Danger in the Path of Chic: Violence in Fashion between the Wars (Fashion: Visual & Material Interconnections)

During the interwar years, a proliferation of violence encroached upon the glossy, idealistic world of fashion: from the curiously common appearance of dismembered heads in fashion illustration, to seemingly torturous techniques and devices advertised by beauty imagery, even extending to garments designed to look assaulted and destroyed. __Danger in the Path of Chic__ brings this disturbing imagery to light for the first time, proposing new directions for historians of fashion, violence and culture in the interwar years.\ \ Concentrating on London, Paris and New York as fashion centres and political allies, the volume explores why horror manifested itself in this way, at this time, and in a sphere that is usually perceived as being built on fantasy and escape. In doing so, __Danger in the Path of Chic__ situates fashion within the very real social, psychological, economic and political traumas of the period. "During the interwar years, a proliferation of violence encroached upon the glossy, idealistic world of fashion: from the curiously common appearance of dismembered heads in fashion illustration, to seemingly torturous techniques and devices advertised by beauty imagery, even extending to garments designed to look assaulted and destroyed. Danger in the Path of Chic brings this disturbing imagery to light for the first time, proposing new directions for historians of fashion, violence and culture in the interwar years. Concentrating on London, Paris and New York as fashion centres and political allies, the volume explores why horror manifested itself in this way, at this time, and in a sphere that is usually perceived as being built on fantasy and escape. In doing so, Danger in the Path of Chic situates fashion within the very real social, psychological, economic and political traumas of the period."-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Contents 6 List of Illustrations 7 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 10 1 Assault 22 Beauty doctoring: Advertising violence and femininity 22 Colour: The assault of modernity 35 Fighting back: Elsa Schiaparelli 47 2 Fragmentation 56 Dividing the mind and body 56 Fragmented modernity in the city 63 Beauty, art and the isolated eye 69 The classical versus fragmented body 75 3 Eroticism 90 Exploring eroticism 90 Fashion, femininity, and fetishism 101 Eroticizing the body 106 4 Absence 124 Fashion and mourning 124 Sinister shadows 137 Death on the body 146 Conclusion 158 Notes 166 Bibliography 196 Index 235 Exploring Violent Tropes In British, French And American Fashion C. 1919-39, This Book Asks Why They Appeared And How They Relate To Their Social, Political And Cultural Contexts.