Thread for Thought

Until the article I recently read, mannequins in their practical form held little interest for me; however mannequins in art have always attracted me, most likely due to my obsession with fashion coupled with my fascination with unsettling representations of people (and who doesn’t love to be unsettled?). Incorporating mannequins — invented to market and sell fashion ideas — into non-consumerist functions is another aspect of mannequin art I find appealing.

Artists James Rosenquist (1933-), Jasper Johns (1930-), Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), and Andy Warhol (1928-1987) were all window display artists in their early careers, in addition to (previously mentioned) author L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), so it should be no surprise that there’s a significant amount of crossover between “high art” works incorporating the lowly, functional mannequin, and “low art” window displays incorporating fine art. Modern art provided inspiration for window designers such as Robert Currie (1948-1993) and Candy Pratts-Price (1950-), who injected surrealist elements of violence, sex, and macabre humor into their 1970s windows. Artists like Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) and Andy Warhol and industrial designers like Donald Deskey (1894-1989) and Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972) also played major roles in transmitting 20th-century movements such as minimalism and pop art to the audience on the street. Barneys’ famous windows, overseen by eccentric Simon Doonan (1954-), have incorporated works by Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger (1945-) and often reference pop culture, as in this 2009 display with traditional female mannequin bodies topped with (arguably lowbrow) Mad Magazine’s “Spy vs. Spy” characature heads to show off trenchcoats:

The window below attracted much criticism in 2009 for Barneys, though I personally think there’s something amazing about conveying such extreme movement — mimicking gangster movies — in a frozen tableau:

The Pucci Mannequin company (mentioned before) collaborated with many “high art” artists. Ruben Toledo (1960-) collaborated with Pucci on a “Shapes” series of mannequins for the fashion collection of Ruben’s wife, Isabel (1961-):

As you can see, the dimensions of these forms are atypical for mannequins which traditionally mimic the body type idealized at the time of production. By contrast, “Birdie” is curvy, hippy, and even has a little belly. Though she probably resembles the bodies of living, breathing women more accurately than traditional spindly mannequins, she looks startlingly disproportionate because we’re not used to seeing “real woman” proportions glorified in mannequins. (The obvious follow-up question should be: why?) Designed to be functional displays, I think these work as controversial art in their own right. Most artists who use mannequins do not attempt to be realistic, though.

Hans Bellmer (1902 – 1975) anonymously published an amazing “Doll Project” (a.k.a. “die puppe“) book in 1934 consisting of photos of a crippled-looking, armless, peg-legged young female mannequin posed in 10 tableaux. Because of the high contrast shadows and close-cropped frame, my mind wavers between seeing a decrepit doll and believing it’s an unfortunate triple amputee, perhaps in a war-torn country (and in fact the Doll Project was a direct criticism of the growing Nazi oppression and violence Bellmer observed):

Bellmer’s later work became more abstract and involved arranging increasingly mutated human forms in progressively unconventional poses (often focusing on female genitalia, which store mannequins still only attempt in nipple realism — see my earlier segment for more on this). Ultimately forced to flee Nazi Germany, he was welcomed by the Parisian Surrealists who appreciated his odd style (bless them!).

Cindy Sherman (1954-), known for her literally transforming self portraiture, has also experimented wildly with mannequins and dolls in her photographs. Though the joints of her mannequins are pronounced, calling attention to their inanimate-ness, they are often outfitted with exaggerated or hyper-realistic sexual and reproductive organs, wrinkles and body hair, as store mannequins deliberately omit. Sherman calls attention to our simultaneous discomfort and obsession with self-image: the ravages of age, our preoccupation with hair removal, and our uneasiness with blurred gender lines, as in “Untitled #250″ (1992):

Store mannequins are created to be sexy — sex sells, after all — but Sherman pushes this concept to depict dolls in explicitly erotic situations that are somehow distinctly un-sexy, also calling to mind a doll’s (unadvertised) function as a child’s tool to explore sexuality. The doll in “Untitled Film Still #255″ (1992) has been outfitted with realistic (if hairless) genitalia and is surrounded by ordinary household objects (hairbrush, rope) that, in the context of the doll’s doggy-style position, become S&M objects of torture and pleasure:

Helmut Newton has collaborated with mannequin manufacturers since the 1960s to create “twins” for live models, used with or instead of live models. Interestingly, he features many women with visible imperfections like scars which humanize them, while gashes at joints betray mannequins. He draws your attention to the falseness of the fashion industry, the ridiculous standards of beauty, but he revels in it too.

Violetta (below) confronts her doppelgänger, even while she mimics the imposter’s oddly positioned arm. Who (or what) is more useful in the fashion industry, flesh or fiberglass?

Newton experimented with the roles of mannequins and flesh-and-blood models, often pairing realistic dummies and women together (as above) or posing mannequins in public spaces and models in interior settings to create subtle disorientation. He frequently places human models in stiff, awkward positions as though their bodies had limited range of motion like mannequins (or more morbidly, like cadavers):

In “Store Dummies I” (French Vogue, 1976), two incredibly realistic dress forms are posed in a Sapphic moment of seduction, one on a marble slab (morgue reference?) and the other in a state of frozen dishabille:

I love how Newton pokes fun at the fashion industry, places lifeless forms in vulgar poses to sell clothes, drawing an uncomfortable parallel between glamor mannequins, vapid models, and outright sex dolls. And speaking of sex dolls….

I must mention sculptor Allen Jones (1937-), whom I discovered while browsing in an amazing art-and-literature bookstore in Montmartre several years ago. Jones is infamous for his pieces depicting forniphilia — where sexual (S&M) objectification is manifested in a submissive partner acting as a piece of furniture. Jones substitutes human submissives acting as inanimate objects with inanimate mannequins depicting human submissives acting as inanimate objects (got that?). These women (more voluptuous than standard mannequins, closer to blow up doll proportions) are sex objects and domestic objects at once, two roles (three if we’re including being an “object”) women have struggled to define themselves outside of:

I must also point out the rug, indicative of the era and also deliciously vulgar in its associations with bear skin glamor shots and art historical connotations of pubic hair.

Predictably Jones’ creations have been deemed misogynistic by many. He has humorously responded, “I was reflecting on and commenting on exactly the same situation that was the source of the feminist movement. It was unfortunate for me that I produced the perfect image for them to show how women were being objectified.” Gotta love the self-aware man!

If Jones’ pieces look vaguely familiar, it’s probably because Stanley Kubric attempted to mimic them in the infamous Korova Milk Bar for his distopian A Clockwork Orange (1971), after Jones refused to work for free. Kubric’s versions are stripped of their fetish gear and props (cushions and glass tabletop) and are monochromatic white, establishing a visual relationship with the white-clad gang of the film and with classical marble sculpture:

Early Surrealist painter Giorgio De Chirico (1888 – 1978) made a similar comparison many decades earlier, between stone busts and more animate (if more abstract), jointed, mannequin-like figures. “Il Ritornante” (1918) depicts a drowsy marble bust with realistic facial hair and a dummy composed of mismatched scrap materials. It’s unclear if one of the figures is actually animated and has created the other, but regardless, a strong connection is made between the structure of the room itself and the bodies: one is a caryatid-like supportive column and the other appears to be made of ribbed sheet metal, wooden blocks, and T-square rulers. The flattened perspective makes it even more difficult to distinguish the human forms in the foreground from the cluttered tower of planks and door in the background, visually uniting the human-ish forms with the room’s architecture:

In “The Disquieting Muses” from the same year, De Chirico turned the column fluting into drapes of himation robes, topped with dress form knobs that resemble disproportionate heads. Again, there are buildings in the background and a more fully realized Grecian-like statue that has a similarly blank, oval head, blurring lines between the structures of buildings, statues, mannequins and humans:

Fellow Surrealist and Dadaist Man Ray (1890-1976) experimented with mannequins in photography around the same time. His father had fittingly worked in the New York garment industry and as a tailor, his mother was a seamstress. Times critic Sarah Rosenberg recently wrote, “Dada artists used mannequin parts… as a reflection of consumer culture and war trauma.” The mannequin below appears to be ensconced in a tangled wire bubble reminiscent of barbed wire, with a ridiculous fake mustache (disguise?) and a protective metal corset. It’s not hard to draw comparisons to Man Ray’s persecuted Russian Jewish immigrant history, which he went to great lengths to conceal even after achieving success.

“Mannequin with a bird cage over her head” (1938-66) is a similarly posed naked mannequin that has been gagged, her entire head and shoulders caged, some tiny arm-like appendages reaching out of one side. Places where “private” hair grows — armpits, crotch — have been decorated with whimsical flowers and feathers. It’s sinister and silly at once:

As mannequins have been anatomically perfected and increasingly incorporated into the public sphere via window displays, they have also been utilized by artists other than designers and window dressers. Humans are obsessed with self-representation: in 2-dimensional portraiture, 3-dimensional dummies, and even moving mechanical droids. Even while we understand they’re inanimate objects, when mutated, manipulated, or uncannily accurate, they have tremendous power to attract and repel (I’ll wager some readers were disturbed by at least one image I included). Like few other functional objects, they have the inherent ability to act as commentary on beauty standards, surgical manipulation, sexual taboos, persecution, and the very relationship of reality to its distorted image. Some day I’ll have my own mannequin collection, to dangle from my ceilings and to dress up and undress and to play with, but in the meantime, I’ll content myself with powerful images like these.

Additional resources:

• “Mannequins: Fantasy Figures of High Fashion” by Emily and Per Ola d ‘Aulaire, Smithsonian Magazine , April 1991
• Fashion Windows “Historical Overview of Mannequins“
• The Show Window periodical magazine, edited by L. Frank Baum

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Picking up from where I left off last week, I’m going to address mannequins’ evolution in the second half of the 20th century.

The revolutionary ’60s came as a shock to the world, the American youth rebelling against the traditions of their conservative parents who desired normalcy and stability after the chaos of WWII. The FDA’s approval of birth control pills in 1960 beckoned the sexual revolution; free love challenged the marriage-monogamy favored in the ’50s, women took charge of their bodies and their careers outside the home. After the post-war homemaking scenes enacted in ’50s storefronts, the next generation of mannequins aimed to capture real women rather than idealized versions of them… to a greater extent, anyway. Adel Rootstein’s company produced mannequins based on living, iconic people such as Twiggy (seen below), Patty Boyd, and Sandy Shaw, creating a secondary kind of functional pop art:

These mannequins were designed with increasingly kinetic stances, reflecting the growing obsession with youthfulness and freedom of movement (this could include freedom of professional sphere as well as freedom from more restrictive garments).

The 1970s saw more ethnic diversity in mannequins; Decter of Los Angeles presented it’s Reflections VII collection with Asian and Black mannequins “walking” arm in arm. There was greater attention to anatomical accuracy too, specifically nipples. As short and mod ’60s fashions evolved to the long, flowing, backless or see-through styles of the ’70s, structured bras were worn less by live women and mannequin nipples more realistically displayed these braless styles. Capitalizing on the “natural” look, VIVA Lingerie even had a nipple bra that had padded nipples with the “support you want” (hilarious!):

In the same vein of growing skin exposure, as the fashionable waist was lowered from the natural waistline to the hipline, the torso joint of mannequins’ upper and lower halves was likewise lowered, to display bikinis without the distracting visible split line.

The recession of the early 1990s led to minimalistic, abstract fashions, and also mannequins that still looked good in simple (cheaper) settings. Headless mannequins had the bonus of being politically correct (no ethnicity = every ethnicity) and era unspecific, with the bonus of eliminating time intensive makeup and hair styling.

Plus-size, juniors and maternity fashion were finally recognized as a significant part of the fashion industry and so mannequins were built with a wider variety of shapes and sizes to cater to these growing markets. Below are mannequins with larger-than-usual butts for those with a Jennifer Lopez shape, commonly seen in my former ‘hood, Spanish Harlem:

Several designers have experimented with mannequins in addition to straightforward fashion design. Alexander McQueen inspired mannequin designers when he utilized clear mannequins lit inside with fiber optics in Givenchy’s Fall 1998 haute couture runway show. The Pucci Mannequin company made a name for themselves by collaborating with different artists to produce unique, unusual mannequins. These guest designers included Kenny Sharf, Ruben Toledo, Maira Kalman,

and Anna Sui.

And mannequins have inspired fashion designers themselves in an interesting reversal of influence. Aminaka Wilmont created a trompe l’oeil dress that mimics a mannequin on a dress (that I desperately want to own, by the way):

And on that note, I’ll leave you with yet another cliff-hanger (it’s a stretch, I know): next week I’ll look into the relationship between mannequins and fine art, which is my personal favorite part of this story!

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I happened to run across an old issue of Hue, FIT’s alumni magazine, and read a surprisingly interesting article on “The Life and Times of Mannequins” by Alex Joseph. Though I have not previously studied dress forms in depth, I have been mistaken for a mannequin (I spaced out in a flu-induced frozen position while waiting for a friend when another customer hilariously reached out to inspect my garment), and I’m also drawn to the creepiness I think is inherent in mannequins… and so I’ll pretend my recent reading list and newfound interest qualifies me to inform you about the history of stationary models.

The Dutch word manneken literally means “little man,” though most mannequins were and are technically female forms. As the history of dress dates to ancient times, so does the history of dress forms; a wooden torso was found near a clothing chest in King Tut’s tomb, dating to approximately 1350B.C.:

Thousands of years later, European monarchs produced “fashion dolls” as examples of national style — Charles IV of France sent one to Richard II of England in 1396 as part of a peace negotiations. And Henry IV of France (1553 – 1610) dispatched miniature, elegantly attired dolls to his fiancée, Marie de’ Medici of Florence. Caroline Weber goes into amazing detail about the deliberate Frenchification of Austria-born Marie Antoinette in her book, similarly to update her on French trends and therefore facilitate her connection to her stylish adopted land and people. Monarch aside, these miniature models were used to spread the latest trends across countries throughout the 1700s. But it would take technological advancements to move the dress form from private doll to public display item.

The mid-19th century inventions of electricity-fueled incandescent light bulbs and plate glass enabled merchants to create window displays to advertise their goods. Add the ease and speed of manufacturing ready-to-wear clothes afforded by the invention of the sewing machine, and it becomes obvious why the mannequin became a standard display prop at this time, surpassing its initial dressmaker’s functionality. The department store established itself in the American way of life by 1910, and these larger businesses had more money to invest in expensive mannequins which would ideally help them move the quantities of merchandise they needed to. Facial expression and body language became increasingly important (ancient and pre-Victorian forms were often headless) as window dressers like L. Frank Baum (known for his masterpiece The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900) used them to create arresting vignettes on their mini stages. “Window gazing” became a popular pastime for potential customers, eventually morphing into the familiar “window shopping.” Dressmaker suppliers like Gems Wax Models (est. 1885) and Siegel and Stockman of Paris experimented with articulated legs, arms and wooden hands with bendable digits in an effort to more closely mimic human activities, if stiffly. The latter company even began to produce sitting figures, bicyclists and representations of celebrated athletes at the end of the 19th century (see my post on Bicycles and Athletic Fashion). Sometimes with glass eyes, realistic teeth and human hair, attempts to make early mannequins more lifelike ultimately resulted in creepiness. Iron feet stabilized their teetering skeletons but contributed to unwieldy heft — they could weigh up to 300 pounds.

Skin-mimicking wax had the downside of melting under hot electric lights and cracking in cold winters. Subsequent mannequins constructed of plastic and papier mâché were more durable, lightweight, and flexible, making them easier to imbue with lifelike gestures.

Compare this 1909 storefront…

to one from 10 years later. Note the increased interaction between mannequins, the more sophisticated, narrative scene:

The 1929 stock market crash garnered invention in many ways. In the teens and early 1920s mannequin facial expressions became more animated, perhaps a reaction to silent films. Khol-rimmed eyes, bee-stung lips and razor-thin eyebrows that gained acceptance and popularity on the silver screen were transcribed onto new mannequins. Made with papier-mâché, the new material shed off about 100 pounds, coincidentally embracing the more slender female form, often with Mannerist-like elongated necks:

In 1925, Siegel & Stockman, Paris startled the display industry with abstract mannequins in 1925 that mimicked the clean lines of Art Deco. Siegel himself said “The old mannequin, too realistic to respond to the abstract form assumed the architecture and decoration, could no longer fit into the window display with its effective and sober luxury as it is now conceived. This basic conviction prompted me to make an appeal to a new form of expression in order to bring about a timely rejuvenation and modernization.”

Author Nicole Parrot observed the “elegant and snooty” look of the 1920s were replaced with the “pert and gamine” look in mannequins during the Depression of the 1930s. An Austrian dollmaker-turned-mannequin manufacturer, Kathe Kruse, devised a metal skeleton that was covered with a skin-like material, enabling a variety of positions. “Cynthia” was a 100-pound model created by Lester Gaba in 1932 who had realistic imperfections like freckles, pigeon toes, and even different sized feet. Gaba posed with Cynthia around New York City for a Life Magazine shoot that humorously demonstrates how lifelike the mannequins had become:

Tragically, Cynthia  met her demise when she slipped from a chair in a beauty salon.

The more severe mannequin expressions reflected the unease and hardships of WWII. As a fashion historian I already knew that the dress silhouette in the 1940s became slimmer and less embellished to waste less fabric, due to raw material shortages and wartime rationing. I only recently learned, however, that mannequins themselves were made to be shorter than the 1930s models, with the same goal of conserving precious resources for the war effort. At the war’s conclusion, Mayorga Mannequins introduced “Welcome Home Mannequins” where a man and woman held their hands outstretched towards each other, while a small girl looked expectantly at her father. This narrative was tempered by glamorized Hollywood poses that were also available, but traditional family values (including consumerism) continued to be recreated in storefront vignettes:

This article will be continued shortly in Part II…

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Fashion inevitably looks to history to interpret and re-interpret previous fashion trends. At the recent SAG Awards, I noticed 2 Egyptian-influenced dresses, worn by Toni Collette and Nicole Kidman:

As I’m never content to stay in the current era for long, let’s go back 100 years to trace a century of Egyptomania….

The Egyptian style has been adopted and interpreted by practically every generation. Cleopatra (69BC – 30BC) has always held special fascination for people. Documented by writers Plutarch and Casius Dio, the lady was “a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to every one. Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate every one, even a love-sated man already past his prime, she thought that it would be in keeping with her role to meet Caesar, and she reposed in her beauty all her claims to the throne.” The mythology of her man-seducing ways never gets old; she notoriously bedded Julius Caesar and his successor Mark Antony resulting in a Roman-Egyptian political alliance of unsurpassed breadth, and took her own life in a marvelously morbid manner. Having become an almost mythological creature, she’s been depicted in art ever since. With the dawn of the 20th century’s art form — the moving image — a new crop of Cleopatras have been etched into our collective consciousness. With each Cleopatra film, a new variation of familiar Egyptian themes rears its head. In spite of the common subject, virtually none of these films used historically accurate costumes. As always, the ideal female form, makeup techniques, and hairstyles are more indicative of the decade of film production rather than the period depicted.

THEDA BARA

The 1917 version of Cleopatra with the marvelously eccentric Theda Bara (see my post on Vamps for more on Theda) demonstrates how aesthetics were ripe for incorporating Egyptian motifs. Though it’s the earliest film I’ll discuss, in many ways it’s the most scandelous, with Bara wearing sheer, gauzy skirts and teeny, ornate bras that barely conceal her naughty bits (this was only legal pre- and post-Hays Production Code, 1934 – 1968). Fashion was just starting to move away from the corseted figure and Theda embraced the freedom in her Nile goddess:

This last one reminds me of “The Last Sitting” of Marilyn Monroe, photographed by Bert Stern in 1962 (Marilyn is clearly far more playful than Theda):

The khol-rimmed eyes already popular in the 1910s and 20s were easily adapted to more accurate heavy Egyptian makeup:

In this outfit, the mythology of the Egyptian firebird and immortal Phoenix are translated into a more general symbol of Far East exoticism, the peacock:

The 1922 discovery of King Tut’s intact tomb of lost treasures rocked the world. The angularity of the Egyptian depictions of their garments played right into the visual fractures of the Futurism and Art Deco movements.

Here is one of my favorite Futurist paintings:

Here is an elevator door from the Chrysler Building (built 1929-1930), monument of Art Deco architecture:

CLAUDETTE COLBERT

By the time Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra (1934) starring Claudette Colbert was made, the bold Art Deco lines of the ’20s were starting to give way to the softer drapes of the ’30s. Coincidentally (or not), the ’30s gave way not to Egyptomania, but to similarly ancient Greek/Roman revival. Designers like Fortuny and Madeleine Vionnet embraced the pleats, draped lines and classical simplicity of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Fortuny’s famous sheath gown was based on the classical Greek chiton was appropriately named the “Delphos” gown:

The crinkly texture is the result of a meticulous, top-secret process Fortuny never revealed — customers would return their gowns directly to the designer for re-pleating when the pleats flattened.

Colbert’s Cleopatra is a bit more smug, a bit cuter, a bit less vampy than others, as seen in her rather benevolent expressions. The first ensemble is one of the only film costumes I found that actually incorporated pleating:

The simple geometry is complimented by the extravagant gold lame skirt here:

Again, with vaguely exotic peacock imagery:

The red lips and drawn on, razor-thin eyebrows were typical of the ’30s:

LIZ TAYLOR

Though the movie was a box office flop — at least compared to its exorbitant, record breaking budget — Elizabeth Taylor as the 1963 version of Cleopatra is perhaps the best remembered today. They used the still-young Technicolor technology to great effect in her eye-popping monochrome outfits. While black and white certainly contributes to the bygone times feeling of the other films, color symbolism was important to the Egyptians, and the ’60s were all about psychedelic colors. Taylor’s wigs are probably the most blatant of the 3 Cleopatras — no effort is made to maintain consistent hair length, texture or style. This is actually accurate; wealthy Egyptians had shorn heads and wore wigs to avoid lice and to be cooler (sans wig) in private.

The liquid-liner experiments of the mod 1960s and the geometric Vidal Sassoon hairdos come through in Liz:

The cinched waists of the of the ’50s are still evident (these were always to be in style for the curvaceous Ms. Taylor):

Madame Gres (1903-1993) continued the trend of classical Grecian style throughout her career, with unauthentic molded bodices and soft jersey that nonetheless mimiced the draped swags of Greek himations:

These films have melded a generic Egyptian look, as recognizable by the general public, with fashions of the periods during which they were created. Critical as I may be in matters regarding historical accuracy, this liberty doesn’t actually bother me. The costume designers needed to convey the allure, sexiness, and unquestionable power Cleopatra commanded with her physical presence to modern audiences, and inaccurate as the garments are, I think all were successfully interpreted through modern lenses to further the plots using visuals viewers would implicitly understand.

We’re about due for another incarnation of Egyptomania, don’t you agree?

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I stumbled upon the contest Cheap-ChicWeddings.com sponsored for the most impressive wedding gowns made of — wait for it — toilet paper! Yes, this humble stuff is the focus of an annual challenge to use as the sole fabric of a wedding dress. I’m always interested to learn how technology affects textiles and by extension, fashion, but it’s equally interesting to be confronted with garments made of material whose primary function is not the building block of a dress (some will recall my earlier post on a similar duct tape prom dress competition). Yet another difficulty was probably disguising the “fabric” so it concealed its bathroom origins.

Though I myself have never tackled such a garment, challenges working with this particular paper would, I imagine, include transparency and flimsiness. But like all materials, I suspect experimenting with various brands would be part of the process, finding the texture, weight, stiffness, etc., that best suited various parts of the garment. Frankly, the whole contest reminds me a bit of the Charmin “quilted” toilet paper ads of bears and things sewing toilet paper for a supposedly softer, quilted product. It strikes me as hilarious that non-cartoon animals tackle this task… and in the form of wedding dresses, no less! Following are 2009’s winners.

First place winner:

Though this contest is on the alternative side of crafty fashion, paper dresses are not actually new. The 1950s paved the way for this temporary and flimsy fashion by integrating more and more rapid obsolescence in products, from seasonal cars models to kitchen appliances, aggressively marketed as lifestyle essentials. Many historians attribute the ready acceptance of these sped-up trends to a pervasive feeling of impermanence, due in no small part to the fear and doom of nuclear war. It is with some irony that the government itself looked to paper as an alternative to cloth.

In the 1960s the government began experimenting with paper textiles. Paper’s light weight, insulating qualities, and cheapness made it an attractive choice for disposable combat garments, parachutes, and pup tents. The idea went viral when a corporation adopted the idea: in 1966 the Scott Paper Company used a paper dress as a gimmicky marketing ploy where for $1 women could buy a rather shapeless paper dress and get Scott coupons. To the surprise of many (including Scott Paper), women actually loved the dresses (though the color apparently rubbed off easily) and Scott sold half a million of them in 8 months. Fashion designers jumped on the bandwagon soon afterwards, and the paper dress craze lasted for the next few years.

Here is perhaps the most recognizable paper dress, the 1960’s Campbell’s Soup dress that was inspired by the work of Andy Warhol — expendability and easy reproduction was central to the Pop Art movement, after all. These were produced by Campbell’s Soup as an advertising campaign (see the ad here). It’s a classic example of how fashion intersects art and industry:

The infatuation with paper clothes didn’t last long. They tore easily, were highly flammable, and a bit too fad-ish to last past 1969. Though the full-blown craze died out decades ago, there are still those who use paper as a deliberately challenging material:

And a 1960s version of similar concept:

Hussein Chalayn constructed a paper airmail dress that you could write on, fold up and send, and finally wear, humorously playing with ideas of original textile function, disposability, and usefulness:

Designer James Rosenquist created a papery suit out of Tyvek®, a nonwoven fabric made from spun-bonded olefin, adding gender to the mix of concepts (why weren’t paper clothes made for men in the 60s?):

Leona Scull-Hons had a performance art piece where she wore an elaborate paper dress throughout the day and then sat in a chair in the gallery every evening to sew all the tears. Though I didn’t see the piece myself, I love how she incorporated the female-dominated tradition of sewing and mending, utilizing the frailty of paper to accelorate the breakdown process of clothes.

I thought I’d leave off with the paper gown we are probably most familiar with today, though it was invented in the mid 20th century alongside the obsolete paper dresses. Keeping in mind how awful these feel, can you imagine purchasing one to wear in public??

Further Reading:

• “Fashion: Real Live Paper Dolls,” Time Life article, March 1967
• Fear and Fashion in the Cold War, by Jane Pavitt
• DIY paper dresses

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As friends and family already know, I love me some anatomical charts, grotesque dissections of the intricate layers of the human body, old-timey skeletons and medical charts of muscle groups and the nervous system, etc. It appeals to my love of dissection in general, I think: peeling away layers of a body — or a topic (i.e. fashion) — in order to better understand the interconnectivity between seemingly disparate systems and subjects. It has therefore been will great relish that I’ve explored the blog Street Anatomy which collects art, design, and fashion, as related to anatomy (check out the Fashion and Products + Apparel categories). Here are some of my favorites:

And I was blown away at the hand-bleached skeleton hoodie:

Another, more shameful, addiction I’ve indulged lately is Lady Gaga videos. Lady Gaga shares my fascination with anatomy, often merging the robotic and mechanical with flesh and blood in her always deliciously ridiculous outfits. Several of her videos feature men with metal prostheses — a jaw, an eye patch — and she herself assumes a kind of crippled robot appearance after falling from a balcony during a lovers’ scuffle:

This photo is terrible quality, but it still gives the full package of this awesomely crazy ensemble — and yes, those are braces she’s clutching (while in stilettos, no less!):

Though it’s more of a brace gone awry, the costume very much reminds me of the robot woman in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), playing with the idea of anatomy that mimics humans’ but is actually android:

I love this double bustier, which highlights how somewhat arbitrarily the corset (an exoskeleton if ever there was one) has dictated where breasts fall –

sometimes pushed flat (as in the 16th century),

sometimes hoisted up to the collarbone.

And while this exaggerated, padded ribcage / spine seems edgy in 2009…

it was downright scandalous in 1938 when Elsa Schiaparelli designed the dress version (which I want sooooo bad, by the way):

Even when her costumes don’t mimic metal armor, Lady Gaga favors clothes that are extremely restrictive, and hard or voluminous to the point of hilarious and delightful impracticality: essentially sartorial exoskeletons that often cover her very head and face. I highly recommend youtubing her full videos even if you don’t like her music, but beware: they are highly addictive and you too might end up loving her somewhat against your will.

Like every so-called cutting edge, influential trend setter, Lady Gaga is not without her influences. I see a lot of Helmut Newton (possibly my favorite fashion photographer) in Lady G’s style:

Newton had a series juxtaposing live models with identical mannequins, as on the cover of his fantastically awesome book:

He also had an usual series of ads that were actually x-rays of the products (jewelry, shoes), directly comparing and contrasting the metal prongs and hinges to the bones and joints of the women wearing the baubles:

As much as I myself love adorning my body with beautiful underwear and clothes and jewelry and hats, there’s something beautiful, raw and powerful in the brutal functionality of human anatomy. Being somewhat of a prude in terms of body coverage, the idea of wearing modest layers that suggest the stripping away of clothes (and skin) appeals to me greatly, also satisfying my  penchant for the grotesque.  It’s not such a leap to see the relationship between structural skeletons, supportive braces / prosthetics, and protective armor, right? But what is it about these hard bodies that make them so repulsive, and yet enticing? The frailty and strength of the human form? Could it be related to our growing obsession with (corporate) transparency, coupled with a need for structure? It’s an idea, anyway.

See my post on Vamps for more on skeletons, sex, and death.

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Occasionally fancying myself an exotic woman of mystery too, I have a special place in my heart for that early 20^th century icon, The Vamp. When my friend (whose intelligent and fun horror blog And Now the Screaming Starts this is cross-posted on) suggested I write about them, I welcomed the opportunity to revisit some silent films when this aesthetic was solidified in concept and look.

THEDA BARA & THE LURE OF THE EXOTIC

Though Theda Bara (1890 – 1955) enshrouded her adult life in mystery, she was born plain old Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, OH. Hollywood producers gave her the anagram of “Arab death,” on the one hand cultivating her image of smoky, exotic sensualism — claiming she lit incense on her sets and swathed herself in tiger pelts — and on the other hand, hyping the macabre and frightening side of her.

Most recognize the term “vamp” to mean a femme fatale — an irresistible woman who leads to the destruction of those who surround her, typically men. But the term was initially coined only after the success of Theda Bara’s single surviving film, A Fool There Was (1915), in which her gleefully man-destroying character is listed in the credits simply as “The Vampire.” Based on Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Vampire” (1897) and Sir Edward Burne-Jones’ painting of the same name (1897); the visual inspiration is obvious:

In A Fool There Was, The Vampire is seen in her nightgown several times, casting a spectral quality over her. Opaque and voluminous, this is not lingerie we are accustomed to today, but was risqué for the time, obviously derived from Burne-Jones’ sex-laden picture.

When wearing outerwear, The Vampire wore the amusingly impractical (and thankfully short-lived) hobble skirt, topped with exotic turbans and heavily kohled eyes. To seduce her victim she drops a flower and lifts her skirt to reveal her ankle — she is unashamed to show blatantly erotic skin.

What differentiated Theda from other actresses of her time was her other-worldliness, which she cultivated with her Oriental aesthetics. The horror genre is filled with tales of distant or remote lands; the audience’s presumed unfamiliarity with the locale makes the fantastic tales slightly more plausible; the storyteller prays on the public’s inherent mistrust and simultaneous attraction to the exotic, The Other. Though the most exotic location in A Fool There Was was Italy (puzzlingly portrayed as a palm tree paradise more suggestive of the Far East), The Vampire produces a non-specific and highly erotic exoticism. Not a tremendous actor, it was largely Theda’s unusual costumes and makeup on and off-screen that enshrouded her in Oriental mystique and secured her notoriety.

Promises of harem girls with all the connotations of master / slave dynamics and orgies have been irrevocably linked to soft, sheer, feminine fabrics that simultaneously cover and reveal forbidden flesh (see my post on Innerwear as Outerwear for more on this subject). Seemingly anticipating the Egyptian madness that occurred after the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, the Far East captivated the imagination of the Western world. Designer Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944) made his mark on the fashion world by morphing the 19^th century S-shape corset silhouette into un-corseted, athletic figures, and he incorporated many loose-fitting, Oriental-inspired designs to this end including harem pants, “formal” silk pajamas, and turbans. Poiret designed extravagant costumes for stage productions, hosted legendary Arabian-themed costume parties, his fondness for theatrical-scale dress-up evident in the fashions he produced for general consumption.

Even earlier was Emilienne d’Alençon (1869 – 1946) who performed at the Folies Bergères in the 1890s (with trained rabbits!) and was just as famous a courtesan, who wore Art Nouveau inspired Salome costumes:

The Ballet Russes’ performance of “Schéhérazade” in 1910 was enormously successful, due in large part to the extravagant costumes of vague Eastern inspiration:

Erte, who worked with Poiret and with whom I am obsessed, was yet another costume designer who marketed sensual Oriental decadence for lavish stage productions.

Mata Hari (1876 – 1917), the exotic Orientalist dancer of Dutch descent who posed as princess from Java while acting as courtesan and spy (try fitting that on your business card), was executed by firing squad just 2 years after A Fool There Was. Legend has it that she blew a kiss to her executioners.

Her unusual headdress is strikingly similar to our Theda Bara’s, non?

Theda tapped into a cultural obsession with styles of the Far East, while exploiting the unease and xenophobia that often accompanies our regard of The Other, rolling it all into a destructive, man-eating “vampire” character. The Vamp concept was to evolve, though never to shake the ruinous qualities Theda imbued in her.

LOUISE BROOKS & MODERN ADVANCEMENTS

As Theda’s star waned, a new vamp talent stepped up: Louise Brooks (1906 – 1985). If Theda was the vaguely ancient, exotic vamp, Louise was her modern flapper vamp successor. As women’s rights gained momentum in America a powerful new woman emerged, wearing visible makeup as she walked to the voting polls, smoking and drinking and dancing in shift dresses that bared shins (oh my!). Even as many women embraced this freedom, societal concerns of propriety remained and moralist detractors prophesized hedonistic anarchy. Dress also changed radically in the nineteen-teens, with fewer layers that a woman could slip into (and out of!), exposing more skin than ever. And so Louise Brooks was a very different looking vamp from Theda, even while her characters carried the torch of man destroyers.

Pandora’s Box (1929) was adapted from 2 erotic plays written in the 1890s by Frank Wedekind, but updated to then-modern times. As many young women cut their cumbersome long hair, Brooks as the Lulu character sports her own iconic, modern bob and wears clothes un-constrictive enough that she can do light gymnastics (like swing from a strongman’s biceps), hinting at the newly acceptable athleticism for women (see my post on Athletic Aesthetics). The erotic zones had shifted and multiplied since Theda Bara’s time, moving from the ankle to the shoulders, back, legs, and breasts which were often displayed braless.

Having become a somewhat accidental murderess, Lulu goes into hiding and curls the famous hair, sweeping it off her forehead. Ridiculous as it sounds, Brooks’ hairstyle was so recognizable that this shoddy disguise actually succeeds in confusing the audience a little, though Lulu is discovered anyway.

Lulu is a dangerous vamp not because she’s controlling and malicious, but because she’s a beautiful young woman whose very power is derived from her lack of pretension and seeming ignorance of her own desirability, her delicious un-self-conciousness. One-upping Bara’s Vampire, Lulu was a double threat desired by both men and women, so potent was her sexual power. The Pandora of the Greek myth was not an inherently evil woman either, just one whose curiosity got the better of her, with unfortunately dire consequences. Lulu is not even interested in money or advancing her social status — she shows equal preference for newspaper moguls and paupers, all of whom are trying to exploit her. However, she shares with other vamps her unrepentantance for acts that inconvenience or even destroy others and herself — all vamps are animalistic, with no regrets (as a side note, non-moral tales like these were only possible to portray in American cinema pre-1934, before the Hays Code was enacted).

She’s an unusual vamp fatale because she doesn’t have malicious intent. “Money, they all want money!” she complains of her blackmailers and suitors alike. She’s not a gold-digger, she’s simply a careless and carefree pleasure-seeker — exactly what conservatives feared about real-life flappers and, by extension, the women’s movement.

RESURRECTION OF THE VAMP

Since these early 20^th century beginnings, the vamp has been resurrected in film and fashion many times. Blood sucking, literal and figurative, has unavoidably sexual connotations, and fetish gear and goth style has both influenced and been influenced by vamp(ire) lore. Fashion photographer Helmut Newton channels the sexy and macabre themes of bondage and female sexual power regularly. Even as women expose themselves in his photos, they seem to retain absolute authority over their settings:

And Uma Thurman seemed to channel a bit of Louise Brooks herself with her portrayal of modern-day Mia Wallace, another beautiful, hedonistic woman whose pursuit of carnal pleasures (leading to the infamous drug overdose) jeopardizes all the men around her in Pulp Fiction (1994).

Impulse control is often explored in times of economic or political turmoil. True to point, there has been a rash of vampire productions recently including Twilight and the True Blood HBO series, but truth be told, I much prefer the original vamps!

Further Reading:

• Fashion, Desire and Anxiety, Rebecca Arnold
• Fashion Fetishism, David Kunzle
• Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power, Valerie Steele
• Seduction: A Celebration of Sensual Style, Caroline Cox
• “The Girl in the Black Helmut,” Kenneth Tynan

Recommend this Post:

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In the wake of Michael Jackson’s recent sudden death, there has been a predictable spike in pictures, radio and videos runs, articles and blog posts about the star. We often have the tendency to think of style icons as Athena: “born,” emerging from Zeus’s head swathed in what was to be her trademark ensemble of full armor. This theory has been confirmed by the fact that most fashion discussion I’ve found has focused on Jackson’s “iconic style” with parades of comparative photos of current celebrities wearing military-style coats, red leather jackets, mono-gloves, aviator shades, etc. — all of which is appropriate testament to his talent and breadth of influence — and yet there has been very little discussion on what influenced the man himself. At the risk of stating the obvious, none of us live in vacuums — not even the rich and famous — and as is my wont, I’m far more interested in the idol’s own historical sartorial references, which he so successfully appropriated and interpreted that most people see him as a completely original trend setter.

CLASSIC MOVIES & MUSICALS
Though I favor his work in the Jackson 5 (I know there are many dissenters, but I do so love Motown!), considering his youth and the parental/managerial influence present during those early years, I will concentrate mainly on his mid-to-late career, after he had emerged as a solo artist. I’ll start then with his movie debut at age 20 as the Scarecrow alongside Diana Ross’s Dorothy in The Wiz (1978), remake of the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939), which introduced him to the wonderful world of classic movies. I’m not the first to see how those suave, glittery MGM musicals manifested themselves both in Jackson’s dancing and wardrobe.

Jackson regularly sported white suits (see Thriller album cover for a casual, pared down version) with matching fedoras bearing uncanny resemblance to the ensemble Fred Astaire wears with Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon (1953). For those unfamiliar with that mediocre musical (for which I have an inexplicable tenderness), “The Girl Hunt Ballet” dance number is a musical-within-a-musical where Astaire and Charisse enact a ’40s film noir-style murder mystery:

Here’s Michael’s version from the “Smooth Criminal” video:

Even the alternate, more informal versions of Jackson’s look consisting of black slacks, white tank top, unbuttoned white undershirt and fedora may very well have been a deconstructed vestmental homage to Astaire, one of the most formal of the musical men in film. (I admit I may be reading just a wee bit too much into this one, but isn’t the game fun?)

Michael in HIStory tour (1997) white suit:

And West Side Story (1961) undoubtedly influenced both the “Beat It” (1983) and “Bad” (1987) videos, down to the line dance choreography style. Jackson’s videos have only slightly less dubiously threatening song-and-dance gang confrontations. “Bad” even mimics the set of West Side Story’s “Cool” number, which also occurs in a garage, moments after the Jets’ gang leader (Riff) is killed by the rival gang in a scuffle:

“Bad” video:

“Beat It” video:

Michael’s signature ankle-bearing pants paired with penny loafers and white socks highlighted his dance moves, it’s true. But they also bear telling resemblance to another famous song-and-dance movie star, Gene Kelly:

Jackson’s take:

Though not a movie star, the undeniable live concert showman James Brown was explicitly credited by Michael as being hugely influential. They share a talent for energetic performances, impressive tonal ranges (not many can hit those upper registers like these two!), and love of shiny jackets and straightened hairstyles.

Jackson and Brown performing at the 2003 BET Awards in Los Angeles:

There was also a healthy dose of Elvis inspiration evident in Jackson, what with his penchant for gold lame and gyrating crotch moves. In an interesting (some might say disturbing) twist, Jackson actually married Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie, thus tapping into his idol’s bloodline while possibly attempting to silence gay / sexual deviant rumors (the molestation trial was a mere year before the short-lived marriage).

THE DARK MISFIT
Thus far I’ve concentrated on Michael’s fondness for classic cinema and musicals, but there were most definitely darker influences as well. His leather-and-buckle style emerged perhaps as Michael struggled with his life of imposed near-solitude and the battle for privacy he fought from the media and crazed fans. He seemed to identify with, and then project, a kind of misunderstood misfit persona, even while continuing grueling tours and recording sessions. April’s auction of Jackson’s ephemera included many of his home furnishings, sculptures, children’s race cars, and many many spangly clothes, but what caught my special notice were the Edward Scissorhands (1990) prop hands.

It turns out that Jackson had aggressively lobbied for title part in Tim Burton’s movie, and I’ve since realized this interest makes perfect sense. He was dressing like Edward Scissorhands before the movie was even made, with his wan skin tone, limp black hair, and ladders of leather straps and buckles. His penchant for these leather buckles was perhaps indicative of deeper, darker insecurities; desire for restraint in others and to be restrained oneself. They call to mind mental patients’ restraints and also S&M gear, as was fitting for a man whose mental stability and sexuality were examined and questioned throughout his career.

Jackson’s interpretations:
In gold lame with leather buckles catcher kneepads in HIStory tour (1992) in Prague:

Michael Jackson touring Bad in Maryland 1988 (before E.S., the year he moves into Neverland Ranch):

MILITARY / ROYALTY
The other side of the shy, misunderstood outsider was Jackson’s royal persona. His astounding collection of military jackets are protective in their stiffness, and project masculine virility and power with their broad shoulders (which temporarily mask Jackson’s narrow frame), and suggestion of violent battle. They are also commonly worn by male monarchs (who typically rely on medals rather than Jackson’s rhinestones for bling). Jackson was dubbed the “King of Pop” because of his extraordinary talent, but he shared other, less desirable similarities with kings. Like any monarch, his movement was confined to his personal properties and heavily guarded mobbed public appearances, which was undoubtedly trying. And since he achieved such fame at such a young age, like any prince or king, he had virtually no opportunity for normal, unfettered geographic exploration, and he alternately embraced this gift/curse — as in his royal military ensembles — and fought against it — as in his more threatening, soldier-based military ensembles.

Prince Charles:

Some of Jackson’s military jackets were rather conservative, approximating their official prototypes, but many more were colorful, glitzy, and laden with sparkles. It’s no coincidence that Jackson was a huge admirer of earlier pop royalty the Beatles (he procured the publishing rights to that influential band’s songbook) whose influential album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) portrayed the Beatles in silly psychedelic ’60s military gear:

And Michael’s interpretations:

The flamboyant “King of Pop” in his royal jacket, complete with golden sash and epaulets, with presidential royalty the Reagans in conservative suits:

SEXUALITY / GENDER
As many rock stars do, Jackson walked a tightrope between hyper-masculinity and femininity. Even glossing over the gory details of the Neverland Ranch kiddie porn/molestation fiasco (starting in 1993), I would be remiss to ignore Michael Jackson’s gender and sexuality issues. He never shied from gender ambiguity: on the contrary, he seemed to revel in them. His willowy body, straightened, flowing locks, lack of visible body or facial hair, permanent eyeliner and lipstick, and surgically slenderized jawline all contradicted his signature performative crotch grabs and pelvic thrusts. “In the Closet” (1991) is delightfully questionable in meaning, possibly referring to the unwanted media attention or to his ambiguous sexuality.

Jackson’s peek-a-boo curls emulate classic stars Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake…

and bear eerie resemblance to his close personal friend who happens to be a classic movie star herself, Elizabeth Taylor:

In the “Scream” (1995) video, Michael and sister Janet are dressed in identical outfits that are clearly designed to blur dissimilarities between the siblings, not least of which being their respective genders:

The umbrella Jackson started toting for portable shade blurred gender lines in a more subtle way, plucked from the long line of both Eastern and Western women protecting themselves from the sunlight’s harsh rays by strolling with parasols.

A geisha under a parasol (note the similar white skin and red mouth):

The body suits of the 1990s were generally worn by women, and then underneath pants. Jackson’s body suits worn over his pants, served as inner-as-outwear, much as Madonna used Gautier’s external corset/body suit in her Blond Ambition tour (1990). Though they were a female fashion, Jackson actually uses them to emphasize his crotch (Madonna did as well), both confusing gender lines and emphasizing male ones. Finally (but less interesting), the body suit has practical applications, staying put while the body underneath gyrates and writhes in dance, though I somehow doubt that’s what attracted Michael to them.

HIStory tour (1995):

Madonna in Jean-Paul Gautier’s Blond Ambition bustier (1990). (She sometimes wore it over pants like Michael.)

BURLESQUE
Part of what feminized many of Jackson’s ensembles were the sheer numbers of sparkles, lending a burlesque feeling to an otherwise masculine outfit. Much of his wardrobe was designed to remain visible to stadiums of thousands, but even in smaller gatherings and public appearances, the man indulged his penchant for rhinestones. Rhinestone studded and luminescent materials have a rich tradition in the (female dominated) burlesque world, highlighting every curve and suggestive movement for the audience. Again Michael taps into an overtly sexual genre, muddling his presentation of his sexuality.

Dita Von Teese, covergirl of the neo-burlesque movement, as a sexy rhinestone cowboy:

Selections from Michael’s bedazzled wardrobe can be found in this slideshow. I mean, the man had bedazzled socks:

Guy Trebay of the New York Times wrote, “More than almost any entertainer in memory, Michael Jackson was entirely of show business, and was seldom out of costume.” His influences were culled from a wide variety of sources, but it’s striking that even as he borrowed heavily from both genders’ beauty standards, a wide timeline of popular fashion and pop culture references, etc., the celebrity influences were primarily caucasian / Eastern. His narrowing facial modifications, relaxed hair and mysterious extreme pallor externalize a complex struggle with race identity (in addition to the feminine associations  and gender / sexuality questions they raise).

Many of Michael Jackson’s fashions caught on (the red leather jacket, the single glove is making a comeback on the likes of Biance and Victoria Beckham, etc.), but many more were just so outrageous (silken face masks, male burkas) that they die with the man. One of the amazing aspects of Jackson’s style (and I think this is a typical marker of a fashion icon) is that no matter how outrageous he looked throughout his life, he was consistent in the visual motifs with which he decorated himself, ultimately lending an agelessness to the man — after shedding his afro, he pretty much looked like an indeterminate 20-or-30-something-year-old, did he not? May we all leave such a legacy, fashion, musical, or otherwise.

Further Reading / Viewing:

• Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costume designer of several M.J. videos including Thriller, writes for FrockTalk “Michael Jackson fashion icon“
• Video mashups:
• West Side Story with “Bad” (1987) playing, sampling clips from WSS’s knife fight scene and the “Cool” numbers. (There are many other similar mashups that actually splice Michael Jackson video clips with West Side Story ones.)
• “Puttin’ on the Ritz” with Michael Jackson actually ballroom and tap dancing in white tails and top hat circa 1977 when he was 19.
• Fred Astaire set to Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”
• New York Times slideshow

Recommend this post:

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You might have noticed, as I have, a proliferation of articles about “bicycle style” in recent months. Mayor Bloomberg has invested money in designating bike paths and adding bike racks to make New York friendlier to the traffic easing, eco-friendly transportation. Fashion has responded and, being the fashion culturalist I am, I’ve been slowly making links and connections to the history of bike fashions — and sportswear fashion in general — in an attempt to gain greater insight into this resurgence in popularity. Let’s start with the advent of bicycle culture and dress, shall we?

The first bicycles were manufactured in America in 1878. Strolling down boulevards was already a favorite pastime of the leisure class, but this wheeled invention fast became a popular sport. Men had little difficulty straddling these “velocipeds” in their trousers, but the heavy, voluminous, dragging skirts of the time — not to mention the upper-body immobility imposed by structured corsets which inhibited both bending at the waist and breathing — made it nearly impossible for women to participate in the exciting activity. Fashion aside, bicycling was initially deemed dangerous for women, who were not encouraged to exert themselves physically nor to assert their independence (i.e. stray too far from the domestic homefront literally or figuratively).

Invented in the 1850s, the bloomer costume provided an obvious source of activewear for women by covering their legs while allowing them the freedom of a bifurcated garment. However it had only ever been adopted by fringe Victorian dress reformers who were ridiculed by the press as radical feminists with silly, indecent (still!) sartorial selections, and it never achieved widespread acceptance in this form. Somehow by the mid 1890s the social stigma of women on bicycles had all but vanished and as a result, “bicycle costumes” were actually lauded as preserving modesty while preserving health. These outfits bore suspicious (and unacknowledged) resemblance to the disparaged bloomer costume by alleviating some of the major fashion impediments with narrower skirts and fewer under-layers. Here is a description of an acceptable female riding outfit from 1895:

“A combination garment was worn next [to] the skin – all wool in cold weather and cotton in warm. Over this she wore no corset, but a patent waist without bones, to which were buttoned the circular bands of drawers and petticoats. It will be seen that the waist escaped much of the pressure and dragging incident to the old style of dressing, as the only bands were of the least trying shape. Her dress skirts and waists were hooked to each other all around, thus insuring their staying together, while they were loose enough for comfort.”

Above is a pattern for a bicycling costume, sold in that same 1894 magazine. This pattern is for an adaptable costume, allowing the wearer to buckle the skirt around her legs for complete coverage of those scandalous ankles. Then she could unbuckle the skirt for a more lady-like traditional look when not on the bicycle.

I was interested to note that even in 1895, the perceived sexual transgressions of the bicycle ensemble remained an issue. One author pointedly, if humorously, wrote “The great ladies of the land will unblushingly don man’s dress, or something alarmingly like it, and jump astride their apparatus.”

As athletic activities increased in general popularity over the following decades, athletic, lean bodies became the new standard of ideal beauty. The greatest jump was in the early 20th century as the voluptuous feminine form of previous centuries (excepting only the Napoleonic era) went from curvy hourglass to flat and tubular (elastic undergarments often assisted with this allusion, as the corset had in the past). The hemlines also rose in the 1920s, when energetic dance crazes like the Charleston literally shook the Western world (fun fact: the highest hemlines crept was 1” below the knee — never higher until the 1960s). Dresses were often beaded, dripping with fringe, sashes, or asymmetrical hemlines to create pleasing effects while in motion — a far cry from the stiff, heavy, wide, deliberately debilitating female garments of earlier eras. Men’s fashion too, slimmed down to accommodate the encouraged active lifestyle.

Wars always impact fashion and WWII certainly had a tremendous impact on the styles of the 1940s. Material and dye shortages in America necessitated civilian fabric rationing and even a limited palette of allowed colors. Elegant 1930s hemlines rose to mid-calf, the bias-cut draping (a favorite 1930s innovative method of using material cut at a 45 degree angle) was too wasteful to be employed anymore, and puffy sleeves and ruffles popular in the preceding decade were all but eliminated from popular fashion out of patriotic necessity. The silhouette contracted and became boxier, more militaristic and uniform-like. For the first time, women were encouraged to join the work force to replace their boys overseas, and their work in factories further necessitated clothes cut close to the body to avoid being caught in plant machinery. (This style was gleefully abandoned with Dior’s “New Look” of 1947, which had yards of non-utilitarian skirt fabric and which embraced a curvier, feminine form once again.)

Jump ahead another few decades: though not what the era is most remembered for, track suits were introduced in the 1960s. At this time it was worn for specific physical activities like jogging and not as daily dress, but Americans worked physical fitness into their routines more and more. The 1980s saw a resurgence in obsession with athleticism, as Olivia Newton-John’s humorously dated song “Physical” (1981) attests:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQXECBdPgEA]

Though the video is undeniably silly, the song “Physical” brought the sexual connotations of physical activity to the foreground. With exaggerated flushed and dewy makeup complimenting her workout leotard, Newton-John’s double entendre embodied the wanton women 19th century men feared would come of skimpy (i.e. shorter) clothes.

Preoccupation with the latest workout fads manifested itself in fashion quickly. Ensembles resembling aerobic workout outfits — complete with sweat bands, legwarmers, and torn oversized sweatshirts — surfaced in popular fashion and were eagerly perpetuated by pop icons like Pat Benetar and Loverboy’s Mike Reno, and seen in movies like Flashdance (1983).

This was due — at least in part — to advancement in textile technology: the invention of new thin, lightweight, stretchy materials was well suited to sportswear. As in the 1850s when synthetic dye was invented (leading to “mauve madness”!), synthetic material had the property of taking especially vivid dyes extremely well, and is evidenced by all the neon colors now associated with the ‘80s. Likewise, the tracksuit and sneakers were adopted by some early hip hop musicians (all kept in ironic pristine condition). In this raging capitalist, brand-obsessed time of Regan and Thatcher, I suspect wearing clothes previously relegated to leisure activities was a subtle statement that people who could wear athletic gear had enough off-time (and therefore money) to devote to recreational sport, and an amusing side effect was that those very clothes eventually lost their cache due to widespread adoption by the public.

Though not all specifically bicycle related, all the fashion changes I outlined speak to the larger issue of popular fashion responding to the specific physical needs (or fads) of the time: like the current explosion of people using bikes as an alternative mode of transportation and the resulting cycling projects and availability of bike lanes in urban settings. Throughout the history of the bicycle, the challenge seems to have been — and to be — assembling an outfit that accommodates the peculiarities of movement on bicycles in a practical manner, while integrating into mainstream fashion in an inconspicuous way so a cyclist may ride to a destination and enter a social or professional environment without needing to change. For this, America is looking to other countries that have been using bicycles as daily (as opposed to purely recreational) transportation for much longer, like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and London.

The New York Times reported that “Before [the London-based company] Rapha, there were two ways to be fashionable in cycling,” said Bill Strickland, the editor at large of Bicycling magazine and until recently the author of its Style Man column. “The first was to be supertechnical, and look like a pro. The other way was to be pure vintage. Rapha created a third way, starting with a premise of ‘How would I like to look in town?’ ”

Though there are infinite paths to this end, I would imagine the one unavoidable restriction must be the amount of bulk at the crotch and ankles. They must all have relatively close-cut silhouettes with as little loose material as possible around the gears, while being flexible at the waist — exactly where the dress reformers focused in the 19th century. Adding an additional layer of influence, this description happens to coincide with the male suit of the 1960s, which is also currently experiencing a surge of popularity.

Aesthetic cultural influences are at work here, including but not limited to the popular Mad Men TV series. Set in the 1960s, this show has coincided with the resurgence of skinny jeans and slimmer, shorter trousers. This is evident even in formal wear; I spotted many a slim-fit tux at this year’s Academy Awards. Which came first: the retro look or the latest bicycle movement? Like most other fashion developments, many influences across cultural, ecological, and political spectrums have impacted the collective unconscious and manifested itself in everyday dress. Isn’t it fun to try to figure them all out?

Further reading:

• “The Bicycle and Health” The Ladies’ Standard Magazine, April 1894
• “The Wheelasa Reformer; What One Woman’s Bicycle Has Taught Her About Clothes.” NYTimes, 1895
• “Cyclistas spin into style” The Gazette, May 26, 2009
• Fitness Fashion After 1960
• Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog

Recommend this post:

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Anna Wintour’s involvement with the Metropolitan Museum is reestablished at this time every year with the Met’s renowned Costume Institute gala, and we are again bombarded with pictures of A-list celebrities, socialites and models attending the lush affair. Whether attendees are portrayed in adoring light or to ridicule their outrageous outfits, the glut of coverage across paper publications and the internet succeeds in generating widespread coverage and awareness of the event, invaluable marketing for both the Met and the gala’s loud sponsor, Vogue. These sorts of relationships are so ingrained in our capitalist system that many don’t give Anna Wintour’s involvement in this museum fundraiser a second thought but, for me, it highlights the uneasy balance between cultural institutions and their sponsors. Especially in times of economic hardship, relationships between art centers and their patrons are ever more precarious and therefore precious. Among museums the Met retains one of the most prestigious reputations in the world. But the news that is perhaps the most widely disseminated about the Met every year is not about its new acquisitions, nor its beautiful newly renovated American wing, but the Costume Institute gala, arguably the most hotly anticipated social event — to say nothing of fundraising events — of the year.

The 700 invitations are coveted by high society and pop culture icons alike, and the photos are disseminated equally by pop culture websites, blogs, and newspapers. I freely admit that I comb the internet for photos of the chic attendees — more than other galas or award ceremonies even — as there is always a fashion theme relating to the spring costume exhibit that is supposedly being promoted by the event, which I think prompts people to be even more outlandish in their sartorial selections than they might otherwise be, glamorous lives notwithstanding. This year’s “Models as Muse” was a bit weak in terms of gala inspiration (it resulted in many haute micro-mini skirt ensembles), but it did succeed in attracting celebrities who may or may not actually be personally invested in the museum’s mission (specifically the “advance knowledge of works” “in accordance with the highest professional standards”), but whose presence attracts the photographers nonetheless.

Michael Gross concentrates on the questionable relationship between the Met and Vogue in his newly released book “Rogue’s Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum.” In it, he blames the Met’s collaboration first with Diana Vreeland and then with Anna Wintour to co-host the Costume Institute fundraiser which, he claims, has been twisted into a publicity platform for Vogue and Wintour’s personal vendettas, displacing the Met’s own mission. “The most highly publicized event at the museum has been turned into a magazine and movie-promotion party, where Anna sells herself and movie stars sell their latest projects,” said Gross. “What gets lost in the process is the museum.”

Suspicious as I am of Vogue’s motives (it is clearly in their best interest to invite the beautiful people they’d like to court to be in Vogue’s own pages), I whole heartedly support utilizing an institution’s fashion collection as a revenue generator — which the Costume Institute absolutely is for the Met, raising a significant portion of the museum’s income (the 2008 total of which was $297,790,000). First, as demonstrated by my drive to work on this very blog, I believe there is a wealth of knowledge — social, financial, and political history for starters — to be gleaned from the study of clothes, just waiting to be disseminated in an engaging and articulate manner. I crave museums tackling projects involving costume. Tragically, many institutions small and large (i.e. Merchant House, Brooklyn Museum) have fabulous costume collections that are rarely displayed and even more rarely exhibited in-house due to budget, space, staff, and/or costume history expertise shortages. Second, costume exhibits have been proven to be excellent revenue generators precisely because anything fashion related draws in younger, pop-culture obsessed people who may not otherwise attend museums that have the unfortunate reputation for housing stuffy, inaccessible “high art.” I have no problem whatsoever utilizing fashion exhibitions to tap into this market. Isn’t the goal of museums to market their exhibitions to attract in people, and then actually teach them to look more deeply into a subject they may only have had a superficial understanding of?

The trick is for museums to capitalize on this obsession with glamorous fashion. Obviously, money can and should be raised for the institutions. Museums increasingly struggle for attendees, and in this free market democracy, private investors are relied upon to fund so-called worthy projects more than the government is. With the latest financial crisis, corporate sponsors have become ever more sparse (working for the Development department of a New York museum, I have witnessed this scramble first-hand). In some cases, this has forced museums to hike their admissions (in New York it’s not uncommon for tickets to be $20), which has the unfortunate cyclical consequence of making these exhibitions even less accessible to the general public.

Do these galas confirm the perception, accurate or not, that fashion is inaccessible to the mainstream public? Or worse yet, that the study and presentation of fashion in an historical context is unimportant, has no bearing on “serious” studies, offers no insight into history, and has no greater implication on or by current events? My fear with the Met Costume Institute gala is that Vogue’s self-promotion cannibalizes what could and should be an opportunity to present fashion as an incredible marker of human civilization that varies according to technological breakthroughs in materials, social morays, etc. I’m doubtful these parties accomplish this. And this is due, in part, to the accompanying spring Costume Institute exhibitions that are usually of the blockbuster variety with a lot of flash and glitz, but weak-themed and presented with little-to-no background information drawing from a larger historical context, which in my mind must be the crux of any exhibition, costume or otherwise (I am specifically thinking of the popular but superficial “Chanel” and “Superheroes” exhibitions).

As friends know, there are few things that exasperate me more than a flubbed costume exhibit. The wasted opportunity hits me like a brick in the face: that money could be collected, venue provided, fashion displayed, and the opportunity to use costume as a teaching tool not utilized kills me. Partly because I’ll walk away disappointed for the lack of new information I personally collect, but mostly because I’m all too aware of how superfluous and flighty the majority of the population views fashion, and exhibits that don’t treat the subject academically confirm people’s belief that there is nothing but pretty, outrageous, or at best creative works at play and nothing deeper. This is perhaps a I see the Met’s Costume Institute gala as just such a wasted opportunity to broaden the public’s opinion and understanding of fashion’s relevance and importance.

Museums must weigh the pros and cons of the opportunities corporate money affords them — not just more elaborate exhibits but more advertising to reach wider audiences — versus the control corporate sponsors believe they become entitled to exert (i.e. Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to cut the Brooklyn Museum’s public funding when it exhibited controversial material in the “Sensation” exhibit of 1999). The American Museum of Natural History in New York actually had trouble securing sponsorship for their 2005 Darwin exhibition because (exasperating as it is to me), creationism and the so-called “theory” of evolution continues to be incendiary and corporations were afraid of alienating their own potential supporters, political and financial. (Ironically — or not so? — once funding was secured, the Darwin exhibition was extremely popular.) The Museum made up for this difficulty with its latest corporate partnership.

The movie series Night at the Museum prominently incorporated two Smithsonian museums: the first film (2006) took place in the Museum of Natural History, the second (2009) in the Smithsonian Institute, and it actually contains “Smithsonian” in the title: marketing jackpot! This arrangement gave writers license to incorporate actual Smithsonian-owned ephemera (like Amelia Earhart’s plane, Dorothy’s ruby slippers, etc., used to great comic effect) into the plots, and both museums have enjoyed the reciprocal reaction of an immediate and impressive surge in attendance. I see this as a fair exchange. Like the Museum of Natural History, the Met needs to reassert its power and purpose with Vogue (or another sponsor), because the Costume Institute is more than an exclusive venue, and should be leveraged as such.

Much as I’ve concentrated on current corporate collaborations, the alliance of patron and artist (or art institution) is not a new subject, though it’s taken new forms. The Mérode Altarpice is a triptych by the early Netherlandish painter Robert Campin, c. 1425 – 1430. Though ostensibly a religious painting depicting the popular Annunciation, the commissioning family was painted directly into the religious scene (left panel).  They also guaranteed their identities by their coat of arms seal in the window, and by the presence of a costume (yay costume historians!) typical of a town messenger from Mechelen, where the family was from.

As religious paintings waned in popularity, patrons continued to be inserted into works. Fragonard’s “The Swing” (1766) is a delightfully naughty painting  portraying a pink-clad woman (I will refrain from dissecting her ensemble in greater juicy detail, though I’m tempted!) being pushed on a swing by a bishop in the background, while her “hidden” lover in the foreground gazes admiringly up her yawning skirt. John Fleming writes “The identity of the patron is unknown, though he was at one time thought to have been the Baron de Saint-Julien, the Receiver General of the French Clergy, which would have explained the request to include a bishop pushing the swing. This idea as well as that of having himself and his mistress portrayed was evidently dropped by the patron, whoever he may have been.” Fleming points out “the picture was depersonalized and, due to Fragonard’s extremely sensuous imagination, became a universal image of joyous, carefree sexuality,” (my italics) as opposed to a straightforward vanity portrait. Since then, corporate sponsorship has replaced less conspicuous donations as a major funding vehicle for many arts organizations.

So collaborations between moneyed patrons and starving artists has not been uncommon historically, but patrons were not advertising themselves — no revenue was expected from the inclusion of their images in commissioned paintings, unlike corporate sponsors today who slap their logos on every visible posterboard. There can be mutually beneficial relationships — partnerships — established between non-profits and corporations (as with Fragonard and his patron), but it’s vital that those non-profits remember that they need not be beggars bending to the whim of their sponsors. Corporations can offer money, but museums offer  credibility in public relations and marketing return. Children today may very well associate Exxon Mobile with the funding of public television instead of my own foremost memory, the infamous Exxon oil spill of 1989, and the Altria Group, owner of cigarette giant Philip Morris, is not coincidentally one of the most significant donor to the arts in a transparent but successful attempt to gain positive PR-by-association. Perceived cultural good will is important in any era, but essential in times like these when the financial sector and big business are regarded as especially villainous. I don’t condemn corporate backing; I just want curatorial integrity to remain in tact.

Further Reading:

• “Corporate Sponsorship A Growing Area of Arts Concern” AllBusiness.com, October 2000
• “Fashion Victim,” NYTimes.com, May 6, 2005
• “Ethics and the Visual Arts” edited by Elaine A. King, Gail Levin, Allworth Communications, Inc., 2006
• “Establishing Dress History,” Lou Taylor, Manchester University Press, 2004
• “Patronizing the Arts,” Marjorie Garber, Princeton University Press, 2008
• “Night at the Museum Smithsonian’s PR bonanza” NPR.org, May 21, 2009
• “Smithsonian Hopes to Cash in On Stiller Movie” NPR.org, May 21, 2009

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