‘The great question before the Japanese woman at present is the question of dress,’ wrote an anonymous contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1888. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, newly opened Japan sought to westernize not only its political system but also its everyday way of life. Dress was one of the central concerns in this process of modernization. Yet Western views on the westernization of Japanese clothing were often rather pessimistic. In particular, the article cited in this episode emphasised that traditional Japanese attire was far more suitable for Japanese women than the adoption of foreign fashions.

The broader discussion of the Victorian reception of Japanese dress is examined in Yamaguchi’s book, Sartorial Japonisme and the Experience of Kimonos in Britain, 1868–1914 (Routledge, 2023).

In modern Vienna, the Jewish men were the important participants in the cultural development and some of them were dressed themselves in ‘modern’ tailored suits. At the turn of the century, wearing suits became fashionable among the urban Jewish men and it also developed new models of Jewish identities beyond the externally prescribed notion of ‘the Jew’.

Arisa is joined by Jonathan C. Kaplan-Wajselbaum, the author of an important academic book which is so rich in sources, Jews in Suits: Men's Dress in Vienna, 1890-1938 (2023) to talk about the dress culture of Jewish men in Vienna.

Get the copy of the book now on Bloomsbury:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/jews-in-suits-9781350244207/

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To Be A Girl (2021) is a sensational novel of a transgender

Arisa is joined by the author of To Be A Girl, Alexandra Hamer. Alex explains why this breathtaking story was written and how she puts her own experiences into words.

Buy it now from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Be-Girl-transgender-breathtaking-Victorian-ebook/dp/B09BP64F1W