Clothing and Fashion

In his role as creative director for the Gucci Group, designing collections for both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, Tom Ford was central to early twenty-first-century fashion. Under Ford’s direction, creativity and innovation shared equal value with marketing and promotion in the positioning of the brands. (more…)

Footbinding was specific to and unique to traditional Chinese culture. Its various names conveyed its multifaceted image in Chinese eyes: chanzu (binding feet) called attention to the mundane action of swaddling the body with a piece of cloth; gongwan (curved arch) described a desired shape of the foot similar to that of a ballerina in pointe shoe; jinlian (golden lotus, also gilded lilies) evoked a Utopian image of the body that was the subject of fantastical transformation. A related poetic expression of lianbu (lotus steps) suggested that foot-binding was intended to enhance the grace of the body in motion, not to cripple the woman. (more…)

Zoe (1911-1979), Micol (b. 1913), and Giovanna (b. 1915) Fontana were born in Traversetolo, near Parma, Italy. They learned sewing and tailoring from their mother, Amabile Fontana, who opened her own tailor shop in 1907. The three sisters became apprentices as soon as they were old enough to handle needles and scissors. Legend has it that the work was hard and unpaid and that the sisters worked Saturdays and Sundays. Despite the long hours, the sisters’ memories of childhood are happy ones, and they look back with fondness on the years spent in the large, quiet house surrounded by greenery. Micol writes often of her childhood experiences in her memoir, Specchio a tre luci. “We were never alone, but always accompanied by our mother’s love” (p. 20). (more…)

A folklore look is a style inspired by peasant dress. The term “folklore look” came into use around 1970. However, fashions drawn from peasant costumes have appeared numerous times in the last one hundred years. (more…)

Folk dress in Western Europe refers to the clothing of rural populations engaged in farming, fishing, or herding. Variously termed peasant, rural, or regional dress, it may also be considered ethnic dress in regions with more than one ethnic group. In all cases, folk dress identified people with a place. (more…)

Folk dress in eastern Europe distinguished shepherds and peasants from fashion-following townspeople and landowners. In regions where peoples of different ethnic origins coexisted, folk dress could also function as ethnic dress. The general characteristics of eastern European folk dress resembled those of western Europe. However, historical and cultural influences created some remarkable folk costumes and customs. (more…)

Anne Fogarty is best remembered for designing quintessential 1950s fashions for young women that emphasized femininity and for espousing the concept of “wife-dressing,” the title of her 1959 book. Born Anne Whitney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 2 February 1919, Fogarty moved to New York City in her early twenties to pursue acting. While working as a fitting model for the dress manufacturer Harvey Berin, she decided to become a fashion designer. In the late 1940s and 1950s, she designed clothing for the teenage and junior markets, creating her signature “paper doll” dress while working at Youth Guild in 1948, for which she won the Coty award in 1951 and the Neiman-Marcus Award in 1952. In 1954, while working for Margot Dresses, she introduced her “tea cozy” dress, a variation on the paper doll silhouette. (more…)

John Carl Flügel (1874-1955) was an English academic psychologist, a prominent member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and a leading figure in the movement for liberal social reform between the two world wars (1918-1939). A member of the Men’s Dress Reform Party, in 1930 he published The Psychology of Clothes, the first Freudian-inspired analysis of dress and fashion. In this work he advances the idea that clothing is a “compromise-formation” that mediates between the desire of children to exhibit their naked bodies and the later social prohibition that the body be covered for the sake of modesty. For Flügel the story of clothing is the story of the relative strength of these two forces. (more…)

Flocking is a method to apply very short (1/10″ to 1/4″ ) fibers called flock to a substrate, such as fabric, foam, or film, coated with an adhesive. Flocking is an inexpensive method of producing an imitation extra-yarn fabric, flocked in a design, or a pile-like fabric where the flock has an overall pattern. Examples of end use of flocked fabrics for home furnishings include carpeting, upholstery fabrics, blankets, bedspreads, wall coverings, and window coverings. For clothing, flocked fabrics are used for shoes, hats, and apparel fabrics. Industrial uses include automotive fabrics, conveyor belts, air filters, books, and toys. (more…)

The flapper was an important figure in the popular culture of the 1920s and helped to define the new, modern woman of the twentieth century. She was the embodiment of the youthful exuberance of the jazz age. Although she defied many of society’s taboos, she was also seen by many as the ideal young woman and was described by author F. Scott Fitzgerald as “lovely, expensive and about nineteen.” (more…)