by The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through American History 1900 to the Present (pdf)
At the beginning of the century, ready-to-wear clothing was worn pri-
marily by the working class. Readymade clothing helped immigrants
quickly adopt an American look. By the 1920s, the popularity of ready-
to-wear clothing had increased. Most sportswear was readymade, and the
growing numbers of working women adopted pr^et-a-porter clothing. The
simplified silhouettes of the 1920s and 1930s meant that ready-to-wear
garments fit better and were easier to make than they had been in the
past. Efficient wartime production during WWII led to more efficient
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garment production after the war, and ready-to-wear clothing became less
expensive and easier to make.
Clothing retailers at the beginning of the century included tailors,
seamstresses, department stores, and mail-order companies. After WWI,
American consumerism flourished, and department stores marketed Pari-
sian imports and installed make-up counters. Chain stores and discount
stores emerged and proliferated with the greater number of cost-conscious
consumers during the Great Depression. After WWII, department stores
moved out to the suburbs to follow the wave of consumers.
New fashion communication vehicles emerged during the first half of
the century. In the early decades of the century, Americans primarily
relied on ladies magazines and mail-order catalogs for up-to-date fashion
information. Fashion shows, a new type of marketing, were held and soon
became a critical form of fashion dissemination. By the 1920s, the
increased use of photos in magazines, catalogs, and newspapers helped
proliferate fashion trends. In the 1930s, Hollywood and Miss America
Pageants defined new fashions and communicated them to Americans.
The influence of Hollywood heightened in the 1940s as stars and Holly-
wood designers gained mainstream prominence.
Technological innovations shaped the business of fashion during the
first half of the twentieth century. Clothing manufacturers relied on sew-
ing and cutting machines to speed their processes in the 1900s, and, for
the first time, they used electricity to power these machines. In the 1920s,
several new artificial fibers were developed. Rayon, acetate, nylon, and
polyester were invented and woven into a variety of garments. Some of
these fabrics did not see wide use until WWII when the shortage of natu-
ral fibers such as wool, cotton, linen, and silk necessitated the use of arti-
ficial ones. Zippers became a widely used fastener in the 1930s,
supplanting the buttons used for many closures.
H A U T E C O U T U R E
1900S AND 1910S
During the first decades of the twentieth century, the French dominated
haute couture. Houses such as Worth and Callot Souers were the driving
forces behind many of the popular styles. The century launched with the
L’Esposition Universalle in Paris in 1900. Because French houses such as
Worth and Callot Souers, but also Drecoll and Paquin, participated in
L’Esposition, the modern concept of haute couture gained a worldwide
audience.
Haute Couture
151
Charles Frederick Worth, who
founded the House of Worth in the
1860s, is seen as the ‘‘father of haute
couture.’’ By the turn of the century,
his sons had taken over the business
and hired Paul Poiret as a designer.
Poiret did not last long working for
the Worths, and he opened his own
house in 1903. Poiret rebelled against
the ‘‘S-curve’’ silhouette that reigned
during the first decade of the 1900s.
By 1906, he introduced the empire sil-
houette, with a slim skirt, a style that
was inspired by classical Greek dress.
Poiret was aggressive in his promo-
tion of the designs, and they quickly
caught on. He also created Rosine, the
first perfume by a couturier. He coordi-
nated the packaging, fragrance, and
marketing campaign for it. Poiret was
not the only popular designer who was
inspired by classic Greek costume.
Mariano Fortuny made his name as
a designer by introducing the ‘‘Delphos
gown’ in 1907. This slim-silhouetted,
Mrs. Conde Nast in a Fortuny pleated tea gown, c. 1910.
richly dyed gown was made of finely
[Library of Congress]
pleated silk. The edges were trimmed
with small glass beads to weigh down
the silk. It varied dramatically from the popular silhouette of the day, because
it was uncorseted and flowing. The style highlighted the natural female form.
Callot Souers’ designs were ultra-feminine and were usually covered in
lace. This is no surprise because Madame Gerber, the oldest of the three
founding sisters, had owned a lace shop, and their mother was a lace
maker. Although they opened the house in 1895, they emerged as popular
designers in the 1910s. Day clothes trimmed in lace and ribbon and linge-
rie were their staple, but they also created a following for their period
gowns, which were contemporary versions of eighteenth-century dresses
complete with tightly corseted waistlines, hoop skirts, and pastel tulle.
During WWI, many of the couture houses shut down, at least tempo-
rarily. Even Paul Poiret shifted toward the war effort by enlisting in the
French infantry as a tailor. The couturiers who continued to design during
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the war adopted the wartime silhouette, which consisted of wide, barrel-
shaped skirts supported by petticoats with loose bodices. The hips were
often further accented with a peplum.
As the world emerged from the war in 1918, haute couture designers
found themselves in a more modern world. Those who adapted and cre-
ated more liberated designs found success in the 1920s and beyond, but
many couturiers found themselves out of step with the times and perma-
nently closed their houses not long after the war.
1920S AND 1930S
By the 1920s the role of the couturier as fashion dictator and trendsetter
was firmly established. Haute couture houses through Paris began vying
for the honor of originating new fashion trends through the production of
two collections per year. In keeping with the changing role of women in
the 1920s, an increasing number of haute couture houses were established
by couturieres (female couturiers), including Callot Souers, Vionnet, Ma-
dame Gres, Schiaperelli, and, of course, Gabrielle ‘‘Coco’’ Chanel.
Chanel infused her personal style into her designs, favoring simple
wool jersey dresses, skirts, and sweaters rather than elaborate day dresses.
Her creations broke with tradition and gave women an alternative to
‘‘fussy’ fashions that required extensive fittings and assistance when dress-
ing. The simplistic styles she promoted were perfectly suited to the new,
active woman. Many couturiers attempted to return fashion to its previous
complex and elaborate state, but American women refused to participate
by American women who had the means more than their European coun-
terparts to purchase one-of-a-kind custom-made clothing.
The increased prosperity in America and abroad in the 1920s meant
that more women could afford couture garments, and Parisian fashions
became the ultimate status symbol. Once the domain of ‘ old money,’’ cou-
ture became a means for movie actresses and the wives and daughters of
the new industrial tycoons to display their new-found affluence. Royalty
and the social elite attended couture shows and fittings with the nouveaux
riche, blurring the lines between past class distinctions.
The Great Depression of the 1930s devastated the haute couture
establishment in Paris. Haute couture, once the second-largest export
from Paris, dropped to twenty-seventh place by 1933 (Ewing 2001, 105).
American department stores cancelled orders. Both American and Euro-
pean clientele no longer had the funds to travel abroad to indulge in ex-
pensive, one-of-a-kind, custom-fit garments. In response, fashions
Haute Couture
153
continued to simplify, removing elaborate and expensive trims, offering up
simple silk dresses to those that still had the means to afford formal
dresses.
Challenging Paris’ role as fashion dictator in the 1920s and 1930s, a
new class of trendsetters arose: Hollywood stylists. Travis Banton, Edith
Head, and Adrian were three of the individuals responsible for launching
worldwide fashion trends through their wardrobe selections and original
designs for actresses Lillian Gish, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah
Bankhead, Joan Crawford, and Carole Lombard. Their designs were fea-
tured on the big screen as well as in fashion magazines such as Vogue and
Harper’s Bazaar and were adopted by women around the world. Paris had
no choice but to take heed of the garments on the ‘ big screen’ and incor-
porate the design elements into the couture collections.
1940S
Paris, the center of haute couture since Louis XIV established it as the
epicenter of fashion in the late seventeenth century, fell to Germany in
1940. When Hitler took Paris, many top designers retired, went into
exile, or fled the country rather than design for the Nazis. This, in addi-
tion to the mass exodus of the Jewish fashion workforce, led to the tem-
porary collapse of the French fashion industry center. The German
occupation now controlled haute couture. Nazism demanded ultra-
nationalism and absolute conformity, including conformity in clothing.
The few fashion houses that remained worked mainly in collaboration
with the Germans. Because the United States and Great Britain stationed
battleships blockading the French coast, New York designers were cut off
from the annual fashion shows of opulent French haute couture. Ameri-
cans and Brits could no longer receive inspiration from Paris because no
news was coming from occupied Europe. Social trends dictate fashion,
and the entire civilized world was engaged in the war effort.
Before WWII, thousands of people worked for the couture industry,
with each worker specializing in one area such as seamstress, pattern
drafter, or trimmer (De Marly, 1980). Because the war devastated the
moneyed class and scattered the seamstress talent across Europe and the
United States, American designers now had the freedom to develop new
styles without the influence of Paris. Because supplies were short and
most materials were rationed, an opportunity emerged for creative design
along with the use of unique materials.
Hats became the item to dress up an otherwise politically correct
design. The adornment of feathers, raffia, and other leftover items not
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THE BUSINESS OF FASHION
rationed provided a creative outlet. American designers were doing more
than creating design for a small elite population. They were responsible
for generating a positive response to the strict clothing regulations and
building morale on the home front.
When Paris was liberated from the German occupation, French
designers who had cooperated with the Nazis were perceived unfavorably.
Although Coco Channel closed her Paris fashion a year before the war,
her love affair with a high Nazi official made it difficult to open her salon
for many years after the war. Furthermore, many French designers had
proceeded with free use of material despite the frugality that non-French
designers had adopted during the war to comply with rationing. These
two attitudes, combined with the emerging popularity of American
designers, initiated a shift away from Paris as the arbiter of all fashion.
In an effort to reestablish Paris as the fashion center of the world,
fifty-three French couturiers banded together in 1945 to create a traveling
exhibition, known as The^atre de la Mode. This group included Cristobal
Balenciaga, Jacques Fath, Jean Patou, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Robert Ricci.
They revived an age-old method of displaying new designs by dressing
200 dolls that were complete with lingerie, hats, shoes, gloves, belts,
umbrellas, jewelry, and handbags.
In spring of 1947, when Christian Dior launched his ‘‘Corolle’’ collec-
tion, he brought a new vibrancy to French haute couture. The silhouette
of this collection was a stark contrast to wartime fashions. Whereas war-
time fashions had broad, padded shoulders, Dior’s collection featured
slender, feminine shoulders. Dior replaced the natural waist and bust of
the war with a corseted, nipped waist and uplifted breasts. In further con-
trast to wartime fashions, he replaced the modest, somewhat narrow skirts
with wide, crinoline-stuffed skirts. Initially, the collection sparked criti-
cism because it was dramatically different from the fashions that had been
popular at the time.
Carmel Snow, the editor at Harper’s Bazaar, called Dior’s collection
the ‘‘New Look,’’ and it received praise as well as criticism. Many women
were enthusiastic about the feminine look specifically because it was a
stark contrast to the rationing and masculine silhouette that had domi-
nated their clothing during the early and mid-1940s. Although Dior is
credited with originating this look, other designers had tried to introduce
similar looks at the same time. Charles James, Jacques Fath, and Cristobal
Balenciaga introduced the silhouette in evening wear, although Dior was
the first to introduce it in daywear.
The New Look became so popular that it solidified Dior as a preemi-
nent style dictator for the next ten years. He passionately took on the role
Ready to Wear
155
and launched a new silhouette twice a year, so to remain fashionable
women had to regularly purchase new wardrobes. In essence, Dior sped
up fashion changes to a modern pace.
R E A DY-TO-WEAR
1900S AND 1910S
In the early years of the century, most American designers worked for
ready-to-wear manufacturers. They prepared designs for the spring,
fall,
summer, and holiday seasons, and, in some cases, they produced a resort
line (Tortora and Eubank 2005, 382). The American designers’ relation-
ship with ready-to-wear manufacturers remained essentially unchanged
until WWII.
Ready-to-wear garments were especially important to the working
class. Both men and women were attracted by ready-to-wear garments
because they were relatively inexpensive and did not require the time
commitment of sewing the garment oneself or visiting a tailor or seam-
stress. For recently arrived immigrants who brought clothing from their
home countries, ready-to-wear garments allowed them to quickly adopt a
more ‘American’ look. Although it allowed them to blend into their new
home, the new look also kept them from looking like a ‘ greenhorn’
(newly arrived immigrant), which helped protect them from being targets
of con men and scams.
Customers of the ready-to-wear market also included sports enthusi-
asts and the military. Hunters, fishermen, and hikers often chose ready-
to-wear garments like the ones produced by Burberry’s. During WWI,
the U.S. government needed tens of thousands of uniforms quickly, and
they turned to ready-to-wear manufacturers to fill the orders.
Shoes and accessories were commonly created by ready-to-wear manu-
facturers. Gloves, undergarments, and coats were often readymade.
Knockoffs of French designer fashions were common in America at the
beginning of the century. When Paul Poiret came to the United States in
1913 to market his lines, he left in anger over the number of Americans
wearing copies of his designs. In France, he began to lobby for legislation
to outlaw the copying of designs, but that would not occur until the 1950s.
1920S AND 1930S
Although Paris remained the arbiter of style for women’s fashions, the
increased informality in society created a new wardrobe demand: sportswear.
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The popularity of attending and playing sports in the 1920s and 1930s
created a demand for functional, comfortable, and yet stylish clothing for
both men and women. Sportswear, so dubbed because it was clothing
worn by spectators at sporting events, became a new classification of appa-
rel in the 1920s. Although the ready-to-wear industry had been estab-