Fashion History 101: Worth and Poiret

When I was in high school, I used to go to the local library and check out the fashion and costume history books over and over again. I'd pore over the pictures, not bothering to read much of the text, and sometimes even try to copy the images by hand. I don't draw well, so that was a bit discouraging, but I still loved the pictures. Recently, I decided I should return to a similar habit--except this time I'll read and not just look at the pictures.

I've begun with a couple of simple, picture-heavy books structured by brief chapters about important moments in fashion history: 20th Century Fashion: 100 Years of Style by Decade and Designer, in Association with Vogue, by Linda Watson, and Key Moments in Fashion: The Evolution of Style.

In 20th Century Fashion, I found this image:


The caption reads, "Paul Poiret's MInaret tunics were both radical and dramatic, and combined the line of the hobble skirt with the theatricality of the crinoline, 1913." This combination of dramatically different shapes and the contrast in volume between top and bottom is what draws me to this look. It's a 1913 version of the more modern dress over pants look, after all. This variation on the big top plus skinny bottom style is one worth playing with, I think.

Poiret's comments about this new style he invented are telling. In his autobiography, he wrote,

Like all great revolutions, that one [the invention of the hobble skirt] had been made in the name of Liberty -- to give free play to the abdomen. . . . It was equally in the name of Liberty that I proclaimed the fall of the corset and the adoption of the brassiere which, since then, has won the day. Yes, I freed the bust, but I shackled the legs. Everyone wore the tight skirt.

We don't tend to think these days of the bra as liberating, but in this time it truly was. Similarly, the shackling of the legs by the hobble skirt seems not much of an improvement over the shackling of the bust, but while with the corset, women were misshapen and even internally damaged, with the hobble skirt, they merely couldn't walk very effectively.

Another image that leapt out at me in my recent reading is this one, from Key Moments in Fashion:


The caption for this photo reads, "A 1938 evening coat by Worth in moire (a watered silk fabric) and manufactured by Rémond." The coat is fabulous, with the giant flowing sleeves and the elegance of the sleek floor-length silhouette.

Really, though, what I love about this look is the hat. It is bizarre and completely impractical, and I love it. I'm not sure if I'm ready to adopt hats into my wardrobe, but I have long wanted to. I used to bemoan the fact that women don't wear hats any more--not the fabulous work-of-art hats that they used to wear, anyway. I have seen several people working such hats into their outfits on Wardrobe_Remix lately, however. Maybe my time for hats is approaching.

Scrapbook from the Past: Dress Drama

I found my old style scrapbook from high school (maybe early college). I used this folder to store photos from fashion magazines and catalogues that I really really liked. Sometimes I got creative and arranged them on a page, but often I just stored the whole magazine or catalogue page in the folder.

Looking back at my choices, I can see that there are some clear and recurring themes in my taste of approximately 10 years ago. One is dresses! In bright colors and dramatic shapes!



The dresses I kept photos of are ones I wouldn't have known what to do with if I'd had them then, dresses I would probably have been afraid to actually wear. And not just the high couture ballgowns of the first photo, but the more "normal" dresses of the last two images as well. But my desire for these bold, attention-getting dresses says a lot about my taste, even though it was yet in its infancy when I developed this collection. After all, I still have a thing for dresses in bright colors and dramatic shapes, only now I'm growing brave and creative enough to wear them when I find them.



Part of the shift my rediscovery of this folder highlights, from the girl who drooled over the photos but could imagine doing no more than that and the girl who would now gladly wear these dresses or others equally dramatic, has come from getting to know myself and what kind of person I am and, thanks in large part to teaching, becoming more confident on the whole. Another part of this shift is thanks to Wardrobe_Remix. I've been watching, commenting, and posting there for several months now and I already feel much more confident and inventive in this arena. In my case, my personal development and my development of style have gone hand in hand. As I've become more confident in other arenas, my willingness and ability to experiment with fashion has grown, too, so that, for me, style really is power.



[Unfortunately, I can't provide much information about the source or date of these photos. Mid-to-late-90s, I suppose. Probably a combination of Seventeen, Glamour, Vogue, and various shopping catalogues.]

Fashion and Feminism: Azzedine Alaia

Azzedine Alaïa, who gained popularity in the 1980s and has been dubbed "The King of Cling," says (as quoted in Fashion Now), "A woman's not going to buy a little skirt for a lot of money if it's not for seduction. What else are clothes made for?"


Oh, dear. It's this attitude that makes it difficult for people to imagine feminism and fashion going hand in hand. Or at least, this attitude contributes to the problem of imagining a feminist who loves fashion. Like myself. If clothing is only for seduction, how indeed can a feminist justify loving fashion? It again becomes all about the male gaze, doesn't it? All about the other and none about self-actualization or creativity.

Alaïa also talks about how he designs for all women, not for any particular, for Woman. Although he is clearly inspired by the female body and by women, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, there is much in the way Alaïa talks about women that is problematic. He is essentialist, idealizing, lumping all women together as seductresses and muses. Feminist this is not.

Anyone have a pedestal?



On the other hand, Suzy Menkes defends Alaïa in her article "10 Years Ago: Alaïa Launched His Revolution: Landmark for King of Curves" for The International Herald Tribune. She writes, "So while many women have rejected the body-hugging look as only for the young with beautiful bodies, the unsung fashion hero who started it all aims to dress every woman so that her body looks a cut above the rest." She implies that even though his body-conscious, curve-hugging designs of the early '80s "seemed a deliberate challenge - throwing down a sexist gauntlet in a feminist world," Alaïa's work is truly liberating for women.

But this liberation seems to consist solely of giving women "beautiful bodies," bodies that look "a cut above the rest." This may make individual women feel better, more beautiful, and perhaps eventually more confident, but it does so by saying to these women, "You must be beautiful." Not only that, it says, "You must be beautiful in this particular way. You must be thin, toned, and appear young."

According to even Menkes' defense, then, there is no celebration of a variety of body types, no celebration of individual quirks, no celebration of the changes that age brings. There is no sense of community, no sense of connection with others, no sense of aesthetic other than the controlled and modified body itself as a source of beauty. As Menkes also points out, "he still has as clients or customers women who look to him to iron out or reshape the little bulges." Instead, there is uniformity and competition between women whose bodies must be reshaped and bettered.

Generally, I defend fashion. I see no reason why fashion and feminism cannot go hand in hand. But that can only work if both fashion and feminism are a bit more flexible than they have been and have been perceived as being, if they prize joy, beauty (not just of the perfect body, but of colors, shapes, textures, and the individual woman wearing the clothing), and experimentation.

So really, it's not the body-conscious clothing itself I am objecting to. Much of his work is indeed beautiful. It is the ideology that seems to accompany his clothing to which I object. When that ideology is challenged, when the experience of the wearer trumps the ideas of the creator, that is also a beautiful thing.


Susie Bubble (over at Style Bubble writes the following:

Anything tight and figure hugging used to freak me out and completely, but having recently experienced the feeling of vintage Alaia (trying things on in One of Kind is too much fun...), which I thought would constrict my body but actually liberated it. I felt exposed but not uncomfortably so. It was a different kind of uncomplicated look, and defintiely something that I could see myself (and others) delving into.

This entry illustrates the way in which the clothing itself is open to different women's experiences and reveals the very reason I am loathe to object to the clothing itself (in this instance and in others). She is able to challenge her own limitations, stretch her boundaries, through wearing the Alaïa dress. That is wonderful.

Off the Wall: Fashion from the German Democratic Republic

Another small, picture-heavy book I've seen popping up frequently at Half Price Books stores across Texas (like Worst Fashions in that regard) finally seduced me: Off the Wall: Fashion from the German Democratic Republic. The book includes only a few very brief paragraphs of text at the beginning, much of which you can read at the provided link from the Strand Bookstore. There is no real cultural context given for the photographs aside from this:

Despairing of the drab, colourless apparel surrounding them, photographer Gunter Rubitzsh hired local models, chose the locations that inspired him--oil factories, worker canteens, concrete office blocks--and set about creating his own unique and daring style.

It is assumed that "what was produced in earnest is now a catalogue of camp," but there is no indication of what it would mean in East Germany during this time (and none of the pictures are dated, which is annoying, since it clearly covers a fairly wide span of time) for these photos to be produced in earnest, who would see them, what effects they might have.

Despite these rather major flaws, the book is worth at least glancing at for the pictures. This is another book that I find inspirational and full of creative energy, even if it's not particularly informative.



Here are a couple more pictures that I particuarly like. There really are just a lot of great photos in this small book. I may have to dedicate another couple of posts to exploring it in the future. For now, though, take a gander at the following two photos.

The "beltfit" or, perhaps, the "beltkini":



This is not something I can see myself wearing (I don't have that many belts and I have more boob than this girl does), but I like its combination of simplicity and complexity. It's a simple basic shape: a bikini (plus a couple of embellishments on the upper arm and leg) but the execution of the bikini requires careful planning.

The jumpsuit:



Seriously, a red bell-bottomed jumpsuit with ethnic embellishment and fancy shoulders? Yes, please. Truly. I don't know if I could pull off a jumpsuit, but for this kind of awesome, I'd certainly try.

Battle of the Dresses!

Last spring I found this wonderful pinafore dress on ebay and knew the second I saw it that I must have it. I paid more than I ordinarily would for a dress, but I got it and ever since it has been queen of my closet.



Two weeks ago, however, I found this:



It may well dethrone the pinafore dress. Tonight is its first outing, a test of its suitability as queen of my closet. We shall see how it performs.

Perhaps I should simply count the pinafore dress as spring queen and the brown dress as autumn queen.

Worst Fashions?

I found this book Worst Fashions: What we shouldn't have worn...but did at a used bookstore and just had to get it. It has lots of pictures of and commentary on what author Catherine Horwood consideres some of the worst fashions of the last forty to fifty years.

Of course, I didn't want this book in order to make fun of those poor benighted fools who wore such crazy clothing. Instead, I wanted the book because I was inspired by the pictures.

A few examples will suffice. Horwood condemns knickerbockers as "fine if you are a Royalist cavalier in the mid-seventeenth century, but less amusing if you are a women in the late twentieth century."


I beg to differ. I have wanted a pair of knickerbockers for months. I have yet to find a pair that fits or is actually appealing, but I truly do like the shape and the details.

Horwood also decries the sweater vest (on men and women) as silly-looking and embarrassing.


I, on the other hand, just bought myself a sweatervest at Target last night. I have always liked this look, even though I've not always executed it well.

Another look that she lambastes is batwing sleeves.


"Sadly often worn by women who could not cope with the clinched-in waists that the power shoulder outfits [of the 1980s] required," she writes, "they usually ended up looking as broad as they were tall." Ouch.

It is possible for pretty much any style to look bad if it's worn without a good sense of balance and proportion--and an equally good sense of when to flout the "rules"--but I don't like to think of a given style as a "worst fashion." In fact, there are very few styles she discusses in the book that didn't cause me to think, "Hmm...It might be fun to try that." Horwood condemns overalls (for men and women), patterned trousers, palazzo pants (which I love), skinny pants and jumpsuits (which I don't so much love for myself, but which other people wear well), knitted dresses, maxi dresses, bubble skirts, leggings and legwarmers, paisley and tartan. For me, this attitude of condemnation takes all the fun out of fashion. For me, fashion is not making fun of others (even if I don't personally like or enjoy their choices); fashion is freedom, experimentation, creativity. I'm prepared to look stupid occasionally for the sake of these things.

Horwood's book was an interesting find, but I will not recommend this book wholeheartedly. The judgmental and snarky tone was far too negative for me. I will, however, recommend looking at the pictures in this book for inspiration and ways to make old ideas new again.

Inaugural Post

Inspired by so many other great fashion bloggers (many of whom are already linked to the right), I thought I'd have a crack at my own fashion-related blog. Here goes!

Lately, I've really been wanting some cute T-strap shoes (preferably flats), so imagine how excited I was to find these amazing mod "pale grey-taupey-bone" suede T-straps on ebay a couple of days ago.


Unfortunately, they're a size 8.5 narrow! My feets are not narrow. Oh well. The search continues.