Over 700 black-and-white illustrations, detailed descriptions, and prices for a vast array of upscale women's clothing and accessories — dresses, bathing suits, cloche hats, shoes, much more. Attire for men and children, too.
This book reveals the impact of wartime and austerity on British fashion and tells the story of how a spirit of patriotism and make-do-and-mend unleashed a wave of new creativity among women who were starved of high fashion by shortages and rationing. Many home dressmakers copied the high-end looks, and women involved in war work created a whole new aesthetic of less formal street wear. Fashion in the 1940s also shows how the Second World War shifted the centre of the international couture scene away from Paris, allowing British designers to influence Home Front style. Afterwards Paris fashion was re-born with Dior's extravagant New Look, while casual American trends were widely adopted by young British women and men.
This fine reproduction of a 1929 French catalog features fashions for all occasions, with 54 full-page color plates that showcase everything from chiffon promenade dresses to a white alpaca jumper and a silk-and-lace evening gown. A rare resource of authentic period styles for designers, costume historians, and collectors of vintage apparel.
Accurate record of actual dress of the Roaring Twenties in over 150 pages of mail-order catalogs, selected and with text by Stella Blum. Over 750 illustrations, captions.
Treasury of royalty-free motifs from famed periodical, drawn with wit, flair and charm. Slinky beauties in a variety of gowns, dresses, coats, suits, beachwear, and other stylish outfits.
1920s Jazz Age Fashion celebrates haute couture, ready-to-wear and mass market fashion in America, Britain and France from 1919 to 1929, with an in-depth focus on women's clothing. Illustrated with specially commissioned photography, the book brings together leading experts to examine the social, political and cultural influences of the period, setting into context the role fashion played in it. This book accompanies the exhibition 1920s Jazz Age Fashion and Photo at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London, 23 September 2016-15 January 2017.Characterised by exuberance and optimism, the jazz age was a symptom of the end of the First World War and the birth of America as a new world power. It was a period of unprecedented social change for women who were, for the first time in history, given the vote on a par with men (1920 USA, 1928 Britain). The birth of Modernity in the 1920s established women's lives as 'active' and fashion reflected and celebrated these new social roles. A new 'boyish' silhouette, la garçonne, became the look for women of the twenties with a gradual acceptance of trousers as fashionable dress. The passive sun bathing became the active swimming, and companies such as Jantzen recognised these changes creating the 'speed suit' for women. The 1920s saw technology and innovative textiles, with the introduction of the artificial silk Rayon and the zip, contributing to an easier approach to fashionable dress.
How a legendary woman from classical antiquity has come to embody the threat of transcendent beauty in movies and TV Helen of Troy in Hollywood examines the figure of the mythic Helen in film and television, showing how storytellers from different Hollywood eras have used Helen to grapple with the problems and dynamics of gender and idealized femininity. Paying careful attention to how the image of Helen is embodied by the actors who have portrayed her, Ruby Blondell provides close readings of such works as Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy and the Star Trek episode “Elaan of Troyius,” going beyond contextualization to lead the reader through a fundamental rethinking of how we understand and interpret the classic tradition. A luminous work of scholarship by one of today’s leading classicists, Helen of Troy in Hollywood highlights the importance of ancient myths not as timeless stories frozen in the past but as lenses through which to view our own artistic, cultural, and political moment in a new light. This incisive book demonstrates how, whether as the hero of these screen adaptations or as a peripheral character in male-dominated adventures, the mythic Helen has become symbolic of the perceived dangers of superhuman beauty and transgressive erotic agency.
Soon to be a feature film from the creators of Downton Abbey starring Elizabeth McGovern, The Chaperone is a New York Times-bestselling novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in the 1920s and the summer that would change them both. Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip, has no idea what she’s in for. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever. For Cora, the city holds the promise of discovery that might answer the question at the core of her being, and even as she does her best to watch over Louise in this strange and bustling place she embarks on a mission of her own. And while what she finds isn’t what she anticipated, she is liberated in a way she could not have imagined. Over the course of Cora’s relationship with Louise, her eyes are opened to the promise of the twentieth century and a new understanding of the possibilities for being fully alive. Drawing on the rich history of the 1920s, ’30s, and beyond—from the orphan trains to Prohibition, flappers, and the onset of the Great Depression to the burgeoning movement for equal rights and new opportunities for women—Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone illustrates how rapidly everything, from fashion and hemlines to values and attitudes, was changing at this time and what a vast difference it all made for Louise Brooks, Cora Carlisle, and others like them.
Magnificent reproductions of 100 rare engravings from a much-imitated reference work depict with precision and elegance a wide range of social classes — from royalty and merchants to military officers and laborers.