Posts by Paula Baxter

I wonder how many of you saw the small article in The New York Times in early July, titled “Texas Ranch Moves from Raid Toward Runway,” in which the polygamist sect raided for alleged underage brides and child abuse announced that they were selling versions of their old-fashioned clothing online. Yes, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims that on the basis of overwhelming 

Ah, the Dog Days of summer started very early this year, but they’re here now with a vengeance. The city needs daily intervals of icy downpours, or cold rain showers, while The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” blasts away in the background. Well, if we can’t have that, let’s think of something cooling. The ancient Egyptians understood the usefulness of unbleached, durable linen. They wore fine linen garments to counteract the heat and humidity of the Nile Delta. Their

In novels, movies, television, too, you’ve been all the fashion, Because yours is a story of such tragic passion. The Boleyn girl book has become a cottage industry, All because of your rampant celebrity. A sorry pawn of an ambitious father, Or a scheming hussy full of bother? Which is the truth, despite all the tales, Did you deserve to go down on Justice’s scales? A pretty face, a slender neck, All the better for Henry to bedeck, You with glittering jewels and such trumperies, While his pious wife went down on her knees, And prayed for a means to ensure 

My colleague Serena Jimenez often has a nose for a fashion trend. She alerted me to the runaway success of Showtime’s series The Tudors. I’m a pretty poor television viewer, whose idea of great tv is MSNBC’s Lockup series and HBO’s Deadwood (love those expletives). Therefore, I was initially skeptical of a production that featured a hard-bodied, smoldering Henry VIII, and took various other liberties with historical fact. But, over time, listening to her consistently eager reports, I found myself intrigued.  

I have to admit to being a little dismayed by the fact that feminism seems to be out of fashion. I’ve noticed this backlash of sorts in the last ten years or so, and realize that some of this may also be generational. Young women who didn’t live through the turbulent 60s and 70s may feel that feminism is either beside the point or irrelevant. Yet they grew up in a period when many battles had already been fought and won for them.

But when searching for the reason why Hilary Clinton’s pantsuits 

Trousers suit, pantsuit—where did one leave off, and the other begin? Women wore trousers in the nineteenth century in special circumstances. For one example, the famous animal painter Rosa Bonheur wore pants for outdoor painting expeditions. But such clothing wasn’t acceptable for street wear. The early twentieth century couturiers started a trend for feminine slacks, limiting them for specific leisure occasions, such as beach wear or garden parties. We find illustrations of these outfits by the 1920s, with variations 

Yes, Marlene Dietrich was our mystery lady. While none of us who pay attention to fashion history are surprised anymore by the furor over women wearing pants, it still remains more than a little surprising how little documentation there is on that specific piece of history. I’d recommend to those teaching costume and fashion studies that they get their most promising grad students to work on this aspect of women’s dress.

As I looked through literature on the subject, I was shocked at how sketchy information is about the true origins of something like the pantsuit. The 

Once upon a time, long before Hilary, there lived a woman during the Art Deco era of the 1930s. She was a famous actress like Katherine Hepburn, with a face recognized by people the world over. But this woman was exceptionally notorious. Why? She made a habit of wearing trousers in social situations at a time when women simply didn’t do so—not without causing a scandal. The outrage aroused by her actions might seem remarkable to us today, but—trust me—she generated real hostility.

And her reaction was only to do more. She appeared in a film one time in a 

Dawdling away at the reference desk the other day, I put the word “pantsuit” into the Library Catalog, wondering what would come up. Well guess what? One item showed up and it was on Hillary Clinton!

Yet over the course of an online perusal of Clinton’s unsuccessful campaign for Democratic Party presidential nominee, I found the word “pantsuit” over and over again, often in a negative context. This brought me back to wondering about the original reception of feminine trousers, especially when 

Early last month, the media caught on to a startling development. The Men’s Dress Furnishings Association, formerly the Neckwear Association of America, announced that it was disbanding. This event was seen as the death rattle for the necktie, that universally-donned item of masculine dress.

I predicted the death of the necktie in “A Rakish History of Men’s Wear.” My prediction was based on the variety of research I did for the exhibition, 

Here’s a scene that plays out in all my “Researching Costume and Fashion History” classes:

PAB: What’s the number one problem with the Internet? Pause. Finally someone speaks out tentatively… Student: You can’t trust everything you read on it? PAB: Yes! Quality Control!

When I first agreed to do a blog on fashion and design history, with special reference to that fact that everything old is new again, I knew I would have a problem right away. While the Internet is full of material, much of it is commercially-related or new in 

I’m hoping you may remember my post last month on the term “fashion victim.” I had a reply from Heather, who went out and did some proper research on where the phrase came from. She’d been rightfully suspicious that the term arose as recently as a comment by the designer Oscar de la Renta, and her doubts proved correct.

Heather’s research took her back as far as 1828. She searched journals in ProQuest and found references in a fiction piece in 1853, a racist cartoon in Harpers Bazaar dating to 1883, and newspaper mentions from 

It’s almost the Fourth of July. Always a day for patriotism, it also serves as a time when we think about the wars that helped create this nation. And this year, we have a war that is ongoing, one that provokes many mixed feelings. A look in the Library Catalog reveals a spate of writing on the subject—under the subject heading Iraq War, 2003 are 383 entries alone, plus dozens of subdivisions. The available literature on the war covers a wide range of concerns, from the haunting Baghdad Journal: an artist in occupied 

My last posting could have been subtitled “Do we own fashion or does it own us?” While I frequently dwell on fashion as a social force, it’s good to remember that fashion is also a huge industry. When I was young and employed for a year at the Fashion Institute of Technology Library, I remember thinking that I’d love to see something that might reveal the business workings of the fashion industry as a whole.

Such a publication came out in 2007. Providing case studies from the clothing trade and the fashion design syndicate, 

Back in 1993, the Library held an exhibition called “A Change of Clothes: Femininity, Fashion and Feminism.” I was looking at the brochure the other day, and found something written there that piqued my curiosity.

“Three important concepts—femininity, fashion, and feminism—can help us understand the origins of modern dress. First, there is a historical relationship between a woman’s outward appearance and her essential femininity. Second, western society promotes fashion as a worthy pursuit for women, drawing them into a 

I discovered the illustration below in our Picture Collection. It’s actually a compelling piece of evidence for the point I’ve made previously about feminine body types and the start of the modern era.

This advertisement for dress patterns from the early 1930s boldly states: “Look Slim.” The elongated line that appeared in the 1920s is carried to new lengths here, even as the hemlines remain decorously modest. These garments are an early version of the shirtwaist dress with its clinched 

As we get into the twentieth century, events reveal themselves that show just how important a role blacks begin to play in popular culture and the arts. Josephine Baker and American jazz musicians wowed 1920s Paris, and Europeans enthusiastically swayed to the beat from across the Atlantic. From zoot suits to hip hop, we owe black musicians, entertainers, and artists a debt for their contributions to contemporary cool.

Fortunately, scholarship since the 1980s has been at work to rectify the omissions of the first major publications on Art Deco. Just as we’ve learned how 

Over the last few months, I've noted the recurrence of news and feature article about the recession-proff nature of cosmetics, and lipstick in particular. One story, in the May 1 issue of The New York Times, speaks of purchasing cosmetics and lipstick as a way to have an indulgence when on a tight budget. "Hard Times, But Your Lips Look Great" also confirms what I've long suspected: lip gloss has over taken lipstick in sales. But the beauty brands are tenacious in their 

The story of black for clothing is a long and interesting one. I tackled the topic in “A Rakish History of Men’s Wear,” but more can always be said. Black as a feminine clothing choice turns out to be a complex decision. 

An excellent publication from the Victoria & Albert Museum, those serious custodians of design history, is Black in fashion. This book focuses, however, on the twentieth century exclusively. In the 1930s, the