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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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.

English fashion doll, 1755-1760

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.

iron-footed mannequin

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…

Auerbach's department store window display with mannequins, 1909

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

1918 window display

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:

Art Deco mannequin head

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.”

Siegel-Stockman streamlined mannequin (modern)

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:

Lester Gaba and Cynthia mannequin, Broadhurst Theater in NY at Madame Bovary, 1939

at the Stork Club, NY 1937

riding transit in NYC, 1937

Gaba repairs shoulder on Cynthia, NY, 1937. He almost looks like a doctor attending to a patient.

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:

1940s Christmas display

This article will be continued shortly in Part II…

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

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

First place winner:

Ann Kagawa Lee's toilet paper wedding dress

the back

matching hat

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

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

Scott Paper dress, 1966

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

Warhol's Campbell's Soup dress of the '60s

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

phonebook paper dress by Jolis Paons, 2008

And a 1960s version of similar concept:

phonebook paper dress by Waste Basket Boutique by Mars of Asheville

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

Hussein Chalayn paper airmail dress, 1999

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

Hugo Boss, designed by James Rosenquist, spring 1998

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

Leona Scull-Hons, "Mend," 2002

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

Further Reading:

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

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

"Vertebrae" necklace c. 2002 by Molly Epstein, Temple student. Glass-filled nylon.

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

by Derek Bones Bo, using bleach like fabric paint

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

Paparazzi video

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

"Paparazzi" video

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

Fritz Lang's "Metroplis" robot

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

"Paparazzi" video

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

Hans Holbein's "Jane Seymour," 1536

sometimes hoisted up to the collarbone.

David's "Comtesse Daru," 1810

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

"Bad Romance" video

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

Elsa Schiaparelli's skeleton dress, 1938

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

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

Helmut Newton's "Jassara," 1977

Helmut Newton's "Jane Kirby," crutches, 1977

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

Helmut Newton's "Berlin," 1994

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

Helmut Newton's X-Ray, ad for boot by Karl Lagerfeld

Helmut Newton's "X-Ray," Van Cleef and Arpels ad, 1979

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

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

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Balmain dress and petticoat, circa 1950

Though I love me some fashion, I confess I do not keep up with every single fashion collection that graces the runways (is it even possible, I sometimes wonder?). However, I happened to catch Dior’s Fall 09 collection recently and fell in love — both in the playful I-want-to-wear-that way and also the that-epitomizes-such-an-interesting-historical-trend way, leading to the inevitable I-must-blog-about-that-now conclusion. And so here we are.

For the couture Fall 09 collection of the Christian Dior label, designer John Galliano has played with the staples of ’50s innerwear and supporting garments by revealing them, eliminating portions of the outerwear and exposing the skeleton of what actually creates those feminine curves a la Dior’s own post WWII “New Look.” Galliano admitted that he’d been inspired by photos of Dior himself dressing his models before one of his salon shows in the 1950s. Galliano took the state of semi-dress and moved it from behind the curtain to in front of it, going one step further in his homage by presenting his 2009 collection in an intimate salon-esque setting rather than the modern blockbuster runway format. Here are a couple of my favorite items from the series:

The skirt is pared down to the stiff, transparent structural garment necessary to create the "naturally" feminine looks of the 1950s.

She appears fully dressed... except the outer skirt we expect is missing.

This has a modest silhouette but is obviously completely gauzy, ironically revealing "proper" 1950s understructures.

Let’s take a closer look at the fashions of the mid-20th century from which Galliano derived inspiration, shall we?

A tremendously successful Maidenform bra ad campaign in the ’50s and ’60s featured models in ordinary situations, dressed traditionally from the waist down, but swathed only in Maidenform bras above the waist.

"I dreamed I lived like a Queen in my Maidenform Bra," 1953 ad

It’s incredible how like Dior’s collection these ads are, non?

World War II necessitated rationing of all kinds: gasoline, metal, fabric, chemical dyes, and more. When the war concluded, droves of young military men returned to the States, hungry for women in all their stereotypically soft, curvy, feminine glory. Post-war women wanted to mimic glamorous actresses they’d been seeing in escapist movies all along, to replace the utilitarian suits and pencil skirts they’d adopted out of patriotic wartime necessity. Fashion responded to these desires and took advantage of the lifted restrictions to create voluminous skirts with yards of fabric, cinched waists and uplifted, pointy breasts to exaggerate the idealized curvy feminine body. And, as always, structural undergarments had tremendous import in realizing that ever-morphing, ever-exaggerated, idealized shape.

Undergarment retailers capitalized on the lifted restrictions by experimenting with color, sheer fabrics, lace and printed patterns, new fabrics like Dacron, nylon, Spandex, and rayon. These synthetic materials (several originating in government and military labs) provided durable, stretchy, lightweight alternatives to stiffer, heavier undergarments made of natural fibers like cotton and linen which needed boning for support, shape, and structure. Pantyhose were introduced in 1959, combining panties and “hose” or stockings, a mini revolution in underwear. Stockings even as late as the early 20^th century were not terribly stretchy. Romanticized today (not least of all by Yours Truly), the pesky back seams had to be manually straightened and their leg shapes were predetermined. So if your legs didn’t conform, you were left with distinctly un-sexy, ill-fitting stockings with loose knees and saggy fabric wrinkles:

In the late 1940s, designers like Jacques Fath incorporated corset lacings into evening wear, a risqué reference that also reflected the fashion for hourglass figures and the return of conventional notions of femininity post-WWII. While the glamorous films of the ’40s (which generally depicted wealthy society folk whose extravagant lifestyles were left suspiciously unaffected by the war raging in the real world) were the inspiration in the early 1950s, films of that mid-century decade placed their own indelible stamp upon the collective fashion ideals, shifting the trends from genteel aristocrat to slightly bawdy Everyman (or Everywoman as the case often was), creeping toward the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Marilyn Monroe simultaneously shocked and delighted audiences by going braless on and off sets, a kind of prelude to the feminist-organized bra burning episodes of the ’60s without the overt politics. Elizabeth Taylor wore a custom made slip for much of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and the sizzling posters of her call girl character in BUtterfield 8 (1960) depicted her with a heavy fur coat draped over her body-hugging slip, heightening the impact of her near-nakedness:

Liz Taylor in BUtterfield 8 poster. Note the "suitable only for adults" disclaimer!

Galliano similarly pairs outdoor coats with slips:

In Anatomy of a Murder (1959) attorney James Stewart is forced to request his client’s wife wear a girdle in court to make her appear respectable and decent — though he admits with embarrassment that the young woman doesn’t need one to control her “jiggle” (more to the audience’s discomfort than to the precocious sex kitten character to whom he is speaking).

BEFORE: Lee Remick in sandellous pants early in Anatomy of a Murder

AFTER: Lee Remick deliberately dowdy in courtroom in Anatomy of a Murder. Though unseen, she presumably wears a girdle under her deliberately dowdy tweed skirt.

Here we see the girdle on the model, who, like Lee Resnick above, does not actually require such a supportive garment to mold her shape:

In Rear Window (1954), Costume Designer Edith Head ensconces Grace Kelly’s socialite character in a dress of layered tulle, a transparent material that is traditionally used as an underlayer to provide volume to outerskirts. While this dress hardly screams “vulgar,” it’s definitely a wee bit risqué:

The see-through wrap Grace Kelly dangles is just one layer of the same material used for her skirt, typifying the deliberately impractical, beautiful glamour popular post-WWII (a transparent wrap not only doesn't assist modesty, it doesn't shield from the cold either).

And here is a Dior creation:

This skirt has fewer layers of tulle than the example above, drawing attention to the sheerness of the material which is more commonly used in lingerie.

The steamy Streetcar Named Desire (1951) is set in humid New Orleans where characters languor in states of semi-dress. In a poignant-though-subtle twist, Kim Hunter’s ferociously monogamous character Stella walks around the apartment in a slip, in stark contrast to the false prudery of Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois whose extreme, inconvenient modesty (three adults are living in a tiny one bedroom apartment) belies her previous promiscuity. Marlon Brando’s T-shirts are downright mundane to us now, but at that time T-shirts were strictly male underwear and Brando’s brutish, uncouth character was conveyed in part by the absence of a proper button-down shirt over his. He compounds his simmering sexuality by changing shirts in front of the camera, and in the famous “Stella!” scene, his shredded T-shirt actually peels off him lewdly, testament to the fragility of the undergarment:

In Rebel Without a Cause (1955), James Dean and his gang flouted conventions and, like Brando’s character, used dress (or rather, the state of near undress) to signal their outsider, somewhat misfit communal status, with all the sexy implications the forbidden carries.

As the posters for Liz Taylor in BUtterfield 8 did, the T-shirt or undershirt is paired with an outdoor coat for heightened impact.

Even in recent years, there is an increasing backlash to men displaying their underwear. This latest effort by some citizens and politicians to enact laws forbidding sagging jeans that expose boxers is tinged with a distinctly racial tone, as it’s primarily young black men who follow this trend (conceived in minority-heavy prisons where inmates may not wear belts) and who are therefore targeted with the desired sartorial censorship.

Obviously the idea of the forbidden, the secret, the hidden, still offends and titillates today, and Galliano’s collection is testament to this enduring tension. With a self-conscious nod to vintage lingerie, the prominently featured seamed stockings are an erotic, romantic reference to outdated style. No longer deemed essential for respectability, girdles, garters, and conical bullet bras are relegated to pure camp and arousal, which some women choose to wear as a provocative statement that we all understand to be vintage. Dior’s collection reclaims the dampened vulgarity by exposing the contraptions that hold stockings up, that support and distort the body for added curious eroticism, and perhaps even a sense of uncomfortable indecency, a feat in this desensitized age of exposed bra straps, halter tops and micro miniskirts. Though there are grumbles relating to the appropriation of underwear worn as outerwear even today, this is not a new phenomenon by any stretch. Attitudes toward the naked body and sexuality, notions of privacy, discretion and sexual identification are constantly changing and fashion changes with them. Return for Part Deux next week for more on underwear as outerwear, this time as a political statement….

FURTHER READING:

• “Are Your Jeans Sagging? Go Directly to Jail.” NY Times, 8/30/07
• 20^th century silhouette and support timeline
• Fashion, Desire and Anxiety, by Rebecca Arnold
• 1950s underwear and ads at Fashion-era.com

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.:

Louise Bourgeois, interior of "Cell VII" (1998). Note the eerie hanging undergarments and miniature house.

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:

Louise Bourseois, "Spider" (1997). Note the cage / house enveloped by the enormous arachnid, and scraps of fabric clinging to the sides contribute to the mother / domicile theme.

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.

Early 19th century sewing sampler stitched by Elizabeth Lyle when a young girl. The text in the center reads,"Elizabeth Lyle worked this in the eleventh year of my age. In the morning think what you have to do. And at night ask yourself what you have done."

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).

"Sewing Circle" by Louis Henry Charles Moeller (1855 - 1930)

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.

Jacob Riis, Necktie workshop in Division Street tenement (1889)

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.

"The Cup of Tea" by Mary Cassatt, 1879

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:

Day dress, 1883–85 by Charles Frederick Worth. From the Met's caption: "Lavish textiles were not only used for evening wear in Worth's designs, as this day dress of cut and uncut voided velvet attests. The ensemble also provides an example of Worth's practice of incorporating elements of historic dress in his designs. The large scale of the pomegranate and floral motif follow the style of Louis XIV textile patterns."

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.

"Madame Edouard Pailleron" by John Singer Sargent, 1879

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:

"The Ermine Portrait” of Queen Elizabeth by Nicholas Hilliard, 1585

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:

Fragonard's "The Swing," 1766

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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Lambdoidal Tweed Wool swatch

tweedy

DEFINITION:

adjective:

1. Academic or scholarly.

2. Informal; casual; outdoorsy.

2. Made of or resembling tweed.

ETYMOLOGY:

After tweed, a coarse woolen fabric made in twill weave, preferred in casual wear, for example those in academia or in the country. The origin of the word tweed is not certain. It’s probably an alteration of Scots tweel, influenced by the river Tweed that flows along the border between England and Scotland.

USAGE:

“Ramrod-tall, blue-eyed and aquiline, with a high forehead swept clear of thin, fair hair, [William Hurt] even looked clever, like a tweedy young professor of letters on secondment to Hollywood.”

cotton flannel swatch

flannel

DEFINITION:

noun: Nonsense; evasive talk; flattery.

ETYMOLOGY:

Besides the fabric, the word flannel can refer to a washcloth, an undergarment, or trousers, but here we are interested in its metaphorical sense which apparently developed from the soft and smooth texture of the fabric. The origin of the word flannel remains fuzzy. Two possible derivations have been suggested: from Welsh gwlanen (woolen article) or from Old French flaine (a kind of coarse wool, blanket).

USAGE:

“Commissioned by the Blair economic team, the report is just what the doctor ordered. No flannel. No spin.”

Peter Koenig; Honeymoon With the Economy is Over For Blair; The Independent (London, UK); Nov 16, 1997.

75% white churro wool blended with 25% black llama fiber

wooly

DEFINITION:

adjective:

1. Fuzzy; unclear; confused; vague; disorganized; rough.

2. Of or relating to wool.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old English wull.

USAGE:

“Edward Scicluna: This woolly and opaque way of reporting and forecasting must stop.”

Charlot Zahra; Is Restarting the Excessive Deficit Procedure Justified? Business Today (Malta); May 13, 2009.

cotton bush

cotton

DEFINITION:

verb intr.:

1. To become fond of; to get on well together.

2. To come to understand (in the phrase “to cotton to” or “cotton on to”).

ETYMOLOGY:

Via French and Italian from Arabic qutun (cotton). The idiomatic usage of the term as a verb refers to the mixing of another material, such as wool, with cotton and perhaps from the idea of cotton fiber clinging well to something.

USAGE:

“Marketers and retailers have already cottoned on to the fact that, since the entire culture is defiantly refusing to grow up, parents and children are all now approximately the same age. We’ve got the same music on our iPods.”

Karen von Hahn; I Like to Hang Out With My Teenager; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Sep 1, 2007.

polyester plush swatch

plushy

DEFINITION:

adjective:

1. Characterized by luxury, extravagance, or ease.

2. Or or related to plush: soft and shaggy.

ETYMOLOGY:

From plush, a fabric of silk, rayon, cotton, or wool, having a long pile. From French pluche, a variant of peluche, from Latin pilus (hair).

USAGE:

“The warm, dark glow and plushy tone so typical of Central European orchestras from the late 19th century on seems steeped in the Staatskapelle’s bones.”

Wynne Delacoma; Staatskapelle Berlin at Symphony Center; Chicago Sun-Times; Dec 12, 2000.

“But since Hugo left university in June, he has not strolled into the sort of plushy job that supposedly awaits our hordes of upper-second graduates when they roar onto the job market.”

Rachel Johnson; Graduates Get Jobs — But No Pay; The Daily Telegraph (London, UK); Dec 5, 2003.

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It’s a wonderful thing that familiar items permeate our language in such creative ways. And it makes perfect sense that clothes and fabrics and materials, which have developed in tandem with the human race and which conjure up such specific, tangible references for us all, integrate themselves into dialect unrelated to technical apparel conversations. I listed some slightly obscure words, but terms like “silky” and expressions like “pulling the wool over your eyes” act as more common reminders of the power of fabric.

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).

Bloomer costume, 1851. The bloomer costume consisted of lose harem-like pants that were collected at the ankles, worn under a skirt in the typical style of day, save its length which was roughly 6” shorter than the acceptable hemline.

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.”

Woman in cycling costume, buckled at ankles. 1895

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.

Woman in convertible cycling costume, loose. 1895

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.”

Woman on bicycle, 1922. Original caption: "No more messenger boys for the National Woman's Party--from president to messenger all the members of the staff are feminine. This is in accordance with the stipulation of Mrs. Belmont when she donated the National Women's Party Headquarters."

"For the well dressed man : comfort is the keynote of the modern man's wardrobe." Note the boxy but narrow silhouette with creeping hemlines. Note the boxy but narrow silhouette with creeping hemlines. 1922

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).

Loverboy's lead singer Mike Reno in the 80s.

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.

bicycle chic 2009

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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