Episode description

Fashion:pleasure and danger. Laurie Taylor considers the costs of 'keeping up appearances', then and now. From the flaming tutus of ballerinas to the deaths of garment workers: what perils have accompanied changes in dress, for the producers of clothing, as well as the wearers. How have our ideas of style and good looks shifted according to changing notions of masculinity & femininity? What relationship do beards and facial hair have to our understanding of what it means to be a man? And have the vagaries and demands of fashion invariably hurt women more than men, the poor more than the wealthy?

Laurie is joined by Christopher Oldstone-Moore, Senior Lecturer in History at Wright State University, Alison Matthews David, Associate Professor in the School of Fashion at Ryerson University and Joanne Entwistle, Senior Lecturer in Culture and Creative Industries at King's College London.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.