Technology as material culture?

Blogging has certainly been on the backburner this last year while I have been preparing my applications for graduate school.  Now, however, that they are all submitted and I am anxiously awaiting interviews and/or acceptance/rejection (I die...) notices, my brain has been churning about what I really think I would like to study if admitted.  Before graduating in 2010, I began to study lower and middle class working women at the beginning of the twentieth century.  Since I never got the chance to fully explore the topic the way it should it has always been on my mind for future study.  Recently, however, I have been thinking a lot about technology and material culture, or rather, technology AS material culture.  Questions like, "How has technology changed the fashion world? How has technology changed how society views material things? Has the curation of style and persona on fashion blogs and social media sites shifted young society's perception of self-expression from how you dress to what you blog about or post pictures of?" 

The strong correlation between what you wear everyday to your percieved identity is one of the reasons I wanted to study fashion.  Clothes are made with the intention to be used everyday, to be practical or functional, but dress (ie clothes, shoes, glasses, jewelry) is also the most accessible form of self-expression. And unless you live in a nudist colony, you are required everyday (by law) to make a choice of what you want to put on your body.  The choices you make about your appearance leave instant impressions on those you encounter whether you intend for that or not. So, how has technology changed this notion of how people express their identity in an ever growing youth culture where what you "like" on Facebook supposedly lets the world know what type of person you are?

The fashion world imparticular has been impacted hugely by this shift.  Today, I can watch fashion shows almost instantaneously with the editors and stylists sitting in the front row, but I get to do it in the comfort of my bedroom on my laptop.  The speed at which this type of sharing happens is mind-boggling when one contemplates how long the ladies of the 19th century had to wait for fashion plates from Paris in order to know what was in vogue. I can get on sites like style.com and click through all the images of the Paris couture shows faster than the length of time it takes for one show to start and end.

To sum this string of thoughts up the question that concludes in my mind is, "Has the concept of materiality shifted to a 2-D, digital realm instead of the notion that physical objects and ownership of those objects is a form of self-expression?" I'm sure that it has not shifted completely, so rather the question should be is there new form of material culture to consider when studying fashion and technology?

I leave you with this picture I saw on The Retronaut last week. I have always said I wish we still wore hats that required hat pins.. And this is definitely a new reason why.

Using a hat pin for self-defence in 1904 = awesome.
"Oh you think a fair lady that can be taken advantage of? Think again..."



Favorite Old Thing of the Week (??)

So I think I started the Favorite Old Thing post and then did maybe two weeks hence the question marks in the title sooo let's try this again, shall we?

One of the greatest tools that I've found on the internet for studying historical objects is the online archives that museums work tirelessly to photograph and publish online for the world to see. I can't wait for the Chicago History Museum to launch their own archive of objects because that collection deserves to be seen on a world wide basis. One of the existing online collections that I continually return to for examples of historical dress, however, is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's. Currently, the Met has 341,940 objects at our disposable to browse through or to conduct a specified search. I was browsing through the collection in research of my last post on the Charles James exhibit when I came across this gorgeous sweater.

The Met dates this sweater at 1895. The clues that point to this date are the leg-o-mutton style sleeves, which came into popularity in 1890, and the intended use of this type of sweater, which would have been for sportswear. It may be hard to believe that a woman would have played tennis in an ensemble like this with our Under Armor and barely there Nike outfits that the Mrs. Williams's play in today, but it is true that this sweater would have been considered "casual wear" in 1895. The state of its condition is really remarkable and makes pieces like this very rare in museum collections because its intended use would have allowed for wear and tear and made it an unsuitable piece to be donated.

Prior to the rise of women playing sports it was considered dangerous for women to participate in rigorous physical activity because her energy needed to be conserved for "childbearing and rearing." As a young woman who played college basketball, it is unfathomable to think that women had to be restricted to "calisthenics, dancing, walking, and horseback riding" for exercise. Thankfully, by 1900, even the fashion world had begun to approve of sports for women:

"But aside from the team spirit there are wonderful physical advantages in basket-ball. Of all the team games that men play, for many long years not one was available for the women's colleges... Basket-ball, however, was available from the first, and it was not many months after its invention in 1892 that it was welcomed in all of the women's gymnasiums...The fascination of the game attracted the girls to the gymnasiums, and they took this exercise willingly and even eagerly when chest-weights, dumbbells, and rowing-machines seemed a drudge. The excitement of play, too, permitted them more exercise with less fatigue, the advantage of which is apparent."

-- J. Parmly Paret, Harper's Bazaar, October 20, 1900

Resources are Metropolitan Museum of Art website and "Women in Pants: Manly Maidens, Cowgirls, and Other Renegades" by Catherine Smith and Cynthia Greig.

Favorite Old Thing of the Week

"The entire point of the original mod movement was to reject the naff rocker look, to dolly-bird yourself up in the sharpest suit or neatest op-art jacket, and make yourself over into your personal best, regardless of external circumstances." --Vogue, May 2011

Spring is the most appropriate time of year for a makeover in all aspects of life. Here's to adopting mod as a fashion and life philosophy as a young person in 2011. Join me.

Favorite Old Thing of the Week

Norman Norell: Conservative Elegance

Norman Norell, seen in the picture at the left with models, was an American designer throughout the middle of the 20th century. Norell is among the group of American designers who gained prominence during WWII because of the lack of communication that was available between France and America at the time. French fashion had reigned superior for centuries, but because French designing was cutback significantly due to Nazi occupation, magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar began to feature more American designers.

During the early part of his career, Norell worked with Hattie Carnegie, another prominent American designer. After partnering in the company Traina-Norell for 20 years, Norell finally broke off on his own in 1960.

Norell's aesthetic is known for its precision tailoring, simplicity, and elegant femininity. Some of his signature looks include his sequined mermaid gowns, as seen on Marilyn Monroe in the picture above, his short jersey dresses, his nautical themed looks featuring bows, buttons and belts, and his elegant suits.

Norman Norell remained a prominent figure in the fashion industry until his death in 1972. Norell, Claire McCardell, Pauline Trigere, Charles James, and Gilbert Adrian are some of the American designers that helped resurrect fashion in America and abroad after the world had experienced two decades of depression and war. In the picture to the right, Norell is seen in his signature red tie along with some of his signature looks. He was truly an American classic.

Here goes nothin'...

Alright, folks.

Clothes. Costume. Fashion. Dress. Whatever you want to call it, it's what we wear everyday.

And as someone who is attempting to break into the industry that supports the historical side of life, I am here to pay weekly tribute to fashions of the past, the women and men who wore those fashions, and how those fashions influenced the lives of the people in the past and still today.

For centuries, history was told through the lens of the rich, white man, and only in the last half of the 20th century did the untold "social" histories emerge and become relevant. Fashion, still, was a little slow on the uptake in the minds of those who decided what constituted "history." Finally, however, the field of historical dress is on the rise in the world of academia. As a matter of fact, I was watching Jeopardy last week and to my pleasant surprise the Final Jeopardy category was "Garments of the World," and Mr. Trebek himself said that it was the first time they had ever had that category on the show....a small victory for dress historians.

Now, I am merely a student of dress history at this point in my life, and only intend to further my own studies and the presence of dress history with this blog. Part of my mission is to demonstrate how clothes help define a society, imparticularly societies of the past. Another integral part of my mission is to reflect how modern fashion is very much a reflection of something from the past. In fact, I was watching highlights from the most recent fashion week in Paris, and a commentator stated that a modern day fashion show is really a lesson in fashion history, meaning that designers of today use fashions of the past to inspire something modern.

Okay, so enough of history lessons by Jane. I promise future posts will be more fun, and I hope that whoever does stumble upon this blog will share it with others who also have a passion for history/clothes/museums/clothes in museums :)

Thanks folks.

Something I am going to do with every post is include an image, fact, etc. about an historical piece of dress and tag it as....

Jane's Favorite Old Thing of the Week:

So for the first Favorite Old Thing, I'm going with

a garment that holds meaning to me and holds a lot of historical value. The gown the woman in the picture is wearing is by Mariano Fortuny. It is an example of a "Delphos" gown that he made many different versions of throughout his career from 1907 until his death in 1949. The intricate pleating on the "Delphos" gowns has been copied for decades by a variety of designers. Still today, if a designer features an intricately pleated garment on the runway, the garment is said to have "Fortuny pleats." After Paul Poiret, Fortuny was a pioneer for couture garments that did not require wearing a corset. Outside of my History of Dress classes, my first interaction with Fortuny was during my work with the exhibition, Chic Chicago, at the Chicago History Museum. The "Delphos" gowns featured in that exhibit were some of my favorite pieces from the show and I admire what they stand for still today.