While Perrault's tales have sparked countless analyses and commentaries since their publication, clothing has received relatively little attention therein. Yet, from the dresses of Donkeyskin, used to exert incestuous pressure, to the crowned and decapitated heads of the little ogres in "Hop-o'-My-Thumb," revealing a sharp political critique, the theme of clothing is far from inconsequential. While not Perrault's final literary work, the collection of tales nevertheless serves as his magnum opus, in which the author delivers his most subversive messages and bitter observations about the ills of his time. Through clothing, the academician denounces the immorality of those in power, male sadism, bourgeois deceptions, the greed of the elite, and even the political system of his era.
Senior lecturer Shoshana-Rose Marzel (Ph.D.) is head of the Department of Literature, Art and Music at Zefat Academic College, Safed (Israel) where she teaches general literature. Her research focuses on French literature and on the theoretical and historical aspects of fashion. She has published L'Esprit du chiffon, le vêtement dans le roman français du XIXème siècle (Peter Lang, Berne, 2005). She has also co-published the collective work Dress and Ideology, Fashioning Identity from Antiquity to the Present (Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2015). She regularly contributes to the scientific press.
High school students, students, specialists in Perrault, in French literature and the 17th century (culture, history and literature), Children literature' specialists, Fashion historians, researchers and lecturers.