
creativity and 
dissidence. 
This 
research attributes agency 
to 
so. 
called 
ordinary 
women 
and critically 
disdained 
but 
popular stars 
in 
the 
forging 
of 
new 
forms 
of 
expressions 
of 
femininity 
some 
of which 
can 
be 
understood 
as 
challenging 
the 
post-war 
foundations 
of 
taste 
and 
culture. 
Feminist 
theory 
has failed 
to 
reflect on 
how 
Modernist, 
middle-class 
tastes 
may 
have impacted 
on 
feminist 
theories 
of 
the 
performance 
of 
femininity 
and on 
feminist 
taste 
itself, 
and 
I 
have 
attempted 
to 
examine 
the 
consequences of 
this 
political 
inertia, 
alongside 
a critique 
of 
the 
neglect 
of 
dissidence 
found 
in 
some 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess. 
4 
In 
this 
conclusion 
I 
reflect 
on 
these 
findings 
and 
focus 
on 
the 
areas 
where 
the 
research might 
be 
seen 
to 
add 
to 
feminist 
knowledge. 
I 
review 
my 
analysis 
of 
the 
empirical 
data, its 
relationship 
to the 
existing 
literature 
and attempt 
to 
frame 
this 
within 
relevant 
contemporary 
media 
and urban 
landscapes. 
I 
Conducting 
this 
research 
has 
made me 
want 
to 
propose 
further 
analyses 
of what 
I 
would 
now 
term 
culturaliustice, 
in 
particular 
where 
this 
might 
further 
illuminate 
the 
disdained 
practices 
of 
women 
who remain 
remote 
from 
cultural 
capital. 
2 
Their 
accounts 
detail, 
for 
example, 
pleasures 
in 
aspects of music consumption 
and 
production, 
identifications 
with stars 
and 
other 
women 
on 
the 
basis 
of 
their 
fashionings 
and 
performances 
of 
excess 
and 
tastes 
for dissident 
fernininities 
that 
have been 
largely 
neglected 
in 
British 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
theories 
and media. 
3 
Defiance 
and 
disobedience 
has been 
attributed 
to 
specific 
forms 
of 
fashioned 
femininity 
but 
traditionally 
these tend 
to 
accord 
with 
aspects 
of 
Modernist 
taste, 
for 
example, 
in 
the 
representation 
and 
criticism 
of so-called alternative 
twentieth 
century 
female 
film 
and 
music stars. 
II 
hope 
to 
have 
demonstrated 
that 
femininity 
can 
be 
examined 
other 
than through a camp, 
drag 
or 
queer 
lens. 
I have 
not 
focussed 
here 
on 
tensions 
between 
specific communities of 
gay 
men, 
lesbians 
and women 
who 
'do' 
femininity 
'straight'. 
however 
I 
am 
interested 
to 
note 
dissident 
work 
currently 
being 
undertaken 
by 
gay 
performers 
Jenni 
Potter 
and 
David Hoyle, 
aka 
Bitz 
and 
Bobz 
who 
have 
created 
work, 
for 
example 
'Drag 
is 
Dead' 
that 
critiques 
the 
"rampant 
hostility 
towards 
women 
[that] 
irliects 
gay male 
culture 
" (Gray, 2000, 
p. 
4). 
270 
ZT 
Corporeal 
and cultural 
capitals 
The 
science 
of 
taste 
and of cultural 
consumption 
begins 
with 
a 
transgression 
that 
is 
in 
no 
way 
aesthetic: 
it 
has 
to 
abolish 
the 
sacred 
frontier 
which 
makes 
legitimate 
culture 
a 
separate 
universe, 
in 
order 
to 
discover 
the 
intelligible 
relations 
which 
unite 
apparently 
incommensurable 
6choices', 
such 
as preferences 
in 
music and 
food, 
painting 
and 
sport, 
literature 
and 
hairstyle. 
This 
barbarous 
reintegration 
of 
aesthetic 
consumption 
into 
the 
world 
of 
ordinary 
consumption 
abolishes 
the 
opposition, 
which 
has 
been 
the 
basis 
of 
high 
aesthetics 
since 
Kant, 
between 
the 
'taste 
of sense' 
and 
the 
'taste 
of 
reflection' 
and 
between 
facile 
pleasure, 
pleasure 
reduced 
to 
a 
pleasure 
of 
the 
senses, 
and pure 
pleasure, 
pleasure 
purified 
of pleasure, 
which 
is 
predisposed to 
become 
a symbol 
of 
moral 
excellence 
and 
a measure 
of 
the 
capacity 
for 
sublimation 
which 
defines 
the truly 
human 
man 
(sic] 
(Bourdieu, 
1979, 
p. 
6). 
The 
fields 
of 
research, 
academia 
and 
the 
voluntary 
sector 
I 
inhabited 
during 
the 
research 
period 
constitute 
culturally 
and socially 
distinct 
'frontiers'. 
My 
understanding 
is 
that 
women 
who 
are 
usually 
located 
more 
or 
less discretely 
within 
these 
and 
other 
contexts, 
regardless 
of age, 
class 
and 
politics 
embody 
shifting 
tastes 
in fashioning 
that 
are 
equally 
and 
continually 
constructed. 
It 
is 
the 
distinguishing 
characteristics 
of apparatus, 
methods 
of 
fashioning, 
styling, 
levels 
of excess 
and 
ingenuousness 
about 
cosmetic 
acts 
that 
appears 
to 
determine 
cultural 
dis/pleasures 
and 
dis/approbation 
and 
consequent 
cultural 
capital. 
Feminist 
and 
left 
political 
critiques of 
fashioning 
have 
focussed 
on 
the 
iniquities 
of 
the 
fashion 
industries 
and 
the 
culpability 
of 
the 
masses 
in 
the 
processes 
of 
exploitation 
and 
waste. 
6 
Such 
critiques 
have 
failed 
to 
include 
the 
routines 
of 
consumption 
associated 
with 
other 
lifestyles 
and 
dispositions, 
both 
academic 
and 
feminist. 
This 
research 
suggests 
that 
fashion 
and 
fashioning 
are 
not 
synonymous 
and 
that 
working-class 
communities 
of women 
are 
investing 
relatively 
little 
on 
beauty 
products 
and 
enjoying 
often 
affordable 
pleasures 
that 
exceed 
the 
narrow 
perception of 
cosmetic 
acts. 
It 
also 
finds 
that 
classed 
communities 
of women 
consume 
differently; 
working-class 
women 
can 
at 
least 
in 
some 
respects 
be 
understood 
as relying 
less 
on 
both 
advertising 
industries, 
to 
whom 
they 
have 
been 
routinely 
been 
perceived 
to 
be 
hopelessly 
in 
thrall, 
and 
fashion itself. 
7 
Conversely, 
despite 
encompassing 
habits 
5 
Corporeal 
capital 
is interpreted 
by Skcggs 
as within 
the 
frame 
of cultural 
capital 
defined 
by 
Bourdieu 
(Skeggs, 
200 
1, 
p. 
296). 
She 
suggests 
that 
femininity 
is both 
an achievement 
and 
an 
investment? 
a rare 
form 
of capital accessible to 
working-class 
women. 
(ibid. 
p. 
298) 
6 
There 
is 
a widespread 
perception 
of 
working-class 
women as 
folk devils 
as 
the 
literature 
on 
Essex 
Girls 
and 
my examination 
of 
Chatham 
Girls 
and 
Barras 
Tarts 
suggests. 
713ourdicu's 
research 
claimed 
that 
working-class women 
are more 
likely 
to 
buy 
clothes 
from 
markets 
or 
through 
the 
post 
whereas 
bourgeois 
women 
are more 
likely 
to 
spend more on 
fashion 
consuming garments 
in 
up-market 
department 
stores 
and 
boutiques 
(13ourdieu, 
1979, 
p. 
378) 
Similarly 
working-class women 
were more 
likely 
to 
reduce 
their 
expenditure 
on cosmetics 
and 
beauty 
care 
to 
minimum 
(this 
item 
rising 
steeply 
through 
the 
classes). 
They 
represented 
"the 
zero 
degree 
ofmake-up 
of 
which the 
271 
7 1. 
Madonna 
wears 
Argos-style 
necklace 
with 
ironic 
air-brushed 
roots, cover, 
In Style 
magazine, 
August, 
2001. 
I 
Chicks 
are 
flicking to the 
blue 
movies 
for 
style 
tips, 
says 
Summer 
Litchfielc 
Madonna 
endorses 
the 
'porno 
look', 
The 
Tatler, 
200 
1, 
Vol. 296, Issue 
11, 
unpaginated. 
of 
resistance 
to 
both fashion 
and advertising, 
it is from 
within 
the 
habitus' 
of 
the 
working classes 
that 
the 
most 
canonised, 
dissident 
models 
for 
post-war 
fashion 
have 
emerged; 
the 
New Look, 
Bohemianism, 
bouffanting, 
Trailer 
Trash, Mods, 
Rockers, 
British 
Cowboy 
culture 
and 
so on. 
A 
rare 
example 
of appreciation of 
the 
dissidence 
and 
beyond-fashion 
status 
of 
outsider 
working-class 
fashioning 
has been 
cited 
by 
the 
artist 
Linder Sterling 
who 
has 
researched 
and celebrated 
rather 
than 
appropriated 
the 
line-dancing 
cultures 
of 
the 
north west 
of 
England: 
There 
are 
the 
pure 
line-dancing 
clubs 
and 
then 
there 
are 
the 
clubs 
towards 
the 
coast 
that 
also 
attract members 
of 
the 
British 
Western 
Society. 
You 
have 
cowboys 
and 
line 
dancers 
but 
often 
there 
is little 
interaction 
between 
them. 
The 
cowboys 
look 
down 
on 
the 
line dancers. 
But 
the 
line 
dancers 
really 
don't 
care 
because 
they 
are 
having 
such a great 
time 
themselves. 
It 
is 
a 
fascinating 
world. 
One 
rainy 
night 
a 
few 
weeks 
ago 
I 
had 
to 
find 
this 
club 
where 
I 
knew 
the 
cowboys 
would 
be. 
I 
was 
driving 
round on my own and 
finally found 
this 
little 
tiny 
club 
went 
in 
and everyone 
was 
in 
full 
dress. 
I 
think that 
is 
radical 
because 
the 
venues are often 
in 
really 
obscure 
places and 
the 
people 
who 
are 
into it have 
actually 
made what 
they 
are 
wearing. 
There 
hasn't 
been 
a 
DIY 
fashion 
since 
punk 
- 
after punk 
the 
labels 
moved 
in. 
Punk 
was 
the 
last 
big 
movement 
when people 
got 
out 
sewing 
machines 
and 
felt 
tip 
pens and 
ripped 
things 
up. 
I 
think 
with 
line 
dancing in 
the 
north 
there's 
a 
fantastic 
disregard for 
the 
world 
outside 
- 
it's 
as 
if 
Gap 
and 
Calvin 
Klein 
really 
didn't 
exist. 
It's 
something 
incredibly liberating (Sterling 
cited 
in 
O'Brien, 
2000). 
8 
However 
it is 
the 
relentless 
pattern 
of appropriation, 
gentrification and 
(re)commodification 
of 
aspects 
of 
working-class culture, 
from 
fish 
and chips 
to 
allotmenteering, 
tower 
blocks 
to 
narrow 
boats, 
ironically 
escalating 
in 
the 
wake 
of 
Thatcherism, 
that 
characterises 
the 
paradoxical 
exoticisation 
and 
disdain 
of 
'the 
other' 
by 
the 
design 
and 
fashion 
cognoscenti. 
9 
Nevertheless, 
participants 
discussed 
pleasures 
in fashioning forms 
beyond 
the 
notion 
of 
fashionability, 
of 
long 
dresses, 
gallus 
earrings, 
Pre- 
Raphaelite 
tresses, 
butterfly brooches 
and 
loyalties 
to 
fixed 
fashioning 
regimes. 
complexity 
(lipstick 
alone, 
lipstick 
plusfoundation, 
plus eyeshadow, 
plus 
eyebrow 
pencil 
etc. 
) 
the 
cost 
in 
money, 
and 
especially 
in 
time, 
increase 
as one moves 
up 
the 
social 
hierarchy " (ibid. 
p. 
378). 
' 
Sterling 
claims 
that 
"People 
who usuallyfeel 
anonymous 
or 
ignored 
will 
be 
namedand 
elevated 
to 
gallery status. 
Iam 
making 
work 
which 
lots 
of 
differentpeople 
can 
relate 
to 
- 
dismantling 
the 
status 
of 
art" 
(ibid. 
). She 
makes 
a 
case 
for 
line-dancing's 
anti- 
consumerist 
potential: 
"It 
echoespunk 
in 
that 
it's 
always 
in 
obscure clubs 
andpeople 
make 
their 
own clothes. 
Men 
andwomen 
sit 
at sewing 
machines 
to 
get 
their 
image 
together. 
There's 
no 
Armani, 
Nike 
or 
Gap 
- 
all 
labels 
are 
banished". 
Sterling, 
a 
Liverpudlian, 
was 
bom in 
1954 
into 
an 
Irish 
working-class 
family. Her 
parents 
go 
ballroom dancing 
six nights 
a 
week. 
She 
claims 
"my 
mum's 
always sewing sequins 
on 
something". 
According 
to 
O'Brien, 
Sterling 
"Gives 
short 
shrift 
to 
the 
'culture 
of 
irony'in 
Brit 
pop art. 
She 
may 
be 
dressed 
up as 
a 
cowboy, 
but 
she 
isnt 
kitsch". 
She 
resents art 
that 
is 
"contemptuous 
of 
its 
audience... 
the 
legacy 
ofpunk 
has bred 
a 
lot 
of envy 
in 
people 
who'd 
like 
to 
be 
pretenders 
to 
punk's 
throne. 
Punk 
was never 
funded 
and 
never 
subsidised 
Also. 
we 
trusted 
no one 
". 
O'Brien 
interprets 
Lindefland 
as 
"highly 
unfashionable 
" 
and 
Sterling 
herself 
defines it 
as 
"aboulfaith 
andpolilics 
and community, 
a 
world 
where 
the 
terrain 
is 
harsh 
andpeople 
are 
volatile, 
but 
deep 
down 
they're 
concerned with real 
choices 
of 
survival" 
(ibid. 
). 
' 
In 
this 
the 
mechanisms resemble 
the 
post-war 
effects 
of globalisation 
and 
the 
universal 
disdain for 
folk 
cultures 
appropriated 
for 
tourism. 
it 
is indubitably 
the 
case 
that the 
middle 
classes 
constitute 
and 
construct 
the 
(high) 
fashion industries 
and 
their 
tastes 
are 
articulated 
in 
fashion 
journalism. 
272 
ow 
72. 
Strip 
cartoon, 
D 
Jackson 
and 
M 
Collin, 
List 
magazine, 
2-16 October 
2003, 
page 
84. 
Models 
of wilful 
artifice 
and 
dissident 
femininity 
exist 
in 
a 
host 
of social contexts and 
popular 
cultural 
and 
media representations 
as participants 
discussed, 
and 
secondary 
sources suggest. 
However, 
for 
the 
cognoscenti, 
including 
the 
students of art, 
fashion 
and 
design, it has 
been 
the 
stars 
of 
the 
avant- 
garde, 
punk, 
queer 
and alternative 
fields 
who 
are more 
routinely 
understood 
as 
having 
coined 
the 
celebrated 
models 
of post-war 
dissident fashions. 
'O 
The 
remoteness 
of 
art and 
design 
cultures" 
and 
higher 
education 
more 
generally 
from 
the 
worlds 
of working-class 
women 
was noted 
throughout the 
research process. 
12 
The 
accounts 
of 
some 
research 
participants 
literally 
marked 
the 
difference between 
themselves 
and 
the 
cultures 
and 
embodiment 
of 
'students'. 
Ettie: 
- 
we 
were 
brought 
up 
in 
a 
tenement 
first 
of all, above 
the 
shop, 
then 
we moved 
to 
St 
Georges 
Road, 
the 
road 
that 
leads down 
to 
- 
it's 
quite near 
the 
Art 
Institute. 
I 
went 
to 
school 
up 
at 
the 
Art 
Institute. 
I 
went 
to 
Gamethill 
Convent 
right next 
to 
the 
Art Institute. 
I 
saw 
all 
these 
hippies 
and 
things 
going 
in, 
and 
I 
thought, 
oh 
they 
are away 
in 
to 
doodle 
on 
paper. 
Ellen, 
who 
had 
worked 
at 
the 
Art School 
for 
over 
a 
decade, 
was wary about 
its 
current 
claims 
to 
be 'widening 
access' 
to 
allow 
for 
the 
inclusion 
of 
forms 
of excessive 
femininity: 
13 
Ellen: 
I 
think 
because 
it, it is 
the 
Art 
School, 
it's 
a 
bit like 
all 
these 
welders 
that 
come 
in 
and 
being 
painters and 
things, 
it's 
a 
bit like, 'women 
are 
the 
beggars 
of 
the 
world' 
type 
thing, 
let's 
have 
a 
token 
-I 
think 
they 
are 
quite good 
at 
embracing 
the 
token 
whatever, 
black, 
the 
token 
Barra 
Tart, 
the 
token 
whatever, 
I 
don't 
think 
they 
would 
like 
it 
if lots 
of 
them 
came 
[Laughter] 
no 
they 
wouldn't, 
that 
would 
upset 
the 
status 
quo and 
I 
think 
it 
would 
be 
quite 
hard 
to 
have 
-I 
suppose[ 
... 
]a 
sort 
of, 
very sort of 
brash, 
working-class, 
type 
of woman 
and 
I 
think 
they 
have 
kind 
of got 
that 
in 
- 
but 
I 
think 
they 
would 
probably 
get 
laughed 
at, 
I 
think they 
would. 
14 
"' 
In 
their 
literal 
artfulness, 
often 
faking 
or 
blurring 
their 
class 
histories, 
rock, 
punk 
and 
hippy 
icons 
have 
all 
routinely 
milked 
the 
dynamism 
and 
dissidence 
of working-class and 
fashionings 
from Black 
communities. 
to 
which 
rebels 
from 
Lennon, 
to 
Strummer 
and 
McLaren 
to 
Blur 
et al 
were 
exposed. 
Significantly 
a 
'critical 
friend' 
throughout the 
research 
period was researching 
issues 
of 
access at 
the 
Glasgow 
School 
of 
Art. 
She 
helped 
'snowball' 
my access 
to 
Northend 
College, 
a 
'feeder' 
institution 
to 
the 
Art 
School. 
She 
noted 
that 
the 
gatekeeper 
at 
Northend 
(her 
friend) 
had 
discussed her discomfort 
at 
'grooming' 
female 
Northend 
Art 
and 
Design 
students 
for 
their 
portfolio 
interviews 
at 
the 
Art 
School. 
The feminine 
excess, 
of 
their 
'best' 
interview 
outfits 
had 
been 
perceived 
by 
at 
least 
one 
female 
Northend 
candidate 
as posing 
a 
'problem' 
at 
interview. 
The 
gatekeeper's 
knowledge 
of 
both Art 
School 
expectations 
(she 
was 
an 
Art 
School 
graduate 
herself) 
was 
sharply contrasted 
with 
the 
corporeal capital of 
Northend 
students, 
a 
gap she 
had 
to 
work 
to 
address 
in 
addition 
to 
any 
routine portfolio preparation. 
This 
remoteness 
of excessive 
femininity 
from 
higher 
education 
is inferred 
by Cox 
when she 
states 
"So 
maybe 
the 
Mail 
on 
Sunday's 
answer 
to 
the 
question 
' 
Whatever happened 
to 
Essex 
girl? 
'will 
be 
proved 
right 
- 
'That 
she 
grew up and 
became 
a 
University 
project'. 
And 
maybe 
that 
won't 
be 
such 
a 
ludicrous 
idea 
after 
all 
" 
(Cox, 
2000, 
p. 
9). 
Notwithstanding the 
commitment 
of 
individual 
members 
of 
staff 
to this 
policy. 
My 
own 
observations 
of 
the 
mechanisms of corporeal 
capital 
at work 
in higher 
education 
as opposed 
to the 
research 
field 
more 
broadly 
confirmed 
this 
dislocation. 
Students 
were 
encultured 
into 
a 
Darwinian 
rhetoric 
that 
fused 
notions 
of progress and 
evolution 
with 
fashion 
and 
taste. 
As 
Bourdieu 
suggests: 
"Anyone 
who 
wants 
to 
'succeed 
in 
life'mustpayfor 
his 
accession 
to 
everything 
which 
defines 
truly 
humane 
humans 
by 
a 
change of 
nature, 
a 
'social 
promotion 
'experienced 
as an 
ontological 
promotion, 
aprocess 
of 
'civilisation 
"' (Bourdieu, 
1979, 
p. 
25 
1). This 
is inferred 
in 
a 
Guardian 
graduates supplement 
where 
the 
contiguity 
between 
cultures of 
education 
and 
the 
professions 
is 
expressed 
via 
the 
suppression of 
fashioning (mainly feminine) 
273 
As I 
have discussed, 
the 
critique of excessive 
fashioning 
as 
literally 
made-up, a 
retrograde 
form 
of 
masquerade 
has been held 
by 
tastemakers, 
Modernists 
and 
feminists 
alike 
as opposed 
to the 
authenticity 
of 
the 
unadorned 
or 
the 
perennial exception, 
a 
'natural' decorativeness 
embodied 
by 
vogues 
for 
so-called 
gypsy, 
hippy 
or 
ethnic aesthetics. 
15 
Research 
participants 
were, on 
the 
whole, 
open 
about 
their 
past and current 
identifications, 
with 
stars, 
friends, 
strangers 
and 
relatives, 
even 
in 
the 
plans 
they 
made 
for 
influencing 
the 
fashioning 
of 
their 
daughters. 
Two 
participants 
who 
identified 
as 
feminists 
were 
less 
keen 
to 
confess 
their 
susceptibility 
to 
fashioning 
influences 
and 
I 
linked 
their 
reticence 
to the 
more 
widespread 
historical 
refusal of 
the 
middle classes 
to 
acknowledge 
that 
they 
are 
modelling 
themselves 
on stars 
or others 
in 
their 
peer 
group, 
that they 
are 
immune 
to 
identifications 
and 
construct 
themselves 
autonomously. 
16 
Texts 
aimed 
at audiences 
of women, 
like 
the 
fashioning 
and 
habits 
of women, 
themselves 
are 
demonised 
if 
they 
refuse 
to 
construct 
or 
represent 
themselves 
as 
within 
a recognisable 
and 
yet elitist 
frame 
that 
denies 
ingenuous 
pleasures 
in fashioning 
femininity. 
" 
This 
research 
suggests 
that 
such 
routinised 
demonisation 
should 
be 
addressed 
and challenged 
by 
feminists, 
not 
merely 
through 
reiteration 
of mantras 
that 
ultimately 
reinscribe 
Modernist 
taste 
but 
through 
methods 
that 
creatively 
and productively 
examine 
the 
motors, 
pleasures 
and potential 
of 
forms 
of 
femininity. 
" 
excesses. 
In 
an article 
entitled, 
'Choosing 
the 
right 
dress 
to 
impress' 
the 
writer 
lists 
the 
'Top 10 
blunders': 
"Great, 
you 
Ivefinally 
decided 
what 
to 
wear 
to 
the 
graduatefair. 
So don't 
go and spoilyour 
ho 
e ook 
by 
commi 
ng 
on 
of 
hefi 
w 
IV 
1,1 
t1i 
01 
ollo 
Ing 
image 
blunders: 
Avold' 
Scuffed 
shoes, 
bittenfingernads, 
torn tights, 
unkempt 
hair, 
tottering 
high 
heels, 
glitteringjewellery, 
overdone 
makeup, 
stubble, 
overpowering 
aftershave orperfume 
and 
that 
all 
timefavourite, 
food 
stains 
"(7he 
Guardian, 
16 
June, 
200 
1). 
The 
remoteness 
of 
an 
and 
design 
cultural capital 
from 
the 
majority 
has 
been 
discussed 
by 
Painter 
and 
others 
who 
have 
called 
into 
question 
the 
social 
function 
of 
an: 
"tf 
by 
'art'we 
mean 
fine 
art'- 
the 
art of 
the 
art 
worldas 
I have 
difned 
it 
- 
the 
simple 
answer 
is 
that 
it 
seems 
to 
have 
very 
little 
to 
offer 
to 
the 
majority ofpeople. 
The 
available 
evidence 
indicates 
that 
mostpeople 
in 
Britain 
take 
little 
interest 
in 
world 
offine art 
and, 
ifattendance 
at art 
exhibitions 
Is 
taken 
as an 
indicator, 
the 
minority 
that 
does 
attend 
to 
contemporaryfine 
art 
isfrom 
the 
middle 
classes". 
(Painter, 
undated) 
11 
Wilson 
has demonstrated 
the 
disingenuousness 
of 
such a 
standpoint. 
In his 
review 
of 
Bohemian 
J 
Hodkinson 
notes 
"Wilson 
emphasises 
the 
respects 
in 
which 
the 
bohemian 
dream 
could 
become 
arty1cial, shallow 
andpretentious. 
Even before 
1900, 
cqfd 
owners 
In 
Paris 
wouldpay 
dishevelled, 
bearded 
types 
toplay 
chess 
in 
the 
windows 
of 
their 
establishment. 
1, 
This 
attracted 
tourists" 
(Wilson 
cited 
in Hodkinson, 
2000, 
p. 
63). 
16 
This 
trait 
is 
evident 
in 
the 
editing 
and content 
of 
high 
and 
low 
brow 
media 
texts. 
The 
(masculinised, 
Modernist) 
broadshcet 
format 
ostensibly eschews 
star representations whilst 
the 
(feminised, 
excessive) so-called 
gossip 
and 
women's 
magazines 
freely 
associate 
stars with 
'looks', 
'problems' 
and 
'issues'. 
Fawcett 
reads 
the 
Modernist 
inspired 
high 
fashion 
industry 
of 
the 
1960s 
as 
presenting 
to 
her 
as 
a 
young 
consumer, 
the 
possibility 
of 
fashioning 
"uniqueness 
and 
difference" 
a 
much 
sought-after 
social 
distinction, 
but 
concedes, 
"you 
had 
to 
travel 
to 
London, 
and 
know 
where 
to 
shop 
to 
buy 
it 
" (Fawcett 
2002, 
p. 
123). 
17 
Cox 
(following 
Sara Thornton) 
has 
provided 
one of an array 
of aspects 
of contemporary 
culture 
where 
this 
process 
is 
at work: 
"Recent 
analysis of rave 
culture 
[ 
... 
] has 
revealed 
a 
discontent 
among 
'true'ravers 
about 
the 
ftfiltration 
of 
what 
they 
term 
'handbag 
house 
' 
and 
Techno Tracie's. Real 
subculture 
is 
thus 
threatened 
by 
substandard 
(feminised) 
subculture 
which 
has 
no 
substance 
ofits own and which can 
only 
crudely 
imitate 
the 
authentic. 
Once 
again 
the 
denigration 
ofthe mainstream 
is 
expressed 
most easily and succinctly 
by 
an attack 
on while 
trash 
woman 
" (Cox, 
2000, 
P. 
9). 
11 
in 
this 
respect 
I 
feel 
that this 
was 
one of 
feminism's 
lost 
opportunities 
bearing 
in 
mind 
the 
paradigm-shift 
into 
post-modcrnity 
in 
at% 
design 
and architecture 
that 
was 
triggered 
by 
Robert 
Ventura's 
bold, 
unfashionable 
reflection on 
the 
'low' 
vernacular 
architecture 
of 
Las Vegas (1977). 1 
see 
lost 
potential 
too 
in 
the 
totalising 
view 
of 
beauty 
queens 
given 
the 
scope 
for 
theorising 
this 
field 
from 
the 
perspectives 
of 
the 
camivalesque. 
274 
Re. 
Fashioning 
feminism 
For 
feminist 
scholars, 
confronting our 
own moralism 
and 
replacing 
it 
with acceptance 
has 
meant 
an extension 
of 
the 
horizon 
of 
our research 
[ 
... 
] 
Wearing high 
culture 
blinders, 
we are unable 
to 
appreciate 
the 
strength of 
the 
allure, 
the 
richness of 
the 
fantasy, 
and 
the 
quality 
of 
the 
compensation, 
especially 
if 
our analysis 
consists only 
of 
finding 
new ways 
to 
describe 
the 
predictable 
mechanisms of patriarchal 
culture 
(Gaines, 
1990, 
p. 
6). 
I 
have highlighted 
distinct dispositions 
and cultures 
that 
appeared 
to 
distinguish 
most of 
the 
research 
participants 
from 
the 
cultures 
of 
higher 
education, 
however, 
some, 
including 
myself 
had 
also 
experienced 
or represented 
alienation 
from 
the 
cultures 
of 
academic 
feminism. 
19 
Participants 
who 
defined 
feminists 
as 
'them' 
generally 
demonstrated levels 
of 
indifference 
to 
feminism, 
whilst self. 
identified 
feminists 
expressed ambivalence 
concerning 
feminism 
and 
the 
terrain 
of 
taste 
and 
fashioning. 
20 
Cultural 
distinctions 
could 
be 
construed 
between 
the 
communities of non-feminist- 
identified 
women 
interviewed for 
this 
project, 
including 
some who 
did 
identify 
as 
feminists, 
and 
those 
academically 
endorsed standpoints 
representing 
feminism, 
articulated 
by 
those 
women 
who 
had 
crossed 
from 
the 
former 
to the 
latter. 
In 
language, histories 
and 
tastes, 
feminists 
and salon-goers 
were 
perceived 
by 
participants 
and myself 
as 
inhabiting 
different 
spaces 
with 
little 
prospect of meaningful 
dialogue 
or 
sharing of 
discourses in 
evidence. 
21 
19 
In 
an 
episode 
interpreted 
as 
a 
further 
endorsement 
on 
my 
research 
journey 
I 
received 
this 
message 
from 
a colleague 
following 
our 
attendance 
at an 
international 
conference: 
", 
4nd 
one 
other 
thing. 
- 
I 
wanted 
to 
lelyou know 
that 
I 
really appreciated 
whatyou 
said 
in 
your 
talk 
about 
how 
"excessive 
"Jem 
ininity 
is 
often 
discouraged 
withinfeminist 
circles. 
It 
made 
a 
lot 
of sense 
to 
me, 
in 
part 
because 
it 
reminded 
me 
ofaformer 
student 
ofmine. 
She 
is 
brilliant 
and 
well-versed 
infemintst 
Issues 
and 
theories, 
yet she 
doesn't 
took 
the traditionalpart. 
she 
has 
very 
blonde, 
blonde 
hair 
and 
wears 
lots 
ofmake-up 
every 
day. 
I've 
thought 
a 
lot 
about 
my 
own 
reactions 
to 
her-I have 
to 
admit 
that 
when 
Ifirst 
got 
to 
know 
her Ifound 
a sort ofdisconnect 
between 
her 
outward 
appearance 
and 
her 
intellect 
andjeminist consciousness. 
As 
I've 
written 
letters 
ofrec 
[sic1for 
herfeministjobs 
search, 
I've 
even 
wondered 
?fl 
should 
talk to 
her 
about 
her 
appearance-not 
because 
it 
bothers 
me 
(I'm 
too 
busy 
analysing 
it 
to 
be bothered 
by 
it 
., 
-) 
-but 
because I'm 
not 
entirely 
sure 
how 
potentialfeminist 
employers 
would 
receive 
her. 
Does 
that 
make sense? 
I 
realize 
the 
hyp 
o 
crisy 
of 
th 
i&-h 
ow crazy 
it is 
fo 
rfe 
m 
In ists 
Iobe 
try 
Ing 
Iopo 
lice 
h 
ow w 
om 
en 
appe 
ar- 
butI 
can't en 
tire 
ly 
res 
o 
Ive 
it. 
.4 
ny way, 
I'm 
not 
sure 
how 
she wouldJeel 
about 
this 
(I've 
never 
talked 
to 
her 
about 
her 
appearance), 
but 
I 
wondered 
tfyou 
would 
be 
interested 
in 
corresponding 
with 
her 
as 
it 
seems 
quite 
relevant 
toyour 
work. 
" This 
'insider' discussion 
seemed 
like 
evidence of 
sorts 
of 
how 
feminist 
dispositions 
can 
"set 
limits 
on 
the 
value 
ofembodied capital 
and 
therefore 
on 
the 
ability 
to 
move 
through 
social 
space 
and access 
otherforms ofcapital" 
(Skeggs, 
2001 
p. 
304). 
211 
have 
already 
discussed 
the 
cultural 
remoteness 
of 
Dusty 
from 
feminist 
approbation, 
at 
least 
in 
the 
texts 
that 
mark 
the 
development 
of 
women's 
music 
criticism. 
211 
return 
to 
this 
point 
later but 
an exception 
that 
hints 
at 
the 
possibilities 
for 
further 
research can 
be found in 
Angela 
McRobbie's 
account 
of 
working 
in 
a 
hairdressing 
salon 
in Glasgow 
in 
the 
mid 
1960s. 
The 
salon 
had 
provided 
a glimpse 
of an 
#exotic' 
and 
glamorous 
'otherness' 
that 
was 
in 
stark 
contrast 
to the 
narrowness 
presented 
by 
McRobbie's 
strict 
Catholic 
upbringing. 
"Now 
all 
I 
coulddo was 
topiece together 
the 
glimmerings 
ofa 
different 
kind 
ofItfe 
which 
hadbegun 
with 
tile 
women 
whose 
heady I 
had 
washed"(McRobbie, 
1986, 
p. 
17). 
This 
distance 
between 
non/academic 
feminists 
on 
the 
grounds 
of 
taste 
and 
fashioning 
is 
rarely consciously acknowledged 
in 
feminist 
research, 
although 
this 
is 
alluded 
to 
in 
work 
by 
Walkerdine 
and 
Skeggs. 
275 
The 
fashioning 
space 
as 
a 
'woman's 
space' 
The 
conceptualisation 
and provision 
of women's 
spaces, a 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
project 
that 
developed 
from 
the 
early 
1970s 
in 
Britain 
diminished 
coincident 
with 
the 
rise of 
Conservatism 
in 
Britain 
from 
the 
early 
1980S. 
22 
In 
some 
British 
urban contexts 
including 
Glasgow 
few 
feminist-created 
or 
sanctioned 
spaces 
were 
created. 
23 
However, 
like 
most 
towns 
and cities 
Glasgow 
has, 
in 
the 
post-war 
period, 
been 
home 
to 
many virtually 
'women-only' 
non 
feminist 
identified 
spaces and places managed 
and 
frequented 
by 
women, 
where 
their 
experiences 
and 
histories 
are central, 
where 
many of 
their 
needs 
are 
met 
and where 
support, 
comfort 
and pleasures 
are 
dispensed 
and consumed. 
Salon 
cultures 
offered 
some 
hairdressers 
the 
skills and confidence 
to 
equip 
them 
for 
work 
as 
trainers, 
for 
academic 
life 
and 
in 
counselling. 
24 
The 
women's space constituted 
in 
working-class salons 
appeared 
to 
me uniquely 
primed 
for 
feminists 
to 
learn 
more 
about 
issues 
of relevance 
to 
working-class women, 
not 
least 
the 
meanings 
of 
fashioning, 
open up new 
discourses, 
built 
upon 
trust 
and 
levels 
of 
intimacy 
and confidentiality, 
offering 
up 
new 
initiatives 
and potential 
for 
activism on an array of relevant 
issues, 
a point 
I 
wish 
to 
return 
to 
later 
in 
this 
conclusion. 
2S 
Ellen's 
remarks 
about 
the 
specificity 
of 
space 
in 
the 
salon, 
where 
there 
was no 
hierarchical 
or 
inside/outside, 
public/private 
demarcations 
and where 
all aspects 
of 
the 
artifice of 
fashioning 
are 
literally 
mirrored, 
sheds 
light 
on 
the 
ways 
in 
which 
the 
salon 
can 
provide 
a unique sense 
for 
customers 
and 
hairdressers 
alike of a radically 
intimate 
environment. 
Participants 
spoke of a space where 
domestic 
and/or work routines 
were exchanged 
for 
tangibly 
different 
regimes, where; 
social consensus 
on 
the 
badness 
of vanity 
and pointlessness 
of 
fashioning 
was 
held 
at 
bay, 
fashion 
imperatives 
were 
not 
fore-grounded, 
where women 
shared 
intimacies 
where 
their 
use 
of artifice was not a cause 
for 
crisis 
or 
anxiety 
but 
rather, 
a shared 
reality 
made 
absolutely 
transparent 
to 
all 
those 
choosing 
to 
enter and 
participate, 
and 
where 
they 
felt 
comfort 
in 
the 
process of 
transformation. 
Accounts 
were 
frequently 
23 
As 
part 
of 
the 
Second-Wave 
feminist 
project 
to 
create 
the 
space 
for 
women 
to 
address 
their 
oppression 
and 
resist patriarchy 
'women's 
spaces' proliferated 
in 
many 
European 
and 
American 
cities. 
Symbolic 
germinal 
projects 
like Womanhouse, 
an 
an 
project 
created 
by female 
students 
at 
CalArts, 
Los 
Angeles 
in 
1971 
under 
the 
supervision 
of 
Judy 
Chicago 
and 
Miriam Shapiro 
were 
followed 
later 
in 
the 
decade 
in 
Britain 
by 
women's 
groups 
and 
centres and 
single 
issue 
campaigning 
and 
crisis 
organisations 
like 
Women's 
Aid, Wages 
for Housework 
and 
Rape 
Crisis 
groups run 
on 
feminist 
principles. 
(For 
an excellent 
survey 
of 
Women's 
Liberation 
activities 
in Britain 
see 
Setch, 
2000). 
As 
a 
feminist 
I 
have 
been 
involved 
in 
constructing 
and 
defending 
'women's 
spaces' 
Co-founding 
Glasgow Women's 
Library, 
participating 
in 
two 
women's 
housing 
projects 
in 
the 
city, 
producing 
women's 
events, visiting 
women's projects 
and 
spaces 
internationally 
and 
being 
engaged 
in 
ongoing 
debates 
on 
the 
ethics 
and 
politics 
of women's spaces. 
'3 
A 
feminist 
run women's 
centre, 
broadly 
modelled 
on 
the 
template 
of 
women's 
organisations 
of 
the 
mid-1970s operated 
in 
Glasgow 
without revenue 
funding 
until 
the 
late 
1980s. 
The 
first Glasgow 
Council 
Women's 
Unit Glasgow 
was 
not established 
until 
1990 
(and 
is 
now 
closed). 
The 
non-revenue-funded 
Glasgow 
Women's 
Library 
founded 
in 
1991 
remains 
the 
sole 
resource 
of 
its 
kind 
in Scotland. 
11 
indeed, 
I 
noted 
that the 
routine 
salon appointment 
resembled 
the 
duration 
of 
a 
counselling 
session. 
25 
In 
the 
context of 
feminist 
debate 
concerning 
the 
demise 
of 
women's 
studies 
(and 
Women's Units) 
and 
the 
turn 
from Women's 
to 
Gender 
and 
Queer Studies 
in 
Britain, 
the 
resilience 
of 
'unofficial' 
or 
culturally 
disdained 
women's spaces such 
as salons 
I 
remembered 
noting 
with 
some 
irony 
in 
the 
research 
process. 
276 
characterised 
by 
the 
notion 
of routine rather 
than 
fashion. 
This 
was significant 
in 
the 
light 
of 
fashion's 
apparent 
synonymy 
with relentless 
progresS. 
26 
Disdained 
and 
dissident 
fashioning 
practices: 
making 
up and artifice 
The 
trope 
of 
artifice 
is inextricably bound 
to 
media 
representations of women, stars 
and 
the 
cosmetics 
and 
beauty industries 
and 
is 
ubiquitous 
in 
queered 
post-modem criticism and 
in feminist 
critiques 
of 
femininity. However, Ellen's feminist 
insight identified 
the 
salon 
space as 
a 
transparent 
fashioning 
environment. 
27 
The 
research 
participants 
who 
fashioned 
to 
excess 
were 
frank 
about 
the 
processes 
involved, 
indeed 
when 
asked, 
many 
women 
were 
happy 
if 
not 
enthusiastic 
to 
be 
28 
photographed 
whilst 
'work' 
was 
in 
progress. 
Significantly 
none 
discussed fashioning 
with 
the 
stated 
aim 
of 
looking 
more 
beautiful, 
attractive 
or 
glamorous. 
In 
contrast, 
the 
rhetoric of 
both 
Modernist 
and 
feminist 
fashioning 
(there 
is 
'less' 
of 
it, 
little 
is done, it 
speaks 
less 
and 
is 
less 
conscious 
of 
fashion 
and 
fashioning, 
it is 
closer 
to 
nature and 
truer to 
materials, 
it 
resists 
capitalism 
and rather, reflects 
high 
art 
principles) 
suggests 
that 
it is 
those 
who 
consciously construct 
a 
Modemist/feminist 
fashioning 
and 
reject 
the 
inevitability 
of 
our 
fashioning 
ourselves, 
who 
are prone 
to 
disingenuousness 
in 
this 
respect. 
Following 
Dusty's 
launch 
as a 
solo artist, 
she 
was 
increasingly 
read 
in 
the 
popular press 
as a 
model 
of 
feminine 
excess, 
as a 
woman 
'made-up' 
29 
but 
I 
would argue 
that, 
on 
the 
basis 
of participants 
accounts 
and 
the 
fact 
of 
her lesbianism, 
this 
was 
a 
making 
up of 
herself 
that 
problematiscd 
rather 
than 
26And 
fashion's 
perceived 
synonymy with capitalism 
and patriarchy are 
factors 
in 
feminism's 
antipathy 
towards 
it. 
Participants' 
fidelity 
to 
regimes 
and routines 
and 
loyalty 
to 
hairdressers 
and 
salons 
where 
they 
had 
experienced 
an 
appropriate ethics of care 
appeared 
to 
outweigh 
any external 
pressures 
applied 
by fashion 
industries. 
I 
acknowledge 
that 
older women's 
perspectives make 
up 
the 
majority 
of participant 
accounts and 
that 
may 
have impacted 
on 
these 
findings. 
Ellen 
raised a 
further 
point 
in 
her 
contributions 
that 
underscored 
the 
notion 
of 
the 
salon 
as a 
woman's space, 
developing 
the 
idea 
of 
this 
as 
an 
international 
phenomenon: 
"I'll 
tellyou 
anotherfunny 
thing 
was 
it 
96,94, 
Robbie 
andl 
went 
to 
Canada, 
he 
was 
5 
andhe was needing 
his hair 
cut 
and 
the 
haircut he had 
then 
- 
he had 
a 
sort 
ofpagebo)vy 
thing 
and 
my aunt 
in 
Canada, 
you 
would 
love 
her, 
she 
has 
got 
the 
piled 
up 
hair 
and 
the 
gold, 
she 
goes 
to 
Las 
Vegas 
twice 
ayear andshe 
had 
-she 
said, 
"We W 
take 
him 
to 
my 
hairdressers. 
" 
andl 
thought, 
ok she 
has 
her hair 
done, 
she 
has 
it 
done 
twice 
a weekfill shampoos 
andsels, 
so offive 
went 
to 
this 
hairdressers 
which 
was 
in 
Toronto 
and 
it 
was 
In 
this 
part of 
Toronto 
-we 
walked up 
the 
streetpast 
Longlaws 
or 
whatever and 
wefound 
this 
hair 
salon 
and 
it 
was exactly 
the 
same 
as 
'Linda's [her 
regular 
salon 
in 
Glasgow] 
doyou 
know, 
it 
was 
that 
same set-up, women 
in 
overalls 
and not whatyou 
would 
Imagine 
like 
across 
theAtlanfic, 
obviously catering 
to that 
very, 
well 
I 
suppose 
there's 
quite a 
lot 
ofliallan 
women 
that 
have 
that 
hairdo 
or whatever 
[ 
... 
] but 
it 
was 
very 
much, 
very 
much a 
women's salon, a 
women's 
salon, 
you 
couldn't 
Imagine 
a man 
being 
in 
there 
in 
a 
million 
years, 
my aunt 
would 
have 
her 
scarfon, 
I'm 
sure she 
wears 
her 
scarf 
going 
to 
bedyou 
know, 
or 
tf 
its 
raining or whatever, 
she's got 
her 
rain 
mate 
and 
whatever 
which 
is 
strange 
because 
she's 
- 
well 
she 
must 
be 
well 
into 
her 
sixties now and she was 
a 
dancer 
when she 
was young 
and 
she wears 
these 
enormous 
high heels, 
I 
mean 
big. 
big, 
red, 
high heels... " 
The 
exciting 
notion 
of 
the 
universality 
of specific 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
and 
'women's 
spaces' 
requires 
further 
research. 
My 
paper 
on excess stimulated 
a 
discussion 
of examples 
of 
feminine 
excess at 
University 
of 
Murcia, 
Spain. 
Other 
international 
studies, 
including Furman's 
account of salons 
in 
New 
York, 
bears 
similarities 
to 
my 
findings, 
" 
Thus 
concurring with 
Stem's 
contention 
that 
women 
who 
face 
the 
mirror 
to 
fashion 
themselves 
daily 
are absolutely 
aware of 
the 
process 
of artifice, 
they 
are not 
suffering 
from 
a 
false-consciousness 
about 
the 
reality 
of 
their 
bodies 
and are 
not 
deceived by 
appearances 
for 
this 
reason 
alone. 
In 
the 
light 
of 
the 
popularity 
of makeover shows, 
and 
the 
willingness of 
women 
in 
particular 
to 
go 
on 
them, 
any original will 
to 
deceive has 
surely 
evaporated. 
On 
the 
whole, participants 
confirmed 
Haug 
ct al's 
concession 
that 
"Learning 
a 
way 
oflooking can 
bepleasurable" 
(Haug 
et 
al, 
1987, 
P. 
169). 
29 
Kuhn 
has 
written 
"The 
naturaftsed 
order ofgender 
difference 
rests 
on more 
thanJust 
theforms 
or styles of 
dresr. 
on 
dtfferences 
as 
it 
were 
in 
the 
content 
ofclolhing., 
It is 
a question 
offorms 
ofrelation 
to 
personal appearance 
more generally, 
to 
the 
entire 
realm ofbody 
adornment. 
Dressing 
up 
- 
like 
its 
cognate 
activities 
making 
up 
and 
doing 
one s 
hair 
- 
suggests 
a 
relation 
offabrication, 
construction 
andproduction 
" (Kuhn, 
1995, 
p. 
5 
1). 
277 
produced 
an 
object 
for 
the 
male gaze. 
Dusty's 
voice 
and 
gestural 
self-fashioning 
were 
frequently 
narrativised 
in 
memories expand 
the 
possible 
identifications 
from 
the 
now 
routine 
formulations 
of 
gay 
male 
desire. 
Across 
the three 
key 
chapters 
but 
significantly 
in 
'Queening 
It' 
I 
identify 
how 
the 
elite 
taste 
for 
Modernism 
has 
impacted 
on 
the 
development 
of 
feminist 
fashioning 
and 
in 
contrast 
the 
cultures 
of 
disdain 
for 
working-class 
fashioning 
excess. 
Further findings 
that 
relate 
to 
disdained 
and 
dissident 
fashionings 
emerge 
from 
this 
chapter 
notably; 
that 
feminism 
has 
neglected 
the 
dissidence 
of 
feminine 
excess 
and 
homogenised fashioning 
practices 
as counter-revolutionary 
and 
that 
fashion 
innovation 
and 
invention 
coined 
in 
working-class 
and 
Black 
communities 
have been 
commodified 
by 
the taste-making 
elites. 
Cross-cultural 
fashioning 
instances 
are 
discussed 
throughout the 
thesis 
culminating 
in 
the 
iconic 
image 
in 
'Queening It' 
of 
Missy 
Elliot's 
bejewelled 
ersatz 
aristocratic 
excesses 
that 
I 
link 
to 
arguably 
less knowing 
but 
nonetheless 
dissident 
and 
disdained 
appropriations 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
by 
white 
soap 
and 
other 
popular media 
queens. 
Identifications 
This 
research claims 
that 
women's 
pleasurable 
identifications, 
where 
they 
impact 
on 
women's 
constructions 
of 
themselves 
and 
their 
domestic 
spaces, 
can 
arise 
through 
identifications 
with 
peers 
and 
strangers, 
between 
women of 
different 
ethnicities, 
ages 
and 
classes, as well as 
with stars 
and 
that 
these 
may 
be 
experienced as 
empowering. 
30 
Women 
suggested 
they 
were 
often aware 
of 
the 
consequences 
of 
their 
choices 
and 
their 
ability 
to 
differentiate 
other 
in/appropriate 
fashionings 
and 
were sometimes 
prepared 
to 
confront 
(patriarchal) 
authority 
figures in 
defence 
of 
their 
look. 
In 
Ettie's 
account 
of 
dyeing 
her 
daughter's 
hair 
purple evokes 
a synonymy 
with 
Rook's 
conceptualisation 
of 
the 
threat 
to 
authority 
of 
dissident 
hair: 
Ettie: 
I 
went 
to the 
headmaster, 
I 
had 
an 
interview 
with 
him 
and 
he 
was 
complaining 
and saying 
he had 
said 
to 
her, 
"What 
does 
your 
mother 
say 
about 
that? 
" 
She 
said 
"It 
was my 
mother 
who 
did if'. 
So 
when 
I 
went 
to 
him 
I 
said 
"Well 
she's 
not caused 
any 
trouble. 
If 
that's 
the 
worst 
thing 
" 
Although 
I 
acknowledge 
the 
work of 
Skeggs 
as 
significantly 
contributing 
to this 
and 
other studies 
on 
femininity 
and class, 
I did 
not 
find 
direct 
evidence 
in 
participant 
accounts 
that 
the 
social 
misrccognition of 
the 
feminine 
excess of 
working-class 
women 
"produceddaily 
suffering, 
humiliation 
andpain 
" 
(Skeggs, 
200 
1, 
p. 
304). 
Neither 
did I 
find 
evidence 
that 
working-class 
women 
crave 
respectability 
at 
all 
costs. 
Although 
many 
participants were 
aware 
of 
the 
imperative 
to 
fashion 
respectability, 
many 
chose 
to 
adopt 
dissident 
or excessive 
fashionings, 
on 
occasion 
identifying 
with 
music 
or 
film 
stars 
but 
also 
iconic 
peers 
and strangers. 
I 
acknowledge 
that 
given 
anonymity and privacy 
to 
record 
their 
own 
memory work 
texts 
different 
perspectives may 
have 
emerged, 
As 
an 
Adult Literacy 
and 
Numeracy 
tutor 
in 
a city 
where 
it 
is 
estimated 
that 
I 
in 
6 
of 
the 
population cannot 
interpret 
information 
on 
a 
standard poster 
I 
am also 
aware 
that 
for 
many 
women 
this 
method 
would 
be 
inappropriate. 
278 
she 
does 
-I 
did 
it because 
I 
wanted 
to 
control 
- 
not 
for her 
to 
come 
back 
from 
a salon 
burnt 
or 
tartan 
or psychedelic". 
Femininity 
can and 
does form 
an array 
of 
possible 
options 
for 
fashioning 
as 
Stem 
has 
argued. 
Participants 
in 
this 
research 
revealed 
no 
common, singular 
source or shared 
definition 
of 
what 
fashioning 
processes should 
or could 
entail. 
The 
significance 
of 
learning 
to 
fashion 
and 
its 
social 
importance, 
at 
least in 
the 
years 
leading 
up 
to 
adolescence, 
was 
largely 
determined 
in 
relationships 
with 
close 
family 
members 
and 
ffiends. 
Few 
participants cited 
texts 
as sources, 
Gabrielle 
was 
alone 
in 
remembering 
a 
specific reference. 
Hair fashioning 
was associated with or 
precipitated 
life 
changes 
and 
new 
identifications 
marking pre-school 
to 
school 
life, 
childhood 
to 
adolescence, 
adolescence 
to 
adulthood, 
marriage 
to 
separation 
and 
independence 
and 
the 
subtle 
demarcations 
of 
adulthood 
and 
older 
age. 
Finding 
hairstylings 
that 
were 
appropriate was a complex 
sometimes 
traumatic 
or 
dissident 
activity 
freighted 
with social, 
parental 
and 
peer group expectations 
and women were 
assisted 
or 
managed 
in 
this 
process 
by friends, 
relatives 
and 
hairdressers. 
Women had drawn 
pleasures 
and 
inspiration 
ftom 
a 
range 
of 
figures in 
their 
self-fashioning 
histories 
including 
stars and 
iconic 
family 
members, 
even 
when, 
or perhaps 
because 
others 
viewed 
their 
fashionings 
as 
inappropriate, 
unfashionable 
or 
disreputable. 
Where 
participants 
discussed 
identifications 
I 
had 
no 
fears 
that they 
simply 
mistook 
or 
had 
relinquished 
their 
own 
identities. 
Their 
identifications, drawn 
as 
they 
were 
from 
an 
array of 
real, 
star and 
fantasy images 
were 
difficult 
to 
interpret 
as evidence of 
false-consciousness, 
a measure 
of 
lack 
of self-esteem 
or enslavement 
to 
fashion 
systems. 
Identifications 
seemed 
idiosyncratic, 
individuated 
and unpredictable 
.31 
The 
complexity 
of 
identifications 
in 
creating notions 
of 
their 
own 
self exceeded 
any 
model of capitulation 
to 
an 
individual 
ideal. 
Self-fashioning 
appeared overwhelmingly 
a social 
activity 
where recreating 
the 
fashioned 
self 
was 
often a 
pleasurable, 
routinised 
activity 
generated 
from 
the 
banal, 
physical 
reality 
of, 
for 
example, 
hair 
growth. 
In 
feminist 
research 
on women, 
fashion, 
star systems 
and 
femininity 
forms 
of 
identification 
have 
been 
paradoxically central/marginal, 
significant/trivial. 
In 'Fashioning 
Dusty' 
I 
discussed 
how 
Dusty 
Springfield 
and 
her fans 
could 
be 
seen 
to 
have 
given rise 
to 
new 
forms 
of 
identi 
f 
ication 
for 
women 
(as 
well 
as 
the 
gay 
men who 
have been 
seen 
as 
the 
predominant 
or 
most 
important 
fan 
base) 
that 
expand 
31 
And, 
as 
Zdatny 
has 
pointed 
out even 
identifications 
with 
deeply 
disdained 
icons 
of 
feminine 
excess are 
unlikely 
to 
be 
fatally 
'counter-revolutionary': 
"it 
is 
worth 
remembering 
that 
it 
wasprecisely 
the 
'Barbie 
generation'ofyoung 
girls 
that 
launched 
the 
contemporary 
women's movement'(Zdatny, 
1997, 
p. 
3 83). 
279 
existing 
feminist 
research 
across 
the 
above 
territories. 
In 
the 
context 
of 
women's 
hair 
fashioning, 
the 
accounts of research participants 
suggested 
that 
identifications 
played 
no 
less 
a 
role 
in 
constructions 
of 
the 
fashioned 
self and offered 
further 
models 
for 
feminist 
enquiry. 
Where 
participants 
identified 
female 
stars 
other 
than 
Dusty 
in 
their 
accounts 
of 
desired 
hair/life 
models 
these 
ranged 
from 
barely 
remembered 
characters or personalities with unforgettable 
fashionings 
to 
deeply 
felt 
aspirational 
projections 
engendering 
iconic 
and 
narrative memories. 
Women's 
memories 
of 
Dusty 
and 
the 
development 
of 
bouffanting 
dissidence 
in 
the 
1960s 
also 
expands 
upon 
Stacey's 
theories 
of 
the 
developing 
proximity of 
self-star 
identifications 
in 
the 
post-war 
period. 
Participants 
describe 
an 
"increasingly 
interactive 
relationship 
between 
sey'kage 
andstar 
ideals " (Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
236). 
This, 
in 
the 
1960s 
was 
facilitated by 
the 
proliferation of 
images, 
media, products 
and 
fashioning 
apparatus 
further 
enabling 
the 
processes 
whereby 
"mimetic 
transformations 
became 
[an 
even 
more] 
imaginable 
possibility 
through 
consumption 
" (Stacey, ibid. ). In 
Dusty's 
own accounts and 
biography 
the 
iconic 
identifications 
with, 
first 
the 
'sheer 
glamour' 
of 
Hollywood 
star 
fashionings 
consumed 
in 
the 
cinema 
are 
superseded 
by identifications 
with 
Motown 
stars 
and other 
African 
American 
women 
performers 
with 
whom an 
unimaginable 
identification 
and proximity 
is 
desired, 
sought and 
achieved. 
Americanness 
and 
'foreignness' 
identified by 
Stacey 
as 
agents 
for 
transformation 
for 
her 
respondents remain 
a powerful 
force 
in both 
the 
shaping of 
women's 
identifications 
and commodity 
consumption 
in 
this 
period. 
32 
This 
research 
also suggests 
that the 
fusing 
of 
Hollywood 
glamour 
with 
the 
reinvention 
of 
the 
House 
of 
Windsor 
expanded 
the 
array 
of 
excessively 
feminine 
identifications 
for 
women 
from 
the 
1950s 
on. 
33 
Indeed in 
'Queening 
It' I 
argue 
that, 
far 
from 
aspiring 
to 
the 
pared 
down 
Modernism 
promoted 
and 
modelled 
by 
the 
middle-class 
fashion 
cognoscenti, 
female 
working 
class 
stars 
and 
their 
audiences 
frequently 
identified 
with 
fairytale 
excesses 
and 
Royal 
Taste. I 
distinguish 
between 
the 
ironic 
appropriations of 
both 
vulgar 
and 
Royal 
excesses 
by 
post-punk 
fashionistas 
and 
the 
fantasy 
identifications 
of working-class 
and 
consumers 
for 
bridal/coronation 
excesses. 
As 
Sandy 
and 
Ettie 
suggest, 
young 
hairdressers 
were unusually 
well 
equipped 
to 
experiment 
with and construct 
elaborate 
and 
amorous 
star 
looks. 
I 
only 
have 
the 
scope 
to 
speculate 
in 
this thesis 
as 
to the 
impact 
of 
the 
Charles 
and 
Diana 
wedding 
in 
198 
Ion 
the 
seven 
year old 
Victoria 
Adams, 
or 
the 
impact 
of 
the 
Coronation 
both in 
terms 
of 
Royal Taste 
and 
media spectacle 
on 
the 
twenty 
year 
old 
Goodyear. 
Some 
significant 
data 
exists 
in 
the 
patterns 
of 
identifications implied 
by 
the 
popularity 
of star/royal 
names 
for 
children 
born 
in 
the 
post-war period. 
280 
Disfidentifications: 
mothers 
and 
daughters, 
Second 
and 
Third-Waves 
Research 
participants 
discussed forms 
of cross-generational 
and 
sororial 
fashioning. 
Their 
accounts 
described 
the 
significant 
role of mothers 
and 
other 
female 
mentors 
in, 
for 
example; modelling 
forms 
of 
in/appropriate 
femininity, 
extracting 
vicarious 
pleasure 
from 
fashioning 
their 
children, 
demonstrating 
the therapeutic 
uses 
of cosmetic 
acts and 
policing girls' 
fashioning 
dissidence. 
Daughters' 
accounts 
detailed 
variously 
their 
horror, 
disinterest in 
and 
nostalgia 
for 
their 
mothers' 
fashioning 
regimes. 
Middle-class 
participants or 
those 
who 
identified 
as 
moving 
ftorn 
a 
working-class 
to 
a middle-class 
dispositions 
tended 
to 
highlight 
the 
distance 
between 
their 
own and 
their 
mother's 
fashionings, 
in 
terms 
resembling 
the 
feminist 
indictments 
of 
the 
false 
consciousness 
of women who 
fashion 
to 
excess. 
They 
less frequently 
cited 
identifications between 
themselves 
and 
peers or 
iconic 
strangers 
. 
34 
Working-class 
identified 
participants more 
frequently 
emphasised 
their 
mirroring 
of 
their 
mother's 
or 
older 
female family 
mentor's 
tastes 
and 
fashioning 
regimes. 
33 
These 
themes 
of 
mother/daughter 
dis/identifications I 
found 
mirrored 
in 
the 
debates, 
developing 
coincident with 
this 
research, 
on 
links 
and 
fissures 
between 
the 
Second, 
and 
incipient 
Third-Waves 
of 
feminism 
. 
36 
The 
Third-Wave 
Feminism 
conference 
(July, 
2002) 
ambitiously 
sought 
to 
establish 
the trajectory 
of 
international 
feminism 
in 
the 
twenty-first 
century 
and reflect 
on 
the 
relationship 
between 
Waves. 
I 
want 
to 
refer 
briefly 
to the 
generational 
disfidentifications 
that 
characterise/d 
these 
debates before linking 
them 
to 
my 
findings. The 
term 
Matrophors 
was used 
by 
Henry 
to 
describe 
the 
metaphors 
of mothers 
and 
daughters 
found 
in 
a 
"myriadgenres 
offeminist 
discourse". 
37 
In 
papers 
and 
discussions 
it 
was apparent 
that, 
like 
their 
precursors, so-called 
Third 
Wavers 
wished 
to 
differentiate 
themselves 
from 
their 
mothers who 
'lacked'. 
Whilst 
emphasising 
the 
difference 
between 
Old 
and 
New, Henry 
suggested 
that 
the 
conceptualisation 
of 
feminist 
generations 
34 
For 
example, 
Jean 
and 
Michelle 
who only conceded 
when 
pressed 
that 
anyone 
had 
influenced 
their 
fashioning. 
" 
This 
mirroring 
is 
critiqued 
and parodied 
in 
media 
texts, 
disdain for 
excessive 
stars and contemporary 
folk devils. 
For 
example, 
Aitkenhead's 
'Moscow 
hookers' 
and 
the 
'meretricious' 
Milanese 
matriarchs 
cited 
earlier. 
Mothers 
are 
frequently 
viewed 
as 
doubly 
guilty 
in 
fashioning 
excesses exemplified 
in 
the 
still 
oft-cited criticism 
'mutton 
dressed 
as 
lamb'. 
Youthfulness 
was 
a 
key 
notion 
in 
participants' accounts 
of 
registrations 
of 
time, 
stasis 
and 
change, old 
and 
young 
hairstyles. 
I 
was surprised 
how 
often 
my 
own 
responses 
revealed 
my comfort with 
a stock 
response 
or 
'fronts' 
that 
equated 
youthfulness 
as 
desirable 
or achievable 
through 
salon visits 
for 
example 
"Everybody 
looks 
tenyeariyounger than 
they 
actually 
say 
they 
arel 
" 
"' 
In 
particular 
the 
debates, 
papers and 
discussions 
at 
the 
Third 
Wave 
Feminism, 
international 
conference, 
University 
of 
Exeter, 
Institute 
for Feminist Theory 
and 
Research, 23-25" 
July, 
2002. 
11 
Henry 
claimed 
that 
Matrophors 
are almost always 
dyadic. 
The 
Third Wave, 
has 
been dubbed, 
as was 
the 
Second 
'a daughters' 
movement'. 
In 
the 
germinal 
text 
The Dialectic 
ofSex, 
Firestone 
spoke 
of 
the 
Second 
Wave 
as 
'rcbcll 
ious 
daughters' 
Henry 
pointed 
out 
that 
feminists 
seem unable or unwilling 
to 
conceive 
things, 
waves, 
or 
in 
numbers 
over 
two. 
Marysia 
Zalewski 
speaking 
at 
the 
conference, 
indicted 
the 
Movement 
as 
a 
dysfunctional family 
and 
noted 
how 
frequently 
the 
concept of 
the 
family 
figures 
in 
the 
history 
of 
Women's Studies: 
'Sisterhood is Powerful', 'Subversive 
Sisters' Women's Studies 
as 
the 
'Poor 
sister. 
' 
and 
Rich's 
critique 
in 
1981 
of 
the 
institutional 
ised 
feminist 
academics as 
the 
dutiful 
daughters 
of patriarchy 
etc. 
Henry 
rejected 
the 
alternative, 
'Wave' 
"since 
the 
notion 
ofgenerations 
has 
been 
mapped 
over 
it 
and 
has 
disabled 
the 
Wave 
metaphor 
" 
and 
argued 
that the 
Second 
and 
Third 
movements 
operated on 
a 
familial 
30 
year 
model 
of 
generational 
birth. 
Zalewski, 
Henry 
and 
Stcenbergen 
agreed 
that the 
drift 
from 
First 
to 
Second-Wave 
is 
conceived 
of 
as 
generational, 
this 
reflected 
what 
I 
perceived 
to 
be 
the 
conference consensus. 
281 
itself 
rejected 
the 
possibility 
of younger 
women who 
support 
'Old 
Feminism' 
as well as 
"papering 
over 
Ideological 
differences 
op. 
39 
Illustrating 
the 
ideological 
and 
aesthetic 
gulf 
between 
Second/Third, 
Old/New, 
Candis Steenbergen, 
cited 
the 
"demographies 
and 
ideological 
cohorts 
" 
of 
the 
Third 
Wave 
to 
be 
found in 
BUST 
and 
BITCH, 
and embodied 
by 
anti-G8 
summit 
activists 
including 
Cowgirls 
Against 
Capitalism, 
the 
Radical 
Cheerleaders, 
Riot Girrrrls 
and 
so 
forth 
. 
39 
The 
ownership 
of 
feminism 
by 
young 
women 
is 
a much-needed 
and 
positive aspect 
of recent 
discussions, 
but 
I 
was 
left 
disappointed 
that 
the 
theoretical 
debates 
surrounding 
past and 
present 
feminisms 
since, 
in 
significant 
ways 
it 
echoed 
the 
ambivalences 
in 
some participants' 
accounts of 
inter-generational 
dis/identifications. 
Differences 
were 
articulated 
through the 
language 
of 
fashioning 
and 
tastes 
for 
and 
against 
popular 
cultural 
forms, 
restating 
the 
dichotomy 
of 
the 
high 
cultural 
disdain for 
the 
popular 
versus 
a 
foregrounding 
of 
camp. 
Although 
I 
looked 
to the 
Third-Wave 
to 
advance 
the 
debates 
on 
fashioning 
femininity, 
the texts 
and 
modes 
of activism of 
the 
(academic) 
Third-Wavers 
appeared 
just 
as 
likely 
as 
their 
foremothers' 
to 
neglect 
the 
lived 
experiences of girls 
and women who 
'do' 
feminine 
excess 
'straight'. Excess 
was 
appropriated 
for 
performative 
purposes 
in 
ways 
that 
converged 
with 
the 
queered aesthetics 
of 
ersatz 
trailer 
trash. 
For 
all 
their 
stated plurality, 
and 
aesthetic 
distinction 
from 
the 
Second-Wave (mirroring 
the 
aspirant/middle-class participants 
from 
their 
working-class mothers) 
Third-Wavers 
nevertheless 
risk 
reproducing what 
Brunsdon 
has 
called 
the 
"politically 
correctform 
offemininitY... 
an 
almost 
eschatological 
stance 
in 
relation 
to 
conventionalfemininities" 
(Brunsdon, 
1991, 
p. 
376). 
40 
11 
She 
claimed 
that the 
notion 
of generation 
is 
an 
homogenising 
term, 
a 
reductive 
image 
of 
feminism 
that 
locks 
women 
and 
ideas 
into 
an 
historical 
period. 
Following Diana Fuss's 
work 
she 
claimed 
that 
a 
refused 
identity (that 
of 
Second-Wave 'mothers') 
is 
one 
that 
one 
has 
already 
considered a 
disavowed identity, 
and 
only 
by 
refusing 
can 
young 
women claim an 
identity 
of 
their 
own. 
in 
support 
of 
this 
she 
cited 
Ann 
Snitow's 
comments 
that 
Sccond-Wave, 
white, 
middle-class 
US feminists 
feared 
recognising 
themselves 
in 
their 
mother's 
life. 
This 
produced 
a 
desire 
to 
escape 
a 
recognition/ 
identification/ 
and 
led 
to 
disrecognition/disidentification. 
In 
wider 
debates 
on 
the 
Third-Wave, 
Phyllis Chesler's 
controversial 
Letters 
to 
a youngfeminist 
(2000) 
was 
an 
oft- 
cited 
text. 
Chesler has 
called 
for 
Third-Wavers 
to 
learn from 
their 
elders whilst 
conceding 
that 
women of 
the 
Second-Wave 
had 
viewed 
themselves 
as matricidal, 
'motherless 
daughters'. 
Like 
Third-Wavers, 
they 
were 
largely 
the 
same age 
when 
they 
became 
active. 
They 
were, peers, 
'sisters' 
and sibling 
rivals. 
39 
Steenbergen, 
another 
self-identified 
Third-Waver 
noted 
"intergencrational 
conflict" 
between 
the 
Second 
and 
Third-Waves. 
Her 
polemical 
address 
was 
persuasive: 
The 
First-Wave 
established 
women 
as 
persons, 
the 
Second-Wave 
established 
rights 
for 
women 
and 
the 
Third-Wave 
must 
end 
patriarchy. 
However, 
the 
self-consciously 
media 
and 
IT 
savvy 
profile 
of 
the 
Third-Wave 
was 
critiqued 
by 
so-called 
Old 
feminists 
at 
the 
conference 
on 
the 
grounds of 
its 
proximity 
to 
(superficial) 
pop culture. 
411 
am 
struck 
by 
the totalising 
nature of 
the 
queered 
project 
that 
is 
now, 
almost 
inevitably 
the 
flavour 
of 
the 
Third-Wave. 
(For 
a 
Glasgow 
model 
see 
the 
work 
of 
the 
Frock On 
collective). 
In 
playing 
with 
the 
kitsch 
significrs of 
femininity Third-Wavers 
come 
close 
to 
repudiating 
womanness, 
and 
like, 
Tyler, 
paradoxically 
suggesting 
that 
only 
men 
have 
the 
agency 
to 
un/do 
the 
masquerade: 
"Style 
Is 
the 
wolman: 
there 
is 
no 
authentic, 
"real" 
self 
beyondor 
before 
theprocess 
ofsocial construction. 
Playing 
the 
gender 
role so as 
to 
hold 
it 
at a 
distanceforegrounds 
thefact 
that 
it is 
a role 
rather 
than 
nature... 
To 
be 
a 
mimic according 
to 
Irigaray 
Is 
to 
"assume 
thefeminine 
role 
deliberately... 
so 
as 
to 
make 
Ivisible'by 
an 
effect ofplayful 
repetition, 
what was 
supposed 
to 
remain 
invisible. 
To 
play 
thefeminine 
is 
to 
'speaVit 
ironically, 
to 
italicise 
It, 
in 
Nancy Miller's 
words, 
to 
hyperbolise it, in 
Mary Ann 
Doane's 
words, 
or 
to 
parody 
it 
as 
Mary 
Russo 
and 
Linda 
Kaqfman 
describe 
it 
" 
(Tyler, 199 1, 
p. 
53). 
Henry 
identified 
herself 
as 
a young champion 
of 
Old 
Feminism, 
thus 
occupying 
the 
alternative position 
in 
this 
particular 
forum 
of 
the 
Third-Wave. 
Reflecting 
on participants' 
commentaries 
and self-identifications 
and rather 
than 
propose a 
further, 
homogenising 
type, 
I 
suggest 
that 
Michelle's identifications, 
both 
feminist 
and 
feminine 
are 
illustrative 
of 
the 
real, 
heterogeneous 
complexity 
of 
individual dispositions, 
as yet 
unaccounted 
for in 
the 
schema of 
the 
Third-Wave: 
Michelle 
rejected 
her 
mother's 
feminist 
conscious 
non-fashioning 
and 
credited 
her 
grandmother's 
bouffanted 
and 
high-heeled 
excess 
as 
providing 
a 
pleasurable 
iconic 
point 
of 
identification. 
She 
adopted 
her 
mothers' 
feminist 
politics 
but 
rejected 
the 
feminist 
policing 
of 
her fashioning by her 
and 
whilst 
working 
in 
a 
feminist 
organisation. 
She 
acknowledged 
the 
contingency 
and 
282 
Women's false 
consciousness 
versus 
feminist 
pride 
At 
intervals in 
researching 
this 
field 
I 
was struck 
by 
the 
lack 
of 
non-pejorative 
tenns to 
describe 
looks 
that 
were 
fashioned 
to 
excesS. 
4 
1 
Although I 
was 
pleased 
that 
participants 
felt 
able 
to 
discuss 
their 
fashioning 
routines 
with 
some 
degree 
of pride, 
the 
rhetoric 
of 
women's 
vanity 
is 
still an over- 
determined 
characteristic of contemporary 
media reflecting 
widespread 
social 
disapprobation. 
Labouring 
on 
fashioning is 
still 
persistently 
viewed 
as 
mindless 
absorption 
in 
'idiotic 
rituals'. 
(Greer, 
198 1, 
p. 
6 
1). In 
a culture 
that 
privileges 
the 
appearance 
of 
natural youthful 
unadorned 
beauty, 
degrees 
of excess elicit exponential 
degrees 
of 
disdain. 
42 
Salon-goers' 
accounts 
of 
their 
fashioning 
routines and 
my 
observations 
of non-stop 
activity 
in 
the 
field 
confirmed 
Stacey's 
claim 
that 
femininity is 
"an 
effect 
that 
has 
to 
be 
worked 
hard 
to 
(be) 
achlev[ed]" 
(Stacey, 
1994, 
p. 
9). 
43 
What is 
routinely absent 
from 
the 
critiques 
of excessive 
femininity 
is 
an acknowledgement 
of 
fashioning 
as an 
often-public 
process. 
44 
Many 
participants appeared 
to 
enjoy 
the 
processes of 
transformation, 
their 
often well-trodden 
routes 
to the 
denouement, 
and 
enjoyed 
the 
context of 
the 
salon where others 
were at 
work 
on 
their 
own refashioning. 
45 
For 
some 
women, 
taking 
pleasure 
in 
such 
activities contradicted 
strongly 
held 
social 
and parental 
proscriptions. 
For Elizabeth, 
Jean 
and 
others, 
fashioning 
pleasures 
were charged 
with 
vanity, 
a wilful 
rejection of 
health, 
cleanliness 
and 
respectability. 
46 
Participants 
were still 
being 
required 
to 
abandon 
specific 
looks because 
they 
were 
too 
young 
or 
too 
old. 
Nevertheless, 
these 
accounts 
of pleasurable 
moments, routines 
and memories 
constructedness of 
her 
own 
history 
of 
fashioning 
and 
cited 
her 
own and 
her 
mother's 
non-fashioning 
and 
hippy identity 
as 
within 
a 
sequence 
of 
consciously selected 
and enthusiastically 
enacted 
episodes of 
'dressing 
up'. 
Her 
feminist 
femininity 
was 
expressed 
in 
other 
diverse 
and 
idiosyncratic 
ways: a 
will 
to 
adom, sororial 
and collective 
pleasures 
in 
fashioning, 
a political 
critique 
of 
the 
fashion 
industries, 
pleasures 
in 
the 
female 
gaze 
and 
her 
conscious 
selkbjectification, 
a rejection 
of 
the 
male gaze 
and 
her 
consequent 
development 
of strategies 
of 
'dressing 
up/down', 
a 
desire 
for feminine 
excess 
but 
without 
recourse 
to 
irony. 
If 
at all, 
Michelle 
and other 
self-identified 
feminist 
participants 
for 
example 
Sandy 
and 
Elizabeth, 
are embodying 
(albeit 
unfashionable) 
Third-Wave 
position/s 
- 
fashioning 
feminist 
femininity 
without 
queercd 
parentheses. 
" 
The 
paucity 
of non-pejorative 
terms 
for 
excessive 
femininity 
was reiterated 
in 
dialogue 
with 
participants 
who offered 
few 
further 
definitions: 
'trigged 
up', 
'glammed 
up', 
'gallus' 
and 
'fashioned'. 
Expressed 
by 
some participants, 
for 
example, 
Gabrielle's disdain 
of 
the 
women 
who 
used 
too 
much 
hair lacquer. 
This 
is 
embodied 
in 
the 
iconographic 
impact 
of 
Dusty, Elizabeth 
Taylor, 
Julie 
Goodyear 
and other excessive 
stars. 
I 
would 
argue 
that the 
qucered 
notion 
of 
diva-dom 
is 
synonymous 
with 
female 
vanity. 
' 
The 
classed 
nature of salons suggests 
that 
the 
more 
expensive 
the 
more privacy 
clients 
are accorded. 
45 
Sharma 
and 
Black have 
found 
that 
in 
the 
field 
of 
beauty 
therapy 
it 
was 
the 
desire 
to 
'feel 
rather 
look 
better 
that 
motivated 
therapists 
and 
clients" 
(Sharma 
and 
Black, 
200 
1, 
p. 
913). My 
own 
most memorable 
hair 
fashioning 
experience 
was at 
the 
Afro- 
Caribbean 
salon, 
The Pink Ribbon. 
After 
years 
of 
feminist-inspired 
refusal 
to 
style 
my 
hair 
I 
had 
extensions. 
I found 
the 
experience 
personally 
and politically 
profoundly 
affecting. 
I 
was 
aware 
of 
the 
significance 
of 
my own 
white 
body in 
the 
context 
of 
the 
Black 
salon environment 
but 
was 
made 
to 
feel 
more at 
home 
than 
in 
any 
other 
fashioning 
context. 
I 
was 
told 
to 
bring 
sandwiches 
since 
the 
process 
took 
over six 
hours 
during 
which 
time 
I 
experienced 
the 
pleasures 
of music, warmth, 
the 
conversations and 
jokes 
of 
hairdressers, 
customers 
and 
passers-by 
and 
the 
exaggerated 
formula 
of 
transformation, 
described by 
Gabrielle 
and 
others, of watching 
a 
transformation 
of 
self, 
in 
this 
cast 
from 
a 
woman 
with 
mousey, 
thin, 
short 
hair 
- 
from fear, 
to 
despair, 
- 
into 
someone 
(Ohjoyl) 
with 
dark, 
waist 
length 
braided 
hair. 
" 
For 
Elizabeth for 
example 
"it 
was 
the 
worst 
crime 
in 
the 
world 
to 
be 
vain 
to 
beproud 
ofyoursetflo 
beproud 
ofyour 
achievementi 
and 
to 
be 
proud ofyour 
looks 
you 
know 
". 
283 
ORDER 
FORM 
Please 
rush me a 
Limited 
Edition 
No 
Women's 
Festival T-Shirt 
r-1 
I 
enclose 
Cheque/Postal 
Order 
f 
Payable 
to 
Design 
Forum 
Co-op 
for 
El 
ADDRESS 
........................................................................ 
............................................................................................ 
............................................................................................ 
............................................................................................ 
Orders To: 
GN FORUM 
CO-OPERATIVE, 
NO 5,111 
- 
119 
Bishop 
St, 
ingharn B5 6JL. 
WOM1N 
S 
F1ST1V 
/t 
73. 
Modernist-style, 
feminist T-shirt designs, 
advertised 
in 
Spare 
Rib, 
February 
1990. 
issue 
201), 
page 
59. 
Is 
1? 
'VION 
t\V, 
knit 
Voursibil 
a 
WOMAKIIS 
W94; 
ILLY 
z 
-J 
-J 
Abbreviations 
K. 
- 
knit, 
P. 
- purl, sL 
, stitch, 
01. - slip, 
PA&O. 
- pass 
slipped 
stitch 
over, 
tog. 
- 
to- 
gother, 
rept 
- 
ropost, 
rem. 
- 
remaining, 
cant 
- owtinue, 
MY 
- main yorn, 
CI 
- 
first 
contrast, 
C2 
- second 
con- 
trast, tbJ. 
- 
twough back 
of 
loops. 
Stitdm 
used 
st. st. 
- stacking 
stitch 
- 
knit 
I 
row, 
purl 
I 
row. 
9. st. 
- gertier stitch 
- 
knit 
every 
row. 
TumWn 
9 
sts. and 
12 
rows 
to 
7' 
square using 
double knitting 
pure 
wool and no. 
5 
needles 
Over SL it. 
Mewials 
400 
grams main 
yam 
I 
Navy) 
50 
grams 
Cl 
lBurrindy) 
50 
grams 
C2 
fGrey) 
One 
pair no. 
6, 
and 
one pair 
no. 
5 
rwadkis. 
Spws 
n"des. 
Sim 
To fit 
small 
(medium, 
lw9s) 
chest 
- 
up 
to 
34" 
W, 
42") 
chat 
11cces 
fitting 
design 
I It). 
Back 
Cat 
an 
79 
(85,91) 
stL 
with 
no. 
6 
needles 
and 
MY. 
Row 
I K. 
2, 
*P1, 
K 
1. KepL 
rapt. 
from 
9 
to 
last 
st, 
K 
1. 
Row 2*K1, 
P 1, 
rapt. 
from 
* 
to 
lost 
st, 
K 
1. 
Rept. 
thess 
2 
rows 
till 
work 
measures 
2", finishing 
with 
2nd 
raw. 
Change 
to 
no. 
5 
needles. 
Work 66 
rows 
in 
st st. 
Work Women's 
Border 
Work 
2 
rows 
Cl in 
9. 
st. 
Cont 
in 
sL st 
- 
wwk 
2 
rows 
C2. 
1. 
IK3 
C2. 
KI Cl, K2 
C2 0 
rept. 
from * 
to 
lint 
st, 
KI C2. 
I*P3 
C2, 
PI Cl, P2 
C2 
f"It 
from 0 
to 
Int 
st, 
pI 
cz 
3. 
*KI 
C2. 
K5 
CI 
*, 
ropt. 
from 
9 
to 
lut 
it, 
KI 
CZ 
4. 
As 
2nd 
row. 
5. 
As lit 
row. 
6. 
*P2 
C2, P3 Cl, PI 
C2 
rapt. 
from 9 
to 
lut 
IL, 
PI 
C2. 
7.1 
KI 
CZ 
K1 
Cl, 
K3 
CZ 
KI 
Cl 
I 
rept 
from 
0 
to 
Int 
st, 
KI 
C2. 
a. 
*PI 
CZ 
PI 
Cl, P3 
C2. 
PI 
cl 
0 
reFIL 
from 
* 
to 
last 
st, 
pIC? 
- 
As 
7th 
raw. 
10. 
As 
ft 
row. 
Work 2 
tows 
in 
C7. 
Work 
2 
rows 
9. 
st. 
in 
C1. 
Cont. in 
MY, 
work 
48 
156, 
56) 
rova 
in 
it 
st 
Next 
row 
Cast 
off 
26 
US. 
30) 
sts., 
K. 
to 
arxi. 
Next 
row 
Cot 
o" 
26 
129. 
301 
su., 
P. 
to 
" 
Break 
off 
yarn 
- 
leave 
ran. 
sts. an 
s1we 
nescile 
for 
bm: k 
neck. 
Front 
Cat 
on 
arml 
work a 
for 
back 
till 
mid of 
rib. 
Inexperienced 
knittsvi 
knit 
Be 
row 
It. 
st 
ww omit 
pock"L 
Exporimad 
knitters 
only: 
Work 
12 
rows 
it 
It., 
*#on 
Divide 
for 
pock*U 
Nax 
r 
row 
K 
10 
(1 
Z 14) 
su. 
turn. 
Cat 
on 
25 
(25,27) 
siL 
ConL 
an 
dwm 
36 
137,41) 
28 SPOPO 
Rib 
74. 
Knit 
yourself 
a 
woman's 
woolly, 
Spare 
Rib, 
January 
1982, 
Issue 114, 
page 
28. 
linked 
to 
(hair) 
fashioning 
suggested 
that 
women 
had 
developed 
strategies 
to 
rationalise notions of 
vanity 
in 
order 
to 
facilitate 
their 
pleasures. 
Although 
Michelle 
provided a political case 
(however 
equivocal) 
endorsing pleasure 
in 
self- 
fashioning 
to 
excess, 
it is Sandy's 
pleasurable memory 
of 
her 
epiphanic 
transformation 
into 
a 
lesbian 
feminist 
that 
stands as 
the 
only 
account 
of 
fashioning 
a 
form 
of 
femininity 
that 
can 
be 
read 
as 
manifestly 
requiring no 
political 
justification. 
As 
when she 
had fashioned 
to 
excess 
this 
was 
an 
act 
requiring 
effort, a 
form 
of 
identification, 
the 
consumption 
of 
new garments 
and accessories, 
undertaken 
with 
at 
least 
a 
degree 
of 
interest in 
attracting 
the 
gaze 
of others 
but 
for lesbian/feminist 
readers 
her 
account 
would 
be 
recognised as an expression 
ofpride 
and not vanity, 
an acceptable 
form in 
the 
spectrum 
of 
fernininities, 
a 
telling 
exception 
to the 
rules 
of 
the 
prohibitor: 
Everyone 
had 
short 
hair 
and 
it 
was 
like 
belonging, 
a 
sense 
of 
belonging 
and 
I 
changed my 
appearance 
probably quite 
dramatically 
but I 
loved it. It 
was 
a 
choice, you 
know 
very short 
hair 
and very sort 
of plain 
to 
what 
I'd been 
before 
and 
how, 
you 
know, but 
it 
was 
a sense 
of 
belonging, but 
also 
that 
it 
was 
OK 
to 
just 
be how 
you 
were, 
you 
know. 
Fantasies 
of 
non-fashioning 
This 
engagement with 
issues 
of 
fashion 
and 
female 
representation 
continues 
as 
a 
theme 
in 
popular and academic 
feminism 
throughout the 
1970s 
and 
into 
the 
1980s 
[ 
... 
] 
Radical 
feminists, 
and 
indeed 
some 
of 
their 
more 
liberal 
'sisters', 
abandoned 
cosmetics 
and 
adopted either 
dungarees 
and 
'earth 
shoes' 
or 
other 
types 
of 
dress, 
which 
in 
their 
eclecticism 
removed 
them 
from 
the terrain 
of 
mainstream 
fashion (Fawcett, 
2002, 
p. 
125). 
Bourdieu's 
description 
of 
the 
process 
of 
interrogating 
taste 
enables an effective analysis of 
both 
the 
fashioning 
of 
feminine 
excess and 
feminism 
as 
two 
"apparently 
incommensurable 'choices 
"' 
(but 
equally 
constructed 
dispositions), 
reflecting 
the 
Kantian 
'taste 
of 
sense' 
and 
the 
'taste 
of 
reflection' 
respectively. 
Whereas 
there 
was 
little 
to 
distinguish 
feminists' 
taste 
from 
the 
mainstream 
at 
the 
start 
of 
the 
Second-Wave 
as 
I 
have discussed, 
the 
first 
decade 
or so saw 
the 
diversification 
of 
feminist 
fashion 
into 
a 
form 
of middle-class 
"pleasure 
purified 
ofpleasure 
". 
However, 
few 
forms 
entirely 
avoid 
fashion 
as 
the 
pages 
of 
Spare 
Rib 
illustrate. 
These 
texts 
reveal 
the 
effects 
of 
fashion 
and 
commodification 
and 
the 
spuriousness 
of 
feminist 
aims 
to 
create 
timeless, 
rational 
dress. 
284 
75. 
Spare 
Rib 
advertisements: 
II. 
Issue 
90, January, 
1980, 
page 
45. 
Issue 87, 
October 1979. 
Issue 
75, October 
1978, 
page 
33. 
TheN 
wGkn 
the 
shoe 
you 
wear 
an 
ym 
&cc. 
Now 
in 
15 
styles 
for 
adtdts 
an& 
&1dren 
W 
naer 
OIYVVO& 
-- 
01-603 
6017 
issue 
47. 
Issue 
123, 
October 
1982. 
5?, 
a 
s 
Az 
- 
Aw-. 
a C4Wp?e 
t, 
?f 
of 
J, 
0, 
K6 
10 
r- 
mwwm,. 
5 
ftm, 
12+ 
5h?rt, 
" 
 4k 
%We, 
Zowofow 
Ei 
zrx 
. 
Issue 
89, December 
1979. 
A 
fX65WT 
6-" 
0- 
KMefv'5 
FW-93! 
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lv 
wmi&? 
bm9o 
+ 
poome 
0-st 
-j7jWr 
94; 
6 
readas 
9W 
10% 
oUsc~ 
ful 
the 
" 
of 
There 
is 
no 
intrinsic 
link 
between fashioning 
tastes, 
(for 
example, 
fashioning 
to 
excess, 
feminist 
fashioning 
or 
fashioning 
according 
to 
the 
Modernist 
belief 
that 
'less 
is 
more') 
and 
democracy. 
47 
The 
Rib 
collectives' 
standpoints on plurality, 
inferred 
in 
the 
ubiquitous 
promotion 
of 
Inca 
products 
and 
Ragged 
Robin 
unisex 
freedom 
suits' are 
ultimately undermined 
by 
the 
valorising of 
white, 
Modernist 
fashionings 
of 
feminism 
modelled 
by 
cover stars 
such 
as 
Michelle 
Shocked 
and 
Naomi Wolf 
who 
determined 
the taste 
of 
Spare Rib 
and 
British 
feminism 
into 
the 
1990S48 
. 
Significantly 
Rib 
came 
to 
promote 
a 
lifestyle, 
a 
disposition, 
a 
species of 
habitus 
as structured 
and 
structuring as all others. 
The 
commodification 
and 
fashions 
of 
feminism 
can 
be 
charted 
in 
the 
product 
promotion 
that 
proliferated 
in 
the 
wake of 
the 
success of 
feminist 
clothing 
and 
jewellery 
lines 
to 
include 
feminist 
calendars, 
diaries, 
holidays, 
cafes, 
vibrators 
and even 
2CV's 
alongside 
books, 
music 
and 
other 
media. 
49 
In 
the 
April 1977 
issue 
of 
Rib 
I discovered 
a 
curious 
but illuminating 
article 
that 
concluded 
an 
II 
-page 
report on 
the 
Women's 
Liberation 
conference 
at 
the 
City 
of 
London 
Polytechnic 
in 
April 
of 
that 
year. 
I 
read 
this 
as endorsing 
my 
efforts 
to 
explore 
the 
constructedness of 
feminist fashioning, 
and 
I 
feel 
that 
it is 
appropriate 
to 
reproduce 
it here 
as a coda 
to 
my critique 
of 
feminist 
taste. 
The 
author's 
remarks 
are 
somewhat 
tongue 
in 
cheek 
and attempt 
a 
degree 
of self-reflexivity 
but indict 
the 
contemporary and 
historical 
ambitions 
and 
limitations 
of 
the 
Movement 
vis-a 
vis 
fashioning. 
Well ladies 
what you 
have 
all 
been 
waiting 
for! 
What 
was 
everyone 
wearing 
at 
the 
conference? 
Well 
as one might 
have imagined, 
badly 
cut 
trousers 
and quiet 
shades 
of 
blue brown 
and 
grey 
were almost 
de 
rigueur. 
There 
were exceptions 
of course, a 
few 
sisters 
were 
still 
clinging 
to the 
Indian/Afghan 
styles 
of a 
few 
years 
back, 
a 
few 
in 
shabby 
dresses 
or 
dirndl 
skirts 
but 
not 
many. 
There 
were a 
very 
small 
number 
of 
women who 
were smartly 
dressed 
(including 
one 
astonishing 
lady 
in 
knee-length 
tweed 
coat 
and 
flesh 
coloured 
stockings 
who 
seemed 
unaware 
of 
the 
askance 
glances 
she 
was getting 
from her 
sisters). 
But 
of 
course 
these 
were 
'older' 
women, 
so 
it 
was understandable. 
Within 
the trouser 
ranks, 
ill 
fittingjeans 
tended to 
be 
chosen 
by 
those 
ladies 
with 
large 
hips, 
and 
the 
close 
fitting 
sexier 
kind by 
those 
sisters 
who 
don't 
mind 
getting 
thrush. 
Dungarees 
as 
one 
4' 
The 
falsity 
of 
Modernist 
claims 
that 
Modem 
forms follow 
function 
is 
perhaps 
most succinctly 
illustrated 
by 
the 
fact 
that 
sans 
serif, 
the typeface 
associated 
with 
the 
Bauhaus 
and 
much 
immediate 
post-war 
Modem 
design, is 
more 
difficult 
to 
read 
than 
cursive, 
more 
decorative 
fonts, 
a 
point 
I 
was 
first 
made 
aware 
of 
by 
design 
historian, 
Juliet 
Kinchin. 
" 
Significantly, 
the 
subsequent rise 
in 
visibility 
of 
Women 
of 
Colour, 
editorially 
and 
as cover stars 
in 
Rib 
and 
the 
visibility of 
more 
excessive 
fashionings, 
for 
example, 
Margi 
Clarke's 
controversial 
make-up 
and 
earrings 
in Issue 166, 
May 1986, is linked 
to 
its 
demise by 
some of 
its 
critics. 
" 
The 
feminist 
industries 
are still widespread 
and 
their 
initiatives 
have 
also 
been 
widely 
appropriated 
by 
other 
green, spiritual 
and 
lesbian 
business 
territories. 
A 
significant 
showcase exists 
at 
the 
The 
Michigan 
Womyn's 
festival. This 
is 
currently 
the 
most 
ambitious 
form 
of 
international 
radical market 
(akin 
to 
the 
similarly gentrified 
and 
commodified 
Glastonbury 
Festival), 
where 
an 
array 
of 
feminist 
and womyn's 
lifestyle 
products 
and 
services 
are 
promoted. 
285 
ow 
.. 
I. 
'VOW' 
00 
4. 
?. 
VI" 
r 
-41NO. 
- 
- 
, 
*-, 
* 
Ij 
Ik-44,6im 
PIO 
76. 
Women 
attending 
the 
Women's 
1-iberation 
conference. 
I, 
ondon. 
1977 
In 
Spure Rih, 
MaN, 
1977, 
1,,,. 
stic 
59. 
page 
14. 
might 
have 
expected 
were 
even 
more 
in 
evidence 
than 
last 
year. 
Jumble 
sale clothes 
were 
everywhere! 
Ranging 
from 
a pink 
(unironed) 
bed 
jacket 
to 
neat 
little 
30s dresses 
and 
Victorian 
jackets. 
Accessories? Canvas 
shoulder 
bags, 
especially 
the 
authentic 
green 
Chinese 
variety 
predominated. 
There 
were 
- 
let 
me assure you 
- 
no shopping 
bags 
or standard 
handbags 
and 
very 
few 
suitcases. 
A 
smattering 
of sisters wore a smattering of 
make 
up, 
and silver or 
steel 
6political'jewellery 
was 
the 
rule. 
Three 
or 
four 
badges 
seemed an appropriate 
number 
to 
be 
wearing 
(if 
one was 
wearing 
any 
this 
year) and walking 
boots 
and 
running shoes 
were 
everywhere 
on 
the 
floor. 
All 
in 
all 
ladies, 
it 
was amazing 
to 
see 
how 
this 
concourse 
of women of all ages, 
classes, 
races 
and creeds 
(of 
course 
they 
were 
weren't 
they? 
) looked 
so 
similar. 
It's 
a 
tribute to 
our 
dress 
sense 
isn't it? 
Let 
us give 
thanks, 
and 
wonder 
why our mother/factory 
workers/ 
typists/OAP's 
don't 
join 
us? 
5(' 
Contemporary 
contexts 
This 
research 
has been 
developed 
in local 
and 
national 
contexts where 
camp views 
of 
femininity have 
proliferated 
against 
a 
backdrop 
of 
high 
cultural 
disdain 
for 
tastes 
in 
femininity 
and 
fashioning 
excesses. 
For 
example, 
during 
the 
research 
period 
a plethora 
of 
British 
theatre 
productions, 
TV 
programmes 
and 
feature 
films 
set 
in 
hairdressing 
salons 
were 
launched. 
51 
Somewhat 
predictably, 
these 
were either 
examples 
of 
the 
appropriation 
and 
misrepresentation of 
working-class culture 
for 
middle-class 
audiences and/or 
further 
evidence 
of 
the 
queering 
of 
feminine 
excess 
into 
a camp 
trope 
where 
(gay) 
men 
provide 
the 
narrative 
focus. 
It 
is hard 
to 
recognise 
anything 
of 
the 
participants' 
accounts of 
salon 
life 
in 
them. 
" 
Whilst Cutting 
It 
is 
one 
of a genre of self-consciously 
camp 
TV 
vehicles 
to 
be developed in 
recent 
years, 
Salon Janette, 
the 
nostalgic, sing 
along 
'hit 
musical 
comedy' 
about 
a group 
of 
bouffanted hairdressers 
in Glasgow 
unwittingly 
drew 
a 
camp 
audience 
to 
its 
Scottish 
so 
(Spare 
Rib, 
May 
1977, 
no. 
58, 
unattributed, p. 
15) 
Dissenting 
voices 
were 
recorded 
in 
Rib. 
The 
conference 
report 
included 
comments 
from 
a 
representative 
of 
the 
Teesside 
Women's Action 
Group 
who 
stated: 
"We 
did 
noifeelfree 
to 
express 
ourselves 
as 
we really 
are. 
One 
sister said she was 
tempted 
to 
go 
in 
disguise, 
knowing 
that the 
clothes 
she 
usually 
wears 
would 
be 
out 
of 
place, 
because 
like 
all 
Women's 
Liberation 
conferences 
wefelt we 
were 
entering 
another 
world" 
(ibid. 
p. 
7). 
51 
For 
example, 
the 
feature 
films 
Blow Dry, 
The Big Tease, 
the 
local 
theatre 
hit 
Salon Janette, 
and 
TV 
series 
Cutting 
11, Having 
it 
off 
and 
Somethingfor 
the 
weekend?, 
Cheivin'the 
Fat 
have 
featured 
a salon 
sketch, 
an 
Afro 
salon 
features 
as a 
key 
setting 
for 
the 
series 
Babyfaiher, 
and, more recently 
a 
Reality 
TV 
series 
The 
Salon has been 
launched. 
The 
majority 
draw 
on 
the 
vogue 
for 
camp, 
for 
example, 
The BBC's 
Having 
it 
off 
is 
"Set 
in 
the 
Eccles hairdressing 
salon 
of 
Guy 
La Trousse, 
I 
... 
I 
First 
it 
was 
Frances 
Barber 
in 
the 
starring 
role of 
nymphomaniac 
April, 
tonight 
it is 
Stephanie 
Beacham 
popping 
up 
as 
Guy's 
mum 
(Observer, 18 July, 
2002). 
Both 
Ettie 
and 
Sandy 
had 
suggested 
in 
their 
interviews 
that the 
world of 
salons 
were 
ripe 
for 
dramatisation. 
Ettie: You 
could 
write 
- 
you could 
do 
a play, 
a sixties 
play. 
5' 
Although 
some participants 
defined 
the 
hairdressing 
experience 
as 
non-competitive 
at 
least 
two 
narratives 
culminated 
in 
a 
competition where women's 
vanity 
and Competitiveness 
is 
fore-grounded (for 
example, 
in 
the 
The Big Tease 
and 
Cutting 
It 
where 
hairdressers 
compete 
for 
awards, 
and 
The 
Salon 
where 
the 
staff were 
recruited 
via a 
Pop Idol 
type 
elimination 
format in 
Programme 
1, 
January, 2003). 
An 
absolute 
exception 
exists 
in 
the 
documentary 
Three 
Salons 
at 
the 
Seaside 
that 
provided a 
counterpart 
to 
Stacey's Stargazing 
as 
a 
touchstone 
for 
this 
project 
(Lowthorpe, 
1994). 
Film 
critic 
Richard Jobson 
has 
suggested 
that 
salon-based productions 
are 
inherently trivial 
"There 
is 
one 
area where 
cinema 
seems 
determined 
to 
re-use 
clichis, 
feast 
on 
double 
enlendres and 
revel 
in 
silly 
characters. 
We 
are 
talking 
about 
the 
world 
of 
the 
hairdresser 
" (Jobson, 
200 
1, 
p. 
6). 
286 
run, 
making 
it 
an unintentional cult 
hit, 
a 
la 
Rocky 
Horror 
Show. 
53 
In 
the 
light 
of 
this 
mythologizing 
of 
the 
salon, 
and appropriation of 
forms 
of 
fashioning 
to 
excess 
more 
broadly, 
the 
possibilities as 
Sandy 
suggested, 
for 
a 
feminist 
intervention 
either 
critically 
or creatively 
have 
been 
pressing 
but 
as yet 
not 
forthcoming. Recent 
media and 
fictional 
representations 
of 
the 
world 
of 
hairdressing 
have 
grown 
exponentially 
with 
the 
market 
for 
texts 
with 
a 
camp, 
queered 
perspective. 
In 
contrast, very 
little 
research 
has been 
undertaken 
on 
the 
value/s 
for 
customers 
and 
staff 
of such 
services 
in 
Britain. 
In 
the 
real 
beauty 
and 
hair 
industries 
new 
initiatives 
suggest 
that 
that 
cultural 
and 
economic 
polarisation 
is being intensified. 
By 
the 
end of 
2003,5000 
new 
digital 
screens 
will 
have 
been installed 
in 
up-market 
salons 
'from Taunton 
to 
Edinburgh" 
(Jones, 
2003) 
enabling 
the 
promotion 
of 
short 
films 
by British 
independent filmmakers, 
boosting 
the 
cultural 
capital 
of aspiring 
clients whilst 
obviating 
the 
need 
for 
interaction between hairdressers 
and 
their 
customers. 
My 
concerns about 
cultural 
justice, 
fashioning 
and 
taste 
have 
a 
wider 
resonance. 
The 
rhetoric 
that 
polices 
and 
disdains 
excess 
is 
at work 
in 
the 
political 
and cultural 
landscape 
and 
reflected 
in 
the 
built 
environment. 
54 
In Glasgow, 
cultural 
idiosyncrasies, 
detail 
and 
the 
decorative, 
are 
being 
rapidly 
replaced 
by 
a 
form 
of 
International 
(post) 
Modernist 
inspired, 
mock 
stealth 
wealthy, unadorned 
uniformity. 
The 
Broomielaw, 
the 
city 
centre 
Clydeside, 
scandalously 
madeover post 
1990 
as a 
result 
of 
an 
apparent 
pact 
between developers, 
councillors 
and arsonists 
is 
now 
a 
corporate 
desert. 
The 
Merchant 
City 
buoyed 
by 
the 
escalating markets 
for 
Modernist 
loft 
dwellings 
and city-centre 
apartments 
is 
now 
improbably 
spreading 
down 
Trongate 
and 
towards 
the 
East, 
the 
escalating 
land 
values 
now 
threatening 
the 
Barrowlands 
(Barras) 
itself. 
Pressure 
to 
close 
the 
Barras 
has 
been 
increased 
through 
the 
demonisation 
of 
the 
Barras 
stallholders. 
55 
The 
benefits 
of 
replacing 
independent 
local 
with 
global 
retailing 
is 
self-evident, 
the 
first 
Scottish 
Selfridges 
will 
open on 
the 
Trongate 
in 
2004. 
Landmarks 
like 
5' 
"'We 
suddenly 
discoveredfolk 
sitting 
in 
the 
audience 
with 
Sixties 
gear 
on 
" 
said 
star 
Mary 
Riggans " (unattributed, 
Glasgow 
magazine, 
200 1, 
p. 
25). Cutting 
It 
forms 
part of a 
new genre along 
with 
Footballers 
Wives 
and 
the 
relaunched 
Crossroads, 
marking 
the 
final incorporation 
of camp 
into 
middle-class, 
MOR 
mainstream 
TV 
viewer-speak: 
"Bad Girls 
and 
Footballers 
Wives 
have 
played 
to the 
gay gallery 
while 
keeping 
themselves 
successfully 
rooted 
In 
the 
mainstream 
" 
(Smith, 
2003, 
P. 
24-25). 
One 
might 
argue 
that 
excess and 
taste 
has 
played 
a significant role 
in 
the 
post-war 
international 
political 
arena. 
During 
the 
writing 
of 
this thesis the 
Anglo-American 
war against 
Iraq 
was waged. 
An 
inordinate 
weight 
was 
placed 
by 
the 
British 
media 
on 
the 
vulgarity 
and 
excessive 
tastelessness 
of 
Saddam 
Hussein, 
the 
conclusive 
evidence 
of a 
deranged 
despoL 
The 
looting 
of 
Hussein's 
ornate 
palaces and 
the 
literal 
overhaul 
of 
his 
gilt 
statue 
were 
accorded 
huge 
symbolic 
significance 
in 
Western 
coverage 
of 
the 
war. 
The 
indictment 
of 
Saddam's 
aesthetic 
excesses was of course 
in 
no 
way 
compared 
to 
the 
decadence 
or 
Royal 
Taste 
of 
the 
Windsors. 
Lewis 
mined 
the 
theme 
of a 
taste 
for 
decorative 
and 
realist excess 
as 
a sign 
of mad egoism 
in 
his 
profile 
of 
Ceaucescu 
(Lewis, 
2003). Hitler has 
similarly 
been 
psychopathologised, 
his 
madness 
and 
grotesque crimes 
linked 
to 
his 
failures 
as 
artist, 
his 
misguided 
tastes 
for 
romanticism, 
sentiment 
and realism 
in 
art and, 
most 
significantly, 
as 
the 
great 
opposer 
of 
Modernism. 
" 
The 
Barrowlands is 
arguably 
the 
principal 
site 
for 
memories 
of 
collective 
working-class 
pleasures 
and 
the 
display 
and 
consumption 
of excess 
in Glasgow. 
With 
its 
huge 
elaborate 
Vegas-style 
neon 
fagade 
it houses 
a 
market and a 
former 
ballroom, 
now 
a venue 
for 
bands. It 
is 
flanked 
by independent 
jewellers 
and 
Celtic 
supporter's 
bars. 
In 
the 
course 
of 
this 
research 
I 
met 
architect 
Louise Urquhart, 
whose 
family, 
the 
Mclvers, 
still own 
the 
Barras. 
She 
highlighted 
the tremendous 
and 
increasing 
pressure 
being 
applied 
to 
the 
family 
through 
an 
intensification 
of 
police 
raids 
on 
stallholders and 
unfavourable 
reports 
in 
the 
local 
press 
citing council and 
police 
criticism. 
They 
are 
currently 
considering 
closure. 
287 
the 
Barrowlands, 
and 
to 
a 
lesser 
extent 
salons 
like 
Ta 
Paris' 
inject 
the 
excessive 
allure 
of 
Americanness 
and 
Foreignness 
and 
forms 
of 
Royal 
Taste 
to 
specific sites 
in 
the 
City. The 
council 
appears 
only 
to 
feel 
shame. 
It 
is 
perhaps 
for 
many a 
personal 
repudiation 
of working-class 
histories. 
The 
destruction 
of working-class 
cultural 
centres, 
including 
the 
women's spaces 
I 
have 
visited, 
has 
consequences 
for feminist 
research 
projects 
that 
extend 
beyond 
the 
frame 
of 
fashioning. 
The 
exchange 
of 
intimacies discussed 
as 
commonplace 
by 
participants 
in 
this 
study, 
a 
process 
built 
upon 
stratas 
of 
trust, 
intimacies 
and 
loyalties has been 
viewed 
in 
some 
American 
contexts as 
having 
a 
unique 
role 
in 
tackling 
abuse 
and violence 
against women. 
In 
several states, 
cosmetologists 
including 
hairdressers 
and 
beauticians 
are 
being 
encouraged 
to 
spot 
the 
signs of 
physical abuse 
and 
"ask 
the 
appropriate 
questions 
". 
56 
But, 
rather 
than 
suggesting 
that 
working-class salon-users are 
fixed 
here 
as 
&survivors' 
I 
would 
like 
to 
suggest 
that 
facets 
of non-academic 
feminism 
can 
illuminate 
research 
and 
feminist 
knowledge 
and provide models 
that 
change our 
ideas 
about 
femininity, feminism 
and gender. 
51 
Being 
a 
beneficiary 
of 
its 
emancipatory 
potential myself, 
I 
acknowledge 
the 
paradigm 
shifting 
agency 
of 
feminisms Old 
and 
New 
in 
re-constructing 
identities, 
opening 
up 
routes 
to 
self-determination 
for 
women, 
politicising 
generations of women and radicalising 
academia, 
not 
least 
in 
campaigning 
for 
both 
women 
and popular 
culture and 
fashioning 
to 
become 
serious 
subjects 
for 
academic research. 
Anticipating 
the 
Third-Wave 
makes reflecting 
on 
and critiquing 
the 
Movement's 
ambiguous 
engagement 
in 
politics 
of 
fashioning 
in 
the 
Second-Wave 
imperative. 
This 
thesis 
is 
an attempt 
to 
add 
to 
knowledge 
by 
suggesting 
that 
feminist 
fashioning is but 
one 
form 
within 
the 
spectrum of 
femininity 
that 
is 
equally 
constructed, 
that 
women's pleasurable 
consumption 
of 
music 
is 
under 
theorised 
but 
that 
-'6 
Sarah 
Roe 
states 
that 
"Government 
officials 
inAmerica 
have 
realised 
that 
cosmetologists 
-a 
term 
that 
Includes 
hairdressers 
and 
beauticians 
- 
could 
he 
a vital 
link 
to 
encourage 
women 
and 
children who 
sqffer 
domestic 
violence 
to 
comeforward. 
Last 
year 
a 
trainingprogramme 
was established 
in 
the 
state 
ofNevada 
to 
teach 
hairdressers 
to 
spot 
the 
signs 
ofthysical 
abuse 
and 
to 
ask 
the 
appropriate 
questions. 
[... 
] 
Under 
the 
scheme 
150 
stylists and 
1300 
salons 
were 
sent 
an 
h1formation 
pack 
[ 
... 
] 
Similar 
projects 
have been 
established 
in 
Connecticut, 
Colorado, 
Idaho 
and 
Wisconsin. 
" Discussing 
this 
initiative 
with 
Scots 
hairdressers 
Roe 
notes 
that there 
is 
similar 
understanding of 
intimacies 
and 
issues, 
Roe 
quotes 
Edinburgh 
hairdresser 
Gordon 
Wilson 
who states, 
"I 
have done 
some 
ofmy 
clientsfor 
three 
weddings 
- 
their 
hairdresser 
has 
outlasted 
two 
husbands. 
You do 
get 
very 
close 
to them. 
I 
suppose 
we 
are 
in 
a 
unique position. 
" 
His 
salon, 
has 
already 
worked 
with 
a 
local 
GP 
to 
be 
able 
to 
spot 
common 
health 
problems and 
he "feels 
additional 
training 
on 
domestic 
abuse 
would 
be 
the 
logical 
move 
" 
(Roe, 
200 
1, 
p. 
15). 
There 
is 
clearly scope 
for 
the 
expansion of 
this 
potentially radical 
initiative, 
for 
example, 
training 
salon staff 
in 
'spotting 
and 
referring' 
women 
who may want 
to 
develop 
their 
literacies, 
introducing 
lifelong 
learning 
initiatives 
into 
salon 
spaces, 
conducting 
oral 
histories, developing 
awareness of 
welfare 
rights, 
employment 
rights etc... 
511 
have 
found 
this 
point 
illustrated in 
other 
recent 
research 
with working-class 
women, 
For 
example, although 
Fawcett has 
suggested 
that the 
1960s 
offered a 
more 
libratory 
milieu 
for 
fashion 
and 
femininity 
in her 
critique 
of 
the 
excessive 
femininity 
on 
display 
in 
contemporary 
Newcastle 
streets, 
she 
concedes a 
subversive, 
gallus 
element 
in 
contemporary, excessive 
fashioning. 
a 
trend 
she 
otherwise 
regards as an assault on 
feminism 
and 
liberatory 
Modernism: 
"Interestingly, 
there 
Is 
a seeming 
lack 
of 
inhibition 
about size amongst some 
young 
women 
in 
the 
city. 
Girls 
Interviewed 
were 
very 
concerned 
with 
their 
bodies, 
and 
expressed 
anxieties about 
bodyshape hut 
some 
who 
were 
larger 
than 
the 
desirable 
ideal 
wore 
the 
same revealing 
clothing 
as 
theirpeers, 
In 
the 
se1kcrutinising 
culture 
of 
the 
1960s, 
there 
were 
unspoken 
rules 
about 
who 
should 
wear 
the 
micro-skirt, 
and 
fat 
legs 
were 
to 
be 
disguised 
or covered 
up 
but 
in 
Arewcastle 
in 
1999 
the 
return 
ofthe 
micro 
skirt 
and 
the 
crop 
top 
was 
seemingly 
embraced 
by 
all, and 
this 
has 
to 
be 
seen 
on 
one 
level 
as a 
subversive 
element 
In 
what 
Is 
predominantly a 
highly 
stereot)pical 
scenario 
offemale appearance 
" (Fawcett, 
2002, 
p. 
138). She 
also 
notes, 
"Given 
the 
seductive 
nature 
offemale 
dress. 
there 
U 
less 
emphasis 
on 
'scoring'than 
there 
was 
20-30yeart 
ago, 
when 
girls 
danced 
round 
their 
handbags 
in 
dancehalls 
and 
clubs on 
a 
Saturday 
night and 
the 
evening 
was 
afailure 
ifno 
one 
walked 
them 
home" (ibid. 
p. 
133). 
288 
it 
can 
positively 
impact 
on women's 
fashionings 
and 
identifications, 
and 
that 
there 
are significant 
questions 
in 
accounts 
of 
taste 
and class still 
to 
be 
answered 
regarding 
feminism 
and 
femininity. 
I 
also 
claim 
in 
this thesis 
that 
in 
the 
post-war 
period 
it 
has been 
the 
working classes 
and 
Black 
and 
minority 
ethnic 
communities 
who 
have 
germinated 
dissident, 
bohemian fashionings, it is 
the 
'Outsider' 
Dubuffetian 
subjects 
who 
are 
the 
(anonymous) 
authors 
of 
troubling, 
radical 
work and 
it is 
the 
middle 
classes 
who 
have 
capitalised 
upon 
it. 
Women's 
self-fashioning 
is 
arguably 
the 
most 
paradoxical 
of all gendered 
activities 
engendering 
an array 
of 
psychoanalytic, social, cultural and 
aesthetic 
interpretations 
and 
experiences. 
The 
recent 
vogue 
for 
'queering' 
forms 
of 
feminine 
excess, and 
the 
ongoing 
denial 
of 
the 
possibility 
of 
feminist 
agency 
of 
women 
who 
choose 
this 
form 
of 
self-fashioning, contributes 
to the 
mainstream 
neglect 
of pleasures 
and uses 
of 
femininity by 
women. 
The 
accounts of research 
participants 
in 
this 
study 
indicate 
that 
such 
experiences cannot 
be 
rcductively 
and 
theoretically 
discounted. 
Whilst 
it is 
critical 
that 
the 
ongoing misogynous 
lampooning 
of 
both 
femininity 
and 
'feminist 
style' 
be 
challenged, 
in 
so-called 
high 
and 
low 
cultures, 
the 
complex 
social, 
historical 
and cultural 
currency 
of 
'feminist 
fashioning', 
its 
ambivalent 
links 
with 
Modernist 
taste 
and 
antipathy 
to 
and 
consequent 
neglect 
of 
feminine 
excess 
justifies 
a 
longer look in 
the 
mirror 
by 
those 
of 
us engaged 
in 
cultural 
research. 
The 
feminist 
fiction 
of 
the 
"other 
woman" 
(Hollows 2000, 
p. 
17) 
has inhibited 
the 
participation 
of many 
women 
in 
the 
feminist 
movement 
and stymied 
discourses, discussions 
and 
disagreements 
in 
feminism 
whilst 
relinquishing 
the 
debates 
on 
fashioning 
and 
freedom 
to 
the 
enemies 
of 
feminism, 
caricatures 
and 
the 
disappointingly 
white, male-dominated 
realm 
of 
queer 
culture. 
Feminists 
have 
the 
prerogative, 
indeed 
the 
responsibility 
to 
be 
reflexive 
and 
critical about 
all 
aspects 
of 
feminist 
knowledge. 
At 
the 
advent 
of 
the 
Third-Wave, 
feminists have 
the 
opportunity 
to 
reposition, 
reengage 
and 
rearticulate 
our attitudes 
towards the 
ways 
feminism 
may 
be 
embodied and 
to 
overhaul 
systems, 
which 
perpetuate 
cultural 
injustices 
on 
the 
grounds 
of 
appropriate 
or 
inappropriate 
fashionings. 
It 
is 
the 
disdain 
for 
the 
'other 
woman', 
not 
the taste 
for 
femininity, 
or 
the 
will 
to 
adorn, 
that 
should 
be 
trashed. 
289 
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Appendix 
i Table 
of research 
participants 
Names 
Interview 
date 
' 
Location 
Comments: 
'Ann' 
18'h October 1999 
Sarti's 
cafe 
Ann 
is 
in her 
mid-forties. 
She 
is 
currently 
running 
her 
own 
consultancy 
business 
with 
a 
woman 
partner. 
She 
trained 
as 
a 
hairdresser 
and 
helped 
initiate 
Glasgow's 
first 
beauty 
therapy 
course. 
She 
has 
also 
worked 
at a 
Glasgow Bums 
hospital 
where 
she 
headed 
a 
team 
of 
cosmologists. 
'Cheryl' 
2 I't March 
2 000 
Northend 
Cheryl 
is 
aI 
st year 
trainee 
hairdresser. 
She 
is 
in her 
College 
mid 
-thirties 
and 
works 
regularly with customer 
Maureen. 
'Claire' 
28t" 
August 
2000 
Cafd, 
Claire 
works 
for 
a voluntary 
organisation 
in 
Edinburgh 
Edinburgh. 
She 
is in her 
early 
forties 
and 
identifies 
as 
from 
a middle-class 
family 
and 
is 
a 
feminist. 
She 
has 
written 
a 
book 
on 
incest 
and also 
writes 
occasional 
pieces 
for local 
newspapers on 
Dusty 
Springfield. 
'Eileen' 
10t" 
January 
1998 La Paris 
salon 
Eileen 
is 
a salon regular, 
having 
been 
every 
week 
for 
over 
twenty 
years. 
She 
is 
in her 
late 
fifties. 
'Ellen' 
14'h 
December 
Glasgow 
Film 
Ellen 
is in 
her 
early 
forties. 
She 
is 
a 
technician 
in 
a 
2000 
Theatre 
Cafe 
Glasgow-based 
Higher Education institute. 
She 
identified 
herself 
as 
bom 
into 
a 
working-class 
family. 
She lives 
with 
her 
young 
son and 
her 
mother. 
She 
attended 
college 
to 
study photography 
in 
the 
1970s. 
'Elizabeth' 
12"' 
and 
170' My 
home 
Elizabeth 
is 
a 
retired 
teacher 
in 
her 
late 
fifties. 
She 
December, 
2000 
still 
teaches 
part-time 
at a sixth 
form 
college. 
She 
has 
one sister. 
She 
enjoys 
all 
aspects 
of 
the 
arts and 
likes 
to 
keep fit. 
She 
is 
divorced, 
has 
one 
daughter 
and 
lives 
alone. 
'Ettie' 
I I"' 
December Leonardo-?_s_ 
Ettie 
is in her 
sixties 
and 
lives 
with 
her husband 
and 
2000 
restaurant. 
son. 
She 
has five 
other 
older children. 
She has 
a 
strong 
Catholic 
faith. 
She 
worked 
as a 
hairdresser 
for 
more 
than 
thirty 
years and 
now 
does 
this 
work 
voluntarily 
for 
a 
Christian 
homeless 
project. 
'Eva' 
21" 
March 
2000 
Northend 
Eva 
is 
a 
trainee 
beauty 
therapist 
at 
Northend 
College 
College 
(Year 
2) During 
our 
meeting she was 
taking 
on 
the 
role of a 
customer 
in 
order 
for 
Sue 
to 
practise 
her 
aromatherapy 
facial 
massaging 
techniques. 
'Evelyn' 
21" 
December 
1999 
Her 
mother, 
Evelyn 
is in 
her late 
thirties. 
She 
facilitated 
my 
Ettie's home 
meeting with 
her 
mother 
and was 
present 
at 
intervals 
in 
our 
discussions. 
'Francine' 
100'January 
1998 'Cutzsalon 
Francine 
was 
an architecture 
student 
in her 
mid. 
twenties 
from 
Botswana 
who chose 
to 
work 
for 
free 
at 
the 
salon 
for 
social 
reasons. 
'Gabrielle' 
2l't 
December 
1999 
tier 
home 
Gabrielle 
is 
in her 
late 
seventies. 
She 
has been 
married 
for 
over 
fifty 
years 
and 
has 
three 
children, 
two 
sons and 
a 
daughter, 
Evelyn 
who 
was present 
at 
intervals 
during 
our 
meeting. 
She 
lives 
in 
a council 
house 
with 
her 
husband 
and 
both 
have 
disabilities 
that 
impact 
on 
their 
mobility. 
Gabrielle 
has 
lived 
in 
the 
same 
area 
for 
most 
of 
her 
adult 
life. 
She 
chose 
the 
name 
Gabrielle 
because 
this 
was 
her 
mother's 
name. 
'Irene' 
I 
Oth 
J 
anuary 
1998 
La Paris 
I? 
Irene 
is 
the 
senior 
hairdresser 
at 
the 
salon. 
She 
is 
in 
her 
late 
forties. 
'Jackie, 
=0' 
Ja?nua?Tl 
99-8 
'Cutz' 
salon 
_ 
Jackie 
was 
a 
customer at'Cutz' 
in 
her 
late 
twenties 
who 
was 
interviewed 
whilst 
having her 
hair 
extended 
by 
Francine. 
This 
was 
her 
third 
visit 
for 
this 
work 
to 
be 
undertaken. 
'Janey' 21" 
March 
2000 
Northend 
Janey 
is 
in 
her late 
60s. 
She is 
a widow. 
She 
has 
College 
been 
attending 
Northend 
to 
have 
her 
hair 
fashioned 
for 
several 
years. 
She 
enjoys 
country music, 
playing 
the 
piano, 
dressmaking 
and 
knitting. 
She 
has 
a 
daughter 
and 
a 
granddaughter. 
'Jean' 
7" February 
2000 
The 
House 
for Jean 
is 
in her 
late 
forties. 
She 
is 
a 
lesbian 
and 
lives 
an 
Art 
Lover 
with 
her 
partner. 
She 
is 
a 
driving instructor. 
caf6 
6Jenny' I 
01h 
January 
1998 
La 
Paris 
Jenny, 
in 
her 
early 
60s 
is 
a regular at 
the 
salon and 
had 
formally 
been 
a regular 
at 
another 
local 
salon. 
She 
had 
worked 
at 
Glasgow 
University 
until 
her 
retirement 
as a 
dishwasher. 
'Jog 
21" March 
2000 
Northend 
Jo 
is in her late 
20s. 
She 
had 
been having 
her hair 
College 
cut 
at 
Northend 
for 
more 
than 
a year 
and 
Pauline 
was 
her 
regular 
hairdresser. 
'Kathy' 
21" 
March 
2000 
Northend 
Kathy, 
in 
her late 
20s 
is 
a 
trainee 
hairdresser 
at 
College 
Northend. 
'Maureen' 
21" 
March 2000 
Northend 
Maureen 
is in her late 
40s. 
She 
is 
married 
and 
has 
a 
College 
young 
son. 
She 
enjoys nightclubbing and 
her 
husband 
sometimes managed 
to 
use 
his job 
as 
a 
bouncer 
to 
gain 
them 
access 
to 
gigs and 
clubs. 
She 
has 
been 
going 
to 
Northend for 
over a year. 
'Michelle' 
9th 
March 2000 
Caffe Latte 
Michelle 
is 
in her 
mid 
twenties. 
She 
is 
sociology 
student 
at 
a 
Glasgow 
Higher 
Education 
institute. 
She 
is 
a self-identified 
socialist 
and 
feminist. She 
is 
currently 
identifying 
postgraduate 
research 
opportunities. 
She 
works 
in 
a 
voluntary capacity 
for 
a 
women's 
organisation 
that 
is 
committed 
to 
oppose 
violence 
against 
women. 
Her 
first 
choice 
for 
a pseudonym 
was 
'Posh' 
as she 
I 
loves' 
Victoria 
Beckham's 
style. 
'Mrs. Lochead' 
I 
Oth 
January 
1998 La Paris 
salon 
Mrs. 
Lochead 
is 
in her 
early eighties. 
She 
lives in 
a 
wealthy 
area 
of 
Glasgow, 
is 
married 
and 
has 
two 
daughters. 
She 
enjoys 
theatre 
and 
the 
arts and 
likes 
to 
keep fit. 
'Mrs. Martin' 
10"' 
January 
1998 
La Paris 
salon 
Mrs. 
Martin, 
in her 
early sixties 
is 
the 
manager 
of 
'La 
Paris. 
She 
is 
still 
involved in hair 
fashioning 
in 
the 
salon. 
Pam' 
21" 
March 
2000 
Northend 
Pam, 
a customer 
at 
Northend 
is 
in her 
early 
thirties. 
College 
'Pauline' 
21" 
March 2000 
Northend 
Pauline 
is 
a 
trainee 
hairdresser. 
She 
had 
formally 
College 
left 
hairdressing 
to 
bring 
up 
her 
children. 
She 
enjoyed 
drama 
and 
was 
due 
to 
play 
Marilyn 
Monroe 
at 
the 
College 
Christmas 
event 
for 
the 
second year 
running. 
Sandy' 
rd 
23 August 1999 
My 
home 
Sandy 
is in her late 
forties. 
She 
is 
currently 
a 
counsellor 
but 
trained 
and 
worked 
as 
a 
hairdresser 
for 
many years 
from 
school age. 
She 
is 
a 
lesbian 
and 
lives 
with 
her 
partner 
and 
son. 
She 
identifies 
herself 
as a 
feminist 
from 
a working 
class 
background. 
She 
returned 
to 
education 
as 
a 
mature 
student 
to 
study psychology. 
'Sue' 
2l't 
March 
2000 
Northend 
Sue 
is in her 
early 
twenties. 
She 
is 
a 
trainee 
beauty 
College 
therapist 
at 
Northend 
(Year 
2). 
'Yvonne' 
21" March 
2000 
Northend 
Yvonne 
is 
a 
trainee 
beauty 
therapist at 
Northend 
College 
College. 
She 
is 
in 
her 
late 
teens. 
Appendix 
ii 
Letter 
sent 
to 
gatekeeper 
at 
'La Paris' 
salon, 
January, 1998 
Home 
address: 
72 Davaar, 
421 Blythswood 
Court, 
Anderston, 
Glasgow, 
G2 
7PA 
Tel: 
0585909409 
Mrs. 
Martin, 
Manager, 
'La 
Paris' 
hairdressers, 
255 
Marytown Road, 
Marytown, 
Glasgow, 
1.1.98 
Dear 
Mrs. 
Martin, 
My 
name 
is 
Adele Patrick. 
I 
am 
a 
part-time 
tutor 
at 
the 
Glasgow 
School 
of 
Art 
and 
I 
am 
researching 
for 
a 
PhD 
at 
Strathclyde University. 
I 
rang 
before 
Christmas 
requesting 
your 
help 
in 
research 
I 
am currently 
conducting 
on 
the 
pleasures 
women 
take 
in 
transforming 
their 
appearance. One 
of 
the 
ways 
that 
I 
think 
women 
do 
take 
pleasure 
is in having 
their 
hair 
styled 
at 
the 
hairdressers! 
Although 
this 
may 
seem 
an obvious 
claim 
to 
make, 
in 
my 
studies 
I 
have 
found 
that 
this 
is 
an 
area 
that 
has 
been 
neglected 
by 
social 
science researchers. 
Rather 
than 
simply 
working 
on 
my 
own 
(positive) 
assumptions 
about 
what 
women 
might gain 
from 
the 
experience 
of 
visiting 
the 
hairdresser, 
I 
would 
like 
to 
include 
the 
views 
of 
women 
who 
visit 
them 
regularly. 
As 
a 
first 
step 
I 
wanted 
to 
conduct 
a short piece 
of 
work 
on 
two 
well-used 
and 
long-standing 
Glasgow 
hairdressers. 
For 
a 
number 
of years 
have 
passed 
Ta 
Paris' 
hairdressers 
on 
the 
Marytown bus-route 
and, apart 
from 
being 
a noticeable 
landmark, it 
has 
always 
seemed 
a 
busy, 
local 
business. 
It 
would 
seem 
to 
be 
an 
ideal 
site 
for 
this 
initial 
short 
study. 
I 
would 
be 
very 
grateful 
if 
you 
could 
accommodate my request. 
I 
will 
telephone 
early next 
week 
to 
answer 
any 
specific 
questions 
you 
may 
have, 
and 
hopefully 
arrange 
a 
date 
and 
time 
for 
my 
visit, 
but 
in 
the 
meantime 
I 
have 
jotted 
down 
some 
notes 
to 
give you an 
idea 
of 
who 
I 
would 
like 
to 
speak 
to, 
how 
I 
intend 
to 
work 
and 
ho 
the 
interview 
material wi 
II be 
used. 
Who 
do 
I 
want 
to 
speak 
to? 
I 
would 
like 
to 
interview 
one 
'regular' 
(while 
she 
is 
having her 
hair 
done, 
or while 
she 
is 
waiting 
to 
be 
seen, 
while she 
is 
under 
the 
dryer, 
or 
at 
a 
time 
convenient 
to 
you, 
the 
other 
employees 
and 
her. 
It 
is 
fine 
for 
me 
if 
other people contribute 
to 
the 
conversation 
as 
they 
might 
do 
normally. 
) 
Ideally 
the 
interviewee 
would 
be 
someone 
who 
has 
a 
lot 
of work 
done 
on 
her hair, 
and 
perhaps 
someone 
who 
enjoys 
her 
visits. 
Of 
course, 
it 
would 
be 
great 
to 
interview 
someone 
who 
likes 
talking! 
Mat 
do I 
intend 
to 
do? 
if 
you 
and 
the 
interviewee 
have 
no 
objections 
to 
this, 
I 
intend 
to 
tape-record 
an 
interview 
with a 
customer 
for 
no more 
than 
an 
hour 
(perhaps 
through 
he duration 
of 
her having her hair 
done? 
) I do 
not 
intend 
to 
fire 
questions, 
or 
make my 
interviewee 
or anyone 
else 
in 
the 
salon 
feel 
uncomfortable. 
My 
intention is 
to 
be 
as 
little 
in 
the 
way 
as 
possible 
and 
to 
have 
an 
informal 
conversation 
with 
the 
interviewee. 
He 
interviewee 
will 
direct 
the 
focus 
of 
the 
interview. 
The 
few 
questions 
I 
have 
prepared 
include: 
e. 
g. 
Do 
youfeel 
different 
before, during 
and 
afteryour 
visit 
to the 
hairdresser? 
Haveyou 
ever 
asked 
to 
haveyour 
hair 
done 
to 
resemble 
afamous 
person 
or 
star? 
' 
and so 
on, 
but 
these 
questions 
may 
not need 
to 
be 
used 
if 
the 
interviewee 
directs 
the 
conversation 
in 
other 
directions. If 
you 
and 
the 
interviewee 
have 
no 
objections, 
I 
intend 
to 
document 
the 
meeting 
with a 
few 
photographs. 
Copies 
of 
all 
material 
gathered, 
tapes 
and 
photographs 
will 
be 
made 
for 
the 
interviewee 
and 
yourself. 
How 
will 
the 
Interview 
material 
be 
used? 
The interview 
data 
will 
be 
used as part of 
my 
PhD 
thesis. 
The 
aims 
of 
this 
project 
are 
to 
provide a 
positive 
analysis 
of 
women's 
pleasures and 
tastes 
in 
dress, 
hair 
and 
use of make-up 
and 
jewellery. 
The 
name 
of 
the 
interviewee 
will 
be 
changed 
unless 
they 
specify otherwise and 
your 
salon name 
too 
can 
be 
changed 
in 
my 
report 
if 
you 
so wish. 
Similarly 
the 
interviewee 
and 
yourself can 
decide 
whether 
the 
photographic 
documentation 
can 
be 
used 
by 
me 
in 
my 
thesis. 
I 
hope 
that the 
research will 
help 
to 
broaden 
the 
debate 
on 
women, glamour, 
taste 
and 
beauty. 
Transcribed 
copies of 
the 
interview 
can 
also 
be 
copied 
and 
sent 
to 
you 
if 
you wish. 
I 
am 
very 
grateful 
for 
your 
help 
so 
far 
and 
I 
hope 
that 
my work 
won't 
inconvenience 
you 
too 
much. 
I 
will 
ring 
at 
the 
start of 
the 
week 
in 
the 
hope 
that 
an 
interview 
visit can 
take 
place soon after 
(perhaps 
the 
weekend 
of 
the 
10th 
January, 
if 
you 
are not 
too 
busy 
and 
there 
is 
an appointment 
scheduled 
with 
at 
women 
who 
you 
feel 
might 
be happy 
to 
be interviewed? 
) I 
am 
happy 
to 
answer 
any 
questions 
you 
may 
have. 
I 
look 
forward 
to 
meeting 
with 
you soon and 
I 
wish 
you 
a very 
happy 
New Year. 
Yours 
sincerely, 
Adele 
Patrick, 
MA 
P-S For 
your 
interest, 
my 
PhD 
supervisor 
at 
Strathclyde University 
is 
Dr. 
Katie 
Grant 
who 
is 
based 
in 
the 
Modem 
Languages 
Department, 
Livingstone 
Tower, 
Richmond 
Street, 
Glasgow.