Fashion in Literature
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010I just read a fun list on Flavorwire of their 10 favorite fashionable literary characters. Allow me to summarize:
Lily Bart in Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth
Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
Holly Golightly in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Orlando in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind
Jay Gatsby [...]
Janelle Monae, Style Icon and Fashion Industry Commentator
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010A friend of mine sent me a link to Janelle Monáe’s “Tightrope” video earlier this summer, and I have been obsessed with the dame ever since (I give you permission to play it when you want to cheer yourself up, and/or have an impromptu dance party, as I do). Not only are her pipes amazing [...]
Grey Hair as Social Statment?
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010As a young woman who has atypically looked forward to turning shocking silver (I’ve even promised myself to grow my pixie haircut at that time to accentuate it), I’ve read with some curiosity but ultimate skepticism, the rash of articles and blog posts about the supposed trend of women embracing grey hair. The most recent [...]
Fashion of the Working Man
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010A recent NYTimes article on the latest Levi jeans ad campaign featuring not dead-eyed models in awkward sexualized positions, but real-life residents of Braddock, PA caught my eye. A continuation of last year’s “Go Forth” ad campaign, this one uses actual inhabitants of Braddock to show real workers in their natural habitat: a [...]
Bathing Suits, Technology and Morality
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010In weather like this (namely, 90+ degrees, little-to-no wind, and me without air conditioning), beachy escapes are on everyone’s mind. Following is a rough timeline of how women have historically bared their flesh — or not — to enjoy the sand and sun.
Classical Times
In Classical antiquity swimming and bathing was most often done nude; only [...]
John Waters on Fashion
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010A long standing fan of director / writer John Waters, I am delighted that the Pope of Trash is appearing with greater frequency in periodicals these days due to his new book Role Models. I’m going to brush aside the content of the book (though it looks awesome!) to concentrate on the style of Mr. [...]
Fetishizing Military Gear
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010After seeing Gisele Bundchen’s latest Vogue shoot entitled “Call of Duty” in various military-inspired ensembles, my conflicted feelings about the sexifying of war gear swung hard and fast in the “that’s not cool” direction. Huffington Post presents these images with significantly less conflict: “let us know which is Gisele’s fiercest moment.” I should mention that [...]
The Secret Sexy Life of Zippers
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010After reading the recent NYTimes article highlighting Eddie Feibusch’s zipper business in New York’s Lower East Side, I was reminded of — what else? — the history of the not-so-humble zipper. This now-ubiquitous device that fastens and unfastens our pants, dresses, and bags, is a relatively recent invention, as far as the history of fashion [...]
Women, Pants, & Politics
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010As I alluded in previous posts, adopting aspects of menswear had a direct relationship with the Women’s Movement, socially and politically. For hundreds of years wealthy and impoverished women alike had worn heavy floor length dresses, even as unsanitary street filth dragged in the long skirts, even as the simple negotiation of stairs became arduous [...]
Women in Men’s Hats
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010This is the second installation of the lecture I recently gave in a gender / sociology class at FIT. The first focused on the adoption of feminine fashion trends by men and the seemingly inevitable moral condemnation / censorship of such implied homosexuality (accurate or not); this one follows the appropriation of menswear by women [...]
