FASHION AND EROTICISM: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Through the Jazz Age

by Valerie Steele ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1985

A sophisticated, historically-grounded discussion of our ideas on beauty and fashion. Steele, a research fellow at the Smithsonian, scoured fashion archives in America, England, France, and Japan; her detailed research is reflected in both the subtlety of the analysis and the quality of the (approximately 50) illustrations. Though Steele holds to a psychoanalytic theory of fashion, she discounts limited ""Sex Appeal"" theorists and emphasizes, by contrast, the complex interaction of the ""libido for looking,"" the attraction of concealment, the use of clothing to achieve both sexual beauty and the ideal self. Thus, she attacks stereotypes of Victorians as prudes or hypocrites, and of Victorian women as ""exquisite slaves."" Within the Victorian period, too, opinion changed as to what was erotic, and artifice was alternately accepted and rejected. Efforts at dress reform stemmed from two disparate sources: Rational Dress Reformers (feminist and non-), who wanted dress to be healthy and practical (often implying unattractive), and Aesthetes who wanted it to be beautiful. The first failed miserably (bloomers are the best-known example), the second succeeded to some extent--not for ideological reasons but because internal changes in fashion made their reforms more sexually appealing. ""Once an artistic look became fashionable, it was more widely perceived as beautiful."" Underclothes get special treatment in two chapters. If Victorians viewed the corset as a sexualizing device, near-synonymous with ""woman,"" they also saw it as reflecting a woman's propriety: without it, she would appear undressed, lacking in ""tenue."" Unlike other writers, Steele does not see any great revolution in its eventual disappearance. ""The corset was not abandoned, but it gradually changed shape, and evolved into different forms of body-structuring undergarments."" Taking issue also with those who see dramatic changes in women's fashion occurring in the 1920s, she argues effectively that modern dress was introduced far earlier (1907-1913). ""What the war really caused was the disruption of the pre-war social and economic hierarchy,"" meaning, in part, that it was harder to tell a woman's class by her clothes. Overall, Steele separates herself from the ""nco-feminist critique"" (Susan Brownmiller, Lois Banner's American Beauty), refusing to blame society for forcing women to wear fashionable garments. ""Fashion change occurs. . . in large part, because novelty arouses sexual curiosity and causes the individual to be seen more clearly again."" A provocative, generally convincing analysis.

Pub Date: May 1, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Oxford Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION