Scores of books and academic papers could, and have been for the most part, written about these events – after all, we all wear clothes for one reason or another and as a result we can’t deny the effect they have on our lives – but for this post I am going to delve into the major fashion revolution of the early 20th Century.
The beginning of the 20th Century saw a significant change in society. The era known as La Belle Époque, from the mid 1890s to the early 1900s, was an age of extravagance and a woman’s purpose was little more than to reflect her husband’s wealth; they themselves being seen as possessions. She was entirely economically dependant on her husband and was dictated to by society as to what she should wear.
Politics were globally patriarchal in nature, with the majority of leadership systems managed by men. Fashion was also dominated almost entirely by male couturiers at this time and appears to have had little concern regarding the comforts and the needs of the women who wore it.
While women were seen as the source of domestic charm in the early 1900s, a significant change in the dynamics of society and fashion came with World War One. Women replaced men in industry and the factories, gaining economic and social independence for the first time in history.
It would be foolish to deny that the fashion revolution and the suffrage campaigns across Europe were not inextricably linked. Although the change in the status of women was arguably a forced rather than a natural one, it had a huge impact on the fashion industry, with the commonplace corsets and long underskirts becoming an inconvenience to women undertaking physical labour.
A solution was needed and clothes began to be made for women in the work place as opposed for women in a domestic realm. However, the most notable difference between the pre- and post-war fashion industries is the emergence of revolutionary and rebellious female designers, women who designed with women in mind.
Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel
Chanel began seriously designing during the Art Deco period of the 1920s, which saw an amalgamation of various art movements such as Futurism and Cubism. The strong geometric shapes and smooth sweeping lines inspired the androgynous styles introduced to the mainstream by Chanel.
As one of the original anti-corset generation of the early 20th Century, her philosophy was that of women doing things as opposed to being seen as something: famously referring to Dior’s New Look of 1948-58, she said, ‘How dressed in that thing could they come and go, live or anything?’1
Originally shocking to society but eventually very popular with young women, this Dandy-esque style has been seen by some theorists such as Evans and Thornton to be important by minimising the differences between the sexes.2 However, Chanel has been criticised by academics such as Malson, who believes that the straight lines of Chanel’s suits in fact represent ‘a cultural rejection of the feminine and an appropriation of masculine power’.3
Madeleine Vionnet
Another member of the anti-corset league, Vionnet is arguably one of the most important couturiers of the 20th Century. While her creations themselves were not visually revolutionary, her bias cut technique was. Through use of drapery, Vionnet’s garments did not limit or seek to control the body and completely abolished the need for corsets to create shape.
Explaining, ‘I have never been able to tolerate corsets myself. So why should I inflict them on other women?', this technique was a triumph for feminism, eliminating the need for a tool that is seen by many as the ultimate symbol of female oppression. Most importantly, her clothes were discreet without being submissive, an essential quality in the 1920s and 1930s where there was still a large amount of prejudice towards the emancipation of women.
The era of Chanel and Vionnet was one that changed the face of fashion forever. These women aimed to create beautiful clothes that were as comfortable as possible for women to wear whilst making an obvious, unashamed challenge to the previously accepted hierarchy of society. To an extent, they helped liberate and support women in a time of social uncertainty.
1 Charles-Roux, E., Chanel and her World, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1982
2 Evans, C. and Thornton, M., Fashion representation, femininity in Feminist Review 38, 1991
3 Malson, H., The Thin Woman: Feminism, Post-Structuralism and the Social Psychology of Anorexia Nervosa, Routledge, London, 1998
No comments:
Post a Comment