All the Rage: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty: A History of Pain, Pleasure, and Power: 1860-1960
by: Nicholson, Virginia

Hardcover. NY, Pegasus Books, 1st, 2024, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 519 pages. 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. Clean copy.