The Mechanical Smile: Modernism and the First Fashion Shows in France and America, 1900-1929 - Rilegato

Evans, Caroline

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0300189532 ISBN 13: 9780300189537

Casa editrice: Yale Univ Pr, 2013

Riassunto

In the early 20th century, the desire to see clothing in motion flourished on both sides of the Atlantic: models tangoed, slithered, swaggered, and undulated before customers in couture houses and department stores. The Mechanical Smile traces the history of the earliest fashion shows in France and the United States from their origins in the 1880s to 1929, situating them in the context of modernism and the rationalization of the body. Fashion shows came into being concurrently with film, and this book explores the connections between fashion and early cinema, which arguably functioned as what Walter Benjamin called “new velocities”—forces that altered the rhythms of modern life.

Using significant new archival evidence, The Mechanical Smile shows how so-called “mannequin parades” employed the visual language of modernism to translate business and management methods into visual seduction. Caroline Evans, a leading fashion historian, argues for an expanded definition of modernism as both gestural and performative, drawing on literary and performance theory rather than relying on art and design history. The fashion show, Evans posits, is a singular nodal point where the disparate histories of commerce, modernism, gender, and the body converge.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Caroline Evans is professor of fashion history and theory at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, as well as a visiting professor at the Centre for Fashion Studies, Stockholm University.

Product Description:

Physical description; 331 pages : illustrations (some colour) ; 29 cm. Summary; In the early 20th century, the desire to see clothing in motion flourished on both sides of the Atlantic: models tangoed, slithered, swaggered, and undulated before customers in couture houses and department stores. The Mechanical Smile traces the history of the earliest fashion shows in France and the United States from their origins in the 1880s to 1929, situating them in the context of modernism and the rationalization of the body. Fashion shows came into being concurrently with film, and this book explores the connections between fashion and early cinema, which arguably functioned as what Walter Benjamin called "new velocities"--forces that altered the rhythms of modern life. Using significant new archival evidence, The Mechanical Smile shows how so-called "mannequin parades" employed the visual language of modernism to translate business and management methods into visual seduction. Caroline Evans, a leading fashion historian, argues for an expanded definition of modernism as both gestural and performative, drawing on literary and performance theory rather than relying on art and design history. The fashion show, Evans posits, is a singular nodal point where the disparate histories of commerce, modernism, gender, and the body converge. Subjects; Fashion shows - France - History. Fashion shows - United States - History. Modernism (Aesthetics) - France. Modernism (Aesthetics) - United States.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Yale Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0300189532
• ISBN 13: 9780300189537
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 331