Sartorial Respectability. - Post war Caribbean Dress

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This research will document and critically analyse Caribbean women's dress, as they arrived in the UK during the Windrush Generation, and their ability to use their clothing to project class distinctions. It explores how Caribbean women, using dress as a signifier of their projected 'respectability', communicated these complicated ambivalent values in this new cultural landscapeThe women at the focus of this study would have come to the UK to work as nurses, factory workers and in other menial positions and some to join family members. Their induction into the UK ultimately resulted in providing an essential workforce in rebuilding Britain after the war. As they inevitably get older their unrecorded histories die with them and their immeasurable importance to the history of this country and the continued strength of British society is lost.There is minimal formalised knowledge in this field, which tends to be limited to superficial discussions of clothing and style. Existing scholarship approaches the subject generally, neglecting the relationship between social behaviour and historic dress for this particular group taking into consideration the socio-economic and colonial legacies of this era. Current canonical work within the field of clothing and costume history doesn't provide sufficient racial and class - based analysis within critical discussions of dress, which renders the field inadequate when approaching this subject. Aims/ Objectives/ Applications - The Black Dress ArchiveThe platform of the Costume Institute of the African Diaspora (CIAD), an organisation dedicated to researching clothing engagement from the African Diaspora that I founded nine years ago, will play a key role here. I will use the research from this study to develop a multimedia archive of digital resources documenting the clothing of these Caribbean women and the different ways they felt they had to utilise their clothing and style not only to comply with social conventions but also as a means of self- determination. The Black Dress Archive will detail elements of class, representation, and status, and how the consequent power dynamics are reconciled with the resources available to particular subjects. The archive will be a living, growing component of the greater CIAD project and this doctoral research will be its inaugural moment.