Leg-and-Skirt Management

Anne Hollander

  • Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in the Third Reich by Irene Guenther
    Berg, 499 pp, £17.99, April 2004, ISBN 1 85973 717 X
  • Fashion under Fascism: Beyond the Black Shirt by Eugenia Paulicelli
    Berg, 227 pp, £15.99, February 2004, ISBN 1 85973 778 1

Fashion was always famous for its power, but only quite recently have people believed it has meaning. From time to time during the last two hundred years, writers have uneasily asserted that everything important about individuals, even about whole civilisations, could be learned from what people wore; but by the end of the 20th century, the meaning of clothing had become a respectable subject in its own right. During those same two centuries, women’s apparel became ever more conspicuous and volatile, acquiring exclusive claim to the term ‘fashion’. Male dress, on the other hand, became more and more inconspicuous; its changes looked more like the small shifts in tribal custom, while fashion became more unrespectable and frivolous.

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Vol. 27 No. 8 · 21 April 2005 » Anne Hollander » Leg-and-Skirt Management (print version)
Pages 32-34 | 4547 words