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The leary larrikin : Street style in colonial Australia
Bellanta, Melissa Sleight, Simon
Bellanta, Melissa
Sleight, Simon
Author
Abstract
This article explores the sartorial style of participants in a street-based youth subculture that thrived in late nineteenth-century Australian cities. Known as ‘larrikins', the lower working-class youth so described had a distinctive style of dress including heeled boots and bell-bottomed trousers. Here we examine the material processes through which this larrikin look was produced, locating it in distinctive urban settings and placing it against a backdrop of nascent mass consumption. While also considering the cultural sources of inspiration for larrikin style, our key aim is to demonstrate the richness of an analysis attuned to materiality, preferring this to the semiotic approaches that dominate the relevant literature.
Keywords
youth, subcultures, style, material culture, history of dress, colonial Australia
Date
2014
Type
Journal article
Journal
Cultural and Social History
Book
Volume
11
Issue
2
Page Range
263-283
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Arts and Humanities
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Open Access Status
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Controlled