History of American & European Fashion

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This seminar examines the rise of the modern fashion and garment industries in Europe and North America during the late 19th through the 20th century. While fashion is often viewed as a subject of interest only to women, this course contends that it has held significant meaning in the lives of both men and women, and of different classes and races. Clothing could signify who was praised as beautiful, modern, and respectable, or who was damned as immoral. We will trace such economic shifts as the movement from custom-made women's clothing to mass-produced ready-to-wear and the invention of the department store, and consider the impact of mass consumption on modern peoples. We will read how the aesthetics and practicality of women's and men's dress were criticized by reformers, and how American home economists taught the art of dressing according to standards of efficiency and beauty. We will address the impact of technological innovations, such as the removable collar and the stiletto heel, and of political concerns, such as the world wars and the Civil Rights Movement. We will pay particular attention to the dress revolutions of the 1920s and 1960s, and the question of whether they signaled concrete liberation or merely a fantasy of liberation. Fulfills University Requirement - History