Keeping up appearances: family carers and people with dementia negotiating normalcy through dress practice

Dress forms part of the taken-for-granted routines that constitute everyday life, but can be dys-rupted in the context of disability – in this case, dementia. Drawing on qualitative research, this chapter situates dress practice as part of how people with dementia and family carers manage the disruption caused by dementia, focussing on the renegotiation of ideas of ‘normality’ and ordinariness. Maintaining ‘ordinariness’ in this context, however, becomes more than just the achievement of continuity, representing efforts to ‘pass’ and manage the public presentation of self in ways that can normalise dementia, and demonstrate how family carers are ‘coping’ and caring adequately.