I just read a fun list on Flavorwire of their 10 favorite fashionable literary characters. Allow me to summarize:

1. Lily Bart in Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth
2. Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
3. Holly Golightly in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s
4. Orlando in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
5. Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind
6. Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
7. Dorian Gray in Gustave Flaubert’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
8. Rupert Psmith in the novels of P.G. Wodehouse
9. Lady Brett Ashley in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises
10. Darling Daintyfoot in Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers

A wonderful property of literature and other art forms is that textiles — fragile under the best of circumstances — may be preserved in alternate mediums. Greek, Roman, and Ancient Egyptian statues may be studied for information on what people wore in eras almost impossible to find fragmented remains of clothes, much less full ensembles, as can paintings and literature. Though literature removes the visual aspect of fashion, it can supplement readers with information not gleaned from sculptures and pictures: how fabric moved; how heavy and cumbersome (or light and airy) it was; what necessary undergarments created the ultimate silhouettes. Most valuable, perhaps, is that literature is able to synthesize the mise en scène of a particular country, era, class, time of day, and personal circumstance, explicitly emphasizing the relationship of fashion with these other variables. Though not impossible, conveying this complex set of relationships is more challenging in fine arts, where the visual language may be forced to reduce information to simplified symbols, to be absorbed and interpreted by a viewer in a moment.

Within a written narrative, an author has space to develop characters and settings: personality, gender roles (how constrictive / seductive women’s gowns were communicates volumes), class (fabrics vary according to a person’s wealth), aspirations (class deception is commonly exploited with the use of clothes), sexual preference (homosexuals are often marked as such by a flamboyance of appearance that’s slightly out of step with current fashion)…. Though fashion historians often concentrate on the nitty-gritty details of garment descriptions — which is absolutely valuable — this information should contribute to the overall character development and plot structure of a novel as well. In the hands of a competent writer, dress details will not distract a non-fashion reader, but only add depth to what is already taking place.

The course of events in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, for example — war, displacement, poverty, the helpless role of women — lead directly and naturally to the memorable scene where Scarlett converts her destroyed mansion’s drapes into a fashionable dress and hat with which to impress and seduce Rhett Butler (thereby securing new wealth). (The dress from the original film, by the way, is in dire need of restoring.)

Scarlett O'Hara in drape dress, Gone with the Wind

This dress has become so iconic that costume designer Bob Mackie specifically spoofed it, within Carol Burnett’s 1976 general farce “Went with the Wind” (which I strongly encourage you to watch in its entirety):

Carol Burnett Show, Went with the Wind

As I hope you can see, Mackie left the curtain rod in, used drape ties with tassels for a belt, and left the contrasting fringe exactly where it would’ve been on the curtain, drawing attention to Scarlett’s desperation and deception sooner rather than later — taking Margaret Mitchell’s initial use of fashion one step further.

Presenters will be dissecting the relationship between fashion and literature in an upcoming Drexel University conference (at which I will be presenting): Fashion in Fiction: The Dark Side of Fashion. If you will be in Philadelphia October 8-10, please drop me a line (see my Profile for email address)!

Feel free to add your own best-dressed characters in fiction in the Comments….

Further Reading:

• Fashion in Fiction: Text and Clothing in Literature, Film and Television, edited by Peter McNeil, Vicki Karaminas, and Catherine Cole
• Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England by Aileen Ribeiro

A 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 (her concept CDs Metropolis: the Chase Suite, and the sequel The ArchAndroid, are testament to her vocal and style range), but her look! — it’s quirky, fun, formal, and has a healthy dash of what I must assume are her professional singer / performer icons, who mostly appear to be men (James Brown and Michael Jackson high up there). Metropolis is obviously an homage to Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic, and both Lang’s and Monáe’s are futuristic tales of class struggle and oppression; in Monáe’s case, it’s more explicitly about race, with a healthy smattering of gender twisting in there.

Janelle’s first video “Many Moons” depicts an android auction of Janelles, each robot primped and dressed and coiffed for different personalities; bidding wars take place among the underworld elite members of the audience as they compete for the Janelle version they desire, while the prototype Janelle performs live while her sisters are sold off.

The Chicago Tribune wrote of the sequel album (which can just as easily be applied to the premier):

“‘The ArchAndroid’ has ambition to burn. It’s a self-empowerment manifesto couched inside a futuristic “emotion-picture” about an android’s battle to overcome oppression. The notion of space travel and “new worlds” becomes a metaphor for breaking out of the oppression that enslaves minorities of all types in the present one — a theme that has a long tradition in African-American music, from Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic to Cannibal Ox and OutKast.”

What I couldn’t help noticing was an uncomfortable similarity to modern-day fashion shows the auction block was. The chic foreign announcer, Lady Maxxa, introduces auction show with live performer Cindy Mayweather (Janelle), who is the prototype of the Alpha Platinum 9000 droid line. Cindy Mayweather performs the song we’re listening to, to the enthusiastic concert-like crowd’s cheers, dressed in Janelle’s staple white dinner jacket with black silk ribbon tie and nouveau saddle shoes shown to their advantage by highwater tuxedo pants, topped by Janelle’s ever-amazing pompadour.

The introductory celebrity shots of crowd members in the video mimic the paparazzi shots of the front rows at runway shows (which actually have their own photo section on Style.com), giving perhaps undeserved clout and prestige to the designer who snags A-listers attendees, regardless of the strength of the collection on display. The photo below of Jennifer Lopez and Eva Longoria literally cuts off the actual model in favor of the famous attendees:

When Cindy Mayweather throws her jacket off in a burst of enthusiastic performing (2:06), revealing her cinched cummerbund, girls in the mosh pit shriek in ecstasy, upsetting the typical gender divide of girls shrieking for male sex symbols. This is only mildly surprising, since the outfit, high hair, and energetic mic moves are very much in the vein of James Brown (whom Janelle readily claims as a primary inspiration):

Over the years, fashion shows have moved from private parlors of the fashion house to larger and more ornate venues, often bombarding the larger audiences with light shows, video installments (Steve McQueen famously used holograms one year), and live musical performers, increasing the fashion spectacle to performance art highs. Below is the delightfully quirky Tori Amos performing for one of my favorite Viktor & Rolf runway shows, Autumn/Winter 05:

The theme of multiplicity and interchangeability of non-Caucasian ethnicities (“they all look the same”) is explored too (see my earlier post on multiplicity in Coraline). All androids, including the performer Cindy Mayweather, are part of the same line of androids, but are dressed up differently. Their shared roots are only made explicit in shots of the chorus backstage, when they’re all wearing identical tuxes (but different from Cindy Mayweather’s tux):

Monae has turned the fashion industry’s standard of racial desirability on its head here, since in our world, models of color are notoriously overlooked and under-employed. In a rather shocking NYTimes article about model scouts who seek recessive white gene pools in Brazil it was noted, “The goal, he and other model scouts say, is to find the right genetic cocktail of German and Italian ancestry, perhaps with some Russian or other Slavic blood thrown in. Such a mix, they say, helps produce the tall, thin girls with straight hair, fair skin and light eyes that Brazil exports to the runways of New York, Milan and Paris with stunning success.” Janelle has tipped the scales so in her futuristic world there is the unapologetic presentation of beautiful women of color on the runway, but with the uneasy narrative of an android (slave) sale. Below is an etching of an actual slave auction; you can see there is the auctioneer (not a stunning, fashionable black woman but a white man), the dapper white men looking to buy a human being (some of whom have switches in their hands already), and an upsettingly orderly clump of black men, women and children behind the stage awaiting their turn to be put on the auction block:

The advertised prices of the androids could just as easily be pricetags of designer clothes…

and Monae’s androids aren’t so meek. The fierce faces the various androids make are taken directly from the fashion runways: no smiles allowed, just sexy, defiant snarls.

And traditional gender and racial stereotypes are questioned subtly again in the backstage primping, when a white male adjusts the corset and hair of one of the androids;

The image most common in European and American art is that of a black servant or maid doting on his/her alabaster employer. One of the most famous is that classic depiction of enslaved Mammy from Gone with the Wind (1939), lacing Scarlett’s stays for a picnic she herself will not attend:

Interestingly, the costumes the various androids parade in aren’t typical slave rags, but are archetypes of wealthy white men pastimes. The jockey,

The gentleman hunter,

The slick banker,

and the flaneur dandy.

The exception is a clear homage to Amelia Earhart –  who excelled in a male-dominated profession in male clothes (see my post on Women, Pants & Politics) — and whose photo is actually projected behind the android who wears a similar pilot jumpsuit and goggles. Distinctly not glamorous, with a clomping booted gait, the low camera angle emphasizes the android’s strength, stature and importance:

All told, I’m not sure that Janelle Monáe intended this to be commentary on the fashion industry per se, but it’s undeniable that she took heavy inspiration from designer runways to develop her racial / social / gender agenda with these concept albums. Deliberate or not, it’s frankly a bit disturbing to me that the fashion runway format lends itself so perfectly to this tale of oppression, the stink of slavery and continued female oppression in a glossy, modern, eerily familiar context.

As 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 that I read, in UK Telegraph, was one of the more thoughtful ones; it concentrated on 46-year-old ’90s supermodel Kristin McMenamy’s latest photo shoot for Dazed and Confused magazine. Having always been a rather startling-looking woman with Tilda Swinton-like pallor and a broad sneer of a mouth, the shock of flowing, natural grey tresses doesn’t seem so out of place on McMenamy. “You can get older and still be rock’n'roll,” she told the magazine. “I thought all that grey hair would make a beautiful picture.” Below are two photos (neither from the D&C shoot) that exemplify how grey can be romantic…

in Vogue, August 2010

sleek…

in Calvin Klein RTW F2010

or totally fucking fierce:

on the Givenchy runway, S2008

This is not the first time grey hair has been in style; compared to the 18th century, this current fad is a drop in the pan. Men and women alike oiled and powdered their hair shades of grey and white starting in the mid-1700s. Oil was necessary to make the powder stick, and yes, oil and powder was unavoidably shed with movement; you can see Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, below, is leaking powder on his shoulder, like dandruff, where his ponytail rubs:

detail of Charles-Alexandre de Calonne by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, 1784

Below Madame Grand (later Madame Talleyrand-Périgord, Princesse de Bénévent) models the bouffant du jour in the late 18th century:

Madame Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, later Princesse de Bénévent, by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, 1783

Mature as her dusty locks make her to our 21st century eyes, this is only a 22 year-old woman; you can see her cheeks are still youthfully plump and rosy (though blush undoubtedly assisted). Here is the same woman — approximately 25 years later:

detail of Madame Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, later Princesse de Bénévent by François Gérard, c. 1808

In addition to the change of hair color and style, it is obvious by this comparison that there was a radical change of silhouette in the costume of the mid-late-18th century and that of the early 19th century. As with the turn of the 20th century, a great deal of bulk and fussiness was discarded in favor of a sleeker and ultimately more youthful, modern look in hair and costume. I don’t think it’s the powdered grey hair alone that ages our subject, but rather the compilation of big, fussy, surreal hair with busy bows and lace and volume in the dress and accessories. In my humble opinion, the neo-Classical look of the early 19th century just feels more modern. But I digress.

Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793) was both early champion and ultimate victim of powdered coiffures. The Flour War of 1775, caused by the de-regulation of wheat prices by the government, lead to hoarding, gouging, and the inability of lower classes to afford simple bread, and was the ominous precursor to the crescendo of the French Revolution. Wig powder, a product of finely ground starch (a.k.a. flour), was used liberally by the naive queen in her legendary towering bouffants, casting her and her fashion statements in a distinctly unflattering, frivolous light.  French historian Caroline Weber observed,

“…although historians have established that Marie Antoinette never uttered the legendary remark “Let them eat cake,” it is not implausible that the lasting association between her callousness and baked edibles in fact originated with her habit of parading her powdered, wedding-cake hairstyles before a bread-starved nation.”

Here is Marie Antoinette in the very year of the Flour War, seemingly flaunting her willful ignorance of the economic struggles of her country, and all to achieve that trendy grey hair:

Marie Antoinette by Jacques-Fabien Gautier D'Agoty, 1775

With no small irony, according to legend, Marie Antoinette’s hair turned grey with stress and fear the night before her execution; grey hair as fashion statement had clearly run its course as it became associated with the demonized, decapitated monarch. Two years later the English government levied a tax on hair powder, the last coffin nail of that grey-haired trend… until today?

Granite hair was on the 2010 runways shows of playful Giles Deacon and goth Gareth Pugh, and the Telegraph article quoted high end hairdressers claiming to have more young clients who want grey, like Peaches Geldof, Kelly Osbourne, Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham. This kind of minimal evidence has prompted sites like trendhunter.com to prematurely declare “For decades men and women have been trying to mask signs of aging, but a new wave fashionable gray hair is reflecting a shifting attitude regarding the physical effects of getting older.” A more tempered NYTimes article quoted colorist Sharon Dorram, “who said that among her downtown New York patrons, it is mostly younger women, renegade types, who request gray. Not lost on Ms. Dorram is the irony that their older, more conventional counterparts spent $1.3 billion to cover their grays last year, according to Nielsen.”

I don’t think gunmetal tresses were a sign of the fetishization, or even simple respect, of mature women in the 18th century, and I don’t think that’s the case in 2010 either. It’s an unusual, edgy color precisely because so many women with natural grey hair darken it, so it really pops when a woman such as Kristin McMenamy rocks it. I think that even if more grey hair dye is being sold, it is unfortunately not a sign that older women — specifically, naturally mature women — are all of a sudden welcomed back into the fold for the general, fashionable, youth-obsessed public. Pixie Geldof, for example, I don’t think could be said to be furthering the cause of women aging gracefully, though her hair is certainly grey:

Pixie Geldof

Along a similar line, premature articles claiming the emergence of older models on runways and magazine spreads as being indicative of older women being accepted as beautiful and sexual are, I think, overlooking that those older models might be over-the-hill 30+, but they are recognizable and have proven themselves exceptionally good at selling products — hence their previous successes. In economically strapped times I think we all return to the familiar, tried-and-true methods of existence, and I believe designers are returning to supermodels of yesteryear because they have the most experience and accomplishments, and fame/notoriety that can only come with age — also, they are still smokin’ hot. Kate Moss is still landing covers at age 36 (which is, by the way, close to the height of a woman’s biological peak of personal sexuality), and 37 year-old Heidi Klum is even modeling in Victoria Secret lingerie shows (after having popped out 4 children). This is evidence that magazines and designers don’t want to take as many risks these days, when merchandise is harder to move off shelves. They know Moss and Klum, they know their scopes, their talent, and the sales they still consistently generate. After all, you don’t hear about a surge of random, unknown older women taking up the runways — that would demonstrate real progress in my eyes.

A TIME article from a few years ago astutely pointed out the frustrating correlation between the success of the feminism movement and women’s increased use of hair dye. The very same Baby Boomers who fought to enter the workplace are the same who feel compelled to color their hair, to appear more youthful, energetic, or conservative (grey-haired women can appear alternative or hippy-like, often to their detriment in the workplace). The TIME article quotes some shocking statistics about female politicians, for whom it could be argued the physical manifestation of age and experience should be an asset:

“…of the 16 female U.S. Senators — the highest number ever — who range in age from 46 to 74, not a single one has visible gray hair. Of the 70 female members of the House, only seven have gray hair. Political professionals say that the double standard is a great unspoken inequity but that candidates and officeholders don’t dare publicly discuss it for fear of seeming trivial. In an interview before her death last year, Ann Richards, the famously white-haired former Governor of Texas, told me, ‘You can’t appear to be too flashy because it will send the wrong message, but at the same time, you need to appear energetic. The issue is much more significant for women because the hurdle is higher in our society. We’re not sure what we want our [female] elected officials to be — mother, mistress or caretaker.’”

female US senators, 2007 -- not a grey hair in the joint

As evidenced by the world’s obsession with Michelle Obama’s style, politicians’ wives face intense scrutiny too, and most of them color their hair. I wonder if Nancy Reagan would have received the same childish sniggering that Barbara Bush endured for supposedly looking so much older than her hubby, if she had not concealed her own grey hair with that frosted brown. It might come as a surprise to learn Barbara and Nancy were the same age — 64 — when their respective husbands became the President, and though I admit that from a distance Babs looks older, I frankly like the luminescent white she has going on, and I don’t think it diminishes her stature or poise:

Ronald and Nancy Reagan, inauguration, 1985

George and Barbara Bush, inauguration, 1989

Lord knows I’m not against experimentation with appearance. But I sincerely hope women start challenging the gender bias we perpetuate against ourselves and fellow women by playing into the same limiting roles we’ve fought so hard to break out of. Going grey naturally may seem like a small step for Feminism (and the closely linked Ageism), but having grown up in Cambridge, MA, where there are many vibrant, intelligent, artistic women who let their grey show, it becomes suspicious and puzzling that other cities that are diverse in many ways, including appearance, are not like that. Let this so-called trend of grey hair chic be inspiration for actual grey-haired women to embrace their ages, their accomplishments, their strengths, and know they can do so stylishly.

May I suggest some role models?

Susan Songtag, writer

Jamie Lee Curtis, actress

Gloria Steinem, activist writer

Helen Mirren, actress

Annie Leibovitz, photographer

Diane Keaton, actress

Emmylou Harris, singer

Judi Dench

Further Reading:

• Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, by Caroline Weber

Coney Island by Weegee, 1938

In 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 sometimes were there were coverings. Murals at Pompeii and ancient mosaics show women wearing two-piece wrap-around garments that resemble bikinis; these were worn for athletic pursuits as on the woman below, who wears the crown and cradles the frond of athletic victory.

woman in athletic bikini, 4th century CE Roman mosaic

19th century

But alas, western society did not long embrace the celebrated nude of the Greco-Roman era, and for many centuries afterwards, beachwear mimicked streetwear, and submerging oneself in water was generally limited to private experiences. It wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century when water sports, sun bathing, and swimming gained momentum again. Starting around 1830, a series of changes eventually led to the participation of women in sports and in specialized clothing being developed for those sports. The Industrial Revolution hearkened an age of train travel, the invention of the sewing machine and mass-produced fabrics enabled clothing in lower price ranges, and household machines and the development of labor unions gave the working classes more leisure time to indulge in travel, sports, and sun worship in exotic locales. The Dress Reform Movement (see my earlier post on Women, Pants, & Politics) advocated shorter dresses worn over loose harem trousers (the Bloomer Costume) that allowed women greater freedom of movement, as was needed for sports and swimwear. Exercise was increasingly prescribed by doctors and advocated by writers to maintain healthfulness; exercise programs even became an integral part of women’s college curriculums.

The typical 19th century “bather” wore black, knee-length, puffed-sleeve wool dresses, often featuring sailor collars for extra-special nautical costume effect (I say this somewhat facetiously, but it was probably used as a deliberate visual device to distinguish proper day wear from risqué sportswear), and worn over bloomers (derived from the Bloomer Costume) or drawers trimmed with ribbons and bows. Accouterments included long black stockings, lace-up bathing slippers that resembled ballerina slippers, and caps. As the 19th century progressed, bloomers and dress hemlines slowly but surely crept higher. Foundation garments being the basic (however questionable) mark of sartorial respectability, it wasn’t until the 20th century that women stopped wearing corsets underneath their bathing suits. Men had swim suits so closely resembling their undergarments that they made the distinction by wearing either black wool or black-with-stripes. You can see where how term bathing suit applied — the bathing costumes were made up of many layers that were worn as a cohesive ensemble.

Bathing dress, 1858

Beaches typically segregated the sexes, either with portions of the beach or different hours of operation. “Bathing machines” were used for additional modesty: they were dressing rooms on wheels in which women could change into their swimmies, were then wheeled out into the water by horses or people, and then were lifted out into the water to bathe. Below is an amusing cartoon from an 1870 edition of Punch:

Modest Old Gentleman (who has swum out to sea and whose bathing-machine has, in the meanwhile, been walked off by mistake). “Ahem! Pray Excuse me, Madam My Bathing-Machine I think.”

And another cartoon from a postcard, closer to the end of the 19th century, showing the hilarious efforts men might exert to catch of glimpse of the women exiting the bathing machine:

1900s

By the turn of the century, bathing suits underwent a revolutionary change in styles as they ceased to be patterned after street wear and began to show a little more of the human form.

bathing costumes c. 1900

bathers by Georges Marchand, published by A. Bettembos, Dieppe, France, 1904

More athletic (and risqué) women pared down the bathing costume to be as form fitting as possible while still covering their bodies. In 1907 the Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman (1887-1975) visited the United States as an “underwater ballerina,” a version of synchronized swimming involving diving into glass tanks. She was arrested in Boston (my hometown is always Puritanical!) for indecent exposure because her swimsuit showed arms, legs and the neck. Kellerman changed the suit to have long arms and legs and a collar, still keeping the close fit that revealed the shapes underneath:

Annette Kellerman in "one piece all-over Black Diving Suit", 1906

Laughable as this costume might be to our unshockable eyes, compare this to the body stockings worn by the prostitutes photographed by E.J. Bellocqu (1873 – 1949) in Storyville, New Orleans’ Red Light district circa 1912. It’s hard to see, but this woman is wearing a full white unitard of the variety worn by burlesque performers (it’s important to note that only dark colors were used in early bathing costumes exactly because they were to be visible, and not to even give the illusion of nudity as this one does):

E J Bellocqs Storyville prostitute in body stocking, c 1912

1920s

The swimwear industry took off in the ’20s. As athleticism and slimmer figures gained increasing fashionableness (see my post on Bicycle Chic and Athletic Aesthetic), knitwear companies expanded their market from sweaters and underwear to include swimwear. With its beautiful beaches and warm waters, it’s unsurprising that the West Coast emerged at this time as a hotbed of swimsuit manufacturers with Catlina, Cole of California, and Jantzen all setting up shop there. The West Coast was not coincidentally the home of burgeoning Hollywood, and this proximity led to the early adoption and wide dissemination of new bathing suit styles in popular films and publicity photographs. Mack Sennett (1880-1960) was a slapstick comedy director whose films frequently featured his titillating “Bathing Beauties,” pictured below:

Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties eating apples, 1922

The boyish figure favored in the 1920s affected the style of the bathings suits, which were shorter and very much mimicked men’s bathing trunks. (Note also how these bathing suits resembled the mod miniskirts of the ’60s, yet to come.) As ever, when hemlines are raised and garments tightened, modesty becomes a priority for moralists. Below is a 1922 photo of Washington policeman Bill Norton measuring the distance between knee and suit at the Tidal Basin bathing beach after Col. Sherrell, Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, issued an order that suits not be over six inches above the knee (it looks like someone might be in trouble!):

1930s

Knit wool swimsuits, though infinitely more practical than the bathing costume of the 19th century, were still imperfect. They became waterlogged, droopy, and heavy when wet, weighing an average of 20 pounds (owning a vintage wool bathing suit, I can attest that the sagginess is both uncomely and uncomfortable). Technology development stepped in, and the elastic rubber fiber Lastex was invented in 1934. This new material, with natural fibers surrounding a rubber core thread, was used in undergarment corsetry and swimsuits.

The close proximity between the swimsuit manufacturers and Hollywood continued to influence each other. As Lizzie writes in her excellent piece on swimsuits, “Stars and Hollywood designers were used to advertise and promote the latest in swimwear.” Below is Carole Lombard, brash comedienne and lucky wife of Clark Gable. You can see the swimsuits are tighter, shorter, and introduce glamor to what had been previously been somewhat clunky sportswear:

Carole Lombard

Though Jean Harlowe’s white number is even skimpier (and plays with the suggestion of nudity with its white fabric on white skin), note that it is only the necklines and silhouettes that are played with — the leg hemlines remain solidly and straightly at crotch level, no higher.

Jean Harlow

1940s:

Esther Williams (1921-), who had made a somewhat oxy-moronic career for herself as a soloist synchronized swimmer in film musicals, signed a modeling contract with Cole of California in 1947 which also included an annual swimsuit design named for her. Here is a nice montage (feel free to turn the sound off) where she actually pretends to be the aforementioned Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, among others, in The Million Dollar Mermaid (1952).

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: war affects fashion. U.S. factories are often commandeered by the military during wars, using their existing facilities to produce supplies for the war effort; this was true of the swimwear industry during World War II, as well. Fabric rationing led to sleeker, more closely tailored silhouettes in day wear, and sanctioned increasingly skimpy swimwear: as Lizzie points out, “The US government actually mandated that bathing suits were to be made with at least 10% less fabric, and so the midsection was eliminated” (keeping that scandalous orifice, the navel covered!). French engineer-turned-swimsuit-designer Louis Reard created the “bikini” in 1946, macabrely named after the concurrent nuclear bomb test site on the Bikini Atoll, though some say it was an allusion to the explosive effect the midriff-baring bikiniwould have on viewers. A year after it was released in France, Reard’s bikini was released in America, though its sales were not so great, and was even outlawed in some states as a result of its scantiness.

Louis Reard's bikini, 1945

More popular in the colonies were slightly more modest bikini tops with shorts, which actually crossed the line into non-swimming casual wear.

1950s

Post WWII, there was a so-called return to femininity with Dior’s “New Look,” emphasizing curves with yards of skirt fabric, torpedo bras and stiff bodice corsetry. Swimsuits conformed to this ideal too, often with stiff strapless bodices, cinched waists, and apron-like skirts that fell over an invisible skimpier under-layer. More colors than ever were incorporated into swimwear, too, with the return of all America’s factory and supply resources.

apron style swimsuits of 1950s

On the flip side, pin up girls were regularly drawn and photographed in swimsuits, as cousin of the negligee. Below, Bettie Page models some racier swimwear, always designed by herself:

Bettie Page in animal print bikini

1960s

The 1960s heralded the dawn of the Sexual Revolution, the generation that rejected their parents’ prudish impact in the ’50s (Bettie Page very much excepted). This was the first time the female bathing suit moved its hemline above the crotch to encircle the legs rather than square them off. Bond Girl Ursula Andress became an iconic figure (literally and figuratively) in this bikini from Dr. No (1962):

Ursula Andress in white bikini in Dr No, 1962

Below is the publicity shot for Rudy Gernreich’s infamous topless “monokini:”

Peggy Moffitt in monokini by Rudi Gernreich, 1964

Even as it created a fashion sensation, it’s unclear how many women actually bought and wore this number, scandalous even today. Compare the artsy studio photo above to a photo of a model in public (with a billboard man leering at her no less!):

woman wearing Rudi Gernreich's monokini on beach, by Paul Schutzer for Time magazine, 1964

1970s, ’80s, & ’90s

The 1970s embraced less structured clothes and swimsuits, exchanging the stiff elastic ruching and bullet-bra cones for simpler, softer patterns that conformed to the wearer’s body rather than the other way around. The waistline was lowered to hover at the widest point of the hips, rather than at the thinnest point of the waist. The fabric was often unlined, exposing the outlines of nipples (see this hilarious ad for nipple enhancing bras from that period!), as can be seen in the iconic poster of Farrah Fawcett:

Farrah Fawcett photo by Bruce McBroom, 1976 LIFE photo shoot

The ’80s embraced exaggeration in all fashion: huge shoulders, tiny waists, big hair, monochromatic, etc. Bathing suits took on a distinctly geometric feel, often with strategic cutouts for some interesting looks that must’ve created creative tan lines.

Baywatch reigned the small screen in the 1990s. Everyone remembers the Baywatch babes running in slow motion in their bright red, high-cut, low-cut lifeguard swimsuits:

Pam Anderson and Yasmine Bleeth in Baywatch

1990s to now

Since the 1990s, bathing suits have more or less leveled out. Leg holes have generally lowered to a less crotch-pulling height, but we’re in the throws of a nouveau ’80s, so I’ve seen a resurgence of those cutout bathers.

Bathing suit technology has been in the headlines in the past decade due in great part to the press everything Olympics-related generates. Though it’s too expensive to be used for leisure beach activity, Speedo’s LZR swimsuit, invented in 2008, has caused much ruckus among competitive swimmers in recent years. Its corset-like sleek design (it’s said to necessitate 3 people to help a swimmer get into it!) and lasered seams eliminated so much water drag and shaved precious milliseconds off speeders’ times that it was ultimately banned as a kind of performance enhancer that competitors who had non-Speedo sponsors could not wear.

And on that note, I’m off to my local pool to escape this cursed heat, in my Esther Williams vintage-style swimsuit.

Further Reading:

• The Shifting Tides of Seaside Posdtcards – bathing suits as seen in vintage postcards (you need to scroll halfway down the long page to find the right post)
• The California Swimsuit

After 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 goes, and also had more trouble taking off than you might imagine.

Elias Howe (inventor of the sewing machine) patented an “automatic, continuous clothing closure” in 1851, and Whitcomb Judson and Lewis Walker marketed the “Clasp Locker” in 1893, which was presented but largely ignored at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair:

Whitcomb Judson's clasp locker, a hook-and-eye zipper created to replace shoe laces

It wasn’t until Gideon Sundback increased the number of teeth per inch, joined and separated them with a slider, and built a machine to manufacture continuous chains of the “separable fastener” (patented in 1917), that the zip started to take off. One of its first big customers was the US Army which applied time-saving separable fasteners to the clothing and gear of the troops of World War I. This was not, however, widely adopted by the general public.

It was next incorporated into B. F. Goodrich’s 1925 rubber “Zipper Boots” (named for the “zip” sound they made), but it still struggled with mass marketing. In the 1930s a sales campaign suggested that buttons were hard for children to manage and the zipper made it easier for them to dress themselves. Using modern-day infomercial creativity, the zipper industry alerted people to problems they didn’t know they had — namely “gaposis,” gaping holes between ill-fitting buttons and clasps that exposed drafts and prying eyes to the body underneath. The solution? Spray on hair! — I mean, zippers! Exciting yes, but reliable? Not entirely.  A certain amount of trial and excruciating error was enough to dissuade tailors from suggesting their clients adopt the zip (think There’s Something About Mary bathroom scene).

A well-appointed proponent of the zipper assisted its limping acceptance. The Duke of Windsor (1894 – 1972), in addition to abdicating this throne in favor of marrying the trollop  — I mean divorcée — Mrs. Wallis Simpson, made a(nother) scandal by advertising his adoption of trouser flies. Known for his daring but impeccable fashion taste (mixing patterns, cuffing pants, etc.), his vocal adoption of the zip fly did much for the device. (For more on the Duke’s influence on fashion see this article.) I like the following picture of him because, though I imagine he is not actually lifting his jacket for us to inspect his fly, I like to pretend he is:

Most fashion designers only began to see the myriad of possibilities after after the zipper beat the button in the amusing “Battle of the Fly” in 1937 (I imagine an Iron Chef-like competition, though I could be wrong); Esquire magazine concluded the “new” zippered fly would end “the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray,” tapping into that somewhat imagined “gaposis” crisis of the ’20s. Conservative tailors who disdained zipper flies as vulgar but who couldn’t argue with its ultimate popularity created a fold of cloth to conceal the zipper, which is, of course, the standard in flies today.

But to backtrack just a titch, the biggest breakthrough came when Hoboken zipper factories amped up the erotic associations of the zipper, capitalizing on the alluring promise of “a quick and effortless disrobing.” It was the very vulgar, potentially lewd quality of the zipper that tailors resisted but that the public loved. Synchronized dance musical director extraordinaire Busby Berkeley (1895 – 1976) tapped into the suggestive and tantalizingly promiscuous possibilities of the zipper by featuring one made of women (it didn’t hurt that they were all scantily clothed and splashing about in water). Here is “By a Waterfall” from Footlight Parade (1933) (fast forward to 3:35 – 4:18):

A whole seduction is played out with the zipper: a triangular pubis is formed by the bodies, which dissolves into the neat formation of a closed, modest zipper which a lone swimmer (the seducer) voyeuristically observes (like watching a woman dress). The zip is then ripped open by this peeping Tom who somewhat violently breaks the links. An attempt to stave off the sexual advance and reclaim self-decency is made by immediately re-zipping the zipper, and the vignette is concluded ambiguously with an underwater shot of an orgiastic flurry of confused legs and feet and not-unhappy faces. I realize this might seem like a bit of stretch in this day and age of explicit sexual scenes, but the erotic message was not lost on 1930’s audiences. I love that Busby B.!

Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) was the first couturier to feature zippers as a style element. She first used brightly colored zippers on sportswear in 1930, and her 1935 collection of evening dresses were dripping in colored, oversized, decorative and nonfunctional zippers. While other designers were using zippers simply as a fastener (and trying to hide them), Schiaparelli was using them to create visual interest in garments (and maybe a little scandal too). This dress has a prominently displayed front-of-torso zipper closure that is functional and artistic, and gives the witty, Surrealist suggestion that the dress is being worn backwards:

Schiaparelli's Fall/Winter 1939 collection, worn by Millicent Rogers

Since Elsa, other designers have used the zipper as adornment. The corset onesie Jean-Paul Gaultier designed for Madonna’s 1990 “Blond Ambition” tour had a zipper running from breasts to crotch, merging the fetish aspects of pre-20th century underwear with that of modern-day ease of disrobing:

And Victoria Beckham’s fledgling fashion line often features deliberately visible zippers. Below Ms. Beckham and Jennifer Lopez are modeling former Posh Spice’s own line, with modest hemlines but body hugging silhouettes and partially un-zipped full-length zippers, hinting at impropriety without actually showing a lot of flesh:

While visible zippers lend an air of daring sexual prowess and vulnerability, so do invisible zippers that allow modern women to don boots that have 15 inches of prominent but superficial decorative lacings that fetishize the corset lacing while utilizing the practicality of the zipper:

Fluevog Sugar boots with invisible inner zippers

After the initial slow adoption of the gadget, the zipper has even infiltrated our civilian vocabulary now: to “unzip” is literally to open, but also to reveal a truth, as the zipper reveals the body underneath. The hilaaaarious 1995 documentary about manic designer Isaac Mizrahi is aptly called “Unzipped,” playfully using the clasp’s undoing action to imply that the normally hidden, backstage part of the design process will be exposed. (Is it ever!)

Finally, though the zipper has come so very far from its humble origin and initial ineffectual marketing, to now being the current standard in clasps more than the exception, there remains an un-solvable problem. Easy and quick as the zipper is to close, it is equally easy to forget:

Brad Pitt

Suggested Reading:

• “Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty” by Robert Friedel

Recommend this post:

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As 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 (and potentially dangerous), and even as a woman’s ability to move freely and comfortably was hampered. Despite widespread discussion of the physical harm caused by corseting, women of society and women of the streets tightly laced their bodies into undergarments that constricted their waists to produce the exaggerated silhouette au currant. Women were even killed and disfigured by voluminous skirts catching aflame without their notice. Dress reformers in the 19th century tackled this issue of female oppression by fashion by promoting social improvement in practicality over trends, for health and comfort over convention, and rationality over conformity.

18th century society was highly influenced by the popular writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) who used the “State of Nature” as a normative guide in dress, child rearing, and more. Though female dress reform was not specifically addressed at this time (children’s dress was), this Age of Enlightenment planted the seeds for the women’s suffrage movement of the 19th century. The work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 – 1902) and Lucretia Mott (1793 – 1880) who produced the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 which demanded equal citizenship and equal political rights for women. A few short years afterwards in 1851, abolitionist and social reformer Amelia Bloomer (1818 – 1894) appeared in oriental trousers with a short skirt. This radical bloomer costume provided an obvious source of activewear for women by covering their legs while allowing them the freedom of a bifurcated garment:

Bloomer costume, 1851

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 — a woman would commit social suicide by marring her reputation in such suggestive garments. The bloomer costume was ridiculed for looking silly, even as men enjoyed the daring short skirts with distinguishable legs, discouraging even politically minded women from adopting dress reform. The associations of pants with Calamity Jane (1852 – 1903) did not help: though she was a strong, fierce, accomplished woman, her behavior was distinctly manly and she prostituted herself to boot: embodying all the fears of dress reform detractors (except perhaps lesbianism).

Calamity Jane, by H. R. Locke in 1895

Interestingly, the bicycle fad of the 1890s broke the social stigma of women wearing bifurcated garments and “bicycle costumes” were actually lauded as preserving modesty while preserving health (see this post for more on athleticism’s influence on fashion). These outfits bore suspicious (and unacknowledged) resemblance to the disparaged bloomer costume by alleviating some of the major fashion impediments with narrower skirts, fewer under-layers, and (minimally) raised hemlines. 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.”

woman cycling costume, 1895

By the early 20th century, the female bicycling outfit had become more risqué, with visible legs. (Note that corsets are worn):

detail of "The Cycle Hut in the Bois de Boulogne" by Jean Beraud, c. 1901-10

In preparation for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, a federation of several women’s societies organized the National Council of Women who wanted to improve the political and social climate of the country and to overthrow the “ignorance and injustice” of women’s clothing; that is, to tackle dress form once again. They attempted to outfit prominent women reformers (Clara Barton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, etc.) and ordinary businesswomen and college girls in the reformed outfits, but the clothes could not gain traction when explicitly paired with a women’s movement.

Fabulously influential designer Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944) discarded corsets and successfully disseminated an exotic Middle Eastern look including Turkish harem pants (that again, resembled the Bloomer costume silhouette) in 1911. This was purely an aesthetic choice and not a political statement on his part (he was also the inventor of the distinctly impractical hobble skirt), but it was threatening to social and religious conservatives nonetheless and that same year the Vatican campaigned against the “harem trousers” as morally objectionable, even while women’s legs were still completely obscured. While popular in wealthy fashionable society, Poiret’s exotic styles were not worn by lower or middle class women or dress reformers — but I believe the Parisian interpretation of oriental styles hastened the ultimate acceptance of trousers for women, since it removed the politically radical (and implied lesbian) stigma.

Paul Poiret harem pants, 1911

I cannot overemphasize how wars affect fashion and this was especially true of bending gender codes in clothes, as men allow women to take on “male” work and also functional dress out of pure necessity. Aptly named “slack girls” of WWI operated machinery for war plants in full knickers, a variation on the bloomers, to avoid factory accidents:

Women working in a factory producing airplane engine parts for the WWI effort, 1918

However, this kind of outfit was purely occupation-driven and women would absolutely not wear it outside the work environment.

The Women’s Suffrage movement gained its greatest victory in 1920 when the 19th Amendment prohibited gender discrimination in the voting polls. This political gain opened a decade of many radical changes in the perception and presentation of women. While this progressive step was taken, the repressive prohibition of alcohol entered legislation in the 18th Amendment. Ironically (or not?) these Amendments hearkened a particularly hedonistic decade, and the new American jazz music invited a radically new, athletic dance style to accompany the illegal but widespread speakeasies. Many modern young women bobbed their hair in variations of gender-bending pageboy styles, the corset-less look that Poiret popularized and increasing female recreational athletic activity hastened a fad for flat chested, hipless, boyish female figures, and the garçonne became synonymous with the stylish flappers. Many of the ’20s fashions were made with the explicit intention of allowing easy movement and looking good in motion to cater to exuberant dance crazes like the Charleston, with ropes of fringe, tassels, asymmetrical and much shorter hemlines that made visible the actual leg in transparent stockings.

The clip below is from the awesomely hilarious (that is, kind of bad) Julie Andrews / Mary Tyler Moore musical Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). In the opening credits you see Millie (Andrews) transforming herself from a nineteen-teens woman to the radically modern 1920s flapper:

Even while women had short androgynous haircuts and manipulated their figures to be flat and boyish as well (though the corset was abandoned, stretchy tubular shapers were adopted to minimize feminine curves — used as a sight gag in the video above), increased use of makeup counteracted the masculine look. This was the first time since the flamboyant 18th century when makeup was applied so un-subtly so as to leave no doubt a woman wore it. Black kohl eyeshadow, spidery mascara and bright red lipstick would have been reserved for women of the theater or women of the streets in previous eras. This change was documented in magazines like Photoplay:

Photoplay cover flapper applying lipstick, 1920s

But to return to women in pants.

After WWI women returned to their kitchens, children, and dresses, but there were a few notable dissenters. While flying, the boyish pilot extraordinaire Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1937) “favored old, high-laced shoes, well-worn trousers, an ancient leather coat with deep pockets, a soft leather helmet and goggles. On land, she wore pretty much the same thing, without the headgear.” After her 1931 solo flight across the Atlantic, Earhart started her own fashion line (to subsidize her next flight) which favored similarly masculine, practical styles, but they were never adopted by the general public in her own time.

Amelia Earhart c. 1930

Similarly freckled and slender Katharine Hepburn (1907 – 2003) flouted feminine styles in favor of pants, but hers was more leisure-based than professional. Known for her athleticism, Hepburn was an avid tennis player, swimmer, and golfer, and she chose to adopt menswear (that is, pants) to enjoy these activities. She carried this casual, cross-dressing style to the RKO studio lot where her pants were once stolen… until she threatened to walk around in her underwear if the slacks were not returned.

Open bisexual Marlene Dietrich wore pants and full men’s style suits (in direct defiance of Paramount executives). As an eccentric European, she was perhaps given a smidge more leeway than Amelia and Katharine, but the fact that her  manly ensembles were in no way related to a specific athletic activity made them that much more radical and liberating. She balanced the masculine tailoring with highly stylized, feminine makeup, appealing to men and women alike.

Marlene Dietrich

Another war was necessary to push pants from movie star aberration to clothes of the common woman. WWII saw record numbers of women in factories and men’s denim overalls became typical work wear for them. Again, it’s important to remember this was only appropriate during work hours; women would change into more feminine clothes to perform their feminine duties. Margaret Bourke-White did a photography series of Women in the Defense Industry that’s available in their online archives.

female welders in overalls in Gary, IN. 1942. Photo by Margaret Bourke-White

However, even feminine styles started showing (masculine) military influence with sharply squared shoulders and slim, suit-like tailored (skirt) suits, as can be seen in this still from Casablanca (1942). If you squint, Ingrid Bergman is hardly distinguishable from the men in her jaunty brimmed hat and tailored jacket with large, practical cargo pockets:

In England during WWII, many women actually wore their husbands’ civilian clothes to work in and to save money. As the clothes wore out, pants made to fit women became increasingly popular so that by 1944 it was reported that five times more women’s trousers were sold than in 1943.

Unfortunately, the return of the “boys” after the war heralded the ’50s as the age of Dior’s “New Look:” hyperfeminine with its wasp waist, “bullet bras” (a sneaky connection to war) and voluminous skirts. Stars like Mary Tyler Moore in the Dick Van Dyke Show and Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy sneaked pants into their wardrobes even while they performed traditional familial obligations in the home (they would always change into dresses and skirts to go out). Incidentally, it was extremely difficult to find an image of Lucy wearing pants, I assume because the studio did not want to use them in publicity shots.

Jacqueline Onasis Kennedy (1929 – 1994), as a woman of accepted impeccable style and also in the political eye, did wonders for popularizing casual clothes. Though she was occasionally criticized for dressing down in pants, the Kennedy’s chic outdoorsy lifestyle, their political clout, and Jackie’s undeniable femininity ultimately contributed to the dissemination and adoption of just that style:

The Sexual Revolution of the 1970s embraced the deliberate confusion of gender codes and sexual mores, and it had become so acceptable for women to wear pants by this time that Diane Keaton’s mannish style — complete with tie!! — in Annie Hall (1977) was actually lauded and imitated (to this day, if I have anything to do with it):

The 1980s saw the advent of the “power suit” by designers like Donna Karan who tapped into the female Baby Boomers who stormed the corporate work force. Coincidentally (or not), Diane Keaton was featured in a film — Baby Boom (1987) — that addressed the aspirations and difficulties of women who want to work and have families. She sports the hugely padded suit shoulders to achieve a masculine broadness that was popular in the middle aged female workforce:

Women’s Movement progress has gradually plateaued in recent decades, with only a few battles fought and won, such as women in the U.S. Senate being allowed to wear pants in the 1990s (can you believe it?). This example highlights once again that women (and especially those in politics) must still ride the impossible line of being feminine (i.e. non-threatening) without being too sexy (i.e. distracting); this was brought to the forefront when Hillary Clinton was lambasted for showing too much cleavage on the Senate floor in 2007, even as she had many detractors for her unflattering pantsuits as well:

Clinton's supposed cleavage

My last picture is on the silly side: Saturday Night Live’s androgynous Pat character befuddles and uneases those s/he come into contact with as they try to figure out his/her sex. I think these sketches are so funny because they speak to a true and pervasive anxiety around indeterminate sex and sexuality. We seem to need to compartmentalize gender, so gender roles may be assigned and expectations set.

SNL's non-determinate sexed Pat

In every major instance of feminist upheaval, women’s clothing has been examined as both a symbolic and literal reflection of women’s inequality in society. An over-arching irony is that fashion is a human construct. The things that we recognize as “feminine” and “masculine” are not inherently so, but have simply been designated as such by early human society, and reinforced in subsequently evolving fashions. The good news is that as attitudes about gender have changed, and as women and homosexuals have won political and social freedoms we should’ve had all along, the rigid distinctions between clothing styles for men and women have blurred. Clothing can make personal statements regarding gender and sexual politics… but it doesn’t have to. However, though women may wear pants and full suits in the Western world now, there are still gender-based expectations in most of the business (specifically corporate) world that demands women wear makeup, skirts, and heels. I think we’ve hit the glass ceiling, but there’s more progress to be made.

Further Reading:

• “Women in Pants: Manly Maidens, Cowgirls, and Other Renegades” by Catherine Smith & Cynthia Greig
• “Flights of Fashion: How Amelia Earhart Became America’s First Celebrity Designer” by Gioia Diliberto, Huffington Post
• “The Power of Glamour: the Women who Defined the Magic of Stardom” by Annette Tapert

Recommend this post:

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I’m not pretending this is an all-inclusive history, and so I’ll jump in at the 16th century. With rigid social roles dictated by gender and reinforced by gender-specific clothing, one of the earliest and most consistent ways that women snuck into menswear was with accessories, specifically headgear. Well into the 20th century, millinery was requisite for the completion of any ensemble, male or female (in portraits with bareheaded subjects, the hat is almost always painted nearby). Hats were a subtle-enough portion of an outfit that women were able to dabble in menswear by minimally manipulating the size and scale or adding feminine feathers and furbelows (I love that word, don’t you?) to girlie it up a bit. Here we see Mrs. Henry VIII (wife #6) wearing a small, curved cap with ostrich feather that’s rather similar to her husband’s:

Catherine Parr, unknown artist, c. 1545, wife of Henry VIII

Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540

In medieval days when fencing was a legitimate form of conflict resolution, slashed rents in a man’s clothing were badges of honor to the living victor of a sworded confrontation. This was appropriated into general men’s fashion in the form of “slashes” which were slits along sleeves or chest that allowed the stark white linen underclothes to “bleed” through. Though this decorative style was firmly rooted in a demonstration of sparring virility, it was soon interpreted in womenswear,  muddying the symbology in a delightful manner (says me). Men’s styles at large already had a close relationship to armor with sharp V waistline, and pronounced shoulder and chest seams that impersonated metal rivets and joints:

English armor of George Clifford, Third Earl of Cumberland, c. 1580–1586

Queen Elizabeth I was known for her lengthy “virginal” (that is, unmarried) matriarchal reign and, among fashion historians, her calculated use of fashion to assert her dominance within her own court and as a world leader of one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries (an interesting topic for another post). It’s unsurprising then, that she would sport these masculine slashes, pronounced shoulders, deep V corset and phallic sword to signal her capability and equality with male rulers.

detail of Elizabeth I, c. 1560s, with lace ruff

The male-hat-adopted-by-females trend continued in the 17th century, even as the fashionable hat shape changed radically….

Compare to men’s:

detail of Tric-trac players, attributed to Mathieu Le Nain, c. 1650

Though women’s hair was always kept long as a symbol of sexuality, femininity and fertility, it was also always swept away from the face and neck for modesty (because of those sexual connotations). Though Henrietta Maria (below) might look perfectly feminine to modern eyes, her asymmetrical, partially dangling curls were based on men’s hairstyles (as is the hat):

detail Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson by sir Anthony van Dyck c. 1633

As women gradually (oh so gradually!) branched out into sports and athletic pastimes, the only existing model for sporting attire was that of men’s. Therefore equestrienne gear was one of the first places entire female ensembles were able to mimic entire ensembles of menswear, often incorporating military-inspired embellishment (continuing the theme of war that armor-influence fashion introduced). Below we see Lady Henrietta Cavendish wearing a masculine tri-cornered hat with phallic whip replacing the phallic cane Elizabeth I brandished. The skirt hemline is slightly shorter than would otherwise be acceptable, to allow improved (though still cumbersome) movement. When women were painted in such masculine clothes, the horse is almost always in the background to confirm the outfit is for a specific purpose and not daily wear.

Compare to menswear with full coat skirts, wide cuffs, long (bewigged) hair, and military-style embellishment on the chest:

detail of The Court of Chancery by Benjamin Ferrers, c. 1725

Equestrienne portraiture remained popular through the 19th century, documenting the persisting military / millinery menswear influence in that sport:

Countess Sophia Maria de Voss by Antoine Pesne, 1745

The woman below can clearly be seen wearing a top hat — headgear of the upper class 19th and early 20th century male — and jacket-like bodice with tie:

A Woman Hunting by Alfred De Dreux (1810-1860)

She looks not unlike a flaneur, a 19th century strolling man of leisure (note his female companion does not wear a top hat, as it would be inappropriate in this context):

detail of "Paris, Rainy Weather" by Gustave Caillebotte, 1877

As I suggested in my last post for men adopting female fashions, only women of the privileged upper classes could get away with wearing masculine clothes or accessories. You can see that many of the pictures I culled are royalty (who have a bit more leeway when it comes to forging fashion trends and thumbing convention), and only the wealthy could afford horseback riding as a pastime, much less specific (costly) outfits that could only be worn for that one activity. (Please comment if you know this to be inaccurate; this is my hunch.)

Next week I’ll discuss the specific influence of the Women’s Movement on fashion, and vice versa, as lower class women who simply wanted to be comfortable and hygienic championed dress reform as a movement of its own.

Recommend this post:

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I recently gave a lecture on cross-dressing to a terrific sociology class at FIT (and yes, I wore the outfit above), and I had such ridiculous fun (and stress!) researching it that I thought I’d share with the blogosphere to spread the wealth. You don’t get the pleasure of my witty repartee, but you do get a decent, if slightly inferior, substitute. I do want to give the disclaimer that this is not even close to a comprehensive, in-depth study of cross-dressing, but rather a quickie pictorial romp through the ages. This is “cross-dressing” very loosely defined: the fashions included are technically male fashions worn by men, but have distinct feminine qualities that were widely adopted, but also criticized by an endless list of moralists. Lastly, am also concentrating on Western fashion, which is, I acknowledge, an additional shortcoming of this essay, with the Eastern cultures embracing bisexual skirts for so long. So be it. I included examples of both clothing that was actually considered cross-dressing in its own day, and garments that were perfectly hetero-normative then, but appear to be borrowed from the opposite sex to our modern eyes.

I’m not going to spend much time on the ancients, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that it took many hundreds of years to develop sex-specific clothing styles, and though the ancient Greeks and Romans from which we came did have differentiation between sexes in their draped garments (the women’s breasts were covered while men’s chests might be exposed, for example), those variations were relatively slight, immediately drawing attention to the fact that sex-specific clothes is a societal construct that was honed — as gender roles and expectations were — over time. Mighty, manly Zeus (below) wears a draped himation that could be just as easily worn by a woman, were the front flap pulled up for modesty:

Zeus marble statue wearing himation

The Medieval houppelande was a loose bodied, floor-length coat with narrow sleeves that became a symbol of gender non-specificity in the late 14th/early 15th centuries:

Les Petites Heures de Jean de Berry Duke Jean de Berry departing on a pilgrimage Bourges, c.1412

Marie de Gueldre depicted as the Virgin Mary (in a houppelande), 1415

Men wore jewelry off and on, and in the mid-16th century, they often wore a single dangling earring along with their wide, padded breeches that resembled puffy skirts. Whatever femininity this might have indicated was counter-balanced with hyper-masculine pointy beards and codpieces (which were not uncommonly erect, in case you had any lingering doubts of a man’s virility). The pointy beard mirrored the triangular waistline, and punctuated by the essential phallic sword accessory, further drawing the eye to the crotch:

"Boy with a Greyhound" by Paolo Veronese, c.1570s

It has been hypothesized that the exaggeratedly stuffed breeches of the 16th century was a sartorial salute to (or at least an acknowledgement of) an age of powerful female monarchs including Elizabeth I (1533-1603); Catherine de’Medici (1519-1589); and Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587). In the mid 1580s (just a couple years before the portrait below), Philip Stubbs wrote that apparel is a signifier of biological and social differences between the sexes. I find this somewhat hilarious, given that male clothes had so many feminine features (skirt-like breeches, emphasis on curvy legs, nipped waistline, elaborate embroidery, long hair), and also that King James I of England (1566 – 1625) — who succeeded Queen Elizabeth I — was quite probably homosexual or bisexual and it was known that he bestowed favors upon the male peacocks of the court.

Sir Walter Raleigh by H., 1588

Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, 1594

There was a growing acceptance of licentious aristocratic behavior in the 17th century in which the choice of sexual partner was not necessarily restricted to male or female, but could incorporate relationships with boys alongside mistresses without jeopardizing the ideals of “manliness.” The man below has something of the feminine about him with his loose, baggy pantaloons, festive sash, lace garter bows, and pointed toe pose with fist on hip, but this was nothing out of the ordinary for the time:

Standard-Bearer of the Civil Guard by Evert van der Maes, 1615

Male attire was designed to emphasize the soft, curvy lines of the male physique rather than sharp angles at this time — ironically, women wore corsets that virtually flattened their busts. Both sexes wore  lace neck ruffs; lace wrist cuffs; coiffed, longish hair; and high waistlines with short pantaloons which emphasized elongated, shapely legs (hoes were often padded to achieve desired visions of muscularity):

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham by George Villiers, c. 1616. Archetypal Jacobean dandy

King Louis XIV (1638-1715) was aesthetically extravagant in many regards (the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles is testament to that), and clocking in at only 5′ 4″ tall, he undoubtedly assisted the height of men’s shoes: some of his own were 6 inches high! As modern women know, heels also help produce flexed, shapely calves which were still very much in the style of the Sun King’s time. In 1663 the English court adopted the periwig, further feminizing the men of the time (the pointed toe pose should be familiar):

King Louis XIV, 17th Century

As the century wore on, the periwigs remained, and though men’s legs were increasingly covered, the longer garments that covered them resembled female outerwear, not unlike the unisex Medieval houppelandes, but with modern embellishments like enormous cuffed sleeves:

James Craggs the Elder by John Closterman c. 1710

Post 1700, homosexual behavior was increasingly constructed as a depraved activity associated with a minority of effeminate men; by the 1720s extreme bodily gestures, affected mannerisms in speech and contrived magnificence in costume had come to indicate sexual preference (and perversion). Post-1720, the effeminacy of the previously innocuous “fop” was identified with the effeminacy of the sodomite, adding a significantly more judgmental layer to the language of male attire. The bitter irony is that there was still significant gender crossover in dress. Compare the gentleman below to his female partner: the full skirted frock coat resembles her own skirt; the wide cuffs mimic her lace ones; their gracefully pointed toes meet between them; and the long, coiffed hair is covered for modesty by the woman but styled and flaunted by the man.

detail of The Dancing Lesson by P Longhi, c. 1760

The Macaronies of the latter half of the 18th century were often accused of effeminacy, with their outrageously tall powdered wigs, the rosettes on his shoes, and the teeny-tiny three-cornered hat perched atop his sculptural headdress. Macaronies followed the general styles of the time, but typically with tighter silhouettes, often employing vertical stripes to emphasize sleek lines, as in this man’s tights:

The Macaroni. A Real Character at the Late Masquerade, by Philip Dawe, 1773.

Though the wig in and of itself is deliciously ridiculous, remember that Marie Antoinette (175501793) was commissioning equally tall wigs (for women, it’s true):

The 1830s brought male girdles that created feminine wide hips and nipped waists (again). Dandy Beau Brummell (1778 – 1840) is credited with creating the modern 3-piece suit with full-length trousers replacing shorter breeches, fitted, tailored clothes, and downplaying flamboyant color in favor of more muted, “masculine” tones. With this feat he also accelerated the separation of  male and female fashion crossover. Likewise, the implication of caring about appearance now became associated with the “weaker sex,” whereas in previous centuries men were expected to primp and preen — and for the results to look like they did. Flamboyance was now expressed more subtly in brightly patterned accents like neckwear and waistcoats.

dandy, 1822

Dandies c. 1840s

I’m taking a huge leap in time now, assuming that readers are far more familiar with the 19th and early 20th century male fashions and already understand how relatively monochromatic and plain they became after Brummel’s time. With the sexual revolution of the 1960s and Glam Rock of the 1970s, there was a revival in experimentation with sexuality and gender identities. Young men once again wore ornate and ostentatious clothes that often made explicit references to days of yore when the adult population favored the resplendent over the conservative. To wit, Earl Lichfield emulating 18th century male (and yet effeminate with embroidery and ruffles) below:

Thomas Patrick John Anson, Earl of Lichfield, 1968

Open bisexual and hugely influential David Bowie (and other glam rockers) deliberately pushed gender boundaries by applying makeup, lengthening hair in deliberately female styles, and wearing high heels. Though the music movement had (and maintains) an impressive following, the gender role-play was viewed by the general public as subversive act of abnormal sexuality.

David Bowie in The Man Who Sold the World cover, 1970

Allow a detour into Tove’s childhood: at the dentist’s office in the early 1980s, I picked up a small pin of Madonna with ratty, teased bangs, heavy eyeliner and thick eyebrows. I treasured it and wore it on my daily backback. I was absolutely flabbergasted to learn  from my best friend (who was a sage 3 years older) that the image was not Madonna at all, but Boy George, a regularly cross-dressing man I hadn’t heard of before!

Boy George, 1980s

Madonna, 1980s. (I know the difference now.)

On the heels of the revolutionary ’70s, the reactionary conservative Regan/Thatcher ’80s gave way to a new generation of cross dressing men, but this was mostlylimited to pop / rock stars like Georgie here, and those associated with the New Romantic music genre including Roxie Music and Adam and the Ants (whose frontman favored an 18th century pirate/aristocrat look with lipgloss and eyeliner):

Adam and the Ants

Current revivals of cross-dressing for men have dwindled again, I’m afraid. Fashion exhibitions like the Met’s “Men in Skirts” (2003-04) confirms that men in skirts are anomalies to be studied behind glass, these days. However, the Utilikilt is a modern-day skirt for the man “man enough” to wear it against gender pressures, with a manifesto including “The Utilikilts Company does not accept preconceived limitations as our own.” Interestingly, it is geared towards men in construction as opposed to gay, fey, or transvestite men, offering comfort, ventilation, cargo pants-like pockets and optional built-in tool belts. Interestingly, it has been adopted by some subcultures like punk and goth kids that are known for experimenting with gender roles in dress:

Um, and also this adorably dorky (but admirably self-possessed) highschooler:

highschooler in utilikilt

These days fashion remains a female preoccupation in the public’s eye; men supposedly dress for fit and comfort rather than style, and women commonly “make over” their men, keeping gender roles solidly separate in philosophy and image. It’s only been in the last few years that male fashion has swung back to embracing decorative, colorful elements (which the Utilikilt does not). However, I see this as a corporate marketing ploy rather than the ideal acceptance of polymorphous sexuality or the understanding of sexism as dictated by fashion. Marketers simply wanted to capitalize on the largely untapped male market (and the higher income-earners to boot) for what have become “female” products: makeup, accessories, hair products, etc. And thus, the metrosexual was born — a term indicating a heterosexual man who nonetheless adorns himself (like gay men or straight women are supposed to do).

metrosexual, 2000s

As a final note, gender flexibility in dress has almost always been more acceptable for the elite classes (this was certainly true of the 17th and 18th centuries, and perhaps today as well), where it might be viewed as “eccentric” rather than “deviant.” For middling classes, clear distinctions between feminine and masculine dress signified precious respectability, so they were therefore more reluctant to adopt gender-ambiguous trends. Though I am sickened by the capitalist manipulation it seemingly took to accept a teeny tiny bit of cross-dressing into mainstream fashion culture in the form of the metrosexual, I hope this small step develops further to legitimize gender blurring in dress (because as you can see, we have a strong history of cross-sex trends), and dissolving ideas of “heterosexual normalcy,” and opening the creative channels of personal adornment to all economic strata.

Next week, I’ll dissect female cross-dressing in history, which, though superficially similar in concept, has had different implications of oppression.

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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-):

"Birdie": Height: 5'10", Bust: 38", Waist: 32", Hips: 44"

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!).

The Doll, 1935-37

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?

The two Violetta's in bed, Paris, 1991

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):

Thierry Mugler ensemble, Monaco, 1998

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:

"Chair," "Table," and "Hatstand," 1969

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 designed by Joan Miro, sculpture by Man Ray, 1938

“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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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,

Pucci mannequin by Maira Kalman, "Tango" series

and Anna Sui.

Pucci mannequin by 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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