After seeing Gisele Bundchen’s latest Vogue shoot entitled “Call of Duty” in various military-inspired ensembles, my conflicted feelings about the sexifying of war gear swung hard and fast in the “that’s not cool” direction. Huffington Post presents these images with significantly less conflict: “let us know which is Gisele’s fiercest moment.” I should mention that this was shot for Vogue Korea no less — presumably South Korea, but a country locked in heated, no-end-in-sight military animosity with its former countrymen. (Insular, distinctly militaristic North Korea now has the highest percentage of military personnel per capita of any nation in the world with approximately 1 enlisted soldier for every 25 citizens.) I mean, I wonder if anyone involved in this Vogue fashion shoot experienced any irony whatsoever. Photographed by Nino Muñoz, clothes are from Balmain, Alexander Wang, Chloé and others in Call of Duty (in case you didn’t get the soldier reference from the images alone). Some choice selections follow.

Gisele is so parched from her desert swim that she must provocatively douse herself with her canteen:

The practical cargo shorts paired with the distinctly impractical shorty army-issued t-shirt and stiletto-heeled combat booties are almost laughable:

This one has clean lines and uniform (as opposed to combat) tailoring that generally appeal to me, but it’s still disturbingly devoid of irony or socio-political critique:

Now, shall we look at some historical moments when military uniforms crossed over into day wear?  Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 – 1903) noted that after the Mexican War (1846 – 48) “a great deal of military clothing was sold at auction in New Orleans, and much of it was bought by planters at a low price, and given to their negroes, who were greatly pleased with it.” Not only did military uniforms carry the associations of literal warfare, but they had the compounded layer of becoming sloppy seconds for African American slaves. Later, the surplus army clothing of the Civil War (1861 – 65) was adopted by Western frontiersmen: functional heavy coats and trousers, double-breasted pullover shirts, boots, and individually crimped hats were appealing to those living a rugged civilian lifestyle. And many men who served in WWII found many articles of clothing designed for warfare (i.e. khaki pants) to be comfortable, practical, and even stylish. War generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Patton, and Douglas MacArthur became fashion icons of sorts, and the sensible “Eisenhower jacket” was adopted by men and women for its formal practicality:

In the years immediately following WWII, record numbers of veterans entered colleges (in 1946, 75% of entering Harvard students were former G.I.s), bringing with them the comfortable and practical khaki pants, fitted tailored shirts, and casual military jackets. With America’s current casual collegiate styles this might not seem noteworthy, but pre-WWII college students typically dressed in suits and ties, emulating the businessmen many aspired to become, and the casual military look was a sharp digression.

But the natural dissemination of actual army/navy clothes into regular society is a far cry from the fashion industry appropriating military as a trendy look (see Style.com “Marching Orders” trend). In one aberrant season of Rudi Gernreich (1922-1985), better known for his whimsical ’60s graphic mini dresses and topless swimsuit, his 1970 resort collection was distinctly military inspired. His muse and model Peggy Moffitt actually brandished a rifle in a different shot, as did the models on the live runway (and this is one of the tamer looks):

Generally embracing a mod-meets-hippie look, Gernreich showed this controversial collection just months after the Kent State shootings and during the dragging Vietnam War (1955 – 75). During a 1985 retrospective presentation at the Smithsonian Institute, Gernreich commented, “I did the military look in the late 1960s because some designers were making Scarlett O’Hara clothes, which I thought was an insult to women when they were becoming totally equal to men.” I’m the first to admit military-influenced styles of WWII acted as a gender equalizer (see my other posts on War), but Gernreich’s feminist message was lost and this is an inherent problem with glorifying military clothes: there is too much damn violence in the world for it ever to be appropriate without implied commentary (making it shorter/tighter/sexier does not count unless you’re trying to say “war is sexy”).

On the one hand, I have residual fondness for pairing fancy bling with camo — I think it can call attention to the inherent disconnect between wealth, individuality, style, and the conforming, functional purpose of military uniforms that are mostly worn by the young, underprivileged, and uneducated racial minorities. On the other hand, glamorizing the military — especially when one’s own country is in a dragging, controversial war — seems problematic. As a designer (or a photographer, or a model), how do you make this distinction? I am all about playful fun in fashion, but glamorizing bigotry and government-sanctioned violence is distasteful at best and irresponsible at worst. Practical innovations that have come from military issued uniforms should absolutely be adopted by the general public: deep cargo pockets and trench coats are utilitarian and stylish. But making sexually provocative military clothes is not conceptually provocative.

There is some interesting art incorporating fashion and the military. Peter Gronquist’s show entitled “Firearms and Fashion” included weapon objets d’artes with fashion house labels, alluding to a complicit (if vague) relationship between corporate fashion and violence. Below is a Burberry rifle from the collection:

Bringing back the Korean military thread, I saw a powerful piece last summer of Do-Ho Suh’s entitled “Uni-Forms: Self-Portrait/s: My 39 Years” from 2006:

This is a sartorial timeline of Suh’s mandatory life in the South Korean army, from the disturbingly tiny boy’s crested jacket to the full-grown man’s camo and khakis.

Martha Rosler is known for collaging images of the Vietnam battlefield and magazine clippings from the home front including fashion models, washing machines, living room sofas, Playboy nudes, etc. Here is a more recent 2006 work using Iraqi/Afghani footage with a superimposed fashion model who appears to be turning away from the confrontation:

Though the model doesn’t actually wear military gear, it does point to an irresponsible relationship between the fashion world (and the public that so eagerly consumes it) and concurrent warfare.

So readers, do you think it’s ever ok to sexify military wear, and if so, in what context?

Further Reading:

• NYTimes article on “Houlihan” M*A*S*H cargo pants (especially funny, since M*A*S*H was a deeply anti-war film and TV series)
• Precision Targets and the Militarization of Everyday Life from Threadbared

Recommend this post:

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After reading the recent NYTimes article highlighting Eddie Feibusch’s zipper business in New York’s Lower East Side, I was reminded of — what else? — the history of the not-so-humble zipper. This now-ubiquitous device that fastens and unfastens our pants, dresses, and bags, is a relatively recent invention, as far as the history of fashion goes, and also had more trouble taking off than you might imagine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fluevog Sugar boots with invisible inner zippers

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

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

Brad Pitt

Suggested Reading:

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

Recommend this post:

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As I alluded in previous posts, adopting aspects of menswear had a direct relationship with the Women’s Movement, socially and politically. For hundreds of years wealthy and impoverished women alike had worn heavy floor length dresses, even as unsanitary street filth dragged in the long skirts, even as the simple negotiation of stairs became arduous (and potentially dangerous), and even as a woman’s ability to move freely and comfortably was hampered. Despite widespread discussion of the physical harm caused by corseting, women of society and women of the streets tightly laced their bodies into undergarments that constricted their waists to produce the exaggerated silhouette au currant. Women were even killed and disfigured by voluminous skirts catching aflame without their notice. Dress reformers in the 19th century tackled this issue of female oppression by fashion by promoting social improvement in practicality over trends, for health and comfort over convention, and rationality over conformity.

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

Bloomer costume, 1851

However it had only ever been adopted by fringe Victorian dress reformers who were ridiculed by the press as radical feminists with silly, indecent (still!) sartorial selections, and it never achieved widespread acceptance in this form — a woman would commit social suicide by marring her reputation in such suggestive garments. The bloomer costume was ridiculed for looking silly, even as men enjoyed the daring short skirts with distinguishable legs, discouraging even politically minded women from adopting dress reform. The associations of pants with Calamity Jane (1852 – 1903) did not help: though she was a strong, fierce, accomplished woman, her behavior was distinctly manly and she prostituted herself to boot: embodying all the fears of dress reform detractors (except perhaps lesbianism).

Calamity Jane, by H. R. Locke in 1895

Interestingly, the bicycle fad of the 1890s broke the social stigma of women wearing bifurcated garments and “bicycle costumes” were actually lauded as preserving modesty while preserving health (see this post for more on athleticism’s influence on fashion). These outfits bore suspicious (and unacknowledged) resemblance to the disparaged bloomer costume by alleviating some of the major fashion impediments with narrower skirts, fewer under-layers, and (minimally) raised hemlines. A description of an acceptable female riding outfit from 1895:

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

woman cycling costume, 1895

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

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

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

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

Paul Poiret harem pants, 1911

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photoplay cover flapper applying lipstick, 1920s

But to return to women in pants.

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

Amelia Earhart c. 1930

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

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

Marlene Dietrich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clinton's supposed cleavage

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

SNL's non-determinate sexed Pat

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

Further Reading:

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

Recommend this post:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pucci mannequin by Maira Kalman, "Tango" series

and Anna Sui.

Pucci mannequin by Anna Sui

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

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

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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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

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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).

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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News about Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference this week, has traveled quickly to alternating responses of horror and glee. The NYTimes reported that “Calling someone the “son of a shoe” is one of the worst insults in Iraq,” adding a new spin to what was already an obviously angry, insulting gesture.

This bold action has added yet another symbolic meaning to the humble shoe: that of irate protest, against American troops in Iraq, specifically. “In the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, people calling for an immediate American withdrawal removed their footwear and placed the shoes and sandals at the end of long poles, waving them high in the air. And in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, people threw their shoes at a passing American convoy.” Some Iraqis said these protests were a direct result of the democracy advocated by America. Ah, sweet sloppy irony.

In searching for a picture of a pile of shoes to include with this post, I was reminded that shoes have historically not only embodied fetishistic sexuality, but also bitter oppression. Concentration camps like Auschwitz hoarded heaps of shoes of their Jewish victims. Shoes were also. valuable bartering merchandise in concentration camps.

Shoe pile at Auschwitz

By the way, $10 million has been offered to purchase the original infamous pair of black dress shoes. Consumeristic democracy in action!

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Edouard Halouze's "Le Messager" 1925

Yesterday I attended a lecture at the New York Public Library accompanying their current exhibit “Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve.”  There was another lecture on art deco architecture that I attended a few weeks ago, but this one– “Fashions of the Art Deco Era”– was tailored for me.  Paula Baxter, curator of the exhibit and author of one of my absolute favorite fashion blogs, was the speaker.  Though fashion was the focal point, Paula’s (and my) interest in the sartorial arts lies in the socio-political and economic climates surrounding fashion, so much of the information disseminated was not strictly clothes-related, but provided a groundwork for why fashion took such a radical turn in the “teen-aughts,” as Paula delightfully calls them.  This emphasizes the point that nothing is invented or occurs in a vacuum, and all local and often world events exert direct influence upon visual arts, fashion most certainly included.  I will relay my notes here, with perhaps a few tangents of my own.

Art Deco’s lifespan was from 1919 – 1939.  Here is a limited time line overlay:

1914-18 WWI

1920 – 19th Amendment grants women suffrage

1923 – Yankee Stadium built

1924 – Native Americans granted US citizenship

1926 – A. A. Milne writes Winnie the Poo

1927 – The Jazz Singer is the first full length talkie

1927 – Charles Lindbergh flies the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris

1929 – stock market crash heralded the Great Depression

1931 – Empire State Building completed (and struggles to procure tenants)

1930s – electric sewing machines widespread (invented in 1889)

1939-41 – WWII

Louise Brooks' iconic bob c. 1925

The end of WWI marked a shocking new era for the world.  Women’s public roles had increased out of necessity during the war and the overall jublilation of victory translated into a great departure from Edwardian social mores, sexual roles, decorative arts and fashions.  Most are familiar with the neck baring bobbed haircut of the 20s, but Paula noted that it was not just a fad, but a scandal– women had worn long hair for centuries, and cutting a pageboy ‘do was like tattoos are today.  Many adopt the fashion, but just as many scorn the trend as frivolous or scandalous (many parents among the latter group).  As a side note, I sported the Louise Brooks bob (above) for a decade.

In painting and “high” art, the Cubist movement had a tremendous impact upon fashion (the Metropolitan Museum presented the compelling evidence marvelously in their 1998-99 exhibit “Cubism and Fashion” in which paintings from the period were juxtaposed with fashion examples side-by-side).  Inspired by African sculpture, by painters Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906) and Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891), and by the Fauves, Cubists shattered, analyzed and reassembled the subject matter into abstracted forms.  This aesthetic inspired and was adopted by designers of all kinds– furniture, textile, and fashion, who distilled their own creations to streamlined versions of more ornate, familiar forms of the Edwardian and Victorian ages.  Embellishment and ornamentation was more restrained, and dress patterns were reduced to simple shapes (i.e. squares, circles, cylinders, etc.) that were allowed to drape naturally on the body, rather than restrain it with restrictive tailoring.

Jazz

Increasing acceptability of women playing sports and leading more active lifestyles had great impact on the changing desired physique of the 20s.  Silhouettes from the then-recent Edwardian and Victorian ages were highly curvaceous– if not downright meaty– with emphasis placed on overflowing bosoms, hips, and buttocks.  But the skimpy fashions of the 20s complimented the new emphasis on athletic bodies and narrowed the gap between health and glamour.  (As a side note, Paula said yes, skirts were shorter than they had ever been, but even in 1925 when hemlines were at their shortest, they were still 1″ below the knee.)

Menswear continued the Edwardian penchant for proper, dapper, tailored suits.  The new found athleticism made the ideal male figure sleeker than times past, too.  Paula emphasized that the Duke of Windsor (the temporary Prince of Wales) had a tremendous influence over men’s fashion of his time, disseminating his personal stylistic choices by being the most photographed celebrity of his time.  He popularized cuffed trousers and advocated for the switch to the zipper fly from the buttoned version.  The zipper took its modern form in 1913 from its more finicky 1893 version which had a tremendous impact on the making of clothes and the act of dressing, but I believe it was the Duke’s vocal endorsement of it for easy access to the groin (I’m quite sure that wasn’t his exact argument) that caused a sartorial uproar and resistance before ultimate widespread adoption.

The 20s was when America’s obsession with celebrity fashion and idolization began.  With the talkies of the silver screen, images of stars like Clara Bow, Fred Astaire, and Marlene Dietrich were disseminated across the United States and internationally.  The film studios invested much in their publicity departments which took tremendous pains to create and present their stars in a flattering light, blurring the lines between personal and private life.

The introduction of feasible air transportation with Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis flight (see time line above) continued the craze for all things streamlined and aerodynamic, which, again, was translated by designers and disseminated into everyday objects like martini sets and fashion.  It also marked the beginning of America’s dependence on credit and oil.

After the world became choked by the Great Depression with the dawn of the 30s, hemlines dropped to more conservative lows.  Flared skirts and an emphasis on waists replaced the straight lines of the 20s, though the ideal female figure continued to be relatively flat, hipless, and generally boyish, a puzzling trend of gender ambiguity that continues to this day.

Marlene Dietrich was one of the few who managed to assert her personal style in spite of loud protests from her employers, sporting mannish pantsuits (Hillary’s predecessor!) in addition to more conventional slinky gowns.  It was only because her sex appeal

By the 30s, the widespread usage of the electric sewing machine had resulted in plentiful off-the-rack merchandise.  Madeleine Vionnet was credited with inventing draping on the bias, a technique that enables fabric to hang and stretch more naturally over a body rather than dictate a shape.  She started a fad of elegant gowns that clung to the necessarily slender forms of the wearers, requiring even less additional accessorizing than the flapper dresses of the previous decade.

The menswear silhouette departed similarly from the sleek but narrow to one that emphasized broader shoulders, slim waists, and wider pants legs, a la Clark Gable.  With the approaching of WWII and ever more women entering the workforce, gender lines continued to blur.  Menswear influenced women’s fashion in the 30s with tailoring becoming evermore important to both sexes; women would feminize their skirt suits with ostentatious bows that belied the inherently masculine suits that was appropriate work wear for secretaries, etc.

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