Fashioned from Penury: Dress as Cultural Practice in Colonial Australia (Studies in Australian History)

From the first white settlement clothing was of vast social significance to Australians. It was central to the ways class and status were negotiated and equally significant for marking out sexual differences. Dress was implicated in definitions of morality, in the relationship between Europeans and Aboriginal people, and between convict and free. This book reveals the broader historical and cultural implications of clothes in Australia for the first time.