By Lourdes M. Font, Ph.D.
Coordinator, Masters Program in Costume Studies
New York University
As a form of cultural expression, fashion always reflects thedeepest concerns of society. But unlike literature, music or art,fashion communicates indirectly -- employing a language and alogic of its own. Fashion's power, to capture the present andeven to predict the future, is only revealed with the passage oftime.
What does fashion reveal about the Cold War, now that it isover? With the benefit of hindsight, it becomes clear that likeWorld War II, the Cold War was fought by men and women inuniform: the grey flannel suit of corporate America, the bluecotton suit of Maoist China, the trenchcoat of spies on both sidesof the conflict, and the blue jeans of the young peopleeverywhere who protested against it.
At the end of World War II, returning veterans traded in theirmilitary uniforms for civilian clothes, but the flamboyance andswagger of the wartime "Zoot Suit" gradually drained out ofmen's fashion. By the mid-1950s, the fashion "look" sported byGregory Peck in "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" was a perfectexample of the new civilian uniform -- a utilitarian tailoredenvelope that guaranteed social respectability. But it is inwomen's dress that the meaning of Cold War fashion is mostclear.
Theatre of Fashion
In the spring of 1945, the world of high fashion lay in ruins.World War II had cut the Parisian haute couture off from Britainand from the source of its most devoted clientele -- America.During the early '40s, the American fashion press had turned itsattention to native designers, who perfected styles suited tothe American way of life -- from the sharply tailored suits ofGilbert Adrian to the inventive and comfortable sportswear ofClaire McCardell.
The Theatre of Fashion exhibition, which opened in Paris in 1945and toured Europe and America the following year, wasorganized by the Parisian couturiers' association to benefitFrench relief efforts, but it was also intended to revive thefortunes of the couture.
Against backdrops provided by French theatrical designers, miniature mannequins displayed the work of couturiers who hadbeen unable to mount full-scale collections in the face ofwartime shortages. Heightened by the miniature scale, theunrivalled workmanship of the couture and its contributingcrafts was undeniable. Visitors to the exhibition could alsowitness the co-existence of two distinct silhouettes: the paddedshoulders and short straight skirts that had prevailed during thewar, and the softer, longer, fuller clothes that had alreadysurfaced on both sides of the Atlantic. It was this secondsilhouette that would become the famous "New Look" of 1947.
'New,' but improved?
Indelibly associated with the debut collection of Christian Dior,the New Look was enthusiastically promoted by the Americanfashion press as signalling the return of luxury after theprivations of war. But some American women, who protestedagainst it during Dior's triumphal tour of American departmentstores, sensed its true nature.
A look inside the New Look, provided by Harper's Bazaar in1947, reveals layers of interfacing, horsehair, padding andbuilt-in corsetry -- a hidden, inner armor. The New Look wasactually an old look, recalling the corsets and crinolines of Victorianwomen. Although it indulged a longing for luxurious fabrics, itdenied women comfort. But it also armed them to wage a new,covert war -- one which would be waged with every weapon inthe arsenal of traditional femininity.
Throughout the 1950s, the armor that was built into women'sclothing and the underwear beneath it transformed their bodiesinto virtual weaponry. Girdles smoothed the hips and thighs intothe sleek shapes of rocket missiles; bras with pointed cupsaimed the breasts squarely at the world.
The hard curves of the fashionable ideal implied a sexuality thatwas rigidly contained, but potentially explosive. In the personaof the Blonde Bombshell, epitomized by the cultural icon ofsexuality -- Marilyn Monroe -- in such classic movies as "TheSeven Year Itch," it did explode.
Totalitarian fashion, tovarich
The launch of the New Look also created the orderly fashionuniverse of the 1950s, in which the dictates of Paris werereported in the press and translated at every level of theindustry, from ready-to-wear to the neighborhood dressmaker.Paris fashion celebrated luxury for its own sake, as the naturalconsequence of an idealist love of beauty. The mere existence ofsuch luxury seemed to certify the superiority of the capitalistsystem.
In the consumer economies of the West, women wereencouraged to aspire to high fashion. Implicitly, those behind theIron Curtain were deprived of it, but so strong was its power toseduce, that in the popular imagination any red-blooded Russianfemale would melt at the sight of a Paris dress, as in theHollywood film "Silk Stockings."
In this ironically totalitarian fashion state, the press played avital role. In the hands of legendary fashion editors CarmelSnow and Diana Vreeland, it too could be dictatorial, and ithelped perpetuate public perception of the fashion industry as aworld of secrecy and intrigue, in which designers jealouslyguarded their new collections from spies, saboteurs andknock-off artists.
The real threat, however, would come from a different quarter. There was another side to the fashions of the '50s, related tothe wartime development of American sportswear, the postwarspread of the suburban lifestyle, and the beginning of theAmericanization of Europe.
