Girls... I need your help! (Fashion History)

[Tinseltown]

I am probably gonna write a paper on Bauhaus, but I want to have a fashion history spin on it too.. How could I do that??
The subject I have drawn for this paper is "Modernism" (Europe).

One student once wrote about the rebuilding after WW2 (i.e architecture) and the change in fashion with CD's New Look in 1947.
But I don't think i can do that with "Modernism".
If you have other suggestions on how I could get fashion history under that category I would be happy too. I.e.. It doesn't have to be about Bauhaus as I suggested in the beginning.

Thanks ladies!

 

[ShrinkingViolet]

I don't really have any suggestions, you'll probably need to be more specific about what aspects and eras of fashion history you want to examine. Does it necessarily have to be fashion history in Germany during the Bauhaus period?

Anyway, I can really recommend this book by Elizabeth Wilson: Adorned in Dreams - Fashion and Modernity (there's also a Danish translation, Kl?¶dt i dr??mme published by Tiderne Skifter, which has a lot more pictures in it than the English one ). I'm sure you can find some inspiration in this book.
Hope that helps!

 

[Tinseltown]

I don't really have any suggestions, you'll probably need to be more specific about what aspects and eras of fashion history you want to examine. Does it necessarily have to be fashion history in Germany during the Bauhaus period?

Anyway, I can really recommend this book by Elizabeth Wilson: Adorned in Dreams - Fashion and Modernity (there's also a Danish translation, Klædt i drømme published by Tiderne Skifter, which has a lot more pictures in it than the English one ). I'm sure you can find some inspiration in this book.
Hope that helps!

Thanks!
No, it doesn't have to be from the Bauhaus Era.
What about a paper on how architecture, art and fashion changed after WW2? But that isn't really about modernism, is it?

 

[RetroModelSari]

Hi Tinseltown!

It´s actually ot my decade, but maybe I can find material on it in a library (at least some fashion pics as I don´t think you speak German) and scan it fo you. I can´t promise a lot though.

All the best,
Sari

 

[Tinseltown]

Up!

 

[ShrinkingViolet]

Hey, how's it going?
the postwar period is definitely modernism in terms of cultural history, although late modernism rather than high modernism. But I don't know what your field of study is, your department might view it differently..?

 

[Amelie]

I hope I am not too late, butwell, just a bit before the bauhaus really defined his mission, the russians have touch fashion with their artists. Artists like Malevitch and Popova, during the constructisvm movement created fashion and textiles (fashion weren't aplied though, textiles were for some of them). However, even though Bauhaud had the same desire of making something "pure" and "perfect within the one thing they have been made to make us doing" I am not aware that they did ever had something to do with fashion. After all they were kicked out by the nazis when they would have really been able to work on that with them

I think you best move might be by making a comparision betwen constructists and the bauhaus school

(but I might be missing something)

edit: oh well there's this guy that had done theater with absolute crazy costumes ! that could be a great subject! His name is Oskar Schlemmer

edit2 :damn! I haven't read you post carefully enough! you said it doesn't have to be on the bauhaus! I'll think of something else then! but now I am returning to my bed (*loves to find subjects related to clothings*)

 

[ShrinkingViolet]

Amelie, I was going to suggest Oskar Schlemmer too but I couldn't remember the name! He's the one with the crazy triangular ballets, right?
I think an interesting subject could be the 'Reformkleid' and anti-corset movement but then we're talking 1880s-1910s. The Belgian art nouveau artist Henry van der Velde designed some very beautiful 'Reformkleidung' dresses and I think William Morris did too.
Another good subject could be Sonia Delaunay's collaboration with Elsa Schiaparelli.

 

[Amelie]

you have great ideas! I have to keed them in head for when I'll have to make some papers too!

I am going to see Paul Poiret's exhibit at the MET this week end, can't wait to be there, but what I'd really like to see, is one on Charles James

 

[ShrinkingViolet]

I know, I always do that too .. try to keep an archive of ideas for papers in my head .. but very few of them ever materialize

I just found this book that sounds very interesting:
Radu Stern: Against Fashion. Clothing as Art, 1850-1930

Against Fashion is the history of the modern relationship between artists and this ideal "anti-fashion." Radu Stern traces the development of clothes as art by artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He discusses contributions to the new art form by various artistic movements of the historical avant-garde, including Art Nouveau, the Werkbund, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and the Bauhaus; he examines the work of such key figures as Henry van de Velde, Gustav Klimt, and Sonia Delaunay. The artists and works examined display a diversity of styles and ideas, but all share the desire to reject the mercantile logic of commercial fashion and replace it with a utopian "anti-fashion."


Ooh, and Poiret is wonderful. In that Adorned in Dreams-book I mentioned earlier there's a photo of a Poiret gown made out of peacock feathers!

 

[Amelie]

great book! That goes on my amazon wish list!

 

[katiemakeup]

Maybe if you go the social or female perspective way- all of those art forms were influenced by politics and social movements- especially since you are dealing with revolutionizing art forms and taking advantage of freedoms and liberties. How your Modernism has afforded women fashions change and movement... Just because Modernism came about during a specific time in history doesn't mean it cannot be applied to other times and areas.

Shrinking Violet is right~ you DO need to narrow it down, otherwise there are a billion routes you could take. Keep us posted- I'd love to hear more about it!!!