Themes arising from the garment
Glamour and the Everyday
The garment is indicative of a wartime glamour, which manifests itself through a pared down cut and construction, use of pattern, to emphasise a sense of movement and escapism. This approach aims to establish a meaning of glamour during a time seemingly devoid of any form of frivolity, and to address the ways in which this garment is reminiscent of and draws influence from Hollywood styles of earlier decades. Although the dress studied is a day dress and is likely to have been mass manufactured, and not a film costume, it is certainly indicative of garments worn by stars in the films of the period, i.e. Greer Garson in Mrs Miniver (1942), Ginger Rogers in Tender Comrade (1943), and Claudette Colbert in Since you Went Away (1943)[1].
The period 1939-1945 is often referred to as one of austerity. The War had transformed daily life beyond recognition, and fashion had been stripped of all ostentation as a result of rationing and shortages. Fashion, in the limited form in which it existed, reflected the mood of the times, by adopting military styles and shapes, suitable for a more practical and serious audience. Tailoring, often more associated with menswear, became a key feature of women’s wear, giving the wearer the appearance of sobriety and strength. With this in mind, it would be inaccurate to state that the fashionable clothing of the 1940s were drab and dull; in fact, quite the opposite was true. Rationing limited access to fabrics, dyes and design details such as pleats, buttons and unnecessary ornamentation, but often this was seen as a challenge to create the best garments within the confines of government legislation. Print was minimal, but where it was used (small accessories such as scarves, or small prints in dress fabrics), it was used to the maximum, as in the dress shown.
Glamour is a very difficult term to define, as it appears as a concept rather than a thing. It is an ideal rather than something which is ‘real’; therefore we might assume that glamour is distanced from the everyday, initially because it is something that doesn’t exist. Glamour is evidenced in the creation of a space or objects which are bigger, brighter, bolder, more confident, ostentatious, and so on, than our everyday lives. Glamour is associated with impracticality, the unusual and the ideal, which further attaches it with the realm of fantasy rather than that of reality. Things that are glamorous are therefore not ‘real’; they are fantasies that cannot be sustained in the everyday world. In fashion, the term glamour is most frequently exercised in relation to evening-wear; impractical, shiny garments, impossibly high heels and a look so polished that it couldn’t be maintained for more than a few hours. What glamour offers then is escape; a literal escape from the confine of mundane everyday clothes, lives, jobs, etc, and offers the potential for escape through transformation, i.e. from secretary to siren. This escape offers access into a world of fantasy, even momentarily, which breaks the routine of the everyday.
Glamour is largely a product of capitalism; it encourages a sense of dissatisfaction in consumers and seduces them into buying goods that will help to cover personal and lifestyle defects. Glamour therefore is linked to the construction of desire and can be seen as aspirational, the distance between the real and imperfect self, and the idea and unrealised self.
The bias cut became synonymous with Hollywood glamour in the 1930s. The cut, which skimmed the figure making the wearer appear like a goddess had been pioneered by Madeline Vionnet, and was swiftly adopted by screen sirens of the Golden Age. Vionnet’s long-line bias cut gowns made in soft, silky and fluid fabrics, gave the body an air of the statuesque erotic, draped and sultry.
Although Hollywood cinema was an industry associated with the selling of sex, and certainly sex appeal (as sales of make up products with advertising fronted by screen stars can testify), films and their sexual content were heavily censored by the Hayes Code. This meant that anything that was seen as displaying or alluding to sexual contact was taboo, so companies needed to express desire in more imaginative ways.
Anne Hollander notes that Mme. Gres and Vionnet exploited this:
(They) were the specialists in suggesting the pleasures of touch while maintaining the requisite linear slenderness and aura of refinement. These two used fabric in a sculptural way, as if it were an extension of mobile flesh, modelling directly on the body to make a complete plastic and tangible composition[2].
Psychoanalytic studies had long seen the potential of silk in expressing an understanding of the exotic and the erotic. Firstly silk is an animal product, and as such can be seen as the embodiment of the disembodied silk worm. Like other fabrics or skins used in the construction of garments, such as leather and fur, silk suggests a ‘closeness to the beast’, a contact between the human and animal body as well as an inherent cruelty. So silk becomes a substitute for the body, and when cut into a draped shape, becomes symbolic of the potential flesh which lies beneath. This connection was further discussed in relation to case studies of female kleptomaniacs, who had a sexual impetus to steal silks, which they would use as masturbatory devices[3]. Although this may initially sound rather strange, silk has a specific tactility, movement and sound, which makes it overtly sensory; you can hear the ‘swish’ of a silk garment, and you can feel its temperature, and it almost takes on a life of its own.
Silk also has a heritage associated geographically with the exotic, which by association makes the fabric erotic. An expensive fabric to produce and time consuming to weave, silk became intrinsically linked to wealth and status in the west. Similarly, its origins with the exotic east and the journey taken from east to west, embedded the fabric with the cultural stereotypes explicit in notions of travel, distance, climate and the ‘Other’. So, silk, and fabrics which stimulate the notion of silk in appearance and touch, express the body as sensuous, desirable.
Hollywood also influenced daywear, and the costumes designed during the period designed by Adrian, influenced Parisian couture during the period. In particular his designs for Joan Crawford, which accentuated the shoulders with width and padding, created a masculine silhouette, narrowing the hips[4].
The dress combines both the ordinary and the extraordinary. It refers to a heritage of glamorous fashion in its line and cut, borrowing from the Hollywood styles of Vionnet and Mme. Gres. The fluidity of form deriving from the bias cut and the choice of fabric, creates the appearance of the body in movement, barely concealed, and can therefore be seen, to a certain extent, as both feminine and provocative. On the other hand, the dress is rather conservative; it lacks ornamentation, hangs just below the knee, and conceals the body. It has an air of formality about it which is indicative of the sobriety of the period, and in this respect we might assume that it represents a contained form of glamour; glamour which appears to be patriotic, offering escape into normality.
[1] C R Koppes & G D Black, Hollywood Goes to War, Berkley: University of California Press, 1990
[2] A Hollander, Sex and Suits, New York: Kodansha, 195, p.135 quoted in R Arnold, Fashion, Desire and Anxiety, London: I B Tauris, 2001, p. 70.
[3] See G Doy, Drapery: Classicism and Barbarism in Visual Culture, London: I B Tauris, 2002; and, A Warwick & D Cavallaro, Fashioning the Frame: Boundaries, Dress and the Body, Oxford: Berg, 1998
[4] P Baker, fashions of a Decade: the 1940s, London: B T Batsford, 1991, p.52
