Unsuitable : A History of Lesbian Fashion by Eleanor Medhurst

The way we dress can show or hide who we are; make us fit in, make us stand out, or make our own community. Yet ‘lesbian fashion’ has been strangely overlooked. What secrets can it reveal about the lives and status of queer women through the ages?The lesbian past is slippery: often deliberately hidden, edited or left unrecorded. Unsuitable restores to history the dazzlingly varied clothes worn by women who love women, from top hats to violet tiaras.

This story spans centuries and countries, from ‘Gentleman Jack’ in nineteenth-century Yorkshire and Queen Christina of seventeenth-century Sweden, to Paris modernism, genderqueer Berlin, butch/femme bar culture and gay rights activists—via drag kings, Vogue editors and the Harlem Renaissance.  This book is a kaleidoscope of the margins and the mainstream, celebrating trans lesbian style, Black lesbian style, and gender nonconformity. You don’t have to be queer or fashionable to be enthralled by this hidden history. Unsuitable lights it up for the world to see, in all its finery.

Format:Paperback / softback 360 pages, 36 Illustrations, color
Publisher:C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Imprint:C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
ISBN:9781805266051
Published:1 Jun 2026
Classifications:Of specific Lesbian interest, History of fashion, Fashion & society, Gay & Lesbian studies