Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: In Search of Lost Times 2. Freak Shows Decline and Fall 3. Freaks in Vogue George, Georgie, Georgino Mio 4. Bright Young Things Freak Parties The Uprise of Cecil Beaton 5. Divas Mariegold in Society 6. The Floral Closet Pansies Open for Trade 7. Conclusions Oscar Wilde Revamped Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

Using eight key personalities as case studies, this book explores the origins of gay and queer cultures in the worlds of high fashion and counter-cultural expression.

About the Author

Dominic Janes is Professor of Modern History at Keele University, UK. He is a cultural historian whose specialism is the study of texts and visual images relating to Britain in its local and international contexts since the eighteenth century. He also teaches and researches on the wider histories of gender, sexuality and religion and is Professorial Fellow in the School of Fine Art and Photography, University for the Creative Arts, UK.

Reviews

Clearly the product of long hours in the archives, Dominic Janes’ Freak to Chic offers a rich array of queer images and texts from the popular press of the first half of the twentieth century to document the creative variety of non-normative embodiments of sex and gender in an era before now-accepted identity labels.
*Christopher Reed, Pennsylvania State University, USA*

[A] unique intervention in the study of queer culture.
*Notches*

From Oscar Wilde and Cecil Beaton to flourishing inter- and post-war queer cultures, Janes takes his reader through a fascinating and endlessly glamorous story of the freakishly chic manifestations that have helped to galvanize and vilify queer identity. Somewhere between the beautiful and the ugly, the respectable and the profane, the book offers keen insights into the elusive and radical potential of queer style.
*John Potvin, Concordia University, Montreal*

This lavishly illustrated book is a sophisticated and entertaining account of the Twenties interface between camp, fashion, identity politics, and flowers, featuring some of the era's most orchidaceous personalities.
*Jane Stevenson, University of Oxford, UK*