History of Modern 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 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. This course is a seminar, so class time will be devoted to discussion. During discussion and in short assignments, students will practice the analytical skills necessary to writing the research paper. Students will have two kinds of reading assignments. Secondary sources demonstrate how historians evaluate and interpret different kinds of evidence found in the historical record. Students will learn to both appreciate and question the historical narratives that these scholars offer. Primary sources are the evidence drawn directly from the historical record. For this class, the primary sources range from a fictional short story about women who try to sew a dress to fashion illustrations, photographs, and feature articles from popular women's magazines and newspapers. We will use our secondary sources as examples of how to evaluate these kinds of evidence and learn to justify our own interpretations. We will use both kinds of sources as we write our own narratives of the history of dress, and of how its shape and its meaning shifted over the past 100-plus years.