Susan Hiner publishes Behind the Seams: Women, Fashion, and Work in 19th-Century France
Susan Hiner has published Behind the Seams: Women, Fashion, and Work in 19th-Century France.
“a rich resource and essential reading for all those interested in fashion history, 19th-century French history and visual culture, and the social history of women.”
—Bloomsbury Publishing
“In this highly original book, Behind the Seams: Women, Fashion, and Work in 19th-Century France, Susan Hiner, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, looks behind fashion’s seams and focuses on the women fashion producers—both working- and middle-class—who were key to shaping the French fashion economy. Behind the Seams thus opens up the fields of both fashion and French cultural studies and explores new ways of understanding the 19th century by demonstrating that these women’s complex and contradictory roles as producers of luxury items left them exploited by an oppressive fashion system even as they served as influencers within it.”
“Beautifully illustrated in color throughout,” a Bloomsbury Academic strength, Behind the Seams is “a rich resource and essential reading for all those interested in fashion history, 19th-century French history and visual culture, and the social history of women.”
Support for the research and publication came from a combination of sources, thoughtfully scaffolded across several years, including multiple Research Committee awards, an NEH Fellowship, and an American Library in Paris Research Fellowship.