DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Liberty Equality Fashion

The Women Who Styled the French Revolution

Anne Higonnet author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:WW Norton & Co

Published:30th Apr '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Liberty Equality Fashion cover

Joséphine Bonaparte, future consort of Napoléon; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, cast off the rigid clothing regime of the past. Overcoming forced marriages and imprisonment during the Terror, they became the first self-made fashion celebrities. From one year to the next, the Three Graces led a rebellion against corsets, petticoats and enormous skirts. Their flowing garments not only embodied freedom for modern women but also marked the emergence of global capitalism, shopping culture and the rise of powerful style influencers. Joséphine combined the style of Black women from her Caribbean childhood with garments from India and Kashmir to fuse cultures and bend gender rules. Her best friend and style collaborator, Térézia, celebrated the female body and her own erotic independence. Juliette pioneered a radical minimalism, posing for portraits in pure-white, virginal gowns. After the French Revolution, a conservative reaction would keep women “buttoned up” for two centuries, making the fashion-forward story of the Three Graces even more resonant today.

"Liberty Equality Fashion is a triumphant examination of a fascinating moment in time as well as a blazing demonstration of how anything, even something as apparently innocuous as a petticoat, can make history. " -- Lucy Moore - Literary Review

  • Long-listed for American Library in Paris Book Award 2024

ISBN: 9780393867954

Dimensions: 236mm x 185mm x 25mm

Weight: 723g

304 pages