Cultural studies: dress and society

In 1881, a writer in the Saturday Review called tattooing ‘an art without a history’. ‘No-one’, it went on, ‘has made it the business of his life to study the development of tattooing.’

Until now.

Scouted in the street when she was 17, Victoire Dauxerre’s story started like a teenager’s fantasy: within months she was strutting down the catwalks of New York’s major fashion shows. But when fashion executives and photographers forced her to become ever thinner, Victoire’s dream became a nightmare.