All the Rage

Stories from the Frontline of Beauty: A History of Pain, Pleasure, and Power: 1860-1960

Virginia Nicholson

A panoramic social history that chronicles the quest for beauty in all its contradictions—and how it affects the female body.

"Women have been fat or slim, hyperthyroid or splenetic, sallow or pink-cheeked, slouched or erect, according to the prevalent notions of beauty." —Cecil Beaton, The Glass of Fashion

Who decides what is fashionable? What clothes we wear, what hairstyles we create, what color lipstick we adore, what body shape is "all the rage". The story of female adornment from 1860–1960 is intriguingly unbuttoned in this glorious social history. Virginia Nicholson has long been fascinated by the way we women present ourselves—or are encouraged to present ourselves—to the world.

In this book, we learn about rational dress, suffragettes’ hats, the Marcel wave, the Gibson Girls, corsets, and the banana skirt. At the centre of this story is the female body, in all its diversity—fat, thin, short, tall, brown, white, black, pink, smooth, hairy, wrinkly, youthful, crooked, or symmetrical; and—relevant as ever in this context—the vexed issues of body image and bodily autonomy. We may even find ourselves wondering, whose body is it? In the hundred years this book charts, the Western world saw the rapid introduction of new technologies like photography, film, and eventually television, which (for better and worse) thrust women—and female imagery—out of the private and into the public gaze.

Virginia Nicholson is the author of Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939; Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War; Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949; Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s; How Was It For You? Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s as well as Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Nicholson is the granddaughter of Vanessa Bell and the great-niece of Virginia Woolf, and is the President of the Charleston Trust, and a trustee of the Strachey Trust.

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Endorsements & Reviews

"Nicholson introduces each chapter of her rollicking history — which focuses on the century between 1860 and 1960 — with a photograph of a woman whose looks epitomize the ideal of her age. Figure-eight corsets and protuberant bustles give way to short skirts and fringe; bobs cede to lacquered beehives. But as much as fashion, hairstyles and body ideals change over time, some things are forever: You’ll be judged for looking like you try, you’ll be judged if you look like you don’t try and you’re never allowed to get old."

 New York Times Book Review

“Beauty is a double-edged sword that cuts women every which way. Enter All the Rage by the social historian Virginia Nicholson. Ms. Nicholson divides her book into seven chapters named for the eras in her 100-year history. Brilliantly, she’s chosen a woman to symbolize each era, and begins each chapter by deconstructing a photograph of the standard-bearer: How is she dressed? What undergarments might she be wearing? What is her face saying? Her setting, her posture, her position? The analysis is intimate. Balancing wide-ranging research with lively storytelling, Ms. Nicholson doesn’t merely humanize history, she makes it fun.” Wall Street Journal

"Nicholson astutely draws out how 'demands and pressures on the female body' increased along with 'progress towards equality and liberation' as a patriarchal culture sought to reassert its control over women. Feminist fashionistas will want to add this to their shelf." Publishers Weekly

“A fascinating and enjoyable investigation which, for all its focus on history, holds up a mirror to today’s realities, too. For all that we may try to persuade ourselves that progress has been achieved, we are still in thrall to the ceaseless and seductive pursuit of beauty.” The Financial Times

“Marvelously readable. Nicholson gives us an unforgettably rich and varied tapestry of the development of female beauty anxiety. Her title is a clever double-entendre, suggesting both ‘the height of fashion’ and a lot of angry women. The subtitle’s key word, ‘frontline,’ implies the female body as a battleground, which indeed it was—and is.”

The Daily Mail

"[Nicholson's] wonderfully engaging investigation has a feminist quandary at its heart."

Harper's Bazaar

"Nicholson's lively, intimate history of beauty wants us to take a more sympathetic view of the women who engage in the often-condemned and sometimes dangerous quest for gorgeousness. All the Rage sits you at the dressing table of history: a place of dreams, doubts, self-harm, and hopes. More interesting than a simple catalog of beauty's ills would have been. Here, beauty is sometimes an oppressive force, and sometimes a way for women to negotiate their way around other oppressive forces."

The Times

"Bold in its scope, yet filled with intriguing details and thoughtful, original analysis." Justine Picardie

"Virginia Nicholson is one of the great social historians of our time. No one else makes history this fun." Amanda Foreman

"Fine intelligence and irresistible brio... How Was It For You? is a kaleidoscopic tribute to the generation that put the "F" into feminism. I ripped through it with gusto and delight." Tina Brown on Virginia Nicholson