This inter-disciplinary study explores the role of dress and fashion in the novels of Virginia Woolf, examining them in a chronological sequence. I will show how Woolf’s own concerns with dress are reflected in her work in the development of her Modernist method of writing which employs clothing as particularly apt imagery with which to evoke tensions of surface and depth, and perception and reality. The investigation begins with a summary of previous discussions regarding the historical, social and psychological significance of dress, noting that the role of clothing in fiction is a comparatively under-investigated area. This study makes the nine major novels its primary focus, together with selected short stories, and it draws upon analysis from the fields of costume history, socio-cultural studies and literary criticism to explore and evaluate Woolf’s use of clothes in her fiction. Woolf’s open criticism of the ‘materialist’ writing of Victorian and Edwardian novelists such as Arnold Bennett led her to adopt a more sparing and subtle use of dress as a means of portraying character, drawing not merely upon the visual aspect but also upon the symbolic, sensual and psychological dimensions of wearing a garment, culminating in a phenomenon she described as ‘frock consciousness’. In this acknowledgement of the potential of clothing to influence human consciousness and psychology Woolf simultaneously reflects concerns of her time and anticipates feminist ‘reclaiming’ of fashion and dress as legitimate areas of academic study by late-twentieth-century writers such as Elizabeth Wilson. Clair Hughes writes that “novelists do not send their characters naked into the world, though critics have often acted as though they do.” (6). By placing dress at the centre of a consideration of Woolf’s fiction it opens up these texts to new readings and interpretations, to see them ‘in Woolf’s clothing’.

With inspiration from Elsa Schiaparelli’s Bowknot sweater, this work investigates the possibilities to create knitted versions of woven archetypes with the aim to reconstruct sartorial attires through abstraction in knit. This is conducted through the exploration of the construction of the suit jacket, with a focus on the layering of fusing to build shape. The work is abstracted based on the gestalt psychology theory of figure-ground with the purpose to play with the viewer’s perception of what is seen. The concept of figure-ground is also further explored within colour. Based on Carlos Cruz Diez theories of colour and the work titled Couleur Additive a study to create the perception of the colour grey is made. The final result is a menswear collection visualised in a virtual form made with the software CLO3D.

This dissertation investigates the processes and effects involved in the production of styles in contemporary Stockholm. Particular focus is given to materialization processes regarding gender and sexuality. It is an ethnographic study, organized around three different research methods: participant observation, semi-structured interviews and organic wardrobe studies, carried out during the duration of two years and mainly delimited to Stockholm, often focusing on but not limited to the queer-orientated downtown club scene. The study is centered on ten participants, but is also concerned with the events, situations and relations the participants become part of during this time. In this way, the analysis gives equal attention to the specificity of garments and the spaces and places of social interaction. Drawing on a combination of Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, it analyses how styles are produced and maintained through interactions. The concept of style operates as a tool of analysis, approaching the subject matter from three different perspectives: verbal communication and politics of naming, the wheres and whens of sartorial practices, and lastly bodily matters as a point of intersection, where styles are constituted as bodily materializations through gestures, movements and orientation in space. Furthermore, this thesis engages in an on-going discussion within fashion studies on how the articulation of matters regarding sexuality, gender and identity projects can be theorized through the concept of style. In this way, it also challenges and furthers the definition of this concept by proving its productive qualities through ethnographic fieldwork.

In this dissertation, I explore how the twelfth-century poet Marie de France combines animals and clothing to define and teach noble conduct in her Lais collection. I suggest that the nexus she creates between animals, dress, and virtue is chimeric but consistent, appearing differently in each narrative situation but recurring as a means of demonstrating moral conduct. My chapters explore three of her lais that combine beasts and attire to address the unique way Marie features the animal-clothing combination in each to teach distinctive lessons in virtuous behavior. My chapter on Guigemar argues that Marie uses the magical hind and the exchange of a knotted shirt and a belt to rework Ovidian anti-love themes to teach the value of being tightly bound in loyal love. Chapter 3 analyzes the eponymous knight's removal of his clothing as the mechanism that triggers his appearance as a werewolf in Marie's lai Bisclavret. I show that Bisclavret's werewolf form is like a sartorial skin under which his selfhood remains unaltered rather than a true transformation, and I argue that Marie uses the knight's appearance as a wolf so that the loyalty he demonstrates to his king and his homosocial community becomes voluntary and therefore serves as a model of noble conduct to the reader. Chapter 4 discusses Marie's use of the characters' relationships to animals and dress in her lai Lanval to assert the importance of a feminine contribution to leadership in society.

The focus of this study is on the contemporary phenomenon of the adaptation the motifs of the European turn-of-the-century fashion – Edwardian fashion (1901-1910) – to daily or a near-daily sartorial practice, defined by the author as neo-Edwardian style. On the premises of ethnographic study, this thesis explores how people transform and embody their identities through garments by living images and motifs of ‘past’ to negotiate the meanings of their clothing, appearances and personalities in the present. There is a scarcity in academic studies on the subject of styles inspired by historical fashion and in particular the neo-Edwardian style as a form of identity formation and representation. By applying a multi-methodological approach, including both historiographic and ethnographic research, the thesis strives to define the role of the neo-Edwardian style as an embodied sartorial practice and motives for its adaptation in the 21st century. The findings show that the neo-Edwardian style serves as an alternative style choice, reflecting an individual taste and should be understood as a visible marker of identity narrative and connected to the sense of ‘true self’ expressed in the personal style.