On Ray's admirable suggestion to seek alternative architectural
inquiry, here's a piece on fashion design, sex and architecture
that ties in.
(See any fashion exhibit at the Metroplitan Museum: better
than all other slavish architectural tours; in the cellar --
like attic, ever home of the best.)
Excerpt from review of
SEX AND SUITS
By Anne Hollander
Alfred A. Knopf.
Margo Jefferson
The New York Times
October 12, 1994
. . .
Such are the pleasures and com-
plexities of fashion. Anne Hollander
is an art historian bent on demolish-
ing its more familiar reputation as
"the outward sign of distinctively
female superficiality and moral
weakness." She wants us to see fash-
ion as a modern art with its own
formal laws and history, like paint-
ing or architecture. But she knows
that it is a performing art, too, and a
mix of anthropology, sociology and
psychology. As she says, "Male and
female clothing, taken together, il-
lustrates what people wish the rela-
tion between men and women to be,
besides indicating the separate
peace each sex is making with fash-
ion or custom at any given time."
Taking the evolution of modern
dress as her text, she puts the West-
ern man of fashion center stage and
lets him model the development of
that once resolutely masculine, now
artfully androgynous piece of all-
purpose clothing: the suit. She be-
gins with 16th-century armor (a
way, she comments, "to redesign all
the separate parts of the male body
and put them back together into a
newly created shape"), and moves
forward to the loose breeches and
leather jerkin of the 17th-century
soldier, (offering "the first sartorial
display of attractive nonchalance").
Trousers make their way up the
social scale, from sailors, slave la-
borers and French revolutionaries to
gentlemen. The gown and doublet
give way to the suit coat, and ruffs
are replaced by shirt collars and
cuffs. Meticulous English tailors
busily refine pockets, buttons and
hems. America contributes the
ready-to-wear industry, enabling a
19th-century farmer to come to town
looking like a gentleman, as.Euro-
pean visitors uneasily note.
The suit conveyed the message
that men were at ease with their
bodies and free to pursue higher
thoughts and goals. But as Ms. Hol-
lander writes fashion history, W. B.
Yeats's maxim that women must
labor to be beautiful applies equally
to men with one qualification: it
must appear that they are laboring
to be noble and powerful. Male dress
appeared "naturally sensible" be-
cause it had been designed to appear
so. She writes: "With the help of
nearly imperceptible padding,
curved seams, discreet darts and
steam pressing, the rough coat of
dull cloth was gradually refined into
an exquisitely balanced garment
that fitted smoothly without wrin-
kles and buttoned without strain to
clothe what appeared to be the torso
of a Greek athlete." And if that torso
was less than Greek, adjustments
could be made, enhanced by the cos-
metic rituals of haircutting, mus-
tache cultivation and beard-growing.
The suit was triumphantly mod-
ern because it was comfortable with
the line, the shape and movement of
the body. Women's clothes were sub-
ject to an endless debate about wom-
an's essential nature and social role-
the degree of modesty she should
display versus the proper setting for
sudden explosions of lush or demonic
sexuality. Without shortchanging
their many beauties, Ms. Hollander
makes clear that the job of women's
clothing was to disguise or compli-
cate the female body. According to
the working principle of women's
dress, she says, "A woman's arms
and head might be fairly intelligi-
ble," but her hair tended to be bound
up and covered by headgear. "Her
pelvis and legs were always a mys-
tery, her feet a sometime thing, and
her bosom a constantly changing
theatrical presentation of some
kind."
The 20th century brought social,
sexual and visual changes. Women
adapted, abstracted and reinterpret-
ed the suit, and the result was more
beauty, not less. Looking at the histo-
ry of modern female fashion--the
suits of Chanel, the dresses of Alix
Gres--who would dare to say that
desire and pleasure cannot go hand
in hand with freedom and honor?
Fashion is contradictory: it can be
pompous and stupid, then bold and
self-mocking. It is always on the
move, and the fashion historian must
be too; one of the Anne Hollanders
who wrote this book is. She moves
across Europe and America, talking
about Joan of Arc's fashion sense
the power of corsets, the erotic
charm of neo-classic architecture
and the growing frequency with
which men's fashion borrows a love
of variety, accessory and decolle-
tage from women's.
-------------------
END
inquiry, here's a piece on fashion design, sex and architecture
that ties in.
(See any fashion exhibit at the Metroplitan Museum: better
than all other slavish architectural tours; in the cellar --
like attic, ever home of the best.)
Excerpt from review of
SEX AND SUITS
By Anne Hollander
Alfred A. Knopf.
Margo Jefferson
The New York Times
October 12, 1994
. . .
Such are the pleasures and com-
plexities of fashion. Anne Hollander
is an art historian bent on demolish-
ing its more familiar reputation as
"the outward sign of distinctively
female superficiality and moral
weakness." She wants us to see fash-
ion as a modern art with its own
formal laws and history, like paint-
ing or architecture. But she knows
that it is a performing art, too, and a
mix of anthropology, sociology and
psychology. As she says, "Male and
female clothing, taken together, il-
lustrates what people wish the rela-
tion between men and women to be,
besides indicating the separate
peace each sex is making with fash-
ion or custom at any given time."
Taking the evolution of modern
dress as her text, she puts the West-
ern man of fashion center stage and
lets him model the development of
that once resolutely masculine, now
artfully androgynous piece of all-
purpose clothing: the suit. She be-
gins with 16th-century armor (a
way, she comments, "to redesign all
the separate parts of the male body
and put them back together into a
newly created shape"), and moves
forward to the loose breeches and
leather jerkin of the 17th-century
soldier, (offering "the first sartorial
display of attractive nonchalance").
Trousers make their way up the
social scale, from sailors, slave la-
borers and French revolutionaries to
gentlemen. The gown and doublet
give way to the suit coat, and ruffs
are replaced by shirt collars and
cuffs. Meticulous English tailors
busily refine pockets, buttons and
hems. America contributes the
ready-to-wear industry, enabling a
19th-century farmer to come to town
looking like a gentleman, as.Euro-
pean visitors uneasily note.
The suit conveyed the message
that men were at ease with their
bodies and free to pursue higher
thoughts and goals. But as Ms. Hol-
lander writes fashion history, W. B.
Yeats's maxim that women must
labor to be beautiful applies equally
to men with one qualification: it
must appear that they are laboring
to be noble and powerful. Male dress
appeared "naturally sensible" be-
cause it had been designed to appear
so. She writes: "With the help of
nearly imperceptible padding,
curved seams, discreet darts and
steam pressing, the rough coat of
dull cloth was gradually refined into
an exquisitely balanced garment
that fitted smoothly without wrin-
kles and buttoned without strain to
clothe what appeared to be the torso
of a Greek athlete." And if that torso
was less than Greek, adjustments
could be made, enhanced by the cos-
metic rituals of haircutting, mus-
tache cultivation and beard-growing.
The suit was triumphantly mod-
ern because it was comfortable with
the line, the shape and movement of
the body. Women's clothes were sub-
ject to an endless debate about wom-
an's essential nature and social role-
the degree of modesty she should
display versus the proper setting for
sudden explosions of lush or demonic
sexuality. Without shortchanging
their many beauties, Ms. Hollander
makes clear that the job of women's
clothing was to disguise or compli-
cate the female body. According to
the working principle of women's
dress, she says, "A woman's arms
and head might be fairly intelligi-
ble," but her hair tended to be bound
up and covered by headgear. "Her
pelvis and legs were always a mys-
tery, her feet a sometime thing, and
her bosom a constantly changing
theatrical presentation of some
kind."
The 20th century brought social,
sexual and visual changes. Women
adapted, abstracted and reinterpret-
ed the suit, and the result was more
beauty, not less. Looking at the histo-
ry of modern female fashion--the
suits of Chanel, the dresses of Alix
Gres--who would dare to say that
desire and pleasure cannot go hand
in hand with freedom and honor?
Fashion is contradictory: it can be
pompous and stupid, then bold and
self-mocking. It is always on the
move, and the fashion historian must
be too; one of the Anne Hollanders
who wrote this book is. She moves
across Europe and America, talking
about Joan of Arc's fashion sense
the power of corsets, the erotic
charm of neo-classic architecture
and the growing frequency with
which men's fashion borrows a love
of variety, accessory and decolle-
tage from women's.
-------------------
END