Futurism in fashion is not limited to the artistic movement alone. The pervasive conceptual and visual influence of futurist art at the beginning of the twentieth century accounts for the fact that the term “futurism” continues to be applied—in the case of fashion to designs that are made from unorthodox materials, demonstrate new technologies and shapes, and display colorful dynamism. Futurism as a modernist movement was born on 20 February 1909 when Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his manifesto “Manifeste du Futurisme” in the Paris daily Le Figaro. His aim was to extol the shock of the new (as cubism had done previously). However, whereas the provocation had previously been limited to museums or books, Marinetti wanted to extend it to social and political life. While futurist paintings mixed stylistic idioms from cubism and divisionism, its poetry, music, photography, film, and drama expanded along more abstract principles like speed, novelty, violence, technology, nationalism, and urbanity, which were often expressed according to prior formulated declarations. For fashion the programs were written by Giacomo Balla in the form of the “Futurist Manifesto of Men’s Clothing” of 1914, followed by his “The Anti-Neutral Clothing: Futurist Manifesto” of the same year; in 1920 the “Manifesto of Futurist Women’s Fashion” by Volt (pseudonym of Vincenzo Fanni); 1932 saw the “Manifesto to Change Men’s Fashion” by the brothers Ernesto and Ruggero Michahelles; then Marinetti collaborated with Enrico Prampolini and a couple of second-generation futurists on “Futurist Manifesto: The Italian Hat,” and in 1933 the “Futurist Manifesto: The Italian Tie” was formulated by Renato di Bosso and Ignazio Scurto. Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2010 in
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Predicting the future of fashion can be as analytical as market research and statistical analysis allow, or as speculative as the predictions William Norwich of the New York Times received when in April 2003 he playfully asked the fashion world’s favorite psychic the question, “Where is the future of fashion?” Attempts to influence the future of fashion—made at times by dress reformers, moralists, and social thinkers—have invariably had little effect. Actual influences on fashion have typically stemmed from changing technologies, political events, and the creativity of certain individuals. Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2010 in
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Fur garments occupy a long and significant place in European history. From the fourteenth to seventeenth century, the kings and queens of England, for example, issued royal proclamations in order to regulate furs and fur apparel and, especially, to reserve the more exclusive furs of marten, fox, gray squirrel, and ermine for the aristocratic and clerical elite. These royal proclamations became part of what is known as “sumptuary legislation” in which everyday practices involving clothing, drinking, and eating were subject to public governance and scrutiny. Thus, from very early on furs and fur garments were regulated, not only in order to establish a hierarchy of desirable fur, but also to create recognizable codes of social status in the wearer of fur. While by law the most exclusive furs were reserved for the higher nobility, the middle class wore less costly furs such as beaver, otter, hare, and fox, and the peasantry wore the hardier, rougher furs of wolf, goat, and sheepskin. Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2010 in
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Fulling, or milling, is a finish that produces a wool fabric softer, denser, heavier, and thicker than greige goods (fabric from the loom). Wool greige goods are reedy (loosely woven). Because fulled fabric is more compact, it has better cover and appearance. The fabric is shrunk under controlled conditions to make it compact. Shrinkage may be by as much as 50 percent, and it must be controlled or the fabric will become hard and harsh. Almost all wool woven fabric will be fulled to some degree; many knit fabrics will also be fulled. The amount of fulling will depend on the characteristics of the finished fabric. Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2010 in
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Although Mariano Fortuny considered himself a painter, he pursued various critical and aesthetic interests. He is primarily remembered for remarkable layers of dyed and patterned fabrics, which he created between 1906 and 1949. Born in Granada, Spain, to an upper-class family of distinguished painters, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871-1949) is more often associated with the city of Venice, Italy, where he lived and worked most of his life. Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2010 in
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The quintessence of uniform elegance in men’s wear must surely be those nearly unchanging garments described as “formal.” The exact opposite of “casual” clothes, men’s formal garments are as curiously elevating and ennobling as they are utilitarian and leveling. This might seem a contradiction in terms at first, but one has only to think of a “black-tie” event to realize that at least en masse, the uniform nature of the clothes—coded and easily recognizable globally—places all men in the same category, much like a uniform does for the army, navy, or air force. But like the armed forces, which have panoplies of different ranks, a tangible difference in provenance can be evinced in evening or formal clothes. Is this suit custom-made? Is that rented? Is that a hand-me-down? Is this a lucky find in a vintage market? Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
August 4th, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
July 14th, 2010 in
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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). Read the rest of this entry »
June 11th, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
June 11th, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
June 11th, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
June 2nd, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
June 2nd, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
June 2nd, 2010 in
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
June 2nd, 2010 in
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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.” Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Flannel is a light to heavyweight fabric woven as a plain or twill weave that originated in Wales. Some sources claim the name is derived from the Welsh word “gwalen,” which means literally a piece of clothing or material made of wool. Another possible etymological origin of the word is from the Old French “flaine,” which refers to a blanket or coverlet. Flannel is finished with napping to increase its insulating properties. After the fabric is woven, it is brushed so that the staple fiber ends are loosened from the weave to form a fuzzy surface. Napping also contributes to the soft hand of the fabric. Flannel may be made from wool, cotton, synthetic fibers, or blends that incorporate a synthetic fiber with a natural fiber to add to the overall strength of the fabric and increase resistance to abrasion. Flannel-back satin refers to a type of silk satin that has spun yarns in the weft (crosswise yarn) and is brushed or napped on the back. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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For over one hundred years, one of the Smithsonian Institution’s most visited exhibitions has been a display of gowns worn by the First Ladies of the United States. An unofficial title, “first lady” has been in popular use since the 1860s to refer to the president’s official hostess who is usually, but not always, the president’s wife. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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The couturier and designer of surreal hats, Elsa Schiaparelli once declared, “The film fashions of today are your fashions of tomorrow” (Prichard 1981, p. 370). Besides planning haute couture collections, Schiaparelli also designed costumes for such stars as Mae West (Every Day’s a Holiday [1937]) and the British stars Margaret Lockwood and Anna Neagle (The Beloved Vagabond [1936], Limelight [1936]). Since then, the interrelationship between film and fashion has become more complex. Schiaparelli’s belief in the direct influence of the “dream factory” on what ordinary people wore is borne out by a number of examples from the classical Hollywood period: one of Adrian’s robes for Joan Crawford in Letty Lynton (1932) was widely copied, as was Edith Head’s white party dress for Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun (1951). However, since then various factors have enriched and diversified fashion’s interaction with film. First, there was—in the wake of Audrey Hepburn’s successful collaboration with the then young and relatively unknown Paris couturier Hubert de Givenchy from Sabrina (1954) onward—the growing use of fashion as opposed to costume design on a number of key movies. Second, alongside this industrial shift and commensurate with the expansion within the couture industry into prêt-à-porter, there was an escalation of fashion’s influence over film as well as the other way round. Third (and a far more contemporary factor) is the rise in celebrity culture and a burgeoning interest in movie stars, what they wear both on and off the screen. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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According to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), a fiber is a unit of matter that has a length of at least 100 times its diameter. If fibers are to be used in textile products, they must have characteristics of fineness, strength, cohesiveness, and flexibility appropriate to the projected end use. Chemically, fibers are composed of long chains of molecules called polymers. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Fetishism is a term with a long and complicated history, encompassing religious, anthropological, economic, and sexual meanings. Missionary tracts with titles such as Fetishism and Fetish Worshippers denounced the “barbarous” religions of “primitive” people who worshiped “idols of wood or clay.” The term fetish was then extended to refer not only to objects allegedly possessing magic powers, but also to anything that was irrationally worshiped. Karl Marx famously coined the term “commodity fetishism” to describe the way objects produced through human labor acquired an exaggerated exchange value. Sexologists and psychiatrists traditionally described fetishism as a sexual “perversion.” Today, fetishism is usually characterized as a type of variant sexuality, in which arousal is associated with a (nongenital) part of the body, such as hair, or an inanimate object, such as a shoe. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Salvatore Ferragamo (1898-1960) was an artisan and an innovator during his fifty-year career in footwear design. His family name evokes beauty, traditional craftsmanship, and an assurance of quality and comfort. Born in Bonito, Italy, a remote hill town not far from Naples, Ferragamo was the eleventh in an agricultural family of fourteen children. Since poverty limited the resources needed to sustain a family, many Italians made their own shoes. Young Salvatore was determined to be a shoemaker and served an apprenticeship in a shop where each step was accomplished by hand. Intent on refining his knowledge and craftsmanship, he moved to Naples—at that time a hub for dressmakers, milliners, and shoemakers—in 1909, with the goal of learning accurate methods of measuring, fitting, and aesthetics. While still an adolescent, the imaginative and entrepreneurial Ferragamo returned to Bonito and set up a workshop with six assistants; under his leadership they produced custom-fitted, distinctively designed shoes. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Fendi is a synonym of fur and revolution, two apparently contradictory concepts. Having accepted the idea of mass consumption, Fendi attempted to provide furs for women of every social position, or nearly so, demystifying the luxury connotations that have always characterized this type of garment. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Felt is a fabric with a long history. It is a wonderfully versatile material. Felt with precise technical specifications is created in factories for industrial use, and yet the same material can be made by hand into beautiful clothing and exquisite works of art. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Feathers are the horny outgrowth of skin found on birds. They serve a protective function for birds similar to the scales for fish and hair for mammals. Protecting birds from temperature extremes, feathers also help them fly and differentiate between the sexes. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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A key figure in the revival of the Paris fashion industry after World War II, Jacques Fath (1912-1954) created colorful and inventive designs catering to a young and sophisticated international clientele who identified with the vitality of his label. Though Fath was regarded as one of the “big three” Paris designers in the early 1950s—along with Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain—his untimely death at the age of forty-two meant that the impact and importance of his work was often overlooked in comparison to that of his contemporaries. While Fath’s designs were right on the mark of the glamorous postwar look, it was his attitude toward business and his understanding of the power of publicity and marketing that helped to place this charismatic and flamboyant designer apart from his peers. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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A fastener is the essential part of a fastening system used to hold together at least two pieces of material. It is typically a single item (button) that often works in concert with another device (buttonhole). Apparel fasteners may be permanent or temporary. Permanent fastenings, such as stitching and fusing, create form and shape in tailored garments. Temporary fasteners take many forms, including basting used to hold fabrics in place before permanent machine stitching is applied. Temporary fasteners, such as hook and eye closures for bras, can adjust garment size. Zippered fly front openings in men’s trousers provide access for bodily functions. However, one most often thinks of apparel fastening as providing a method of “donning and doffing” garments for everyday dressing (Watkins 1995). Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Fashion television has revolutionized the dissemination of fashion information to a mass audience; it has become a major marketing vehicle, helping to launch fashion trends and enhance the cult of personality surrounding fashion designers and models. With immediacy that only television can offer, following fashion has become a source of entertainment for millions. The evolution of fashion television into a distinct genre of broadcasting parallels, but is not limited to, the development of cable and satellite television. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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The fashion show has evolved from an exclusive in-house presentation of haute couture held for a private clientele, to a biannual spectacle of both couture and ready-to-wear clothing that is seen by a vast cross-section of consumers, the mass media, and the fashion industry. A number of cultural and social forces are responsible for this evolution, including the increased consumer awareness of Parisian couture, the rise of the ready-to-wear industry after World War II, the growth of the modeling profession, and the increasing attention paid to the runway by the popular press. While the fashion show today is different from its early-twentieth-century incarnation, it does retain links to its origins in theatrical display and the couture salon shows of that period. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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Fashion plates are small printed images, often hand-colored, of people wearing the latest fashions and depicted in conventional minimally narrative social contexts. They flourished from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, and were usually distributed with fashion magazines either as integral parts of the editorial content or as supplementary plates. The poet Charles Beaudelaire, in his essay The Painter of Modern Life, described fashion plates as an image of the “ideal self and thus a reflection of the artistic, historical, moral, and aesthetic feeling of their time. He wrote in 1863, when fashion plates were reaching a peak in their development. Although the basic purpose of the fashion plate was to illustrate new styles and sell more clothes, their charm gives them an established place among the minor graphic arts. Sadly for the student, fashion plates are often removed from the magazines in which they appeared and sold as collectors’ pieces; divorced from their original context they lose much value as historic sources. Read the rest of this entry »
May 28th, 2010 in
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