Sex and Suits

[Tomasso]

Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress

By Anne Hollander

 

[Feraud]

Thanks for that. It looks like a good read.

 

[Scott Wood]

Thanks for that. It looks like a good read.

:arated: have already cleared a spot on my bookshelf,
Woody

 

[Tiller]

Thanks! Looks like a good read.

 

[filfoster]

Forbidden Suit Fruit

I thought it said "Sex with Suits". Still interested.

 

[Scott Wood]

I thought it said "Sex with Suits". Still interested.

Is it like strip "Bridge"?[huh]
lol

 

[filfoster]

Lay 'em down

Is it like strip "Bridge"?[huh]
lol

probably less finesse; but bridge is safer: it has a 'rubber'.

 

[Scott Wood]

probably less finesse; but bridge is safer: it has a 'rubber'.

:eusa_clap lol

 

[Dr Doran]

Excellent book. I first read it about 4 years ago and was very impressed.

 

[Fletch]

It's a gloss - a survey - but a perceptive one, and probably a unique one. Even at this late date, it's still not quite the Done Thing to treat men's and women's clothing as equals in cultural meaning.

Hollander has a very telling point about the 30s being an era of graceful simplicity - clothes that moved well and took on pleasing poses and attitudes. She's a little offbase about "the postwar era" all being uniform, though. Women had to come to terms with the New Look and men the Bold - both of which passed pretty quickly.

After that, she's right, there was a conformism, and individuality "lost caste." But first, we had to shed some of the elegance of the 30s. I think it looked a little too much to Europe, and to old centers of power - which now meant military and bodily power, not just financial and political power as before.

Marlene Dietrich, 1932.
Not a tomboy, and this is not drag - she's fully and desirably female in these man's clothes.
Not too many women could pull that off. Not even Katharine Hepburn, I don't think, not like this.
Men and women could take a cue from her in sureness and style. I think they still can.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Marlene Dietrich, 1932.
Not a tomboy, and this is not drag - she's fully and desirably female in these man's clothes.
Not too many women could pull that off. Not even Katharine Hepburn, I don't think, not like this.
Men and women could take a cue from her in sureness and style. I think they still can.[/QUOTE]

"You are born naked, after that everything else is Drag"