Flattening Fashion
One of my favorite blogs ColourLovers brought to my attention a new cookbook. I have no idea the quality of the recipes in Homemade is Best, but what interested me was that each recipe has a double-page spread of photos of the ingredients, piles neatly arranged in graphic formation. It might make more sense...
The Deforming Mirror: Anais Nin’s Fractured Identity as Read through Fashion
I am thrilled to be participating in Drexel University’s upcoming [the Dark Side of] Fashion in Fiction conference. If anyone will be in Philadelphia October 8 – 10 and is interested in introducing yourself, please get in touch! Here is a taste of what I will be presenting: Anais Nin grappled with complex self-identity issues...
Age and Gender-Appropriate Fashion
A few months ago I discovered a video of 8 and 9 year-old girls in a national dance contest, athletically gyrating to the Beyoncé hit “Single Ladies” (a.k.a.”Put a Ring on It”). Prepare yourself: I am anything but a prude, but there was something distinctly unsettling in watching prepubescent girls dance around in fringed burlesque...
Fashion in Literature
I just read a fun list on Flavorwire of their 10 favorite fashionable literary characters. Allow me to summarize: Lily Bart in Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray Holly Golightly in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s Orlando in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando Scarlett O’Harain Margaret Mitchell’s Gone...
Janelle Monae, Style Icon and Fashion Industry Commentator
A friend of mine sent me a link to Janelle Monáe’s “Tightrope” video earlier this summer, and I have been obsessed with the dame ever since (I give you permission to play it when you want to cheer yourself up, and/or have an impromptu dance party, as I do). Not only are her pipes amazing...
Grey Hair as Social Statement?
As a young woman who has atypically looked forward to turning shocking silver (I’ve even promised myself to grow my pixie haircut at that time to accentuate it), I’ve read with some curiosity but ultimate skepticism, the rash of articles and blog posts about the supposed trend of women embracing grey hair. The most recent...
Bathing Suits, Technology and Morality
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...
The Secret Sexy Life of Zippers
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...
Women, Pants, & Politics
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...
Women in Men’s Hats
This is the second installation of the lecture I recently gave in a gender / sociology class at FIT. The first focused on the adoption of feminine fashion trends by men and the seemingly inevitable moral condemnation / censorship of such implied homosexuality (accurate or not); this one follows the appropriation of menswear by women...
Men’s “Feminine” Styles
I recently gave a lecture on cross-dressing to a terrific sociology class at FIT, and I had such ridiculous fun (and stress!) researching it that I thought I’d share with the blogosphere to spread the wealth. You don’t get the pleasure of my witty repartee, but you do get a decent, if slightly inferior, substitute....
The Politics of Mannequins, Part III – Mannequins in Art
Until the article I recently read, mannequins in their practical form held little interest for me; however mannequins in art have always attracted me, most likely due to my obsession with fashion coupled with my fascination with unsettling representations of people (and who doesn’t love to be unsettled?). Incorporating mannequins — invented to market and...
The Politics of Mannequins, Part II
Picking up from where I left off last week, I’m going to address mannequins’ evolution in the second half of the 20th century. The revolutionary ’60s came as a shock to the world, the American youth rebelling against the traditions of their conservative parents who desired normalcy and stability after the chaos of WWII. The...
Anatomical Fashion & Lady Gaga
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...
Silk Stockings & Russian Communism
Over the summer I watched about half an hour of Silk Stockings (1957), a cheesy musical remake of the Greta Garbo classic Ninotchka (1939) where the cool, efficient, and distinctly anti-fashion Soviet agent Cyd Charisse falls in love with (capitalist) Fred Astaire’s flamboyant American producer character while on a government mission in couture capital Paris....
School Dress Codes Target Gender
After reading the New York Times article “Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?,†exasperation and a wee bit of fury rumbled in my belly. As presented by Jan Hoffman, increasing numbers of school children are pushing the boundaries of so-called acceptable attire by cross dressing– a term used quite loosely here. “Cross dressingâ€...
The Original Vamps: Silent, Deadly, & Stylish
Occasionally fancying myself an exotic woman of mystery too, I have a special place in my heart for that early 20th century icon, The Vamp. When my friend (whose intelligent and fun horror blog And Now the Screaming Starts this is cross-posted on) suggested I write about them, I welcomed the opportunity to revisit some...
A Different Take on Street Fashion Photography