popular culture

In “A Rakish History of Men’s Wear” I tackled the issue of music as a key factor in the development of street fashion. Twentieth century casual sportswear took many cues from hip hop. If you walk the short round through “Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve,” you’ll find you don’t want to escape from the twelve-minute tape loop of music in the gallery.
Therein lies a genuine clue. The toe-tapping quality of 1920s syncopation filtered right into the realm of fashion. Jazz babies, flappers—their garments go with the beat of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Milton Ager, and Jimmy Johnson. There’s an irrepressible quality to the various dances of the period, whether the Black Bottom, Texas Tommy, or the Charleston. Even the musicals that many of these songs were derived from have expressive titles: “Girl Crazy,” “Runnin’ Wild,” and Lady, Be Good!” If you want an honest background to the role of popular music, here is one choice among many. One of the most revisionist studies available is a British history, From blues to rock.

Imagine my delight when I discovered a blog with ambitions as big as the music of the times. Octavine Illustration: Celebrating Art Deco, Travel, Music, Illustration, Handmade Craft & Calligraphy aspires to recreate images and ideas from the Art Deco style. Cara Buchalter deserves kudos for creating a living, active dreamspace.
 
 

Having spent a week indulging the collector in me, I’ve returned newly sensitized to the issues behind being bit by the collecting bug. Strangely enough, there are few books that really explore the motivations and psychology behind collecting. While a collector may wax eloquent about his or her objects of desire, that person is often tongue-tied when it comes to explaining just why they had to acquire those items.

A number of the main articles in Art & Antiques and ArtNews often include interviews with wealthy collectors of the fine arts. Yet I’ve usually found that their acquisition motivations were fairly predictable, and undoubtedly not the whole (and more interesting) story. My excursions to the Popular Culture Association’s Collectibles section talks led me to more intriguing individuals: the collector of virtual reality games, Texas’s Dr. Pepper collectible fanatics, and the person planning to open a museum with a comprehensive collection of barbed wire. And let’s not forget the many, many people who enjoy collecting vintage fashions and accessories.

The literature on collecting is actually pretty amusing. You can find a number of titles in the NYPL that purport to “explain” collecting. Some are from the 1920s, like The Amateur collector; everybody’s book on collecting (1924), and a surprisingly large number of books on collecting date from the 1950s. For a more modern, realistic take on collector pathology, you can look at Hugo Munsterberg’s Collecting: an unruly passion. The magic of auctions is well scribed by John L. Marion, of Sotheby’s fame, in his The Best of Everything: the insider’s guide to collecting-for every taste and every budget.

Yet even with these publications, an overarching question remains. Why has collecting become so important in our contemporary pop culture? Surely consumerism isn’t reason enough…is it?

P.S. Rest in peace, Mr. Blackwell. Your rhymes were a sort of inspiration to me. Do others feel as I do that Richard Blackwell’s often scathing remarks were made actually because he really did care so much about fashion?

A lot of the stories in The Fashion Conspiracy describe the means whereby the various designers and companies establish their brand. Product branding is extremely important these days, as more and more consumers—especially young ones—pledge allegiance to specific brands. Sneakers are a famous example. Linking fashion and beauty products with famous faces is another time-honored device. If you want to get a good idea of the business process involved in all this, the SIBL Library has a great work: Packaging design: successful product branding from concept to shelf. While researching brands as a subject, I discovered to my surprise that this topic has not been greatly written about. I wonder why?

There is also something online that proves to be great fun. The Origins of Brands Blog makes a lot of connections with the same wryness that Nicholas Coleridge displayed in The Fashion Conspiracy. I’m bemused myself over my predilection for national brands. For example, I remain loyal to English perfume (Penhaligan) and French purses (Longchamps), and always, always wear only authentic American Indian-made jewelry.

Do any of you who might be reading this post have these kinds of loyalties? And do you think they’re an inherited or acquired trait?

Reading The Fashion Conspiracy reminded me how the fashion industry has produced its own versions of the Cinderella story. Moving from conspiracies to happy-ever-after stories, I was struck again by the career beginnings of a young guy from the Bronx named Ralph Lifshitz, son of an Orthodox Jewish immigrant from Minsk. He lived in the Mosholu Parkway section and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City. By this time, he’d changed his last name to Lauren. From the very beginning of his modest start in the clothing trade, he preferred the preppie style.

His rise to fashion designer stardom is straight out of the best fiction, and was undoubtedly based on hard work. Ralph Lauren had a persistent dream that became reality. “We sell a way of life” was his mantra, and in this he has been wildly successful. What I like about his brand is the consistency of its visualization, down to selling a fantasy lifestyle (how many polo players do you know?). The Art Reading Room has two biographies on his life and work, but the more recent title says it all - Ralph Lauren: the man, the vision, the style. Perhaps I also have a bit of a bias towards a designer who uses Southwestern Native American textile themes in his leisure clothes. I still remember the Fashion Week in the late 1990s when his models all wore exquisite turquoise squash blossom necklaces and heavy silver concho belts...

“Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them...there is nothing.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

One weekend this summer, I bought a paperback copy of an amusing book in our collection, The Fashion Conspiracy by Nicholas Coleridge. Published in 1988, the book is still relevant today in the portraits it draws of fashion wealth, 80s excess, and the striking contrasts between high-end designer showrooms and Asian sweatshops. Coleridge, a British journalist and novelist, uses a form of the then-developing creative nonfiction to make his profiles and encounters more interesting. I find him a bit too credulous as a reporter, however; he recounts the story of Oscar de la Renta as the inventor of the “fashion victim” term without any demur, and repeats similar questionable anecdotes as a matter of course.

Having just finished the book, I’ve found that his title stretches the point a little. An avid reader of murder mysteries, I like to think of myself as an expert on conspiracy theories. Coleridge’s thesis really denotes a nudge and wink conspiracy, in which market players all work together to make the couture garment an amazing piece of expensive sleight-of-hand. If you want to read about someone ready and willing to link fashion with terrorism, look at this interview with Bret Easton Ellis.

I’ve always believed that diversity makes for a more beautiful world. I also thought that most people felt that way, these days. Imagine my surprise when word began to leak out this past year that the fashion shows were employing more and more white models, and less of those of other colors. Having only skinny white girls on the runways is far from completing fashion’s dreamscape. I know Naomi Campbell is bad-tempered, but honestly—we need black, white, Hispanic, and Asian (and would a Native American hurt, either?) women to represent our global world.

For years now, Saudi, Middle Eastern, and Asian women have been major couture buyers. The big designers have customers in all shades of the rainbow as a result of the global economy. Furthermore, as Cathy Horyn says, who writes for the New York Times blog On the Runway, diversity can be a means for “Beauty and Soul.” I hope the Fall 2008 New York Fashion Week organizers are listening: put more models of different races out there for all to see. Fashionable fantasies shouldn’t be for just one group.

Josephine Baker had to leave 1920s America for France in order to receive the acclaim she deserved for her talent. Do we really wish for a return to those times? This is a clear-cut case of NOT wanting everything old to be new again…

“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”
-Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Of course, there’s the little matter of how will we pay for our new fall fashions? You’ll be reassured to know that this question won’t bother that sector of the population that attends fashion shows and buys directly from couturiers. For the rest of us who await the trickle-down of readymade fashion must-haves, the question is a little more acute.

One secret of success is to pick and choose. Picking a new accessory—which the Vogue editors pushed as an idea—has always been a way of getting a modish look without too much financial pain. There are bound to be a lot of inexpensive costume jewelry knock-offs of statement necklaces and faux bijoux. I admire those who can sew and adapt the latest outlines or features, whether they are the new silhouettes or an alluring bias cut. One of my favorite books, available at the reference desk in the Art Reading Room is a wonderful resource, full of pictures and retro chic suggestions, called Collectible fashions of the turbulent 30s. Now, those were the days when your dress dollar had to go a long way! Unless you were Marlene Dietrich.

Those who know how to do canny shopping will benefit this year. If you live in the metro New York area, check out two sites that offer ways to shop frugally: TheElegantTightwad.com and fashionswapandmeet.wordpress.com

Well, the September issue of Vogue has hit the stands. I’ve been scrutinizing it, as I do every year, to see what will be on the runways and in the stores this fall. What I encountered is pretty much what I expected: cautious optimism and a whole lot of conservatism. Economic slumps don’t inspire risk-taking or an emphasis on the extraordinary. Clothes with good, classic lines were shown, and there were less retro looks than expected. The slim line in dressing discounts room for breasts and hips, not unlike the body aesthetics of the 20s and 30s. Colors favored were red and blue (election year, surprise!) followed by black and white. Muted metallic tones appeared plentiful, a hangover from last season. Dries Van Noten and Alexander McQueen provided the necessary alternative avant-garde looks. Armani followed the other established designers in subdued clothes, but utilized a winning bias cut.

There were few remarkable photographic studies, other than a radiant Gwyneth Paltrow hawking Tod’s leather goods. The Vogue editors’ concession to the weak economy was a number of articles on the value of accessories, including faux jewels and a statement necklace. In the area of shoes, things looked frightening. Nothing but wickedly threatening stilettos, which Christian Louboutin calls the “skyscraper pump,” except for one page of handsome flats- which made me want to either applaud or cry. I was informed, however, that the flat jazz lace-up shoe is in fashion now. Much more intriguing was mention of the “armorial gladiator ankle boot” as a must-have. Whatever that is…

Vogue, the magazine, has been the subject of some interestingly speculative publications. Academia has begun examining the magazine’s effect on the American fashion industry. One title, As Seen in Vogue, evaluates the effect of its advertising on consumers. Another viewpoint investigates Beauty Photography in Vogue, while drawing some rather bland conclusions about the social impact of fashion photography. Much more amusing—and revealing—is former editor Grace Mirabella’s take on the magazine in her In and Out of Vogue.

Ah, the Dog Days of summer started very early this year, but they’re here now with a vengeance. The city needs daily intervals of icy downpours, or cold rain showers, while The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” blasts away in the background.

Well, if we can’t have that, let’s think of something cooling. The ancient Egyptians understood the usefulness of unbleached, durable linen. They wore fine linen garments to counteract the heat and humidity of the Nile Delta. Their production of linen is a remarkable story in itself, going back about three thousand years or so.

People in tropical countries also learned the value of wearing white, lightweight textiles. Our own modern era tropical wear is a variation on combinations of linen and khaki fabrics. The Filipinos devised costumes that merged elegance and utility. The nineteenth century gentleman in the illustration above is wearing a white shirt that is actually intended for formal wear—yet note how this shirt woven from pineapple fiber appears the height of casual dress to our untutored modern-day eyes. The shirt’s whiteness also proclaims the wearer’s affluence, for it would have to be laundered frequently.

I have to admit to being a little dismayed by the fact that feminism seems to be out of fashion. I’ve noticed this backlash of sorts in the last ten years or so, and realize that some of this may also be generational. Young women who didn’t live through the turbulent 60s and 70s may feel that feminism is either beside the point or irrelevant. Yet they grew up in a period when many battles had already been fought and won for them.

But when searching for the reason why Hilary Clinton’s pantsuits became a flash point of resentment, leading to negatives about her presidential campaign, it seemed like so many people—including big name journalists and pundits—were reliving the same kind of resentment that triggered the women’s rights protests of the 60s and 70s.

Hard-won freedoms should never be taken for granted. Just type the words “feminist backlash” into Google and you will see how the debate still ranges today. Since feminism and fashion are both social forces, the media loves speculating on which force will come out on top. See how academia is beginning to address the issue in Fresh lipstick: redressing fashion and feminism.

p.s. Next week’s posts will be lighthearted and frivolous. Blame it on the continuing heat and humidity…

Trousers suit, pantsuit—where did one leave off, and the other begin? Women wore trousers in the nineteenth century in special circumstances. For one example, the famous animal painter Rosa Bonheur wore pants for outdoor painting expeditions. But such clothing wasn’t acceptable for street wear. The early twentieth century couturiers started a trend for feminine slacks, limiting them for specific leisure occasions, such as beach wear or garden parties. We find illustrations of these outfits by the 1920s, with variations intermittently through the 30s and 40s. Actresses like Hepburn and Dietrich helped, but didn’t cinch the deal for social acceptance.

Which brings us to the 1960s. I think that we can look at pop culture, particularly rock n’ roll, for the genesis of feminine pants acceptance. The long Summer of Love that was the late 60s saw the advent of the unisex look, expressed best in the wearing of denim jeans. This was also the period in which militant feminism was born. The time was one of general disaffection with many things in society, and women were able to don pants as part of this protest. The men and women that led popular music in that period played an essential role in getting everyone accustomed to the sight of women in pants. Designer Tommy Hilfiger thinks so too, and you can see his endorsement of my theory in words and pictures if you peruse his Rock style: how fashion moves to music.

Yes, Marlene Dietrich was our mystery lady. While none of us who pay attention to fashion history are surprised anymore by the furor over women wearing pants, it still remains more than a little surprising how little documentation there is on that specific piece of history. I’d recommend to those teaching costume and fashion studies that they get their most promising grad students to work on this aspect of women’s dress.

As I looked through literature on the subject, I was shocked at how sketchy information is about the true origins of something like the pantsuit. The obituaries for Yves Saint Laurent labeled him as the inventor with his “Le Smoking” pantsuit in 1966, and a full-fledged “pantsuit” in 1970. Yet in a sweep of other books, I saw Andre Courrèges and British designer Tommy Nutter credited with the original invention.

The fact is, that just like searching the origins of the term “fashion victim,” researching the beginnings of the pantsuit calls for a systematic, detailed perusal of published literature, especially newspapers—along with some clever sleuthing. In the meantime, the Europeans have beaten us to basic documentation itself: the only books in our collection on the history of pants are in French and Italian!

Once upon a time, long before Hilary, there lived a woman during the Art Deco era of the 1930s. She was a famous actress like Katherine Hepburn, with a face recognized by people the world over. But this woman was exceptionally notorious. Why? She made a habit of wearing trousers in social situations at a time when women simply didn’t do so—not without causing a scandal. The outrage aroused by her actions might seem remarkable to us today, but—trust me—she generated real hostility.

And her reaction was only to do more. She appeared in a film one time in a man’s tuxedo, and later on kissed a woman on the mouth. Her run-in with French police over her public appearance in a trouser suit (the forerunner of the pantsuit) made newspaper headlines across the globe. By 1939, however, her wearing of pants in a film actually brought a sea-change in her studio executive bosses. They decided that her androgynous look was beneficial after all.

Who was this groundbreaking woman? I’ll provide the answer in the next post. Hint: we have a lot of great pictures of her in our Digital Gallery!

Dawdling away at the reference desk the other day, I put the word “pantsuit” into CATNYP as a word search, wondering what would come up. Well guess what? One item showed up and it was on Hillary Clinton!

Yet over the course of an online perusal of Clinton’s unsuccessful campaign for Democratic Party presidential nominee, I found the word “pantsuit” over and over again, often in a negative context. This brought me back to wondering about the original reception of feminine trousers, especially when made into a formal pant suit or pantsuit.

Even more daunting was the realization that I had actually grown up in the period when women finally won social acceptance for wearing pants. Fashion history surveys and reference books don’t give much space to this topic, except to say that this change occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, with better acceptance in the 1980s when more women than ever entered the workforce.

The blog I mentioned earlier, www.wornthrough.com, is written by Monica Sklar. She’s had a varied career in many aspects of costume, academic and retail, but I particularly salute her, for she’s presently in a Ph.D. program about Apparel and Culture. For those interested in news on costume and fashion history conferences, exhibitions, scholarships, and curatorial and research jobs, including a sprinkling of insights from the field, this is a site to check out.

Early last month, the media caught on to a startling development. The Men’s Dress Furnishings Association, formerly the Neckwear Association of America, announced that it was disbanding. This event was seen as the death rattle for the necktie, that universally-donned item of masculine dress.

I predicted the death of the necktie in “A Rakish History of Men’s Wear.” My prediction was based on the variety of research I did for the exhibition, where I found various opinions, academic and industrial, that seemed to confirm a move away from regular wear. The general consensus centered on the growth of the casual sportswear industry for men, and the eternal quest for physical comfort. In terms of quantifying the necktie’s loss of popularity, however, I’ve found myself more at a loss. Until now—I recently went shopping for my husband at Lord & Taylor and discovered that the store’s square footage of sales space for ties had greatly diminished...

Men have been wearing something distinctive around their necks since at least Tudor times. From starched linen ruffs, tight neck collars, and intricately-tied cravats, to the four-in-hand and Windsor tie, neckwear was an essential part of male dress. Yet garments can become defunct over time. A good example can be found in breeches, those trousers worn to just below the knee. The French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars allowed men to discover that long pants were more comfortable and effective, but breeches survived to almost the middle of the 19th century. They were worn mostly by older men, and still appeared at royal court events, before fading away. Today, we see a vestige of the breeches garment used in sportswear.

Will the necktie survive? The situation reminds me of Yoda’s statement in The Empire Strikes Back: “Very difficult. Future always in motion…”

Here’s a scene that plays out in all my “Researching Costume and Fashion History” classes:

PAB: What’s the number one problem with the Internet?
Pause. Finally someone speaks out tentatively…
Student: You can’t trust everything you read on it?
PAB: Yes! Quality Control!

When I first agreed to do a blog on fashion and design history, with special reference to that fact that everything old is new again, I knew I would have a problem right away. While the Internet is full of material, much of it is commercially-related or new in topic. The simple truth is that authoritative reference sources just haven’t made it online yet, and when new ones are made they may or may not get on the Web. Most historical reference tools and resources are still in book format. The reference publishing industry is pushing more and more titles online, but this is a fairly recent development.

But there really aren’t that many really impeccable sources to link you up with for some of the topics I choose to cover. Heather was right to remind me that Wikipedia isn’t terribly reliable or accurate; I tend to use it as a link, however, because it comes up early in the Google search engine optimization. The fact is that I’ll link you somewhere appropriate when I can, but otherwise you’ll find that I just keep on referring you to good old-fashioned books.

My correspondent Heather Vaughan turns out to a fashion historian, at www.fashionhistorian.net and she reports that she usually does a Wednesday post in the blog www.wornthrough.com. Check out her commentaries for another perspective on fashion issues.

And speaking of books, one of the best reference sets we have is found at the Art Reading Room (Room 300) desk: Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Now, if only tools like this would be put online as soon as they’re published. Sigh.

I’m hoping you may remember my post last month on the term “fashion victim.” I had a reply from Heather, who went out and did some proper research on where the phrase came from. She’d been rightfully suspicious that the term arose as recently as a comment by the designer Oscar de la Renta, and her doubts proved correct.

Heather’s research took her back as far as 1828. She searched journals in ProQuest and found references in a fiction piece in 1853, a racist cartoon in Harpers Bazaar dating to 1883, and newspaper mentions from the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1913 and then in the 1970s. The term appears regularly in literature from the 1970s on. I followed her trail, and found the same results; then I realized that I couldn’t spare the time this summer for a really serious expanded search into Newspapers Index and other periodical databases.

My apologies for not following this well-laid ground. Perhaps someone will take this subject up seriously for an academic paper or project? I did find something online, however, that indicates that being considered a fashion victim is still quite unwelcome, and this was addressed to men! As is this illustration in the Digital Gallery called “The Victim of Fashion,” dating to 1880. Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson, and will be careful about quoting dubious attributions in the future. More in my next post…

My last posting could have been subtitled “Do we own fashion or does it own us?” While I frequently dwell on fashion as a social force, it’s good to remember that fashion is also a huge industry. When I was young and employed for a year at the Fashion Institute of Technology Library, I remember thinking that I’d love to see something that might reveal the business workings of the fashion industry as a whole.

Such a publication came out in 2007. Providing case studies from the clothing trade and the fashion design syndicate, Veronica Manlow’s Designing clothes: culture and organization of the fashion industry, is precisely the sort of book I’d wished I had access to years ago.

p.s. American politics are intruding onto the runways! Donatella Versace was quoted as saying that her fall men’s collection had been inspired by Barak Obama. For a glimpse of the future, check out the Fall 2008 Milan Fashion Week.

Back in 1993, the Library held an exhibition called “A Change of Clothes: Femininity, Fashion and Feminism.” I was looking at the brochure the other day, and found something written there that piqued my curiosity.

“Three important concepts—femininity, fashion, and feminism—can help us understand the origins of modern dress. First, there is a historical relationship between a woman’s outward appearance and her essential femininity. Second, western society promotes fashion as a worthy pursuit for women, drawing them into a world of self-imposed rules and regulations based on imitation, conformity, and consumerism. However, current clothing modes and styles have been radically affected by 20th-century changes in women’s status, employment, and social mobility. Third, in recent years, feminism (a misunderstood and maligned concept even today) has challenged long-held assumptions that women and their apparel have a subordinate role in society.”

Fifteen years later, do these words still ring true? We’ve just had the first woman candidate for American president campaign long and, ultimately, fruitlessly wearing pants more often than skirts. Yet fashion is seen as a support to many women’s dreams—just look at the success of “Sex and The City.” At the same time, however, feminism also seems to have become more of an ambivalent option for many young women. What do these developments, seen from the perspective of 2008, say about how far women have come in society?

And what about the “18 million cracks” in the glass ceiling that Hilary Clinton referred to in her concession speech?

I discovered the illustration below in our Picture Collection. It’s actually a compelling piece of evidence for the point I’ve made previously about feminine body types and the start of the modern era.

This advertisement for dress patterns from the early 1930s boldly states: “Look Slim.” The elongated line that appeared in the 1920s is carried to new lengths here, even as the hemlines remain decorously modest. These garments are an early version of the shirtwaist dress with its clinched belt. The drumbeat of advertising and exhortation to women began in this period and continues today. Previously, looking slim was an implied option. A caption on this ad says “Little women and larger-hip frocks,” proof that the clothing industry—and contemporary values—had already decided thin was desirable. An eye-opening look at the slippery road from this point on can be found in Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth.