Sweet and Clean?: Bodies and Clothes in Early Modern England

ISBN-13: 9780198856139 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 368 str.

Susan North

Recenzje

What constitutes cleanliness? Or, more relevantly, what constituted personal cleanliness in early modern England? A hint is offered in the cover illustration to Susan North's most recent and thought-provoking book, Sweet and Clean, which depicts James Gillray's 1779 print, The Whore's Last Shift. The woman in question, naked apart from her worn stockings, shoes, and the feathers in her neatly dressed hair, washes her shift in a chamber pot. The use of the pot for washing highlights several things-the desire to have clean linens and, as North notes, a possible reference to the use of the urine in the chamber pot as part of the washing process.

O autorze

Susan North is the Curator of Fashion, 1550-1800 at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has a BA in Art History from Carleton University, Ottawa, an MA in Dress History from the Courtauld Institute, London, and a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. North worked for the National Gallery of Canada and the National Archives of Canada, before joining the V&A Museum in 1995. She has published articles and book chapters, co-authored several V&A publications relating to early modern dress, as well as co-curating Style and Splendour: Queen Maud of Norway's Wardrobe in 2005 and Splendour of the Tsars in 2008. As a museum curator, North in particularly interested in the material culture of surviving historical clothing, the stories revealed in its materials, methods of construction, and alterations, and how these contribute to broader narratives of early modern history.