Jews in Suits - Men's Dress in Vienna, 1890-1938

Surviving photographs of Jewish Viennese men during the fin-de-siecle and interwar periods - both the renowned cultural luminaries and their many anonymous coreligionists - all share a striking sartorial detail: the tailored suit. Yet, until now, the adoption of the tailored suit and its function in the formation of modern Jewish identities remains under-researched. Jews in Suits uses a rich range of written and visual sources, including literary fiction and satire, ''ego-documents'', photography, trade catalogues, invoices, and department store culture, to propose a new narrative of men, fashion, and their Jewish identities. It reveals that dressing in a modern manner was not simply a matter of assimilation, but rather a way of developing new models of Jewish subjectivity beyond the externally prescribed notion of ''the Jew''. Drawing upon fashionable dress, folk costume, religious dress, avant-garde, oppositional dress, typologies which are often considered separate from one another, it proposes a new way of reading men and clothing cultures within an iconic cultural milieu, offering insights into the relationship of clothing and grooming to the understanding of the self.>

Product details

• Authors: Jonathan C Kaplan-Wajselbaum, Jonathan C. Kaplan-Wajselbaum
• Assisted by: Reina Lewis (Editor), Elizabeth Wilson (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.12.2024
• EAN: 9781350244214
• ISBN: 978-1-350-24421-4
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 234 mm x 18 mm
• Series: Dress Cultures
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Interior design, design; RELIGION / Judaism / General, HISTORY / Social History, Vienna, RELIGION / Judaism / History, DESIGN / Fashion & Accessories, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, DESIGN / History & Criticism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Jewish Studies, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Jewish Studies, Fashion & society, history of design, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, History of fashion, Relating to Jewish people and groups, c 1890 to c 1899