On October 18, University of Kent Professor Julia Twigg, the author of “Fashion and Age: Dress, The Body and Later Life” (published by Bloomsbury Press), will be one of the featured speakers at a conference hosted by the U.K.’s Royal College of Art. The conference has an intriguing title: “(a)Dressing the Ageing Demographic.”
Professor Twigg’s latest book is an outgrowth of her sociology and social policy research into day-to-day lives. Thus, clothing and fashion choices for women may have implications for feelings of self-worth and identity as women age. Professor Twigg explains further:
“This book also touches on a second academic concern of mine which has been to bring wider perspectives to bear on the territory of ageing. For too long, later years have been analysed through the lens of social welfare, with an emphasis on frailty and dependence and, often, with an objectifying and distancing gaze. Although I have done work within this social welfare tradition — and still value it — I am pleased to have the opportunity this new work has given me to address a wider conception of age and its social significance, bringing to bear on it new literatures and analytical concerns.”
Details of the conference are available here.