Dress and Age

The chapter addresses the role of clothing and dress in the constitution of age. Clothes are central to how identity is performed at an embodied level. This is true not just of social categorisations such as gender, class and ethnicity, but also age. The chapter explores age ordering in dress, and asks if the dominance of this long familiar pattern has lessened with the changing cultural location of older people in western societies, and the wider impact of consumption culture. It addresses the interplay between the body and dress, exploring the intersections between bodily and cultural ageing.