more text...
Posted by P. Bingham on August 26, 1998 at 20:36:56:
In response to Interesting!, written by Caroline on August 26, 1998 at 08:48:26
] Thanks, Patricia! That makes a lot of sense. I wonder if that can account for the fact that some countries (like England, and America) have no National Dress tradition also?
I had never thought of that before I read this passage in the book. And yes, the matter is a little more complicated than that but you are right. And then there are some countries (like Scotland and the kilt for a prime example) who have a traditional National dress, not because the women or the men individually were unhappy or repressed or static, or the country did not exerience any particular economic advances, but because the nation as a whole was repressed by another nation and the first nation becomes stubborn for a national identity.
] It puts another slant on 'designer style' too, doesn't it? Quant didn't invent the miniskirt, Chanel didn't invent the 'Chanel suit', Van Dyke didn't invent the Van Dyke Collar! ;-)
...Those converted or convinced readers of mine - supposing any such amiable beings exist - will be able to follow the stages of evolution by which now one aspect of the dress, now another comes to be prominent, and will conclude that the phsychological significance of particular styles has often been over-stressed; that a fashion which seems most daring and fantastic, full of purposeful invention and curious meaning, may in reality be the almost haphazard outcome of going as far as one can go in a direction which circumstances may of rendered inevitable. Conditions in trade, industry, and politics have their influences in details. The great designer -the Worth, Poiret, or Chanel of the day - will give a mode the stamp of his or her own personal taste, but even Christian Dior cannot conjure a fully developed New Look out of thin air; or if he could, nobody would be ready to accept it...
It is amazing, Caroline, how you managed to come up with that thought on your own. I did not post this part because I wasn't certain if it would be appropriate as I tried to keep with Regency.
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