All the Rage
Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960
Published on 3. April 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
528 pages
978-0-349-01432-6 (ISBN)
Description
'Sits you at the dressing table of history: a place of dreams, doubts, self-harm and hopes' -Sunday Times
At the heart of this history is the female body. The century-span between the crinoline and the bikini witnessed more mutations in the ideal western woman's body shape than at any other period. In this richly detailed account, Virginia Nicholson, described as 'one of the great social historians of our time...' (Amanda Foreman) and a truly brilliant researcher has produced a most remarkable social history revealing the power, the pain and the pleasure involved in adorning the female body.
She asks how custom, colour, class and sex fit into the picture, and shrewdly charts how the advances made by feminism collided with the changing shape of desirability. Full of surprising facts - the feminist plastic surgeon, the radioactive corset - alongside stories of the 'New Women' who discovered freedom by bobbing their hair, those who were the early adopters of trousers, and early Black beauty entrepreneurs, this book chronicles the codes, the contradictions, the lies and the highs of beauty.
Virginia Nicholson shows how the pursuit of beauty can be oppressive but also a way of negotiating the world and that adornment can be a deep pleasure. It's complicated!
`This is a fascinating book: funny, unexpected, forgiving, political, personal, glamorous and yes, quietly, angry. Read it for the amazing stories; stay for the self-knowledge. Or the Revolution' -Louisa Young, Prospect
At the heart of this history is the female body. The century-span between the crinoline and the bikini witnessed more mutations in the ideal western woman's body shape than at any other period. In this richly detailed account, Virginia Nicholson, described as 'one of the great social historians of our time...' (Amanda Foreman) and a truly brilliant researcher has produced a most remarkable social history revealing the power, the pain and the pleasure involved in adorning the female body.
She asks how custom, colour, class and sex fit into the picture, and shrewdly charts how the advances made by feminism collided with the changing shape of desirability. Full of surprising facts - the feminist plastic surgeon, the radioactive corset - alongside stories of the 'New Women' who discovered freedom by bobbing their hair, those who were the early adopters of trousers, and early Black beauty entrepreneurs, this book chronicles the codes, the contradictions, the lies and the highs of beauty.
Virginia Nicholson shows how the pursuit of beauty can be oppressive but also a way of negotiating the world and that adornment can be a deep pleasure. It's complicated!
`This is a fascinating book: funny, unexpected, forgiving, political, personal, glamorous and yes, quietly, angry. Read it for the amazing stories; stay for the self-knowledge. Or the Revolution' -Louisa Young, Prospect
Reviews / Votes
In All the Rage, the incomparable Virginia Nicholson, shaped and armed by her unconventional childhood among the Bloomsbury Set, is unafraid of skewering the social conventions that bound her generation. The tragedy of the myth of beauty, as Nicholson shows, is that it was never a myth. I love her writing * Amanda Foreman * A scintillating survey of the changing face of beauty . . . bold in its scope, yet filled with intriguing details and thoughtful, original analysis. * Justine Picardie * Nicholson's lively, intimate history of beauty . . . All the Rage sits you at the dressing table of history: a place of dreams, doubts, self-harm and hopes. -- Sarah Ditum * Sunday Times * This is a fascinating book: funny, unexpected, forgiving, political, personal, glamorous and yes, quietly, angry. -- Louisa Young * Prospect * Wonderfully engaging * Harper's Bazaar * Virginia Nicholson's history of modern women's dedication to their appearance is full of ironies... She is particularly good on how a body looks when styled according to the fashions and expectations of an era... A compelling account of how . . . women are moulded by dominant ideals * Literary Review * An unforgettably rich and varied tapestry of the development of female beauty anxiety. -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail * All the Rage is a perfect title for a book about terrible beauty . . . Nicholson's research, and her talent for shaping her vast material into a compelling, thoughtful tale, are most impressive. * Spectator *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Illustrations
20 photos/images
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
418 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-349-01432-6 (9780349014326)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Virginia Nicholson
All the Rage
Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960
E-Book
04/2024
Virago Press
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Virginia Nicholson is the author of Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939, Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War, Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949, Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s, How Was It For You? Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s as well as Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Nicholson is the granddaughter of Vanessa Bell and the great-niece of Virginia Woolf, and is the President of the Charleston Trust, and a trustee of the Strachey Trust.