Thread for Thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional resources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and Anna Sui.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Compare this 1909 storefront…

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article will be continued shortly in Part II…

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

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

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

THEDA BARA

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

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

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

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

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

Here is one of my favorite Futurist paintings:

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

CLAUDETTE COLBERT

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

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

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

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

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

Again, with vaguely exotic peacock imagery:

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

LIZ TAYLOR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THEDA BARA & THE LURE OF THE EXOTIC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOUISE BROOKS & MODERN ADVANCEMENTS

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

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

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

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

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

RESURRECTION OF THE VAMP

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

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

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

Further Reading:

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

Recommend this Post:

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Last week I watched the movie Coraline (2009), directed by the stop-motion animator master Henry Selick who achieved recognition for his collaboration with Tim Burton in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). I was kind of blown away by his latest effort; it succeeded on many levels, but for the sake of this blog I’ll limit my enthusiasm to the crafty parts.

The loving attention to hand crafts — and needlework in particular — starts immediately with the opening credits which are done in a font that mimics embroidery, complete with visible stitches and deliberate loose threads dangling off the names:

The next 1 ½ minutes of credits include careful closeups  of a doll being undone, unraveled, un-stuffed, taken apart stitch by stitch, and then reassembled (note the creator’s hands are composed of needles themselves):

There’s a lovely shot of a button drawer being pulled out and poured over,

a needle poking through rough cloth (you can see every fibre in 3-D!) and sewing the selected button on,

reusing the limp burlap chassis to meticulously create another doll with variations that make it resemble Coraline, down to her raincoat:

REPETITION. REPETITION.

Just as puppet masters created Coraline puppets in multiples with slight clothing, expression, hair and rumpled variations to make the movie, duplication and cloning are visual motifs within the movie. Coraline’s mother picks out a mass-produced gray school uniform among a rack of identical uniforms,

all the neighbors have collections of identical animals: the burlesque sisters with their Scottie dogs (3 living, many more stuffed on shelves),

and the Amazing Bobinski with his circus mice:

And when Coraline’s parents go missing, she touchingly tucks herself into bed with crudely handmade dolls of them, formed out of pillows with dad’s glasses and mom’s neck brace (a doll making dolls of other dolls):

Looking at the plot, we see this theme of multiplicity is a satisfyingly consistent one: the neighbor kid Wybee’s grandma has a(n evil) twin sister; the entire concept of the Other Mother and Other World with nearly identical houses, and gardens and neighbors echo and compliment each other within the framework of the story. These devices create an eerie mirrored alternate world like those in a Borges story, but also relate to the duplicate film sets (which were actually constructed by set builders, not created digitally), dolls, clothes, etc., behind-the-scenes. The evil twin / menacing other world is not exactly original subject matter for suspense-horror films which often tap into fears of duplicitousness and two-facedness, but I particularly love how the duplication appears in front of the camera and behind it in Coraline.

CRAFTINESS

Crafty, homemade objects are featured prominently. Coraline’s Other Mother cooks homemade meals, creates hand-sewn outfits for her, etc. Coraline (and the viewer, by extension) recognizes these as signs of affection. Interpreted as labors of feminine love at first, they are revealed to be sinister, employed as a trap. When the Other Mother reveals her true physical form as a terrifying spider with needle hands (the same needle hands that seemed to lovingly craft the doll in the film’s opening sequence), it calls to mind the sculptures of Louise Bourgeois. In her “Cell” series, Bourgeois created mini houses out of found objects like discarded doors and grating and filled them with objects related to feminine domestic stereotypes like sewing supplies, clothes, etc.:

Another Bourgeois recurring visual motif is spiders, representing her own mother and universal stereotypes of mothers (one is actually entitle “Maman“) and exploring their creepiness and yet comfortable familiarity and harmlessness:

Compare Bourgeois’ large but protective Spider to Coraline’s Other Mother as a distinctly evil spider who deploys a web not to catch pesky insects but to entrap Coraline herself:

In the final scene of Coraline, domestic bliss is achieved by unifying her family and the previously indifferent neighbors in the act of planting tulips, a pared-down version of domesticity, handiness, and community. They’re not perfect — Coraline’s mother complains about the dirt, Bobinski pulls out tulips bulbs to replace them with beets, and the end result is not the stunning spectacle of the Other World’s garden — but it is a more realistic picture of imperfect homeyness.

Now allow me to lay some incredible fun facts on you about the meticulous crafty creation of this film:

• To construct 1 puppet, 10 individuals had to work 3-4 months.
• About 45 of Coraline’s pajamas were screen painted with printed patterns where every dot had to line up along the seams of every frock in precisely the same place for consistency.
• For the character of Coraline, there were 28 different puppets of varying sizes; the main Coraline puppet stands 9.5 inches high.
• All fabric was hand woven or hand knit to achieve the correct scale.
• The only leather the production could find that was thin enough to make the doll shoes and Mr. Bobinsky’s boots came from antique Victorian gloves.
• Buttons and zippers were also handmade for the film to suit the scale.
• Costumers used pins, surgical tools and tweezers to construct the garments.
• Each of Coraline’s star sweaters took 6 weeks to 6 months to design and knit on knitting needles like toothpicks. (On the website in Coraline’s room there is a film short on miniature knits. It will blow your mind a little.)

HISTORY OF SEWING IN THE HOME

Coraline tapped into the familiarity we have with women performing acts like cooking, cleaning, and sewing: the audience presumably watches the film with knowing amusement as Coraline’s father makes a dinner which resembles the gelatinous, sludgy meals from Better Off Dead (1985). We learn that Coraline’s mother is a good cook but has prioritized professional work and has relegated the dinner chore to the inept (though good-intentioned) father. The Other Mother then lures Coraline with elaborate, beautifully presented meals and a homemade sweater ensemble.

There is a rich history binding women to sewing. “A woman who does not know how to sew is as deficient in her education as a man who cannot write,” Eliza Farrar wrote in The Young Lady’s Friend (1838). Creating, altering and mending the family’s clothing and household textiles were domestic duties that kept most 18th and 19th-century women tethered to their sewing baskets; until the late 19th century nearly all clothing was made in the home. According to Godey’s Lady’s Book, it took about 14 hours to make a man’s dress shirt and at least 10 for a simple dress. A middle-class housewife spent several days a month making and mending her family’s clothes even with the help of a hired seamstress.

Sewing wasn’t all drudgery, though. Needlework served utilitarian purposes in the home, but also allowed women to communicate and assert their individual identities, beliefs, and aspirations with creativity and skill. The anticipation of weddings and births fueled creative energy and inspired impressive handiwork which was often functional — but not always — as in samplers which showcased a woman’s cross-stitching dexterity by forming alphabets in varying typefaces, geometric borders, and picture scenes. Linens, blankets and other handmade textiles made up the bulk of a girl’s hope chest (a.k.a. “marriage chest”), preparing her for her household duties as a wife and serving as advance proof of her sewing skill and worth as a woman and future matriarch.

Sewing circles were commonly formed by women, comprised of neighbors and relatives who would gather at a house and work on their sewing chores together. Women would sometimes swap portions of their own work with their friends who were particularly adept at a specific tasks. This happily merged what could be lonely drudgery with pleasurable socializing and political discussion (though the latter is rarely acknowledged).

Sadly, sewing was often taken for granted as a skill — seamstresses were perceived as unimaginative lackeys who just followed instructions that any person might perform, and not as visionaries who could conceptualize how to take two-dimensional materials and connect them to form three-dimensional structures that envelope a body and yet can be gotten into easily, who possessed the skill to adapt techniques to various textures and weights, to say nothing of the artistic choices of color, style, and fit. Appreciation aside, there was a drastic interruption of this centuries-old tradition in the mid 19th century.

It wasn’t until the House of Worth (founded in 1858) when a man took the reigns of dressmaking, removed it from the home and created a pampered, decadent purchasing experience, that sewing took on any cachet or respect as a profession (see my earlier post on The Tea Gown in Fashion and Art for more on the House of Worth). The Industrial Revolution heralded the invention of the sewing machine (patented by Elias Howe in 1845), cheap labor and the growing factory system, standardization of sizes, and outcropping of distribution methods like apparel and department stores, all of which contributed to an increase in demand of ready-to-wear  garments. This was the beginning of consumers’ expectations for hyper-accelerated turnaround of new styles, necessitating ever-briefer time between designers’ visions, prototype creations, and mass market availability. It could be argued that the sewing machine eased women of much of the time consuming burden of clothing their families, but a contrary view is that the sewing machine snatched a labor of love, pride, and skill from women, not to mention the social community bonding. And though it’s distasteful to many modern women to think of being trapped in their houses all day, it was a small leap from the workrooms of House of Worth to the factories and notoriously dangerous conditions of garment factories (like the infamous Triangle Factory), exploiting the poor. Though sweatshops certainly exist in America today, many more are in developing countries with desperate-and-therefore-cheap labor forces, doubly exploited by consumer-hungry countries abroad and their own government systems which do not protect them with worker’s rights addressing age minimums, hour maximums, safety standards, etc.

In terms of household implications, the sewing machine was only the first of many labor-saving devices for the home (partially by altering sewing from a home activity to a factory one); washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and vacuum cleaners all made housekeeping easier and cut down the work time required. An important consequence of all this labor saving has been the diminished woman’s role as household manager. This gradual loss of status helped undermine the satisfaction many women formerly found in the homemaking role and encouraged them to seek more demanding employment in other places, as we see Coraline’s mother has chosen her profession over domestic work. In most industrialized countries these days, sewing, needlework, knitting, crocheting, quilting, etc. have been relegated to niche markets (still mostly women) who have self-consciously resurrected the skills for hobby, not generally necessity. This is why we all understand how Coraline is taken in by her Other Mother’s handmade overtures.

I loved Coraline not only because it was a good, creepy story, but because its meticulous production methods showcased the hand-made theme present in the narrative, a far cry from the digitally created worlds of almost all current animation (which can absolutely be well done too). I like, too, how the simple black button icon of Coraline is a symbol of sewing and domestic familiarity twisted beautifully into a tool of sinister manipulation.

Further Reading:

• “The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption and Home Dressmaking” by Barbara Burman
• “History of Sewing” online study guide
• “Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times” by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
• “The Making of Coraline” in Extra Features on Coraline DVD
• “How the Other Half Lives” Jacob Riis photographs of exploited poor Lower East Siders, NY

Recommend this post:

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Due to a coveted invitation to my friend’s tea party this weekend, I have that genteel social event on my mind. And since I always have costume on my mind as well, it’s only natural that I should want to dissect a portrait of a young woman enjoying the same activity that I shortly will.

Mary Cassatt’s “The Cup of Tea” is a portrait of Cassatt’s sister, Lydia Simpson, wearing a pink gown, circa 1879 (among other date indicators, Lydia’s flat-lying skirt suggests horsehair crinolines underneath, which made a brief return to fashion between 1876 and 1882 before being replaced by the bulkier bustle). “Tea gowns,” essential garments of the late 19th and early 20th century wardrobes and invented by the tea obsessed English, are frilly, decorative, and also comfortable, often achieved by a looser fit uncommon in other dresses of the 19th century. Though Lydia’s dress appears rather fitted — you can clearly see the outline of her corset at her tiny waist and gently bulging belly — it’s possible that her arm is blocking our view of a looser fitting back, allowing her to recline more comfortably. The profile of a stiffer seated subject was famously used to portray an older, darker, more somber portrait: that of “Whistler’s Mother,” officially entitled the more clinical “Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother” (1871), and I doubt it’s a coincidence that Whistler’s mum was painted just a few years earlier than Cassatt’s sis.

A small enough amount of lace is present in the Lydia’s cuffs so that it’s conceivable that handmade lace — a precious luxury item — was used. However, the appearance of a Great Exhibition in Paris just a year before this portrait helped popularized machine-made lace, making it more accessible and far more affordable, so it is reasonable to think that Lydia wears some. The rich silk-satin fabric advertises Lydia’s wealth, and though it is possible that Lydia’s dress was sewn with the help of the sewing machine (a major asset to the fashion industry since the 1840s), the upper class still preferred the personally designed, tailored and unique looks generated by the haute couture industry.

Charles Frederick Worth (1827-1893) was an Englishman who pioneered the haute couture experience with his House of Worth located in Paris. Founded 1858, his success corresponded with France’s Second Empire which devoted considerable energy to rebuilding the luxury textile / fashion trades Paris had been known for before the French Revolution (1789 – 99), during which all things seen as bourgeois were attacked, very much including high fashion. Worth not only capitalized upon the climbing demand for sumptuous clothes, he absolutely revolutionized the dress purchasing experience, turning it into a social event for the privileged. Instead of being visited by a doting tailor, as in the past, a 19th century woman in need of a new dress would go to her fashion house (others opened after Worth’s, though his remains the most acclaimed to this day). There she would be received in a decadent parlor filled with other wealthy society ladies, and a fashion show would parade before them, to select the styles they desired. Consultations on fabrics and trimmings would follow (these finishing touches would distinguish the same dress style purchased by different women), measurements taken, the final product being a unique work of wearable art. The elegant simplicity of Lydia’s gown makes it a possible product of the House of Worth itself.

Here is a gown from the House of Worth just a few years after Cassatt’s painting:

During the High Victorian Period (1850-1885), a strict regulation of clothes was maintained. According to these laws of dress, Lydia’s high neckline, three-quarter length sleeves and sumptuous fabric show that the portrait captured a moment of the afternoon (as opposed to plunging décolleté with short sleeves which were for fancier evening activities, or if the same dress were made with less refined material like cotton, it would have indicated casual dress for mornings). As the title suggests, the primary purpose of this painting was not portraiture, but the depiction of a popular social ritual. And though Cassatt was American, she frequently depicted bourgeois Parisian society, which, “between 1870 and 1914 was thrown back on its own devices to satisfy its taste for elegance. The Ancien Regime and the Imperial aristocracy, the bourgeoisie enriched by the economic revival, and the spendthrifts, frivolous demi-monde that succeeded to the follies of the Second Empire, all provided an easy prey for the new lords of elegance, the masters of Couture and Fashion,” as Francois Boucher noted.

In John Singer Sargent’s “Madame Edouard Pailleron,” also painted in 1879, a similar look is achieved. A small departure is that Lydia wears a tea gown while Mme Pailleron wears a fashionable dress suitable for outdoor activity, and this is confirmed by her grassy surroundings. The same idealized long-waisted hourglass figure is achieved with the same long corset. She lifts her skirts enough to reveal the crinolines we assumed Lydia wore. Where Lydia’s tea gown of soft silk satin was conducive for casual indoor comfort, Mme Pailleron’s stiff dress is probably silk taffeta and more appropriate for formal public appearances. In contrast to Lydia’s ultra-feminine and youthful pink, Mme Pailleron wears somber black, obviously a fashion choice and not imposed on her by rules of mourning (see my earlier post), as she also has a large white tulle bow around her neck and flamboyant red flowers on her shoulder — unacceptable for mourning. In spite of its conservative color, Mme Pailleron’s dress is highly decorated with short, layered ruffles along the hemline (it must’ve sounded divine, rustling with her movements!), a band of beadwork around the hips and neckline, lace sleeves and lace strips draped around the skirt (machine-made, judging from the length and quantity), and taffeta bows on the cuffs and skirt. Though both women have white tulle around their necks and cuffs, that tulle is Lydia’s only dress ornamentation. As expected, the two women seem to be following the same fashion trends, the major differences only being those that can be attributed to different activities.

Lydia’s light but voluminous collar is similar to Mme Pailleron’s of the same year, and Lydia has taken it to an extreme so that it becomes reminiscent of the standing ruffs of the 16th century, which was a major social status symbol, made of that precious lace, laboriously starched, and difficult to keep clean in its proximity to the face:

Revival styles (or “flashback fashion” as I like to call them) was extremely popular in the 1870s, and Lydia seemed to embrace this fascination with the past. Her costume suggests an affinity for Neo-Rococo taste: the soft, curvy lines exaggerated by the hourglass corset, the fitted, three-quarter length sleeves ending in a flurry of bell-shaped white lace, not to mention the vaginal billowing pink silk, are all reminiscent of Fragonard’s Rococo painting “The Swing” (1766). This painting, along with the original Rococo movement a century earlier, was obsessed with the idea of femininity and sexuality in the eyes of the voyeur:

Lydia’s style would have been well noted, as she lived a life where to be a successful society woman, one had to keep up appearances. With the completion of Garnier’s Parisian Opera in 1874, the opera became an important place to see and be seen. Opera glasses were just as often used to observe audience members as they were to watch performers on stage, and usually by the traditional voyeurs: men. Not limited to sexual voyeurism, a man would survey his business competitor’s wife to see how well she was dressed, her appearance a direct reflection of how successful her husband was. Baudelaire wrote that woman was “the object of keenest admiration and curiosity that the picture of life can offer to its contemplator.” Mary Cassatt and the Impressionist art movement was fascinated with this phenomenon, often painting these privileged voyeurs at the Opera. Cassatt continues this theme in “The Cup of Tea,” eliminating her sister’s companion from the composition and making the viewer of the painting Lydia’s voyeur — all the more titillating, perhaps, as tea time was a female ritual that men would not see at all — except in paintings.

The floral theme in “The Cup of Tea” warrants examination as well. Throughout art history, flowers have acted as a visual metaphor for a woman’s sex, and the concept of the femme fleur was especially popular in Victorian times. The melding of the flower in Lydia’s hat with the flowers in the flowerbox behind her is echoed by her bell-shaped cuffs and the rosettes making up her collar, which gives a floral illusion when viewed en masse. Furthermore, the blurred lines between hat flower and flowerbox flower create a physical unity with the house, thus suggesting a traditional psychological unity of woman with the home. Though feminist movements had manifested themselves in both fashion (with the invention of the Bloomer costume in 1849) and politics (with the women’s suffrage movement), it is clear that neither Mary nor Lydia Cassatt subscribed to these radical ideas, instead perpetuating traditional stereotypes of feminine roles in painting and costume.

But enough of Lydia, and on to more important, current issues: what will I wear to my own tea party?

Further Reading:

• “The Cult of the Tea Gown”
• “Tea Trot” photo montage, NY Times
• “How Tea-Mania Flooded Britain,” Telegraph.co.uk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further reading:

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

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With all the excitement of the Kentucky Derby culminating last weekend, I thought I’d take the opportunity to learn about (and share) the roots of horse racing apparel. To begin with the basics, jockey “silks” are comprised of white breeches and a bib, stock or cravat, and receiving them is a rite of passage for jockeys entering their first race ride. Horsemen wearing “colors” (as they’re also known) has a long, illustrious past that has developed with the various horse sports. In ancient Rome for example, chariot drivers wore unique, brightly colored capes and headbands to identify themselves in the arenas. Roots in heraldry and coats of arms can be seen, the decorated shields and armor of which identified members of families and soldiers on battlefields, as jockeys came to be identified by their silks:

Horse racing meets are recorded as far back as 1114, and individual silk colors are first mentioned in 1515 when Henry VIII occupied the English throne. In those early days of horse racing, few horses would compete and close finishes were rare enough that identification was not terribly problematic, but in the 18^th century, racing gained popularity. As more horses competed in each race, riders wore simple colored silk jackets to combat increasingly confused judges and spectators. This was not an entirely new idea: in medieval times, jousting knights wore bright, distinct colors which facilitated the identification of the competitors for the audience members of large arenas:

In 1762 the English Jockey Club formalized what had been a general practice and requested that owners submit specific colors for riders’ jackets and caps, which were to be used consistently. Later that year they made the Newmarket resolution that owners must submit the racing silks for their horses to compete. From the minutes: “For the greater convenience of distinguishing the horses in running, and also for the prevention of disputes arising from not knowing the colors of each rider, the under-mentioned gentleman have come to the resolution and agreement of having the colors annexed to their names, worn by their respective riders.”

More rules have been implemented since then. The horse owner or trainer selects and registers their jockey’s colors (which includes colors and patterns) in national horse races; typically all horses belonging to a particular owner will be raced in the same colors. The owner must check the appropriate database (Weatherbys for England, The Jockey Club for the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada, etc.) as each racing silk must be unique. Patterns are created with squares, lines, circles and stars of contrasting colors.  Uniforms at national races are very bright but regulations dictate a maximum of 4 colors. Japanese rules mandate that the hat color must match the gate color, but in other countries it must match the uniform.

Jockey silks used to be made of actual silk, though it is unsurprising that synthetics like nylon are often used nowadays, as they are for other athletic ensembles. The cut of jockey silks is close fitting for minimal wind resistance — important when tenths of seconds can make the difference between first and second places — but not tight, as the rider must have freedom of movement. Thin, lightweight materials like silk are ideal for ease of movement, breathability, and not adding bulk to jockeys for whom low weight is a necessity. Long or short sleeves may be chosen but jockeys usually prefer long sleeves that minimize chafing. A 2005 lawsuit granted The Jockey Club the right to add small logos and advertisements to the jockey pants which had previously been pure white. It’s interesting to me that this sport previously resisted the seductive pull of ostentatious corporate sponsor logos that have visually taken over another track sport: car racing.

It behooves (ha!) jockeys to stand out from others not only to distinguish themselves from their competitors, but also as walking (or running) advertisements for the owners, the jockeys’ employers (even without literal sartorial branding). In a time when casual attire is more and more the norm, on the horse tracks pride in performance is still displayed with bright, shiny, colorful and patterned silks, where historically the attendees have been the upper class bourgeois, dressed in their own finery to see and be seen. This leads me into the class struggle that I see on the horse tracks.

I believe the jockey silks serve yet another purpose: to distinguish them — the hired talent — from the owners and spectators. The owner-dictated colors to be worn by jockeys are already a kind of stamp of claim, and professional jockeys — unlike gentlemen who ride or hunt for leisure — are typically culled from the working class who often got their starts as humble stable boys. In his fascinating book “City Games: The Evolution of Americann Urban Society and the Rise of Sports (Sport and Society),” Steven A. Riess notes that “thoroughbred racing and yachting, strongly identified in the public mind as elite sports because of the exorbitant cost of participation and the restricted memberships of jockey and yacht clubs, served as status-defining communities.” After being banned during the American Revolutionary era because of its associations both with the unpopular elite and immoral gambling, Jockey clubs were eventually created and justified “as the only means of developing superior horses for such uses as national defense (the cavalry) and transportation.”

The horse track is one of the few daytime, outdoor activities where formal attire is expected; it’s the plein air version of a night at the opera where the rich and famous (who may or may not actually care about the race outcome) can “see and be seen” while peering through their binoculars as opera-goers peered through their opera glasses. Mint juleps are served to daintily sipping guests while mud and dust spattered horses and jockeys are running for their lives — and sometimes to their deaths. These jockeys, though respected after wins, have been depicted in rather startling ways.

Jockeys are often portrayed as either boyish and/or with hunched posture:

This begs physical comparison with jockeys’ equine partners, as The Triplets of Bellville (2003) portrayed their cyclist athlete as a kind of horse-slave:

Compare to a horse owner. Note the erect posture, with top hat to emphasize his stature physically and socially (men of lower classes wore different hat styles):

The wonderful scene in My Fair Lady (filmed in 1964 but taking place circa 1916) illustrates the class prerequisite of the races. Lower-class Eliza Doolittle has never attended the races before, and her behavior in the exclusively upper crust setting is the final test of Henry Higgins’ skill, who has forced himself upon her as her aristocratic mentor. It also displays Cecil Beaton’s interpretation of the conspicuous fashion that lives on even today, with great humor and only slight exaggeration:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYMSvyqHHwA&fmt=18]

A marvelous irony is that horse racing was one of the first venues for legal gambling (it has been argued that its popularity continued because of this), so for every preening attendee there is a gambler who probably cares less what he looks like or where he sees or hears about the race and more who actually wins, (wearing whatever he damn well feels like).

Though I am undeniably attracted to race horsing as a genteel, civilized activity (I could never say I don’t love excuses to wear big hats, for example), my pragmatic, socially progressive side abhors the class distinctions that the races perpetuate, exemplified still in the attire of athletes, attendees, and remote observers.

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“There are three things woman politicians get more ink in the press over than males. One is hairdo, two is hemline and the third is their husband, as society tends to be very concerned about these things with women politicians, and we’ve seen it with Sarah Palin,” said Nichola D. Gutgold, associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley in Fogelsville.

I just read a silly tidbit in New York Magazine, hoisted from a gossip blurb in the New York Daily News: a former co-contestant of the 1984 Miss Alaska beauty pageant claims that Sarah Palin kept her hair cemented in it’s do with an entire can of Aqua Net hairspray.  “An Alaskan gale wouldn’t have moved a hair on her head,” the informant Pamela Massey stated.  In looking for a picture to attach to this post using the Google search term “Sarah Palin beehive,” I discovered a host of sites that have discussed this seemingly frivolous topic at length, including the New York Times!

But it this discussion actually superficial?  Though I certainly see the silliness in devoting news space to something as seemingly inconsequential as a politician’s hairstyle, a woman’s hair is still one of the most fetishized aspects of her.  Though it often goes unspoken, female politicians have to walk a fine line of presenting themselves as attractive — because we love a leader who’s easy on the eyes — but not sexy — because a woman’s sexuality is still feared, probably because of the implied power she has upon those attracted to her.  And people have strong opinions about Palin’s hair: some think it’s sleek and modern while others see it as outdated and/or frumpy.  But all these adjectives could be — and I believe actually are – about Sarah herself.  After all, she chose the hairdo and as she’s been in both pageants and politics, I’m quite sure she gave considerable thought to her tresses.  Likewise, I believe it was a deliberate decision to have her hair in a more casual ponytail beehive variation that allies her with all those ponytailed soccer moms she’s trying to win over:

And here is Palin pre V.P. nominee (I love this!):

In the Times article her hairdresser (at the aptly named Beehive Salon) reveals that Sarah wanted to look taller on camera, which was a big (haha) issue for shrimpy 5′ 11″ G. W. Bush when running against John Kerry’s 6′ 3″.  (During debates, you could see by the podium that the camera was more zoomed in on Bush so in split screen he filled as much of the frame as Kerry did, because it’s well documented that the masses tend to vote for the taller guy.  It seems the camera trick worked in this instance.)  Curiously, Palin’s beehive has since become a popular wig style for orthodox Jewish women. The religious but apolitical Sheitel.com sells the V.P. hopeful’s namesake hairpiece in addition to the less currently popular Hillary Clinton wig(!).

“For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off,” Palin declared at an October rally in an attempt to rescue McCain’s precarious campaign.  I thought it interesting that she used this sly metaphor to refer to her femininity and political viciousness, especially after she has been criticized (or at least commented upon) for sporting a pair of Naughty Monkey hot red peep-toe pumps the day she was introduced as McCain’s running mate.  The Naughty Monkey brand is generally marketed to “women in their early to mid-20s who go clubbing,” like frequent patron Paris Hilton.  Criticism notwithstanding, sales of Naughty Monkey shoes have increased by 50% on Amazon since Palin wore them.

This all seems reminiscent of the buzz around Hillary’s brightly colored campaign suits, which became such a joke that Hillary eventually poked fun at herself over it.  But what was she trying to convey with these vivid pant suits?  First, it should be noted that women were not allowed to wear pants on the Senate floor until the early 1990s, and Hillary clearly has been embracing that recent sexist sartorial victory ever since.  Second, a well tailored suit is a symbol of — dare I specify “masculine” — power, strength, and control, but the bright colors made Hillary’s distinctively feminine.  They wouldn’t have been everyone’s hues of choice, but it was a bold stylistic decision and having a consistent, identifiable style is a subtle cue that the person under the clothes is consistent him/herself.  Whether this cue is accurate or not is debatable, but the point remains that the wardrobe is a visual extension of what a politician’s speeches should be verbalizing.  Lastly, being as easily visible as an emergency flare cannot hurt when you’re attempting to attract attention in a crowd (or convention, as the case may be).

There was also that mini scandal when Hillary showed a little cleavage:

The Clinton campaign rightly responded “Frankly, focusing on women’s bodies instead of their ideas is insulting.”  I personally find it pretty hilarious that that amount of chest was even called “cleavage,” but Clinton is known for being hyper-conservative (when it comes to revealing flesh), so I suppose within that context, her exposed chest plate was mildly shocking.  Mildly.  It strikes me as telling that where Palin seems to be vamping her sex appeal — if ever-so-slightly — with her pencil skirts and red heels, Clinton seems to use her clothes to detract attention from her feminine form, obscuring her curves under her male-inspired pantsuits.

This kind of fashion scrutiny falls upon politicians’ spouses too.  It was noted in New York Magazine that Michelle Obama has been seen wearing the highly “democratic” (i.e. “affordable”) H&M off-the-rack merchandise, which was clearly not a coincidence since Michelle has reportedly “shied away from appearing in luxury fashion magazines because she doesn’t want to be photographed in outlandishly priced outfits. She also insisted on wearing her own clothes for her October More cover…. Her sartorial choice was likely made in keeping with the current economic spirit as many might not find it prudent for our potential First Ladies to run around in designer outfits that cost $313,000.”

This not-so-random price tag was an editorial jab at Cindy McCain and Laura Bush’s expensive ensembles during a public appearance at the RNC, a story which was originally published in Vanity Fair’s Politics & Power blog.  And the L.A. Times quoted trend forecaster Tom Julian, “And she [Palin] should definitely not take her fashion cues from Cindy McCain who is a totally couture, 7th Avenue fashion plate.  Perhaps a line like American designer Ralph Lauren would answer all Gov. Palin’s needs.”

Palin, Hillary and Michelle are not the first politicians to be at the center of fashion buzz. A century ago, rimless, round pince-nez frames with the neck cord became iconic when President Theodore Roosevelt wore them. And that was without the help of Google to identify the brand and a place to purchase them.

From President Eisenhower’s waist-length military jackets to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s pillbox hats, people in politics have long influenced consumer behavior. A mere day after Michelle Obama appeared on The Tonight Show and revealed to Jay Leno that her outfit was from J. Crew (amid the $150,000 Palin wardrobe controversy no less!), J. Crew’s stores had been swept bare of the various garments, purchased by hungry consumers.  The only items of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe the middle class can afford are her glasses, and perhaps shoes. Even if you are completely uninterested in fashion for the aesthetics, the question still must be raised: what kind of a message is being sent by a politician who dresses in six-digit designer clothes that his/her desired constituents — the middle class — can never afford?

Further reading:

• “The Politics of Fashion,” Harper’s Bazaar 2/08
• “Politics 1st Ladies of Fashion…” Freep.com 10/9/08
• Photo time lines of recent political looks of
  • bespectacled Sarah Palin,
  • coutured Cindy McCain,
  • patterned Michelle Obama, and
  • pantsuited Hillary Clinton.
• “Political Ties” Newsweek 10/14/08
• “Sarah Palin Has a Secret Team of Stylists” New York Magazine 9/17/08
• “Fashion in Politics Remains a Tricky Business” STLToday 10/25/08
• “Outfitting a Candidate” slideshow of Palin’s looks, New York Times Magazine 10/23/08
• “Classic Campaign Chic” slideshow of the clothes of hopefuls and their families, New York Daily News 10/7/08
• “Judging a candidate by his wife’s fashion” Financial Times, 11/1/08

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