Age and the Lens of Dress: Intersections of Time, Embodiment and Culture

Ageing is both physiological and cultural, expressed and enacted on and through the physical body. Within culture, however, that body is customarily dressed, so that clothing presents the vestimentary envelope that encloses but also displays the body. In this session Dr. Twigg will explore some of the ways in which we can use dress as a lens to examine the changing meanings of age, exploring intersections between time and embodiment, and the significance of these for our interpretation of ageing within a particular culture. The presentation will draw on a series of empirical studies that have examined the responses of older women and men, as well as of retailers and the wider media.

Registration: http://ow.ly/kIL550CGSI6

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Julia Twigg is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy and Sociology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. She has written widely on age and embodiment, recently focusing on the role of dress in the material constitution of age, publishing Fashion and Age: Dress, the Body and Later Life. Her earlier work centred on bodywork and care, publishing Bathing – the Body and Community Care and The Body in Health and Social Care. She is actively engaged in debates around cultural gerontology, and co-edited, with Wendy Martin, The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology. Her work is widely cited internationally, and she has been the recipient of numerous prizes.