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- Volume 5, Issue 1, 2018
Fashion, Style & Popular Culture - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2018
Volume 5, Issue 1, 2018
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The shirtwaist: Changing the commerce of fashion
More LessAbstractThe introduction of ready-to-wear shirtwaists in the 1890s was a beginning point for significant growth in the women’s apparel industry. The almost universal acceptance of waists by women at all economic levels initially both shaped and was shaped by the organization of the men’s shirt and collar trade. These companies recognized sales potential and, as one of the most organized segments of the industry, had the capabilities to produce in large quantity. However, with seemingly unquenchable demand, competition escalated quickly. It soon became an industry characterized by rapid growth, style competition and style piracy. The incredible profusion of styles at every quality level and price point also altered how retailers marketed ready-towear, and facilitated changes in women’s perceptions of fashion. As they wholeheartedly adopted the shirtwaist in its many variations, it appeared to be a democratic style desired and worn by all women, consumers who understood and demanded access to fashion.
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How stout women were left out of high fashion: An early twentieth-century perspective
More LessAbstractKarl Lagerfeld, head designer and creative director of Chanel, made headlines in 2013 when he made comments against fat women on the French television show Le Grand 8 by saying ‘no one wants to see curvy women on the runway’. Excluding plus-size women from high fashion has occurred since the infancy of stoutwear manufacturing (an earlier term used for plus-size) near the start of the twentieth century. It is important to note that stoutwear manufacturers created ready-towear designs for middle-class women, but designers did not make or promote highfashion designs in vast quantities for upper-class women. Stout society women and couture clients were certainly consuming high fashion, but high-fashion advertising, commentary and editorials were not inclusive of stout women. In fact, many high-fashion designers stressed the importance and need to be slender. This article uses primary sources from Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar to analyse the commentary during the introduction and emergence of women’s ready-to-wear and the exclusion of high fashion for stout women by designers.
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Manufacturer, retailer and consumer misbehaviour in the United States during the Second World War
Authors: Jennifer M. Mower and Elaine L. PedersenAbstractWith the entry of the United States into the Second World War clothing manufacturers, retailers and consumers became concerned about the possibility of wartime regulations. Scare buying and hoarding were one response to this worry. In this article we report our analysis of advertisements, articles and editorials in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Women’s Wear Daily, Vogue and other newspapers and periodicals. Wartime regulations related to use of materials and pricing were implemented to support the war effort. There is evidence that regulations were not always followed. Indications of wartime misbehaviours provide a nuanced picture of the United States home front, one that indicates misbehaviours on the part of consumers and some individuals and firms in the apparel and textile industry during the Second World War. The manufacturer and retailer advertisements, often ambiguous, coupled with consumer fear drove wartime consumer clothing purchases.
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Sara Pennoyer: Twentieth-century retail and advertising executive and her creation, Polly Tucker, Merchant
More LessAbstractTwentieth-century American retail and advertising executive Sara Pennoyer gained varied fashion industry experience during the course of a long career, which included stints as promotion director at Harper’s Bazaar, advertising copywriter, buyer, fashion reporter and even novelist. In the 1930s and the 1940s, Pennoyer served as sales promotion manager, and later vice president, for New York specialty store Bonwit Teller, where her novel in 1937, Polly Tucker: Merchant, and the related campaign were a highlight of her career. Pennoyer’s work was grounded on a firm foundation of writing ability, paired with a creative ability to connect to consumers. Near the end of her career, Pennoyer headed her own advertising agency. Sara Pennoyer was one of the now little-known twentieth-century women who forged a fruitful career path in the American retail industry.
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California Way of Life: Promotion of California sportswear, 1930–47
More LessAbstractUntil Second World War, Paris, to many, held the undisputed title of fashion capital of the world, and had done so for centuries, at least to women of society. American women proved to be no exception. With Nazi Occupation 1940–45, this European influence was cut off and the American fashion industry regrouped, finding a new voice in the absence of Paris fashion direction. To many, New York, with its thriving garment centre and strong union control seemed to be the heir apparent. While the New York market hustled to gain press and recognition for its vigorous but under acknowledged women’s apparel industry, the California industry, with a basis for clean, modern design coming from the neighbouring movie industry, and their rather secluded locale, worked within a different framework from their eastern counterparts. As a result, the close of Paris in 1940 seemed to not impact California the same way it did New York and other garment centres throughout America. Factors such as geographic influence, public works developments, creative innovation, resourceful private and government financing, educational development, organized public relations initiatives, and West Coast population shifts all contributed to help California leverage wartime prosperity to its own advantage. As a result, during this small window of time, the West Coast industry elevated itself to distinction in women’s fashion, particularly in the emerging apparel category of sportswear.
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E. Moses and Son – the tailors who pioneered mass-market men’s tailoring?
More LessAbstractThis article concerns the nineteenth century tailoring firm of E. Moses and Son and explores their significance in laying the foundations for modern mass-market retailing in men’s fashion. E Moses and Son were in operation between 1829 and 1884, and in the 55 years that they were in business, they achieved considerable success by bringing together new technologies and ideas of the time. Through their revolutionary attitude to commerce, E. Moses and Son pioneered a modern and more democratic fashion platform and, despite their virtual absence from fashion history, they hold an important place in the history of fashion and of commercial progress. Against a backdrop of social and economic change, brought about by industrialization and a re-structuring of the traditional English class system, Elias Moses and his son Isaac recognized a growing appetite for the consumption of new, affordable and accessible fashionable clothing. They pioneered a new business model that reduced the cost of fashions that operated on low margins and high-turn-over. This research explores how this was achieved by implementing new methods of production through innovative use of display and promotion, and perhaps most significantly, by devising an aggressive marketing strategy that appealed to a mass market by promoting the idea of classlessness. In their heyday, E. Moses and Son played many important roles: during the 1840s they became the preeminent men’s tailoring business in London, pioneering new methods of production and promotion; during the 1850s they also became fashion connoisseurs, offering guidance on style and fashions of the day. By the 1860s, they began to theorize about the fashion, taking ideas that contemplated fashion philosophically and simplifying and re-branding them for mass consumption. E. Moses and Son may have existed for a relatively short moment in time, however, their methods have had a lasting impact on the development of modern mass-market tailoring.
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Event Review
By Ali KhanAbstractStockholm Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2017 Collections, 29–31 January 2017
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Exhibition Review
More LessAbstractMasterworks: Unpacking Fashion, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, 18 November 2016–5 February 2017
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Book Reviews
Authors: Ellen Anders, David Loranger, Kathi Martin and Anna YanofskyAbstractPhilosophical Perspectives on Fashion, Giovanni MAtteucci and STEFANO Marino (eds) (2017) London: Bloomsbury, 208 pp., ISBN: 9781474237482, p/bk, $29.95
Cult Media, Fandom, and Textiles: Handicrafting as Fan Art, Brigid Cherry (2016) London: Bloomsbury, 199 pp., ISBN: 9781474215152, p/bk, $85.00
Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting, Anne Hollander and Foreword by Valerie Steele ([2002] 2006) London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 208 pp., ISBN 9781474251648, p/bk, $35.96
The History of Fashion Journalism, Kate Nelson Best (2017) London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 304 pp., ISBN: 9781474279727, p/bk, $19.99
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Fashion and Appropriation
Authors: Denise Nicole Green and Susan B. Kaiser
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