In much of modern fiction, it is the clothes that make the character. Garments embody personal and national histories. They convey wealth, status, aspiration, and morality (or a lack thereof). They suggest where characters have been and where they might be headed, as well as whether or not they are aware of their fate. At the Mercy of Their Clothes explores the agency of fashion in modern literature, its reflection of new relations between people and things, and its embodiment of a rapidly changing society confronted by war and cultural and economic upheaval. In some cases, people need garments to realize themselves. In other cases, the clothes control the person who wears them.

Celia Marshik's study combines close readings of modernist and middlebrow works, a history of Britain in the early twentieth century, and the insights of thing theory. She focuses on four distinct categories of modern clothing: the evening gown, the mackintosh, the fancy dress costume, and secondhand attire. In their use of these clothes, we see authors negotiate shifting gender roles, weigh the value of individuality during national conflict, work through mortality, and depict changing class structures. Marshik's dynamic comparisons put Ulysses in conversation with Rebecca, Punch cartoons, articles in Vogue, and letters from consumers, illuminating opinions about specific garments and a widespread anxiety that people were no more than what they wore. Throughout her readings, Marshik emphasizes the persistent animation of clothing—and objectification of individuals—in early-twentieth-century literature and society. She argues that while artists and intellectuals celebrated the ability of modern individuals to remake themselves, a range of literary works and popular publications points to a lingering anxiety about how political, social, and economic conditions continued to constrain the individual.

"At the Mercy of their Clothes makes an important contribution to a developing critical tradition that focuses on garments and fashion to assess how writers of the early twentieth century debated and constructed individuality in a time marked by socio-economic and techno- logical change. It will be of immense interest to scholars and students of early twentieth-century literature, modernism, and material culture. I, for one, have already assigned the mackintosh chapter as essential reading for my Ulysses class next year." - Modernism/modernity

"Marshik’s cultural studies approach is both convincing and provocative. Her study ties together threads of contemporary cultural studies theory with fashion studies, modernist literary criticism and sociology. As an interdisciplinary project, the book offers a fresh perspective on the dialogic exchange among the period’s modernist literary texts, popular media, fashionable garments and consumers." - Literature & History

"At the Mercy of Their Clothes offers a brilliant compendium of archival material woven into a tightly articulated and important argument about material culture’s intersections with the literary and art worlds that will enrich readers’ scholarship and teaching." - The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945

"At the Mercy of Their Clothes sheds light on the vexed relationships between garments and their wearers in the early twentieth century, and each chapter is engaging as well as versatile in its attention to modernist and middlebrow voices. Throughout, Marshik’s research is thorough and absorbing, and her argument persuasive." - Woolf Studies Annual

"Fluently written and deftly argued, Marshik’s book is a landmark work. . . . The insights in At the Mercy of Their Clothes: Modernism, The Middlebrow, and British Garment Culture will be of interest to all scholars working on texts and textiles, and for those at the intersection of modernist and middlebrow studies, Marshik’s work constitutes essential reading." - The Modernist Review

"Celia Marshik’s At the Mercy of Their Clothes: Modernism, the Middlebrow, and British Garment Culture is a seminal text at the forefront of current conversations bringing fashion studies into the realm of the literary." - James Joyce Quarterly

"At the Mercy of Their Clothes is a significant, sophisticated, and genuinely illuminating account of Modernism’s relationship to the middlebrow and to popular culture." - James Joyce Literary Supplement

"We have all experienced the punishing power of clothes. The pair of jeans that no longer fit: they, rather than our expanding waist, become the symbol of our disappointing self-image. The bold pattern that felt emboldening at home in front of the mirror, but at the party seems too loud and makes us feel conspicuous and awkward. Celia Marshik’s At the Mercy of Their Clothes: Modernism, Middlebrow, and British Garment Culture is a brilliantly researched and immensely readable catalogue of such anxious moments and their implications for selfhood." - The Review of English Studies

"Marshik’s work brings a critical and indispensable lens to the impact and effects of clothing in the twentieth century and will be of interest to Woolf scholars and a wide range of scholars interested in popular culture, middlebrow and modernist texts, and history." - Virginia Woolf Miscellany