Shaping Gender: Femininity and Masculinity Through Sartorial Fashion in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway — published in 1925 — not only represents a major work regarding its literary techniques during the years of British Modernism, but also constitutes a critique of the social system of the post-war years, which was experiencing a change regarding the strict Victorian stereotypes of gender. Social status linked to sartorial fashion is a recurring element in the novel when considering these configurations. Woolf vindicates through different characters’ reflections a rearrangement of femininity and masculinity.