Jean Patou

Jean Patou (1880-1936) was born in Normandy in northwestern France in 1880. His father was a prosperous tanner who dyed the very finest leathers for bookbinding, and his uncle, with whom he went to work in 1907, sold furs. In 1910 Patou opened a dressmaking and fur establishment that foundered, reportedly due to insufficient funding, although he was able to open a tailoring business in Paris the following year. In 1912 he opened Maison Parry, a small salon located at 4, Rond-Point des Champs-Elysees, which offered dressmaking, tailoring, and furs. Patou's designs were striking for their simplicity in comparison to the prevailing fashions, although his biographer quoted him as stating that this change was the result of ignorance rather than any great fashion instinct. In 1913 a major New York City buyer known as the elder Lichtenstein praised Patou as an innovator and purchased the designer's entire collection, presaging his future popularity in the United States.

Jean Patou, 1926. Patou opened his first dressmaking shop in 1910.

Though the shop failed, within a few years Patou’s designs became popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was a leading courtier into the 1930s.

Early Career

In 1914 Patou established a couture house at 7, rue St. Florentin, near the rue de la Paix. Although his first collection was prepared, it was never shown, as he went to serve as a captain in a French Zouave regiment during World War I. Following the cessation of hostilities Patou became a leading international couturier. He commissioned his fellow officer Bernard Boutet de Monvel, who was working for several fashion magazines, to illustrate many of his advertisements. Patou's salon was decorated by the leading art deco designers Louis Sue and Andre Mare, who painted the interior and upholstered the furniture in a color described as ash-beige, and installed huge mirrors to accentuate the building's elegant eighteenth-century proportions. At the same time that Patou was a shrewd businessman, however, he was also a playboy and a heavy gambler.

Patou did not regard himself as a skilled draftsman; he claimed that not only could he not draw, but also that a pair of scissors was a dangerous weapon in his hands. Each season he provided the designers in his "laboratory" with various antique textiles, fragments of embroidery, and documents annotated with special instructions for the styles and colors he wanted to develop. His staff would then develop these ideas and present him with toiles (sample garments made using inexpensive fabric to check cut and fit), which Patou modified until he was satisfied. At the height of Patou's career in the mid-1920s, he made around six hundred models each season, which he refined down to some three hundred. A collection of this size would be considered enormous by contemporary standards, as the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne specifies that a couture collection must comprise a minimum of only fifty models.

The Early Twenties

Patou's early 1920s garments, like those of his archrival Chanel, were embellished with colorful folkloric Russian embroidery. His bell-skirted, high-waisted evening dresses, often made in georgette crepe, were beaded—he particularly liked diamante—delicately embroidered, or embellished with fine lace, which he felt was more youthful than heavy lace. Beige was Patou's primary color for spring-summer 1922, and his collection was received with acclaim. A gown of beige kasha cloth featured a deep V-neckline that was emphasized by a lingerie-style collar, while beige chiffon was combined with kasha to form pleated side panels and full undersleeves that were finished with a tight cuff. Patou was an exceptional colorist, and this season he offered a high-collared evening cape in an unusual shade of beige verging on green; its sole trimming was twisted silk openwork. A beige jersey costume was self-trimmed with bias-cut bands around the collar, cuffs, and hem of the hip-length coat.

Patou and Chanel were the leading exponents of the garconne look that dominated the fashions of the 1920s. Patou was particularly well-known for his geometric designs. Most famous are the sweaters he designed from 1924 with cubist-style blocks of color inspired by the paintings of Braque and Picasso. This ultramodern motif was then applied to matching skirts, bags, and bathing costumes. Although Patou was influenced by the fine arts, he was emphatic that he himself was not an artist, and that a successful couturier did not have to be one. "What is needed is taste, a sense of harmony, and to avoid eccentricity" (Etherington-Smith, p. 38). His eminently wearable sweaters, with horizontal stripes in contrasting colors teamed with box-pleated skirts, were regularly featured in Vogue magazine.

Although Patou was renowned for his smart daywear, his robes d'interieur (negligees) were unashamedly romantic. In 1923 he offered a design in rose-pink satin draped with silk lace dyed to match, and trimmed with clipped brown marabou. British Vogue described the gown as shown with "sabot" slippers with upturned toes in white glace kid, decorated with red leather cutwork and red heels. Another robe was of crystal-embroidered satin worn with Turkish trousers, a "Capuchin hood" and fringed mules of orange and gold brocade. Patou's shoes were made by Greco (January 1923, p. 45).

Patou's sportswear. Patou's brother-in-law Raymond Barbas introduced the designer to the world of sport and many of its champions. On meeting the androgynous, smartly elegant tennis star Suzanne Lenglen, Patou recognized instantly that she personified the fashionable "new woman." In 1921 Lenglen appeared on court at Wimbledon wearing a white pleated silk skirt that skimmed her knees (and flew above them when she ran, revealing her knotted stockings), a sleeveless white sweater based on a man's cardigan, and a vivid orange headband—she was dressed head to toe by Patou. The audience gasped at Lenglen's audacity, but the women attending were soon to appropriate similar styles of dress for themselves. Lenglen may have been the first sports champion to endorse the look of a specific fashion designer.

House of Patou, 1955. This two-piece ensemble worn by a French model is made from chalk white shantung, or orlonacrylic fiber and silk. Its elegant yet simple lines are typical of early twentieth-century French couturier Jean Patou.

By 1922 Patou had introduced sportswear styles for his fashionable clientele, who wanted to look sporty even if they did not undertake any form of exercise. The same year he introduced his "JP" monogram on his garments; he was the first fashion designer to exploit the cachet of a well-known name. He has also been credited as the originator of the triangular sports scarf worn knotted at one shoulder. In 1924 Patou opened additional branches of his house at the fashionable French seaside resorts of Deauville and Biarritz to sell his ready-made sportswear and accessories. The following year he opened a specialized sportswear boutique called "le coin des sports" within his couture house. This boutique consisted of a suite of rooms, each devoted to a different sport, including aviation, yachting, tennis, golf, riding, and fishing. Patou worked closely with the French textile manufacturers Bianchini-Ferrier and Rodier to develop functional sportswear fabrics.

Patou's fashions always appealed to the American market, and he brought himself plentiful publicity through his regular contributions to News Enterprise Association (N.E.A.), the nationwide syndication service. To highlight the fact that his designs were as well suited to the "American Diana" as the "Parisian Venus," the couturier brought six American models to Paris in 1924 (Chase, p. 163). Patou had placed an advertisement in which he advised aspiring applicants that they "must be smart, slender, with well-shaped feet and ankles and refined of manner" (Chase, p. 164). Five hundred women responded, of which six were chosen by a committee consisting of society interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe; fashion photographer Edward Steichen; Edna Woolman Chase, the editor of American Vogue; Conde Nast; and Patou himself. The successful applicants were Josephine Armstrong, Dorothy Raynor, Carolyn Putnam, Edwina Prue, Rosalind Stair, and Lillian Farley. The French couture industry was fiercely nationalist, however, and Pa-tou's action caused a furor.

Patou's perfumes. Patou developed his first perfumes in collaboration with Raymond Barbas. In 1925 he introduced three fruit-floral fragrances—Amour Amour, Que sais-je?, and Adieu Sagesse—each designed for a different feminine profile. Downstairs in his couture house he installed a cubist-style cocktail bar complete with a "bartender" who mixed special perfumes for his clients. Other fragrances that Patou introduced include Moment Supreme (1929), Le Sien and Cocktail (both 1930), Invitation (1932), Divine Folie (1933), Normandie (1935), and Vacances (1936). The most famous of all, however, was Joy (1930), which required 10,600 jasmine flowers and 336 roses to make just one ounce of perfume, and which was promoted even during the Great Depression as the costliest fragrance in the world.

The Later Twenties

For spring-summer 1927 Patou presented knitted sweaters in bois-de-rose wool and jersey with wide and narrow horizontal stripes, and a two-piece costume in palest green whose matching kasha coat was lined in very faint mauve and collared with lynx. All-black and all-white evening dresses were in vogue this season—Patou's collection included a white gown fashioned from crepe Roma, with a graceful fluid cut, an uneven hemline, and rhinestone trimming running in diagonal lines across the front. This was also the year he introduced the first suntan oil, called Huile de Chaldee (which was relaunched in 1993).

By winter 1928 Patou was anticipating the silhouettes of the 1930s: his skirts were slightly fuller, there was an impression of length, and his garments were generally more body-conscious. Vogue described as "ideal for days on the Riviera" a three-piece ensemble with a coat and skirt with godet of black asperic (a lightweight wool) and a sweater of gray jersey with tiny black diamonds. An evening gown made in a rich caramel-beige crepe featured a draped bodice that created a higher waistline, while winglike draperies provided extra length.

Edna Woolman Chase recalls an evening in 1929, when after staring across a room at a group of women clad in short dresses and suits designed by Chanel, Pa-tou rushed to his workroom and started feverishly making frocks that swept the ground with natural waistelines. Fashion usually evolved gradually in the 1920s, so when one designer with international influence suddenly presented a new silhouette, it caused a sensation. Patou's sports costumes were worn four inches below the knee; woolen day dresses worn a little longer, and afternoon dresses a little longer still. His evening gowns—there were several in red with gold lame—touched the floor on three sides and just skimmed the top of the wearer's feet at the front. Many items had lingerie details, and Patou's new color, "dark dahlia" (a red so deep that it was almost black), often replaced black for evening dresses. Other designers immediately followed suit.

The Thirties

Although Patou was to remain a leading couturier during the 1930s, he was no longer an innovator. A long white evening dress with a print of huge pink and gray flowers for spring-summer 1932, featuring a striking diagonal cut and fabric that trailed over the shoulders and down across the bare back, was perfectly in tune with current fashion trends, but was not instantly identifiable as a Patou model. Where the designer continued to make his mark was in sportswear. He showed a day dress for the same season in thin white woolen crepe, with a cardigan in navy-blue jersey and a scarf in red, white, and blue tussore. Vogue singled out the ensemble as perfect for summer life in the country, for tennis, boating, and spectator sports. Likewise a navy-blue flannel suit, consisting of a semi-fitted jacket with brass buttons, a straight-cut skirt, and a white crepe blouse was considered correct for yachting, while looking equally proper on shore. In tune with the fashionable neoclassical styles of the mid-1930s, Patou presented asymmetric evening gowns in white ro-maine. For fall-winter 1935, dinner suits were important fashion news for semi-formal wear, and Patou offered them stylishly tailored, with one featuring a fantail.

Patou had been renowned for his dramatic openings and first-night parties, but his presentation of his spring-summer collection for 1936 was reported to be strictly businesslike. His new colors were tones situated between violet and pink as well as a clear lime green; several of his evening gowns featured fine shirring and tucking, and his stitched taffeta hoop hats with great bunches of flowers tumbling over one eye.

The 1936 presentation was Patou's final collection. Later the same year he died suddenly and unexpectedly. Various reasons were given for his death, including apoplexy, exhaustion from work and frenetic gambling, and the after-effects of a car wreck.

Recent History

Following Patou's death, Raymond Barbas became chairman of the House of Patou. Barbas had been particularly involved with the designer's perfumes since the mid-1920s, and the company went on to launch several new perfumes after 1936, including Colony (1938), L'Heure Attendue (1946), and Caline (1964). Designers for the House of Patou have included Marc Bohan and his assistant, Gerard Pipart (1953-1957); Karl Lagerfeld (1958-1963), Michel Goma and his assistant, Jean-Paul Gaultier (1963-1974); Angelo Tarlazzi (1973-1976); Gonzales (1977-1981); and Christian Lacroix (1981-1987). The last fashion collection to be offered under the Patou label was shown for fall-winter 1987.

Since then the company has focused upon fragrances, continuing to produce new ones for both the American and European markets, and since 1984 on recreating a dozen of Patou's original fragrances under the direction of Jean Kerleo at the request of longstanding clients. As of 2004 Jean Patou was run by P&G Prestige Beaute, a division of Procter and Gamble.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chase, Edna Woolman, and Ilka Chase. Always in Vogue. London: Gollancz, 1954. Fashion memoirs of the editor of American Vogue. Includes accounts of the competition for editorial space between Chanel and Patou, rival houses that copied Patou's clothes, and the designer's recruitment of American models.

Etherington-Smith, Meredith. Patou. London: Hutchinson, 1983. Includes biographical details and major design achievements. Illustrated in black and white. Line drawings from Vogue magazine and the Patou archive are not attributed or dated.

Tea gown

The tea gown is an interior gown that emerged in England and France in the 1870s at a time when increased urbanization affected social behavior. The growing number of etiquette manuals and lady's periodicals produced at this time contributed to the revival of teatime by the middle classes and to the adoption of a whimsical type of gown worn by hostesses in their homes at five o'clock tea. Marked by Victorian eclecticism, this unique gown often incorporated elements of fashionable European dress from previous centuries, with exotic fabrics and stylistic components of foreign dress. The tea gown provided respectable women with an outlet for fantasy and innovation within the codified system of nineteenth-century dress and behavioral codes.

The nature and origin of teatime had considerable impact on the development of tea gowns. As tea was worth its weight in gold at the time of its introduction in Europe in the early seventeenth century, its consumption was reserved for the elite. Although this exotic beverage had become widely accessible in Europe and America by the mid-eighteenth century, tea drinking had been established as a class-conscious social event through which a network of selected individuals attained group membership. A sign of hospitality and politeness, serving tea to one's friends and relations retained an air of gentility and exclusivity that appealed to the rising middle classes. This mode of refined social entertainment entailed distinct refreshments, equipment, and rituals and would foster the emergence of a distinctive form of dress.

Specialization was also perceptible in interior spaces and manners, and gave rise to the development of the dining room and parlor. Both have significance in the tea gown's rise in popularity. The emergence of the dining room and the refinement of table etiquette in the mid-nineteenth century led to increased cost and formality when hosting dinners to repay social obligations and entertain friends. In comparison, teatime was far less costly and formal and could host a greater number of individuals, as custom required that guests stay between fifteen minutes and half an hour. With increased urbanization, social circles expanded rapidly and teatime became a more accommodating and feasible event in a system of reciprocity that was often daunting, and where hosting anxieties were on the rise. The parlor was in nature more flexible and became a stage for public display where teatime was held. As socializing was frequently conducted in private residences, home was also a public stage, and many late nineteenth-century parlors aimed to convey to visitors the owners' artistic sensibilities. This contributed to the popularity of the tea gown, which was considered to be the appropriate form of dress for artistic and exotic features. Many such gowns were aesthetically coordinated with their surroundings. This also influenced artist James Abbott McNeil Whistler and architect Henry van de Velde to design tea gowns for sitters or clients.

As teatime had long been conducted in private residences, the type of gown worn for the occasion was derived from interior gowns, which fit into the category of "undress." Nineteenth-century dress code was mainly divided in three categories: "undress," "half dress," and "full dress." Although this classification suggests a crescendo from least to most formal, elevated levels of formality existed within each category. As both men and women participated in social tea-drinking, and because teatime could be attended by distant acquaintances, tea gowns worn by hostesses did not stray far from Victorian propriety and became very formal interior gowns that were fit for public exposure. The state of "undress" could thus include gowns that were loose or semi-fitted to those, like the tea gown, that could be as fitted as other day and evening dresses. However, artistic elements such as Watteau pleats (wide pleats emerging from the center back neckline borrowed from eighteenth-century gowns) and draped front panels were among the features often added to a fitted understructure that gave the impression of looseness. These elements gave way to very elaborate interior gowns that were not labeled as "tea gowns" until the late 1870s.

The earliest labeled tea gowns discovered to date appeared in the 1878 British periodical, The Queen, The Lady's Newspaper. These one-piece gowns with long sleeves, high necklines, and back trains were made to give the impression of being closely fitted open robes with under dresses. One had the Watteau pleats and was named "The Louis XV Tea Gown." This is of interest as it names its source of inspiration and reinforces the eighteenth-century salon connection that was mentioned by writers of the period, and helped to intellectualize and elevate the status of teatime. Such tea gowns co-exist with numerous other elaborate interior gowns of the same style, which, until the turn of the century, were as likely to be named with the new term "tea gown" as they were to be labeled by the variant French term, robe de chambre. The words robe and toilette were also used interchangeably, as were chambre and interieur. Terminology is thus a problem because tea gowns were derived from interior gowns, but not all interior gowns were fit to be worn in mixed company at teatime.

Nineteenth-century tea gowns seen in fashion plates followed the bustled styles of their times, and descriptions mentioned elaborate fashion fabrics and trims. This serves to differentiate these gowns further from other interior gowns. Although loose and artistic features were acceptable in tea gowns, their public use mandated the adoption of the fashionable and highly-fitted silhouette.

As wearing underpinnings such as bustles without a corset was not a Victorian practice, the contrived fashionable silhouette present in tea gowns observed in fashion plates and in surviving specimens in museum collections suggests that corsets were worn under some of theses gowns.

From the late 1870s to the mid-1910s, tea gowns were immensely popular. Their magnificence was on the rise and leading designers joined in with fanciful creations that could easily have been mistaken for fancy dresses.

As Edwardian dress gave rise to a love of different colors and fabrics and introduced Empire revival features in high fashion, a progressive blurring occurred. The appropriateness of historically inspired gowns with looser and exotic elements was no longer confined to teatime. This also expanded the tea gown's use to other day and evening events. As the revivalist Empire silhouette gained ground and exoticism became the rage, it became hard to differentiate tea gowns from other types of gowns. Changes also occurred in the physical settings of teatime, which migrated to newly-popular tea pavilions and helped the thes dansants of the 1910s supersede teatime in the home as the fashionable thing to do.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kasson, John F. Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America. New York: Hill and Wang, 1990.

Roth, Rodris. "Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage." In Material Life in America, 1600—1860. Edited by Robert Blair St. George. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988, pp. 439—462.

Montgomery, Maureen E. Displaying Women: Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton's New York. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Spangles

Spangles, also known as sequins or paillettes, are small, flat, circular ornaments usually made of metal, metallicized plastic, or other light-reflecting materials. Their primary use is to embellish apparel and accessories. Whereas beads are three-dimensional, spangles are essentially two-dimensional and can be overlapped to produce linear patterns.

The word "sequin" derives from the name of a small gold coin, the zecchino, which it resembles. The zecchino was introduced in Venice in 1284. Chequeen, a variant of the word, appeared in the English language in the late 1500s. By the nineteenth century, the word "sequin" was preferred to "spangle."

Historically, spangles, (which were once also known as "oes," because of their shape) were made by twisting gold or silver wire around a thin metal rod. The metal rings were cut off and hammered flat, resulting in a circular object with a central hole used to stitch it in place. In the 1920s, sequins were sometimes made of gelatin. In the twenty-first century, they are stamped out from plastic sheeting.

Spangles were a popular form of embellishment for the clothing of the aristocracy from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. A host of sumptuary laws governing the dress of all classes of society prevented their being worn by anyone not of the nobility. In the seventeenth century, spangles were used to decorate men's and women's bodices, gloves, and shoes, as well as embroidered boxes and other decorative household items. In the eighteenth century, they appeared on muffs, shoes, women's gowns, and on men's coats and waistcoats. In the nineteenth century, sequins were still seen on court dress but they were also available to the general population. In the twentieth century, a craze for sequined "flapper" dresses emerged briefly during the 1920s. In the twenty-first century, sequins use in the apparel industry is primarily confined to womenswear and to the entertainment industry.

While other contemporary light-reflecting materials such as Lurex offer competition, designers including Norman Norell, Bob Mackie, and Carolina Herrera have used, and continue to use, sequins to produce eye-catching, shimmering evening wear.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Campbell, R. The London Tradesman. London: T. Gardiner, 1747. Reprint, Newton Abbot, England: David and Charles, 1969.

Rivers, Victoria Z. The Shining Cloth: Dress and Adornment that Glitters. London and New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 1999.

Social class and clothing

Display of wealth through dress became customary in Europe in the late thirteenth century. Therefore, a person's class affiliation could be assessed with relative ease. Because dress was recognized as an expressive and a potent means of social distinction, it was often exploited in class warfare to gain leverage. Dress was capable of signifying one's culture, propriety, moral standards, economic status, and social power, and so it became a powerful tool to negotiate and structure social relations as well as to enforce class differences.

For example, the sumptuary laws in Europe in the Middle Ages emerged as a way to monitor and maintain social hierarchy and order through clothes. People's visual representation was prescriptive, standardized, and regulated to the minutest detail. The types of dress, the length and width of the garment, the use of particular materials, the colors and decorative elements, and the number of layers in the garment, for instance, were confined to specific class categories. However, after society's lower-class groups relentlessly challenged the class structure and evaded the sumptuary laws' strictures, the laws were finally removed from statute books in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The sartorial expression of difference in social rank is also historically cross-cultural. For example, in China, a robe in yellow, which stood for the center and the earth, was to be used only by the emperor. In Africa among the Hausa community, members of the ruling aristocracy wore large turbans and layers of several gowns made of expensive imported cloth to increase their body size and thus set them apart from the rest of the society. In Japan, the colors of the kimono, its weave, the way it was worn, the size and stiffness of the obi (sash), and accoutrements gave away the wearer's social rank and gentility.

The History and Substance of Social Class System

Social class is a system of multilayered hierarchy among people. Historically, social stratification emerged as the consequence of surplus production. This surplus created the basis for economic inequality, and in turn prompted a ceaseless striving for upward mobility among people in the lower strata of society.

Those who possess or have access to scarce resources tend to form the higher social class. In every society this elite has more power, authority, prestige, and privileges than those in the lower echelons. Therefore, society's values and rules are usually dictated by the upper classes.

Social Class Theories

Philosopher and economist Karl Marx argued that class membership is defined by one's relationship to the means of production. According to Marx, society can be divided into two main groups: people who own the means of production and those who do not. These groups are in a perpetual, antagonistic relationship with one another, attempting either to keep up or reverse the status quo. Sociologist Max Weber extended Marx's ideas by contending that social class refers to a group of people who occupy similar positions of power, prestige, and privileges and share a life style that is a result of their economic rank in society.

Social class theories are problematic for a number of reasons. They often conceptualize all classes as homogenous entities and do not adequately account for the disparities among different strata within a particular social class. These theories also tend to gloss over geographic variants of class manifestations, such as urban and rural areas. A host of other factors, such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and even age or sexuality, further complicate the theories.

Social Class in the Twenty-First Century

In the twenty-first century, assessing one's social class is no longer a straightforward task because categories have become blurred and the boundaries are no longer well defined or fixed. Now one's social class would be decided by one's life-style choices, consumption practices, time spent on leisure, patterns of social interaction, occupation, political leanings, personal values, educational level, and/or health and nutritional standards.

Since, in global capitalism, inter- and intra-class mobility is not only socially acceptable but encouraged, people do not develop a singular class-consciousness or distinct class culture. Instead, they make an effort to achieve self-representation and vie for the acceptance of their chosen peer group. The progress of technology has also helped provide access to comparable and often identical status symbols to people of different class backgrounds across the globe. At the same time, however, as sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argues in his treatise Distinction (1984), the dominant social classes tend to possess not only wealth but "cultural capital" as well. In matters of dress, this capital manifests itself in the possession of refined taste and sensibilities that are passed down from generation to generation or are acquired in educational establishments.

Conspicuous Leisure, Consumption, and Waste

According to economist and social commentator Thorstein Veblen, the drive for social mobility moves fashion. In his seminal work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Veblen claims that the wealthy class exercised fashion leadership through sartorial display of conspicuous leisure, consumption, and waste. The dress of people in this group indicated that they did not carry out strenuous manual work, that they had enough disposable income to spend on an extensive wardrobe, and that they were able to wear a garment only a few times before deeming it obsolete.

Imitation and differentiation: Trickle-down, bubble-up, and trickle-across theories. Although sociologist Georg Simmel is not the sole author of the "trickle-down" theory, the general public still attributes it to him. In his article, Fashion (1904), Simmel argued that upper-class members of society introduce fashion changes. The middle and lower classes express their changing relationship to the upper classes and their social claims by imitating the styles set by the upper classes. However, as soon as they complete this emulation, the elite changes its style to reinforce social hierarchy. But as Michael Carter's research in Fashion Classics (2003) demonstrates, imitation and differentiation does not occur necessarily one after the other in a neat fashion. Instead, there is an ongoing, dynamic interaction between the two. Besides, within each class as well as among the different classes, there is an internal drive to express and assert one's unique individuality.

By the 1960s, the fashion industry had begun to produce and distribute more than enough products for everyone to be able to dress fashionably. This democratization of fashion means that by the twenty-first century anyone across the world could imitate a new style instantaneously. The direction of fashion change is no longer unilinear—it traverses geographical places, and flows from both the traditional centers of style as well as "the periphery." Through global media and popular culture, members of the lower classes, and subcultural and marginal groups, have been able to influence fashion as much as those in the upper classes. Therefore, it has become more appropriate to talk about a "bubble-up" or "trickle-across" theory.

Although social class is no longer a significant category of social analysis, one remains cognizant of it. The display of one's social standing through dress has become more subtle, eclectic, and nonprescriptive. The key to assessment in the early 2000s is often in the details. Higher status is indicated by a perfectly cut and fitted garment, the use of natural and expensive fabrics, and brand-name wear. One's class affiliation is often given away only by the choice of accessories, such as eyeglasses, watches, or shoes. A stylish haircut, perfect and even teeth, and especially a slender body often have become more of a class signifier than dress itself.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.

Carter, Michael. Fashion Classics from Carlyle to Barthes. New York: Berg, 2003.

Crane Diana. Fashion and Its Social Agendas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Damhorst, Mary Lynn, Kimberley A. Miller, and Susan O. Michelman, eds. The Meanings of Dress. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1999.

Davis, Fred. Fashion, Culture, and Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Kaiser, Susan. The Social Psychology of Clothing. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990.

Simmel, Georg. "Fashion." International Quarterly 10: 130—155.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Macmillan, 1899.

Wedding costume

A wedding dress is apparel used in conjunction with wedding ceremonies, including accessories that may differentiate nonmatrimonial dress from that worn specifically for weddings.

Contemporary Overview

As of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the global, urbanized standard of wedding apparel has followed the Western tradition of a bride dressed in white or off-white, with a head-covering, whether a veil or headpiece, and carrying flowers, a book, or some other object. The groom is attired in keeping with the degree of formality of the bride. Attendants are generally present, the number, gender, age, and dress of whom being peculiar to each culture. Family members usually attend, playing a prominent role, and are dressed in equally formal, but generally more subdued styles of clothing than the bridal party. Other accessories have become standard, some of which are mandated by religion or culture, and others of which are remnants of folk practice. The former may include specific types of headgear, for both bride and groom, and possibly all attendees. These range from yarmulkes at Jewish weddings, to crowns held over the heads of the bridal couple in Orthodox Christian ceremonies. Anglophone folkloric touches suggest the inclusion of "something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue," as well as a single garter, a remnant of the days when the public removal of one's garters was a significant symbolic gesture. The throwing of the garter to the male attendants serves more or less the same function as the tossing of the bridal bouquet to the females: that of determining the next to wed, although the previous stipulation that all attendants be unmarried having disappeared, this old "good luck" charm is vitiated.

In contemporary non-western industrial societies, the situation is complex. There are generally local or national traditions, based on religious and/or societal norms that have developed over time to provide identifiable wedding apparel. This can range from Japanese kimonos to long body- and face-concealing robes in Islamic cultures, to elaborate saris in India, to hand-embroidered and metal-encrusted Hmong dress. However, the primacy of the "western wedding style"—that of a bride dressed in a white gown and a groom in typical western formal attire, has supplanted many local traditions, at least for the middle and upper classes. Even in countries with strong local traditions, if there are no specific religious strictures that would prohibit them and the economic resources are available, couples may opt to hold two ceremonies, one in the tradition of their own country and one of the western variety. This has been particularly popular in Japan and Korea, where the couple dresses according to the religion and architecture of the wedding chapel, or holds two separate ceremonies, and might change ensembles five to seven times during the course of the celebrations. Even in Islamic societies such as Saudi Arabia, this doubling up of wedding attire has proven popular among the upper classes.

History

It is not possible to determine from archaeological evidence whether or not prehistoric societies celebrated marital unions in a specific manner or marked those celebrations through the use of special garb. Information is nearly as scarce for the first great urban societies, where nothing is known of the wedding dress or practices of the bulk of the population and only dynastic marriages survive in the written record. However, it appears that even at the dynastic level, dress for weddings was less occasion-specific than a matter of showing off one's best garments and accessories.

The first clear references to specific wedding apparel, in the form of bridal crowns and veils, come from the Hellenistic period of Greece. These too, while specified for use in weddings, and ranging from simple flowers to elaborate metal tiaras, were accessories. It is not until many centuries later that most cultures adopted recognizable ensembles to mark the occasion. This stems, in part, from simple economics. In pre-industrial times, the idea of ceremony-specific clothing, particularly for a one-time event, was beyond the means of the vast majority of the population. Even at the court level, wardrobe inventories discuss the fact that royalty and courtiers alike tended to wear their most fashionable garments, with no real consideration of one-time use or symbolism of color or style. Again, it is the use of accessories that gives the garments their meaning.

It was during the long rule of Queen Victoria (1837—1901) that the WWestern notion of what the bride and her party should look like solidified, first in Britain, and subsequently the rest of the industrialized world. However, certain aspects, such as identically dressed attendants, appeared in many other cultures for more symbolic reasons than simply to honor, support, and, perhaps impress. The generation previous to Queen Victoria's introduced the white wedding gown, when Victoria's cousin, Crown Princess Charlotte, was married in 1816. According to reports, and a controversial garment in the collection of the Museum of London, her bridal gown consisted of a silver tissue and lace overgown worn over a white underdress. That this probably had more to do with the Regency fashion of white dresses than any symbolic intent did not stop it from exerting the same fashion influence of twentieth-century "royalty" such as Princess Grace of Monaco; Diana, Princess of Wales; or Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. The ideal of a white wedding dress was codified in 1840, when Queen Victoria wore a creamy white Spitalfields silk satin and lace gown. It was endlessly reproduced in fashion journals, setting a fashion standard for some appreciable time.

With the advent of industrialization in the West, the combination of readily available and comparatively cheap fabric meshed with the aspirations and needs of a no-longer self-sustaining population to acquire more garments, particularly those for festive occasions. Improved communication, in the form of newspapers, magazines, and their delivery methods of roads, railroads, and improved shipping speeds, as well as the establishment of dependable rural postal delivery at the turn of the twentieth century, allowed even isolated or working-class women to aspire to new fashion trends. However, economics and practicality continued to play a significant role, particularly among these populations. Societal norms decreed that appropriately formal dress be worn for significant occasions, from confirmation, to weddings, to church attendance, to funerals. Frequently, such a dress was presented to a young woman at her coming of age; if funding permitted, another was obtained for her wedding. However, this dress would be expected to serve, not only for the festive occasion for which it was purchased, but also for all others in the foreseeable future, including funerals. It tended toward a conservative cut for this reason, and often had large seam allowances that could accommodate pregnancy and possible weight gain. With the long-standing tradition of black for funerals and mourning, most of these "good" dresses were black, and often worn for the first time at the woman's wedding. This tendency continued into the late nineteenth and even early twentieth century among rural women. Women of the higher classes wore colors; frequently, but not invariably, white. After a death in the family, when the period of strict mourning was over, marriage could take place, but the bride would wear either gray or lavender. Among the working classes, as soon as it was economically feasible, colors were adopted, although the white, one-time only dress was still a rarity. Even the more affluent often assumed their gowns would see use more than once, and colored wedding dresses were still common into the first decade of the twentieth century, after which the ideal of a white, often anachronistic gown, meant to be worn only once, was only supplanted by extraordinary conditions, such as war.

With nods to changes in silhouette and length, the now-immutable tradition of the bride in white, surrounded by equally formally dressed family and attendants, became the norm, not only in Western culture, but wherever Western fashion was emulated, and frequently in the face of centuries-old local tradition. Occasional vagaries of lifestyle, including nude hippie weddings and thematic concoctions ranging from period or folk evocations to camouflage in honor of a deploying soldier, did not dislodge the basic formal make-up of the wedding party, or its concentration on white or off-white and a fairly conservative cut. However, in the 1980s, this began to change, first among the attendants and guests, who began to wear colors such as black, previously considered taboo for twentieth-century weddings. New materials began to appear, including leather, sequins, and even tattoos, as part of the wedding ensemble which itself frequently displayed significantly more flesh than had previously been considered appropriate. Now even brides were sporting colors such as red and black, and indeed, even getting tattoos for the occasion.

The symbolism of both color and cut for the wedding party, solidified over the nineteenth century and even earlier in the case of many of the accessories, is accepted in the early 2000s with no understanding of origin or is ignored by many modern brides. The idea of wearing a one-time only dress is more prevalent, as most medium-priced gowns have their beaded or pearl decoration glued on rather than sewn. Alternatively the bride simply rents her gown, a tendency common in Japan, but that is making inroads in Europe and the United States.

Accessories and Their Symbolism

It is often the accessories that historically have provided clothing with bridal significance. Some can be traced to specific time periods while others appear to predate written records. One example of this is the headpiece. Depending on the culture, both men and women may have a specific type of head covering, but it is most unusual for the bride to be bareheaded. The earliest were undoubtedly simple wreaths of plant material: flowers, grain, or leaves, most of which appear to have had fertility symbolism, and possibly served to identify the wedding party. Later, head ornaments of cloth, metal, gems, and even wood began to be used. These were often accompanied by an additional piece of cloth, which might simply cover the hair or be draped over the entire head of the bride, obscuring her features. Certain religions dictate this kind of modesty, historically as well as in the early twenty-first century. However, in European culture, the veil also served as a disguise, a pre-Christian remnant of hiding the bride lest she be attacked by the forces of evil. Identically dressed attendants served not only to assist her, but to also confuse demonic presence.

Bouquets or other objects, such as fans or books, are also important accessories and are symbolic on several different levels. The carrying of flowers or other plants, such as wheat, is not only decorative, but refers to the fertility of the union. Flowers have been accorded symbolism in nearly every culture, but they also express wealth and taste in their choice and cost. In the early 2000s it is most common for Western brides to carry expensive flowers, with only very religious or economically prudent women opting for a prayer book. However, in earlier times, the owning and display of such a luxury item as a book would have lent the bride additional status, and frequently formed one of her betrothal gifts. The wedding ring, a token of affection, an exchange of property in the form of precious metal, and a none-too-subtle warning of future unavailability, is not a universal accessory. This is even more true of the engagement ring, a staple in North America, but not as common in other cultures, even in the West. Additionally, the finger or hand on which the rings are worn vary from culture to culture, as well as historically. Sixteenth-century examples of wedding portraits show the bride wearing a ring on her thumb.

Color symbolism did not play a role in weddings until relatively recently in the West, although now it signifies virginity, and, as mentioned above, the primacy of the white wedding dress flies directly in the face of many other cultures' norms. White is the color of mourning in most Asian cultures. Red, the one color still forbidden to most mainstream Western brides, due to its connotations of immorality ("scarlet woman," "red-light district"), is completely appropriate in other cultural settings. In India, it is the color of purity, and is often worn by brides. In much of East Asia, it is the color of celebration and luck, and therefore appropriate for bridal attire. However, the tendency toward adopting the Western white wedding, established only in the mid-nineteenth century, seems to be continuing throughout the world, sometimes alone, and sometimes in conjunction with local traditions. At the same time, the white wedding in the West is proving to be far less static than previously thought, evolving as fashions and societal norms do.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baker, Margaret. Wedding Customs and Folklore. Devon, U.K.: David and Charles, 1977. An early work exploring the symbolism of marriage and its dress.

Baldizzone, Tiziana, and Gianni Baldzonne. Wedding Ceremonies: Ethnic Symbols, Costume, and Ritual. Paris: Flam-marian, 2002. One of many new studies that look at modern global practice.

Cunnington, Phillis, and Catherine Lucas. Costume for Births, Marriages, and Deaths. New York: A & C Black, 1972. One of the first, and still important studies of Western ceremonial clothing.

Foster, Helen Bradley, and Donald Clay Johnson. Wedding Dress: Across Cultures. Oxford: Berg, 2003. A rather good exploration of modern global wedding practices.

Kaivola-Bregenhjaj, Annikki. Bondebryllup. Copenhagen, 1983. Excellent discussion of European peasant weddings.

Mordecai, Carolyn. Weddings, Dating and Love: Customs and Cultures Worldwide, including Royalty. Phoenix, Ariz.: Nittany, 1998. An imperfect but broad compendium of modern practices.

Newton, Stella Mary. Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the Years 1340-1365. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boy-dell, 1980. Reprint, Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. One of the best studies of fourteenth-century dress, including weddings, using difficult to find primary sources.

Noss, Aagot. Lad og Krone: fra jente til brur. Oslo: Universitets-forlaget, 1991. The most careful case study to date of ethnic wedding traditions, focusing on those of Norway, by one of the pioneers of costume history fieldwork.

Piponnier, Francoise, and Perrine Mane. Dress in the Middle Ages. New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University, 1997. A book that is significant because it presents much compressed information, and its discussion of garments signifying rites of passage is important.

Tobin, Shelley, Sarah Pepper, and Margaret Willes. Marriage a la Mode: Three Centuries of Wedding Dress. London: The National Trust, 2003.