Fashion History Read online

  FASHION HISTORY

  Dress, Body, Culture

  Series Editor: Joanne B. Eicher, Regents’ Professor , University of Minnesota

  Advisory Board:

  Djurdja Bartlett , London College of Fashion, University of the Arts

  Pamela Church-Gibson, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts

  James Hall, University of Illinois at Chicago

  Vicki Karaminas, University of Technology, Sydney

  Gwen O’Neal , University of North Carolina at Greensboro

  Ted Polhemus, Curator, “Street Style” Exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum

  Valerie Steele, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology

  Lou Taylor, University of Brighton

  Karen Tranberg Hansen , Northwestern University

  Ruth Barnes, Yale Art Gallery, Yale University

  Books in this provocative series seek to articulate the connections between culture and dress, which is defined here in its broadest possible sense as any modification or supplement to the body. Interdisciplinary in approach, the series highlights the dialogue between identity and dress, cosmetics, coiffure, and body alternations as manifested in practices as varied as plastic surgery, tattooing, and ritual scarification. The series aims, in particular, to analyze the meaning of dress in relation to popular culture and gender issues and will include works grounded in anthropology, sociology, history, art history, literature, and folklore.

  ISSN: 1360-466X

  Previously published in the Series

  Helen Bradley Foster, “New Raiments of Self”: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South

  Claudine Griggs,S/he: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes

  Michaele Thurgood Haynes, Dressing Up Debutantes: Pageantry and Glitz in Texas

  Anne Brydon and Sandra Niessen, Consuming Fashion: Adorning the Transnational Body

  Dani Cavallaro and Alexandra Warwick, Fashioning the Frame: Boundaries, Dress and the Body

  Judith Perani and Norma H. Wolff, Cloth, Dress and Art Patronage in Africa

  Linda B. Arthur,Religion, Dress and the Body

  Paul Jobling, Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography

  Fadwa El Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance

  Thomas S. Abler, Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress: European Empires and Exotic Uniforms

  Linda Welters, Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs about Protection and Fertility

  Kim K.P. Johnson and Sharron J. Lennon, Appearance and Power

  Barbara Burman, The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption and Home Dressmaking

  Annette Lynch, Dress, Gender and Cultural Change: Asian American and African American Rites of Passage

  Antonia Young, Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins

  David Muggleton, Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style

  Nicola White, Reconstructing Italian Fashion: America and the Development of the Italian Fashion Industry

  Brian J. McVeigh, Wearing Ideology: The Uniformity of Self-Presentation in Japan

  Shaun Cole, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century

  Kate Ince, Orlan: Millennial Female

  Ali Guy, Eileen Green and Maura Banim, Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationships with their Clothes

  Linda B. Arthur, Undressing Religion: Commitment and Conversion from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

  William J. F. Keenan, Dressed to Impress: Looking the Part

  Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wilson, Body Dressing

  Leigh Summers, Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian Corset

  Paul Hodkinson , Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture

  Leslie W. Rabine, The Global Circulation of African Fashion

  Michael Carter, Fashion Classics from Carlyle to Barthes

  Sandra Niessen, Ann Marie Leshkowich and Carla Jones , Re-Orienting Fashion: The Globalization of Asian Dress

  Kim K. P. Johnson, Susan J. Torntore and Joanne B. Eicher , Fashion Foundations: Early Writings on Fashion and Dress

  Helen Bradley Foster and Donald Clay Johnson, Wedding Dress Across Cultures

  Eugenia Paulicelli, Fashion under Fascism: Beyond the Black Shirt

  Charlotte Suthrell, Unzipping Gender: Sex, Cross-Dressing and Culture

  Irene Guenther, Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in the Third Reich

  Yuniya Kawamura, The Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion

  Patricia Calefato, The Clothed Body

  Ruth Barcan, Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy

  Samantha Holland, Alternative Femininities: Body, Age and Identity

  Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark, Old Clothes, New Looks: Second Hand Fashion

  Yuniya Kawamura, Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies

  Regina A. Root, The Latin American Fashion Reader

  Linda Welters and Patricia A. Cunningham, Twentieth-Century American Fashion

  Jennifer Craik, Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression

  Alison L. Goodrum, The National Fabric: Fashion, Britishness, Globalization

  Annette Lynch and Mitchell D. Strauss, Changing Fashion: A Critical Introduction to Trend Analysis and Meaning

  Catherine M. Roach, Stripping, Sex and Popular Culture

  Marybeth C. Stalp, Quilting: The Fabric of Everyday Life

  Jonathan S. Marion, Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance

  Dunja Brill, Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality and Style

  Joanne Entwistle, The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion: Markets and Value in Clothing and Modelling

  Juanjuan Wu, Chinese Fashion: From Mao to Now

  Annette Lynch, Porn Chic: Exploring the Contours of Raunch Eroticism

  Brent Luvaas, DIY Style: Fashion, Music and Global Cultures

  Jianhua Zhao, The Chinese Fashion Industry: An Ethnographic Approach

  Eric Silverman, A Cultural History of Jewish Dress

  Karen Hansen and D. Soyini Madison, African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance

  Maria Mellins, Vampire Culture

  Lynne Hume, The Religious Life of Dress

  Marie Riegels Melchior amd Birgitta Svensson , Fashion and Museums: Theory and Practice

  Masafumi Monden , Japanese Fashion Cultures: Dress and Gender in Contemporary Japan

  Alfonso McClendon , Fashion and Jazz: Dress, Identity and Subcultural Improvisation

  Phyllis G. Tortora , Dress, Fashion and Technology: From Prehistory to the Present

  Barbara Brownie and Danny Graydon, The Superhero Costume: Identity and Disguise in Fact and Fiction

  Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas, Fashion’s Double: Representations of Fashion in Painting, Photography and Film

  Yuniya Kawamura, Sneakers: Fashion, Gender, and Subculture

  Heike Jenss, Fashion Studies: Research Methods, Sites and Practices

  Brent Luvaas , Street Style: An Ethnography of Fashion Blogging

  Jenny Lantz, The Trendmakers: Behind the Scenes of the Global Fashion Industry

  Barbara Brownie, Acts of Undressing: Politics, Eroticism, and Discarded Clothing

  Fashion History

  A Global View

  LINDA WELTERS AND ABBY LILLETHUN

  Bloomsbury Academic

  An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword by Joanne B. Eicher

  1 Introduction: Europe and the People Without Fashion

  PART ONE UNDERSTANDING FASHION AND ITS HISTORY

  2 The Lexicon of Fashion

  3 Fashion Systems

  4 How We Got Here

  PART TWO OUTSIDE THE CANON: ALTERNATIVE FASHI
ON HISTORIES

  5 Fashion Systems in Prehistory and the Americas

  6 Fashion Systems and Trade Networks in the Eastern Hemisphere

  7 Fashion Systems in East, South, and Southeast Asia

  8 Alternative Fashion Histories in Euro-America

  9 Global Fashion

  10 Conclusion

  Bibliography

  Index

  list of Illustrations

  Figure 2.1

  “Walking Dresses.” The Fashions of London & Paris During the Years 1804, 1805 & 1806. Richard Phillips: London. Historic Textile and Costume Collection, University of Rhode Island. The word “dress” appears more frequently than “costume” to label outfits in this book of fashion plates.

  Figure 2.2

  “Fashionable Costumes.” Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine, October 1871. Historic Textile and Costume Collection, University of Rhode Island. “Fashionable Costumes,” meaning contemporary fashions, was a monthly feature in Godey’s.

  Figure 2.3

  “The Bloomer Costume.” N. Currier, 1851. Lithograph. Historic Textile and Costume Collection, University of Rhode Island. Amelia Bloomer’s reform outfit was introduced as a practical, everyday “costume.”

  Figure 2.4

  “The Witch,” “The Hornet,” and “Watteau.” Fancy Dresses Described; or What to Wear at Fancy Balls, Ardern Holt, 1887. London: Debenham and Freebody. Collection of Linda Welters. Reprinted with permission. Victorians used “fancy dress” instead of “costume”to describe outfits worn to costume parties, known at the time as fancy balls.

  Figure 2.5

  “Taste in High Life.” William Hogarth, 1746. Engraving and aquatint, 1798. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932. Licensed by Creative Commons. License available online: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode. Hogarth satirized British aristocracy and their obsession with fashion in this image, which was first created as a painting and later reproduced as an engraving.

  Figure 2.6

  “Armenian Priests.” Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, 1717. Courtesy of Travelogues, Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Athens, Greece. Available online: http://www.eng.travelogues.gr/item.php?view=43567. Ecclesiastical dress, such as the liturgical vestments of Armenian priests, remained unchanged for centuries. Thus, it has not been considered “fashion.”

  Figure 2.7

  Studio portrait of nursing students, John H. Stratford Hospital Training School for Nurses, Brantford, Ontario, Canada, 1897. Canadian Nurses Association/Library and Archives Canada (e002414893). The students’ uniforms reflect 1890s fashionable silhouettes with their leg-of-mutton sleeves.

  Figure 3.1

  “Miss Julia Grant’s Wedding Gown,” Cover of Harper’s Bazaar, October 7, 1899. The magazine sent a photographer to fashionable Newport, Rhode Island, to cover the wedding of the season, the marriage of Julia Grant, granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant, to Russian prince Michel Cantacuzène.

  Figure 4.1

  “Noble Woman of Turkey.” Nicolas de Nicolay, 1580. Courtesy of Travelogues, Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Athens, Greece. Available online: http://www.eng.travelogues.gr/item.php?view=40363. This Turkish woman is fashionably dressed in a patterned robe, striped sash, headdress, necklace, and chopines.

  Figure 4.2

  “Cortigiane Moderne.” Woodcut by Cristoforo Guerra, tedesco, da Norimberga. From Cesare Vecellio, Habiti antichi, et moderni di tutto il mondo. Venice: Presso Damian Zenaro, 1590. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. In the best known of the sixteenth-century costume books, Vecellio noted that Roman courtesans dressed in the latest fashions, making it difficult to distinguish them from noblewomen.

  Figure 4.3

  “The Dream of Life. Italian Costume of the 14th Century.” James Robinson Planché. A Cyclopedia of Costume, or Dictionary of Dress. Vol. 2. London: Chatto and Windus, 1879. Planché acknowledged the source from which he took this image: “From a fresco painting by Orcagna in the Cloisters of the Campo Santo of Pisa.”

  Figure 4.4

  The History of Fashion in France, or The Dress of Women from the Gallo-Roman Period to the Present Time. Augustin Challamel. New York: Scribner and Welford, 1882. Plate facing p. 113. The two figures on the left illustrate women’s fashions in 1590 during the reign of Henry IV; the figures on the right display the fashions in 1614 during Louis XIII’s reign.

  Figure 4.5

  tobe from colonial French Soudan. Plate 13, Max Tilke. Orientalische Kostüme in Schnitt und Farbe. Berlin: Verlag Ernst Wesmuth A-G, 1923. Special Collections, University of Rhode Island Library. Tilke’s illustrations showed garments off the body, flattened to show seams and decoration. He emphasized garments from non-Western cultures like this tobe from the colonial region called French Soudan.

  Figure 5.1

  Two women’s skeletons, protected by antler. Tomb of Téviec. Recovery in 1938 restoration 2010. Didier Descouens, photographer. Museum of Toulouse. Licensed by Creative Commons. License available online: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The grave goods include funeral jewelry made of marine shells drilled and assembled into necklaces, bracelets, and anklets.

  Figure 5.2

  “Native American Sachem,” ca. 1700. Artist unknown. Oil on canvas. Photography by Erik Gould, courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Gift of Mr. Robert Winthrop. This sachem (leader) of a southern New England tribe demonstrates the Native American male’s interest in hairdressing and personal adornment. He wears a wampum headband and shell jewelry. His breech clout and mantle, fashioned from imported woolen cloth, contrast with his locally made deerskin leggings.

  Figure 5.3

  “Etow Oh Koam, King of the River Nation.” John Simon after John Verelst, 1710. Mezzotint. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. When visiting London in 1710, this Mohawk sachem wore an outfit consisting of shirt, moccasins, wampum belt, sword, mantle, and ear ornaments. His face bears tattoos.

  Figure 5.4

  “The Clothes of Noblewomen with Embroidered Huipil Blouses.” Facsimile of the Florentine Codex by Friar Bernardino de Sahagun, Historia general de las cosas de Nuevo España. Nahuatl, mid-sixteenth century, Mexico. Templo Mayor Library, Mexico. Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY. In the upper section, a seated male wears a cape. The middle section shows three huipiles (blouses). The bottom section illustrates six wrap skirts in different patterns.

  Figure 5.5

  “De Español è Yndia, Mestizo.” Anonymous, eighteenth century. Copperplate painting (48 x 36 cm). Museo de América-Coleccion, Madrid, Spain. Album / Art Resource, NY. This casta (caste) painting illustrates how people of different racial combinations were expected to dress in Spanish Mexico. The Indian mother wears a huipil blouse and a rebozo on her head. Her Spanish husband and mixed-race son dress in European styles.

  Figure 5.6

  Feather tunic, Peru. Chimu culture. Plain weave with paired warps (cotton), with applied feathers. The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C., 91.395. Acquired by George Hewett Myers in 1941. Pre-Hispanic Peruvians produced highly sophisticated textiles and featherwork, often in matched sets, which are datable to specific cultures.

  Figure 5.7

  “A Merry Company on the Banks of the Rímac River,” ca. 1800. Lima School. Oil on canvas, 26 x 35 ½ in. (66 x 90.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Lilla Brown in memory of her husband, John W. Brown, by exchange, 2012.41. The women, servants and elites alike, wear the distinctive pollera ensemble of late-eighteenth to early- nineteenth century Andean culture. The fashion diverged from the dominant European silhouette of the time, instead presenting a regional hybrid style.

  Figure 6.1

  Empress Zoe (1028–50) holding the deed from the endowment of the church, Byzantine mosaic, eleventh century. Hagia Sophia. Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY. The Byzantine Empress Zoe had her own personal cosmetics lab in the palace.

  Fig
ure 6.2

  Empress Irene, a Byzantine mosaic in the interior of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. 1118–22. Photograph and © by Anthony McAulay. 2011 / Shutterstock.com. The Hungarian princess Irene married into the Byzantine Komnenos family in 1104 and became an empress. Her Eastern European braids became fashionable in Constantinople.

  Figure 6.3

  Fragment of a floral serenk from a robe, probably Istanbul, late sixteenth century. The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C., 1.57. Acquired by George Hewett Myers in 1951. The floral style seen in this fragment appeared in the Ottoman court in the early sixteenth century, and can be attributed to a single artist. It eventually became popular throughout the Ottoman Empire.

  Figure 6.4

  “Young woman giving water to her dog,” late sixteenth century. Safavid Persia, gouache miniature, Shah Abbas School. Free Library of Philadelphia. Scala / Art Resource, NY. The elite Safavid woman wears a gauzy underdress and an overdress of fine brocade depicting hunters pursuing rabbits. The overgown’s unusual square neckline implies fashion innovation. Jeweled brooches hold the skirt of the overgown and sleeves in place.

  Figure 6.5

  “Young Woman in Georgian Costume,” second half of the seventeenth century / early eighteenth century. Iran. Oil on canvas. New York City. Private Collection. The nearly life-size image represents the dress of a Georgian woman in Safavid Persia. Her attire incorporates fine Safavid silk brocade textiles into the Georgian fashion of flared coat and trousers.

  Figure 6.6

  Portrait of a woman in sarong and kebaya with child. Dr. W. G. N. van der Sleen (Fotograaf/photographer). 1929. By permission of the Collection Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. Coll. no. TM-10027458. Reproduced by permission. The kebaya for women has roots in sleeved garments introduced through Chinese and Arabian traders before 1512. This jacket style continues today in fashionable women’s dress in the Malay Archipelago.