Fashion in History: A Global Look

Tutor: Giorgio Riello

Week 17

Tuesday 23 February 2010

FASHION AND CONSUMERS’ LIFESTYLES, 1950-1990

1. From Couture to Prêt-à-porter

Paul Poiret in the 1940s

Christian Dior, 1905-1957

1. From Couture to Prêt-à-porter

Marcel Boussac

Yves St. Laurent (1936-2008)

Gianfranco Ferré 1944-2007 Hedi Sliimane (1968 - )

2. Pret-à-Porter

prêt-à-porter (ready to wear) was invented by Jean Claude Weill in 1949

and should be distinguished from the expression ‘ready-made’

2. Pret-à-Porter

Lipovetsky thinks that prêt-à-porter changed the rules of fashion:

1. it provided an alternative between couture and mass;

2. it allowed a stronger link with the fashion of the new fashion leaders: the young;

3. and in the long-run couture disappears entirely

3. The Birth of Italian Fashion

The first Italian Fashion catwalk was organised by Giovanni Battista Giorgini in Florence on the 12 February 1951

Salvatore Ferragamo’s Workshop in Florence before the second world war

Present at the Florence show, 12 February 1951:

Sorelle FontanaEmilio SchulberthJole VenezianiEmilio Pucci,Salvatore Ferragamo

Creation of the Sorelle Fontana, early 1950s, inspired by a Renaissance painting

Actor Tyrone Power married Linda Christian in Rome in 1949.The bride wore a dress by Sorelle Fontana.

Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) with Salvatore Ferragamo (1899-1960)

Ava Gardner (1922-1990) wearing the ‘Pretino’ (little Priest) dress by the Sorelle

Fontana

Sofia Loren (1934- ) with Jayne Mansfield (1933-67)

Elio Fiorucci opened 300 shops in Italy in the 1960s

Fiorucci’s advert of the 1980s

Missoni’s zig-zag knitwear Krizia

‘Milano da Bere – Milan to Drink in the Ramazzotti Advert came to symbolize the refined atmosphere of the Italian capital of fashion in the 1980s

4. The 1980s

5. The End of Class and Nationality?

The possible decline of ‘class’ as a way of structuring fashion should be qualified in three ways:

1. subcultures provide a different way of ‘reading’ society;

2. Society is more flexible and malleable. Bauman talks about a ‘liquid society’;

3. We should differentiate between the UK and the rest of Europe.

6. Youth Fashion Culture

James Dean and Marlon Brando, both wearing jeans