"The Label"

Fashion has always been aspirational. Whether that was wanting to please the Royalty of the time through imitation or more relevant today in our admiration of all things Hollywood, people have always looked for direction on what they should be wearing. We want to look like those we admire but without the finances to do so, this can sometimes be impossible. In the last sixty to seventy years however, it has been easier to mimic that high-end fashion look. The advent of modern man made materials has made fashion more accessible to the masses. Modern consumerism and the rise of the "label" have all given us the illusion that we can be the same as our idols. A movie star walks the red carpet in a glamourous dress and two weeks later it is available in the shops. Is this true though? Has the gap narrowed between those that have, the supposed "trend setters" or is it just as wide as ever. Beth Ann Krier (Oct 1988) wrote "Some would even argue that it has divided society along class lines by heightening the distinctions between the upper class, which tends to favour natural fibres, and lower-class consumers of cheaper synthetic goods." I think this is somewhat disingenuous as the mass don't "favour" cheaper synthetic goods, it is more a matter of economics.

Return to glamour.

Christian Dior released his first collection in 1947, his new style was revolutionary and put Paris back on the fashion map.  Dior seemed to know exactly what women wanted after the rigours of wartime austerity, clothes had been scare and it was a time of make do and mend.  Women wore sharp shoulder suits with knee length skirts emulating the silhouette of 1930's style.  Dior's new style of nipped in waist, voluptuous amounts of fabrics that made up the full bodied skirts and wide cart wheel hats where exactly what women wanted after the hardship of the war years. Dior's look was reminiscent of the Belle Epoque when luxury and pleasure were indulged without remorse. After the war women were expected to go back to their previous role of caring house wife creating a happy home, a loving wife and a devoted mother Dior's new style, which her called " flower woman" epitomised this image.

Fig 9:Bar suit from the New Look collection, 1947
ADAGP Archives, Paris 1996
Archives Christian Dior

  

According to designmuseum.org (date unknow) Rita Hayworth picked out an evening gown for the première of her new movie, Gilda. The ballerina, Margot Fonteyn, bought a suit.The US couture clients came back in force for the autumn 1947 collections and Dior was invited to stage a private presentation of that season’s show for the British royal family in London, although King George V forbade the young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, from wearing the New Look lest it set a bad example at a time when rationing was still in force for the general public.

Utilitarian to fashion in one garment.

In 1848 the famous Gold Rush began as gold was discovered in California and gold miners wanted clothes that were strong and did not easily rip. During this time cloth was made from cotton, it was strong and did not easily wear out making it the ideal fabric for the gold miners clothes.

In the 1870's a tailor named Jacob Davis was asked by a women if he could make her husband a pair of work trousers that did not fall apart. He soon came up with the idea of putting rivets on the points of strain, such as the corners of the pockets and the base of the button fly. These rivets proved to be extremely effective and Davis decided to patent his idea. However, he needed a business partner to get the project rolling. At the time Davis bought his heavy duty cotton denim from of a much respected and successful businessman dry goods store, Levi Strauss. Strauss had come to San Fransisco in 1853 to open a West Coast branch of his brothers New York dry goods and clothing store which he built into a successful business over a twenty year period.

Strauss was an acute businessman and when Davis wrote him suggesting that the two men hold the patent together Strauss agreed as he could see the potential of the new product. The patent was received on 20th May 1873 from the U.S Patent and Trade Mark Office. Shortly after the first riveted clothing were made and sold using the traditional denim fabric for men's work wear at the time because the material was strong and did not wear out easily. The new riveted trousers were known as "Waist Overalls or Overalls". It was not until the 1960's that they adopted the name of jeans. Another feature of the new overalls was the introduction of a double orange thread that Davis stitched onto the back pocket which became another registered trade mark to the Strauss company. This enabled customers to distinguish Davis's overalls from those of his competitors. 

Strauss was the financial backer and he quickly set up a Tailor shop in San Fransisco for the production of the new riveted work pants. As demand for these pants grew the shop was eventually super seeded by a manufacturing plant, Levi Strauss & Co, Davis continued to work for Strauss for the remainder of his life. During this time he not only oversaw the production of his work pants but he also introduced working shirts and overalls.

Denim jeans where originally only associated with miners, ranchers and farmers as their working garments because of there hardiness. However, it was  Hollywood who in the 1930's introduce jeans to the general public when Western films became popular. These films depicted cowboys wearing denim jeans.  In 1939 the film "Stagecoach" was a huge success and made a relatively unknown actor, John Wayne, into a star. In the film Wayne is wearing a pair of 1938 Levi's 501 and every boy in America wanted a pair of jeans just like their cowboy idols. Through out the centuries Hollywood continued its love affair with denim, "Brando wore Levi’s 501s and a Schott Perfecto, Dean had on Lee Rider’s 101 and a red windbreaker in arguably the most iconic denim fit in history".(Fig 8)

Fig 8:Dean and his gang intimidating townspeople. The jeans and slouchy postures purposefully accentuate the lines of their legs and hips.

The impact of cotton.

No one knows exactly how old cotton is, scientist exploring caves in Mexico discovered cotton bolls and pieces of cotton cloth believed to be at least 7,000 years old. It is also know that cotton was being grown in the Indus River Valley in Pakistan 3,000 years BC around about the same time the Egyptians were making and wearing cotton clothing. Cotton was introduced to Europe by Arab Merchants about 800 AD but it wasn't till the 1500's that cotton was generally know throughout the world. Cotton is extremely versatile and has hundred of uses from clothing to house hold items. Today cotton is a big part of our daily lives.

During the height of the British Empire in the 1700's, it was against the law to import or manufacture cotton in England, this was to protect the wool industry at the time, these restrictions also kept the American colonist from producing cotton. However, in 1607 cotton had been planted in North America by colonist along the James River in Virgina but it wasn't until the introduction of slavery that the cotton industry dramatically changed forever.  The rise of slave plantations across America made cotton available to other continents.

During this time wool dominated the European market but the middle classes wanted easily washable and more colourful fabric. It was the East India Company that introduced cotton prints to Britain. These imports found a mass market amongst the poor whilst at the same time put a strain on British manufacturing. In 1721 Parliament passed the calico act but this was revoked by 1774 with the invention of new machines that allowed Britain to compete with eastern fabrics. The Industrial Revolution catapulted Britain enormously in the cotton industry and between 1815 to 1859 Britain imported nearly 77% of American cotton to turn into cloth which it exported world wide.

Cotton was a revolutionary product for the people of Britain in the 1700's and it changed the lives of millions. One of the biggest changes was the demise of the small rural cottage industry as steam power swept through the North East of Britain huge mills where built in an urban locations.  This also had an inevitable affect on society with massive population growth as well as challenging the social order as cotton was now affordable to even the lower classes. It also transformed personal hygiene, it was easy to wash and dry as opposed to the more traditional clothes and bedding that were made from wool or linen. It was also a lot cheaper in price which enabled people to buy several changes of clothing. 

Did nylon reveloutionise the Textile world?

An insight to the invention of Nylon:

In 1920 E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company purchased 60% interest in Comptior des Textiles Artificiels, a French rayon company. The company combined its name and became DuPont Fibre Company.  In 1926 Charles M Stine director of the Chemical Department suggested to the committee that they where looking for innovation in the wrong place. Rather than looking at existing products as rayon or ammonia DuPont should fund "pure science work" instead of research that applied previously established scientific facts to practical problems.  This was not new to the industry as both General Electric and Bell Telephone had research laboratories, it was his insistence that the research be "pure or fundamental" this was such a radical idea to a company that was mainly focused on profit. However, in 1927 Stine was given a monthly grant of $25,000 plus funding for a new laboratory building which was dubbed "Purity hall". He was allowed to hire 25 of the best Chemist but this proved to be quite challenging as many of the academic scientist doubted whether they would be allowed to truly do pure research in such an industry setting.

Swines first break through was when he hired A young organic chemist lecturer from Harvard Wallace H Corothers. Corothers proposed to centre his research on Polymerisation, the process by which individual short molecules form long chain macromolecules.  Corothers success was almost immediate but it wasn't until 1930 when one of his associates Julian W Hill produced a long polymeric ester, resulting in the first polyester. Whilst Hills polyester was a significant break through as the fibres had a remarkable property: when cooled it could be pulled into an elastic thread four times its original length, sadly DuPont researchers realised that this first polyester was never going to succeed as a commercial fibre because of its low melting point making it impractical for laundering and ironing.

The problem of low melting point and high solubility in water where the two main problems that DuPont researched need to resolve in order to create a viable synthetic fibre. In 1934 Corothers was urged but the new Chemical Director Elmer Bolton to return to the problem only this time focusing on Polyamides rather than polyester.  A new break through happened in May 1934 when another member of the research team Donald D Coffman successfully pulled a fibre of polymer based on a aminoethylester, ultimately producing the first nylon.  This new nylon fibre was retained the remarkable elastic properties of polyester but with non of it draw back.  However, it was extremely difficult to produce and it took Corothers and his team a further year to develop two possible fields: polyamide 5,10, made from pentamethylene diamine and sebacic acid; and polyamide 6,6, made from hexamethylenediamine and adipic acid. (The molecules are named for the number of carbons in the starting materials.) Corothers and Bolton where split as to which line of possibility they should pursue. Corothers wanted to research further the 5, 10 whilst Bolton thought the 6,6 because the intermediates could be more easily precurred from benzene which was readily available starting material derived from coal tar. Due to Corothers increasing mental health problems that frequently kept him away from the laboratory Bolton was able to push the research down the 6,6 possibility.
chemheritage.org Joseph Labovsky, a chemical engineer working as a technician in the lab, later recalled that the lab workers were scaling up fibre 6,6 “from 1 ounce to 1 pound, 2 pounds, 50 pounds, 250 pounds, and eventually to 2,000 pounds.” During this time Paul Flory a young physical chemist helped researchers stabilise the reaction by developing a mathematical model for the kinetics of polymerisation reaction which later won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 

DuPont started the construction of a nylon production facility in Seaford, Delaware in 1938 which would produce up to 12 million pounds of synthetic fibre per year. Finally he was ready to introduce nylon to the America. 

Fig 7: [LEFT] Photograph of a nylon tulle dress "glittering with brilliants" from a 1958 Christian Dior collection, circulated by DuPont's public relations department. [RIGHT] A 35-foot-high leg display advertising nylon in Los Angeles, California. The leg was modeled by movie star Marie Wilson, shown suspended from the crane.

In house the fibre was referred to as fibre 66, rayon 66 or Duparon a creative acronym for DuPont pulls a rabbit out of Nitrogen/nature/nozzle/naphtha. Another name for the new fibre was Nuron which cleverly read no run when the word were spelt backwards. Unfortunately due to trade mark conflict with other closely related words this name was not used. Eventually the company settled on the word nylon. However. the company decided not to trade mark the name in the hope of making the consumer think that nylon was as a generic preexisting material such as glass or wood.

The rise of Nylon stockings:

Nylons characteristics made it an ideal material suitable for a  number of uses so why did DuPont focus on a single market: Ladies fashioned hosiery. During this time the American woman bought on average eight pairs of stockings per year. The continuing rise of the hemline in the 1930s made silk and rayon stockings an essential part of every woman's wardrobe. However, DuPont never intended to produce stockings himself, his idea was to sell the nylon thread to mills that would knit and sell hosiery. 

The new fibre generated a lot of publicity and it was shroud in rumours and speculation. News articles claimed the new thread that DuPont had developed was just as good as silk if not even better and that stocking made from the fibre would never run. Such publicity claims may have unnerved DuPonts exectutives as being unrealistic expectations. It probably didn't help that the same year Corother committed suicide and the Washington News ran a story based on the new patent (U.S 2,130,948). In the article they claimed that cadaverine, a substances formed during the puterfacation of dead bodies could be used to make nylon.  After such morbid publicity DuPont regained control and maybe in an attempt to quash these rumours, his own publicity department stressed that nylon was made solely from coal, air and water. DuPont introduce nylon stockings publically on 27th October 1939 to a crowd of 4'000 enthusiastic middle class women but it would be another 18 months before they were available commercially. The life of the nylon stocking was short lived with the intervention of WWII and Dupont shifted the manufacturing of nylon into millitary production of parachutes, tie cords glider tow ropes, air craft fuel tanks, shoe laces, flak jackets, mosquito nets and hammocks. It wasn't until the end of the war that Dupont returned to manufacturing nylon stocking commercially.  

How nylon changed the world of fashion.  
Nylon opened the door to a revolution in the fashion industry. With the introduction of other synthetic fibres came the promise of cheap, colourful, easy-care, wash and wear, disposable future. By the 1950's nylon and other synthetic fibres could be found in most wearable garments such as underwear, socks, sweaters, fur coats, the list is endless. Women's fashion in particular was transformed by the new synthetic fibres. The introduction of Lycra girdles must have been extremely liberating for women as these were lighter and more comfortable to wear than the previous rubber girdles.

 

 

Does power and status dictate or influence trends in fashion?

Through out the centuries fashion has always played a major role in society for the monarchy, the nobility and the gentry.

Fig 3:Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud 1701 "King of France Navarre".

• Louis XIV used fashion and its historical significance to control nobility and express his own power. (Fig 3)
• Henry VIII and Elizabeth I where both known for there elaborate wardrobes. According to elizabethancostume.net (2015) "both Bess and her father were renowned for their ostentation in dress", which they used not only to convey incredible wealth, power and prestige but for political ends as well. (Fig 4)

Fig 5: Elizabeth the Armada Portrait, 1588. Artist unknown

• The Dutches of Devonshire Lady Georgina Spencer was famous for many things, two being her beauty and sense of style both of which she used in her political campaign. However, she is not the only Spencer to have their name forever forged in the fashion world. 
• The 2nd Earl Spencer had a jacket named after him when he supposedly had the tails of his tail coat removed due to singeing them whilst standing beside a fire. This particular garment (although starting life as male attire) soon became extremely popular with the lady gentry. 

 Fig 5: One version of a Spencer Jacket. Image taken from ateliernostalgia.wordpress.com

• The latest Spencer to shine in the world of fashion was Lady Diana Spencer who married the current Prince of Wales (Charles).  Her beauty and sense of style became a world wide phenomena as she blossomed from a fresh faced young girl to Royal Princess and style icon of the 20th century.  (Fig 5)
• The Duke of Wellington designed the Wellington boot which became popular in the 19th Century as a hunting boot for the aristocracy.(Fig 6).  According to english-heritage.org.uk "at some point in the early 1800s Arthur Wellesley, then Viscount Wellington, asked his shoemaker, Mr Hoby of St James’s Street, London, to cut his boots lower and remove the tassel, to make them easier to wear with the new trousers".

Fig 6: The Duke of Wellington (1829) Mounted on a Grey Charger by James Northcote.

The list is endless and during my research I have discovered that fashion and politics often go hand in hand. So where does trend come in to play? The word trend has two meanings the first being; a general direction in which something is developing or changing and the second meaning is; a fashion.
One could say that all of the above then where trend setters some influenced fashion whilst others dictated it.

Was it the music or the fashion that defined Punk?

Fig 1. Unconventional hair styles and theatrical make up.

Research suggest that the origins of Punk (rock) can not be defined exactly, there appears to be  many variations of the definition. This could be because its foundations are spread across several countries each having its own Punk origin. However, being British, my definition of "Punk" will always be the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren and Viviene Westwood.

McLaren was obsessed with fashion and music, he saw them as inseparable parts of a Rock N Roll outlaw spirit. His first attempts at mixing the two was in the early 70's when he unsuccessfully tried to reinvent the band the" New York Dolls " by designing provocative and  politicalyl provocative stage costumes as a way of promoting them. He returned to Britain with his girlfriend Viviene Westwood and was determined to do it again. However, this time he looked towards the youth who worked and hung out in his shop on Kings Road, West London, which he had recently renamed SEX, for further inspiration.  

Britain in the 1970's was a time of economical and political unrest, unemployment was an all time high with inflation running at 30%.  The youth of the day where angry, rebellious, with strong opinions and a lot of free time. Such disgruntlement and anti establishment attitudes together with, according to the V&A (2004), McLarens "idea of using culture as a way of making trouble", could possibly have been the foundations of British Punk.

There are two definitions of the word Punk in the Oxford English dictionary. The first being (Punk Rock) a loud fast moving aggressive form of rock music popular in the 1970's. Whilst, the second meaning is a worthless person often used as a general term of abuse. If you look at the young men of the time and the context of their lives, low self esteem and a lack of percieved future, then it is possible that the adoption of the word "punk" to identify their culture with, is more than understandable.

Westwood was deeply inspired by the the shock value of punk. In an interview the Independent (London) (2002) Westwood was quoted as saying "It changed the way people looked. I was messianic about Punk, seeing if one could put a spoke in the system in someway".

Fig 2. Sex Pistols T-shirt, designed by Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid, customised by Johnny Rotten, late 1970s. Museum no. S.794-1990

It appears that the punk style was mostly about the shock factor as Westwood combined fetish and provocative wear with tartan and everyday household items such as safety pins, bicycle or lavatory chains, razor blades etc. One of the reasons she used such everyday household items was because money was tight and Westwood utilised things that were readily available at very little cost. She transformed the humble t-shirt (Fig 2) into a platform to communicate her political causes, such as the campaign for nuclear disarmament, climate changes and the civil rights group, Liberty. It didn't just stop at the clothes she introduce dog collars as a form of jewellery and theatrical make, brightly coloured hair and unconventional hair styles such has the mohican finished the look.