Fashion Desing

Among all objects of design, our clothes are the most universal and intimate. Every
day, everywhere, everyone wears something, whether a full outfit or nothing more than
a tattoo. Like other kinds of design, fashion thrives on productive tensions between
form and function, automation and craftsmanship, standardization and customization,
universality and self-expression, and pragmatism and utopian vision. It exists in the
service of others, and it can have profound consequences—social, political, cultural,
economic, and environmental.
Fashion as Design focuses on a selection of garments from around the world—ranging
from kente cloth to jeans to 3D-printed dresses. Through these garments, we’re going
to look closely at what we wear, why we wear it, how it’s made, and what it means.
Each week begins with a conversation between the course instructors that introduces
the themes, items, and questions that we will explore. Hear directly from a range of
designers, makers, historians, and others working with clothing every day—and, in
some cases, reinventing it for the future. Studio visits, interviews, abecedarium
presentations, and other resources will introduce the history and development of each
garment and their changing uses, meanings, and impact over time.
Tracksuit
Originally designed for athletes, the tracksuit is a two-piece ensemble of a jacket (which
is sometimes hooded, often zipped) and elasticized, tie-waist pants intended to be worn
as an outer layer over sports uniforms. It was introduced in 1939, initially
monochromatic with piping or lettering.
The tracksuit converged with fashion in the 1970s as informal dress became
acceptable, and sports like jogging and jazzercize surged in popularity. Adidas
pioneered the tracksuit-as-fashion with a version for German footballer Franz
Beckenbauer in 1967. In the 1970s, it produced tracksuit tops that adopted the style
and tailoring of the leisure suit, featuring lapels, buttons, and breast pockets.
Chuck Taylor All-Stars
The Converse Rubber Shoe Company released the All Star in 1917 as a rubber cap-
toed basketball shoe, and it has been an enduring icon with its design unchanged since
1949. With its lightweight construction, flexible rubber sole, form-fitting canvas upper,
and a canvas lining that reduced chafing, this high top sneaker soon became the shoe
of choice for early 20th-century basketball players seeking speed and stability on court.

With the rise of postwar consumer culture, these simple, sturdy sneakers became
staple footwear for children. Their appeal to non-sporting audiences prompted the
release of a low-cut oxford style in 1957, and a plethora of colors and patterns that
continue to endure today. In the 1970s and 1980s, the All Star gained a new following
by numerous counter cultural groups, including punk rockers and skateboarders.
Nike Air Force 1

In 1982, the Nike Air Force 1 made its National Basketball Association (NBA) debut,
launching a footwear franchise that would become the blueprint for status sneakers in
the 20th century. While Nike had utilized Air cell technology since 1979, the Air Force 1
marked its first use of this lightweight midsole cushioning in a basketball shoe. Its
designer, Bruce Killgore, had developed more than a sturdy basketball high top,
however. He had produced what would become one of the most iconic sneakers in
urban streetwear, one that would earn tributes in music, dedicated collectors, and
numerous imitations.

Though the Air Force 1 was discontinued after its initial mid-1980s run, retailers,
backed by popular demand, persuaded Nike to re-issue it in white and a limited range
of color combinations. This initiated the “retro release,” now standard practice for many
footwear manufacturers. Over the past 30 years, Nike has issued nearly 2,000
versions, from mass-market releases to exclusive celebrity collaborations

Sports Jerseys

When quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose not to stand during the U.S. national
anthem at professional football games throughout the 2016 season, he explained that
his gesture was a protest against police brutality towards African Americans. By
October, his jersey was the National Football League’s (NFL) bestseller among sports
fans and a more general populace.

Wearing replicas of professional athletes’ sports jerseys has been ingrained in fashion
since the 1970s. In the 1980s, sporting-goods storeowner Norm Charney ushered in a
sea change in the United States when he began independently applying athletes’
names and numbers to jerseys. In 1985, he received the first license to sell authentic
NFL merchandise and offered baseball, hockey, and basketball jerseys (in the UK,
jerseys were licensed for the public as early as 1974). Corporations like Nike and
Champion later co-opted Charney’s success, answering a yearning among sports fans
to celebrate their favorite players

The jersey crossed into streetwear in the 1990s, when it became a staple among hip
hop artists. The phenomenal success of basketball legend Michael Jordan, winner of
three consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) championships in the 1990s,
contributed to the popularity of basketball jerseys among these artists. Female hip hop

artists such as Mýa and Eve have modified jerseys into fitted dresses and tops. The
growing popularity of professional women’s sports and particular athletes, such as
Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) Lisa Leslie, has also contributed to
the presence of jerseys within women’s fashion.
Ballet Flat

Beginning in 1681, ballet shoes were heeled and buckled. It is said that when ballerina
Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo removed the heel around 1730, she became one of
the first to dance in flat-soled shoes. As ballerinas became stars in the 19th century, the
flat pointe shoe was developed to give the appearance of lightness, most notably in
Marie Taglioni’s performances.

Women ranging from Hollywood icons—including Brigitte Bardot in the 1956 film Et
Dieu…créa la femme (And God Created Woman)—to countercultural trendsetters,
including the Beats, soon adopted the ballet flat. While their appeal waned in the mid-
1960s, ballet flats came back during the 1980s when Diana, Princess of Wales,
incorporated them into her style.

A Close Look at the Item: Subcultural Heroes

Leather Pants

Leather pants have both signified and subverted systems of power throughout much of
their recent history. But before they were overlaid with such potency, they had been
worn together with other leather garments for bodily protection since the beginning of
civilization.

In the American West, leather pants emerged in the wardrobes of frontiersmen and
cowboys in the 18th and 19th centuries. Influenced by the attire of Spanish landowners,
Mexican ranchers, and Native Americans, they were designed to both reflect their
wearers’ new environment and to differentiate them from the native populations.
American cowboys in leather pants eventually came to signify a prevalent trope of
masculinity.

The Doors’s front man Jim Morrison chose a brown, skintight pair cut like Levi’s jeans
as his performance uniform, which was broadly understood to signify masculine
sexuality and nostalgic visions of the American West. In the following years, female
rock ‘n’ roll musicians—

A leather look began developing in gay subcultures in the 1950s. The Satyrs, the first

gay biker club, was formed in Los Angeles in 1954. At the time, shops did not sell
leather sex outfits, so club members bought pants from Harley Davidson and chaps
from Western apparel outfitters. By the 1980s, their look had proliferated widely and
had reached lesbian subcultures.

A Close Look at the Items: Military and Political Heroes

Thench coat

A military uniform appropriated for unisex civilian dress, the trench coat clothed the
British army during the trench warfare (hence its name) of World War I. The garment is
rooted in Charles Macintosh’s early-19th-century invention of rubberized cotton, used
to make the uniforms of the aristocratic gentlemen serving as British army officers and
for their sports- and rainwear.
In 1916, British fashion house Burberry advertised their weatherproof military coat as
“Trench-Warm.” Heavy-duty and utilitarian, it featured a double-breasted closure, belted
waist, and knee-length flared skirt. Every part of its design was suited to trench warfare.
For example, its truncated cape directed water away from the body and its khaki color
provided camouflage. Male and female civilians adopted modified versions of the
garment, expressing patriotism and affinity with those on the front.
After World War I, the trench coat was primarily used as rainwear. In the 1930s and
1940s, it gained popularity in women’s fashion, partly due to the return to showing the
waistline after a period of loosely cut flapper dresses. Movies further shaped its
popularity as femme fatales, gangsters, and detectives endowed it with intrigue.
Jumpsuit
Named for outfits originally worn by parachute jumpers, a jumpsuit is a one-piece
garment integrating both pants and top, worn by men and women alike. It is derived
from the union suit, a knitted, one-piece, unisex undergarment that emerged in mid-
1800 as an alternative to standard underwear. This suit was particularly significant for
women, since its streamlined combination of flannel top and drawers helped to liberate
them from the constricting layers of undergarments they were expected to wear under
their dresses. When all-in-one garments began appearing as outerwear, early iterations
emphasized utility and practicality. In the 1960s, the jumpsuit entered popular fashion.
The following decade, it reached a milestone by making pants acceptable for women’s
eveningwear. Promoted by a range of designers, many inspired by New York’s disco
scene, the 1970s jumpsuit signified luxury and glamour, and granted freedom of
movement for dancing. American designer Stephen Burrows’s sparkling gold lamé
jumpsuit, for example, featured a backless halter top and loosely gathered legs, the
better to showcase the new fit body ideal of the period.

Aviator Glasses

Aviator sunglasses (or aviators) developed out of a circumstance of cool-headed

courage. In the 1910s, when U.S. Army test pilots began flying at higher altitudes, they
wore fur-lined goggles to protect their eyes from extreme cold in the uncovered
cockpits of their biplanes. Lieutenant Macready approached optical company Bausch &
Lomb to design a goggle whose shape would seal the eyes from the cold with lenses
that would provide protection from the upper atmosphere’s bright sunlight. Dubbed Ray
Ban for their sunray-blocking function, the company’s goggles soon inspired similarly
designed sunglasses featuring green anti-glare lenses embedded into a plastic frame.
By 1937, Ray Ban sunglasses were available to the general public. A year later, they
were reengineered with a metal frame and re-branded the Ray-Ban Aviator. Though
they were designed to be unisex, Ray-Ban Aviators were initially primarily advertised to
men because of their association with the military. Images of American World War II
General Douglas MacArthur wearing Ray-Ban Aviators heightened their connotation of
rugged machismo. In the 1970s, women adopted the style. With a streamlined form
suited to outdoor sporting activities, aviators contrasted with the sizable, brightly
colored sunglass styles previously advertised for women. When Ray-Ban introduced
colored frames and lenses to its 1970s aviator model, Vogue declared it “clean and
uncluttered—glasses with the same sparseness, the same no-nonsense ease we’ve
been seeing in clothes.”

Beret
The beret is a round, brimless felt cap. Versions can be traced back to ancient Greece,
and it has historically been used for weather protection. Its most common iteration (the
boína) appeared in the 15th century in Basque Country, where it was originally worn by
shepherds and remains part of traditional dress. The color of these berets varied, and
the red ones donned by residents of Navarre became symbolic of one of the fighting
sides in the civil wars of 19th-century Spain. Such use led to the incorporation of berets
into military uniforms worldwide. The beret’s roots among workers and peasants made
it a potent symbol for war and the arts, signifying counter-cultural affinities and
rebelliousness. In the 1920s, black berets became popular with artists, actors, and
intellectuals. In the 1950s, they became associated with the Beats.

In the United States, the Black Panther Party (BPP) adopted black berets, a symbol
Beyoncé appropriated in her 2016 Super Bowl Performance, which referenced the BPP
and their call for black power. Berets have been adopted by many other groups fighting
for the rights of marginalized people, including the Brown Berets, a Mexican-American
organization formed in 1967 calling for land to be returned to Mexico.

Hoodie

A mainstay of American casual wear, the hoodie is a hooded sweatshirt designed with

or without a central zipper and typically made of thick cotton jersey or polyester.
Sportswear manufacturer Champion invented the modern hoodie in the 1930s to keep
athletes warm before and after training. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, it became
popular among university students. Beginning in the mid-1970s and 1980s, the hoodie
was widely worn by New York’s hip-hop community, graffiti artists, and breakdancers.
Skateboarders in many urban centers rode with their hoods on to avoid being caught.
Such uses associated the hoodie with rebelliousness.

A Close Look at the Items: Celebrity and Pop Heroes

Sari

Both an important cultural symbol and an everyday garment, the sari refers to the
broad array of unstitched, draped textiles traditionally worn by Indian women. It is also
common in other parts of Asia like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. A
piece of rectangular cloth measuring roughly 13 to 26 feet long and four feet wide, it
has three areas: borders, inner and outer end-pieces, and a central field. Usually richly
decorated and heavier than the central field, the borders and end-pieces help to
balance the textile and guide its positioning around the body.
The sari’s ingenuity derives from its flexibility. It can be pleated, wound, tied, and
draped to form shorts, pants, skirts, or gowns adaptable to various functions and
occasions—all without a single stitch. Coming in a plethora of patterns, draping styles,
and fabrics—ranging from Gujarati tie-dyed bandhani cloth to the gold brocades of
Varanasi—saris reflect India’s diverse regional traditions. Since the garment conforms
to its wearer, no two saris are alike. For many wearers, its design and draping are
forms of expression.

iconic female-identifying persons throughout Indian history and in popular culture have
imbued certain types of saris with significance. Indira Gandhi, India’s first female prime
minister, was most famously identified with the khadi, made of handspun and hand-
woven cotton cloth advocated by civil rights leader Mahatma Gandhi as a symbol of
India’s economic self-sufficiency and political freedom. In Bollywood, actress Madhuri
Dixit embodies the splendor and sensuality of Varanasi brocades, while star Rekha is
known for choosing sumptuous, embroidered silk saris paired with gold jewelry. Her
penchant for silk saris has helped to popularize them among Bollywood actresses.
The sari is a draped garment of unstitched cloth worn by women in the Indian
Subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Maldives, Nepal). The draped
fabric varies from five to nine yards (4.5 metres to 8 metres) in length, and two to four

feet (60 cm to 1.20 m) in width. One end of the sari is first wrapped around the waist
and a bunch of pleats are tucked in the front right below the navel, exposing the midriff.
The tail end of the sari is draped over one shoulder. A sari is typically worn with a
petticoat and a blouse called a choli. There are more than 100 ways to drape the sari,
reflective of the cultural diversity of the Indian Subcontinent.
First and foremost, the sari is a reminder of a proud sartorial tradition that dates back
5,000 years. The fact that it is still worn by millions of women, as effortlessly as, say,
western women wear dresses, shows how resilient this traditional garment has been,
standing up to the virulent changes in clothing leading up to the 21st century. It is also a
singular display of identity. In India, especially, the sari—how it is worn—indicates
which region you come from and what regional traditions you adhere to. But most
importantly, the sari’s role in everyday life is the romance of wearing it. The act of
draping has inspired myths, poems, and songs throughout history eulogizing the
woman who wears it as if she is draping river over earth.
A Close Look at the Items: Conform
Tabi Boot

Jika-tabi boots emerged in Japan at the turn of the 20th century, worn by construction
and road workers, farmers, and painters. Featuring a bifurcation between the first and
second toes, their form was derived from traditional sock-like foot coverings called tabi,
which, in turn, were shaped to conform to the thong of zori and geta shoes. Their
uppers were constructed from lightweight cotton and their soles from pliable, sturdy
natural rubber.

During Japan’s Edo period, the tabi’s colors denoted various class affiliations for men.
For women, they signaled modesty at a time when footwear and sexuality were
intertwined. While respectable women wore tabi to conceal their feet, those who
worked in licensed brothels were prohibited from wearing them so that their feet would
be available for male delectation in their open-toed shoes.

Inspired by the jika-tabi, and upending the modesty associated with the tabi, fashion
designer Martin Margiela popularized this footwear within the western fashion paradigm
in 1988. He recalled that his “first show presented those tabi shoes in skin-colored
suede (to evoke the nude) on high, cylindrical heels in black leather.” The shoe was
also shown in ivory, grey, red, and black. While he has varied its color, materials, and
other details, he has re-presented the tabi boot season after season as his signature
shoe silhouette. In this way, he uses its form to question the design language of
Western shoe fashion and to push back against the organizational underpinnings of the
fashion industry, which demand that designers satisfy ever-changing seasonal trends.

Pencil Skirt

The pencil skirt entered mainstream fashion in the 1930s, but traces of its form were

evident earlier. Though its length and materials have varied throughout its evolution, it
has maintained a straight, narrow, formfitting silhouette. Among its forerunners was the
early-20th-century hobble skirt, so named because it hobbled the wearer’s walk by
narrowing at the hem, sometimes to a band below the knee. Reflecting initial
controversy over its shape, a Women’s Wear Daily feature from 1919 questioned “the
lead pencil skirt” for “mak[ing] a normal step impossible” and, when combined with high
heels, affecting “indirectly the chest, the pelvis and the whole nervous system.”

With material rationing during World War II, the spare, easily cut pencil skirt came to
signify practicality. It became integral to the wartime silhouette, which emphasized a
defined shoulder coupled with a narrow waist and hipline. In 1954, Christian Dior
introduced his H-line collection, whose linear silhouette gave the pencil skirt its most
definitive shape and helped it emerge as a staple of women’s wardrobes. Named for
the way its garments resembled the capital letter H, with vertical lines and a horizontal
hemline or embellishment at the hipline, the H-line collection featured curve-hugging
pencil skirts that emphasized the hip and narrowed at the knee. Considered the
pinnacle of smart refinement and feminine elegance, the pencil skirt was worn by many
different women, including those entering the workplace in ever-greater numbers. In the
1980s, the pencil skirt gained particular resonance for working women. Shortened to
above the knee, it was promoted as a “smart and stylish” separate by American
designer Calvin Klein and featured as part of the broad shouldered power suits of
French designer Thierry Mugler.

Spanx

Responding to a lack of suitable foundation garments that could “provide a smooth

look” under clothing, entrepreneur Sara Blakely founded Spanx in 2000. Her initial
offering resembled a pair of leggings. They flattened out bulges along the waist and
hips—and were met with massive success. This original invention (called the “Power
Capri”) represents one component in an expanded line of shapewear that includes
underwear, loungewear, active wear, and maternity garments. Before Spanx, it was
primarily men who made foundation garments, and tested them on mannequins. By
positioning Spanx as garments for women by a woman, the company aims to better
address women’s needs. However, the products still reinforce the pursuit of a socially-
prescribed beauty via body manipulation.
A Close Look at the Items: Augment
The Playtex Wonderbra redefined both feminine silhouettes and advertising strategies
for women’s underwear at its early-1990s debut. It promoted an unapologetically sexy,
magically pneumatic cleavage for all breast sizes, exacerbating tropes of femininity,
sexuality, and fashion. Designed by Louise Poirier, the Wonderbra became available in
the early 1960s. It was specifically designed to enhance cleavage, using more than
double the average number of components, like removable cup pads and precision
straps, to do so. By the early-mid 1990s, voluptuous cleavage became a mainstream
fashion statement, urged on by the growing acceptance of cosmetic surgery. Fashion

magazines and the media stoked this desire, and Wonderbra sales surged.

The Playtex Wonderbra redefined both feminine silhouettes and advertising strategies
for women’s underwear at its early-1990s debut. It promoted an unapologetically sexy,
magically pneumatic cleavage for all breast sizes, exacerbating tropes of femininity,
sexuality, and fashion. Designed by Louise Poirier, the Wonderbra became available in
the early 1960s. It was specifically designed to enhance cleavage, using more than
double the average number of components, like removable cup pads and precision
straps, to do so. By the early-mid 1990s, voluptuous cleavage became a mainstream
fashion statement, urged on by the growing acceptance of cosmetic surgery. Fashion
magazines and the media stoked this desire, and Wonderbra sales surged.

Fanny Pack

The fanny pack (American) or bum bag (British) is a pouch that fastens around the
waist, bumping out the silhouette to varying degrees. It is named for its occasional
positioning near the lower back and buttocks. Its size, materials, and fastening vary
extensively. For centuries, people have been enhancing the functionality of their
clothing by using various methods to tie their belongings to their waists. The chatelaine
was used beginning in the 16th century and consisted of chains suspended from a
hook on a woman’s belt or waistband, which held things such as keys, sewing
equipment, and Bibles. Early iterations of pockets, known as tie pockets, closely
resemble the fanny pack in form and function. Used primarily from the 17th to the 19th
centuries, these pockets tied around the waist over a woman’s upper petticoat,
underneath her dress. For men, the fanny pack traces to waist-suspended pouches
worn by soldiers, hunters, and sportsmen.

The fanny pack crossed into fashion in the 1980s. Having been used primarily as a
sports accessory during much of the 20th century, its newfound popularity stemmed
from the influence of the 1970s fitness craze on fashion and from relaxing standards of
formality. Music Television (MTV) released its own version of the fanny pack, which had
become popular among the emerging “MTV generation” of young people, who were
influenced by the active dance styles of their musician idols. Emblazoned with the MTV
logo, it capitalized upon viewers’ loyalty to promulgate the brand. This concept was
also applied to high-end iterations of the fanny pack, as houses ranging from Chanel to
Gucci incorporated their brand signatures into the accessory.

Down Jacket

Down—the light, fluffy feathers beneath the outer quills of geese and ducks—has been
used for insulation for centuries. The modern quilted down jacket emerged in North
America in 1936, when outdoor sports enthusiast and entrepreneur Eddie Bauer was
prompted to design a coat after a near-fatal bout of hypothermia. Lightweight and water
resistant, his jacket quickly became popular among outdoor sportsmen. For designer
Norma Kamali, the relationship between utility and style crystallized on a camping trip
in the 1970s, when she wrapped herself in her sleeping bag for a bathroom run. “As I
was running,” she recalled, “I was thinking, ‘I need to put sleeves on this thing,’” and
the sleeping bag coat was born. Photographed throughout the 1980s for editorials
featuring models in cocktail dresses and stilettos, the coat came across more like an
avant-garde accessory rather than a re-imagining of a practical piece of outdoor
equipment.
A Close Look at the Items: Free
Caftan

Caftans have loose, flowing profiles. Designed originally in ankle-length and long-
sleeved cotton or silk, they cover wearers as an outer layer. Part of Byzantine medieval
court dress, by the time of the Ottomans in the 13th and 14th centuries, the caftan was
considered an elite garment in the Mediterranean and parts of Asia. Caftans in 16th-
and 17th-century Central and Eastern Europe, were a foundation for what would
become a staple silhouette of conservative Jewish dress for men. Morocco, in
particular, has served as a transitional terrain for the garment’s dissemination and
development, and many men and women wore it until the early 20th century.

Caftans made their way west in the 19th century as an artistic (and imperialistic)
appropriation of the visual culture of Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa,
considered “exotic” in the eyes of the West. The garment became an overnight craze in
eveningwear in the late 1960s and early 1970s thanks to designers like Thea Porter,
Oscar de la Renta, and Halston. They married the prevailing bohemian chic with a
silhouette that could be worn by both women and men of all shapes and sizes.
Contemporary designers have used both the traditional form of the caftan and
transformed the garment with new fabrics, surface decoration, and modified
silhouettes.

Capri Pants

The Capri pant—named for the Italian island of Capri—catalyzed the increasing
acceptance of pants within women’s wardrobes. A close-fitting trouser extending just
above the ankle, it entered fashion in the 1950s. Its island-derived name associated its
silhouette with leisure and resort wear and with the Italian designers based on Capri
who promoted the pant, among them Emilio Pucci. Other designers, including Sonja de
Lennart, have also shaped the Capri pants' history. Since Capri was a symbol of
freedom, peace, and happiness for the politically oppressed designer, she named her
first collection of jackets, skirts, blouses, and body-hugging ankle pants after the island.

By the 1960s, the Capri pant had come to represent a liberated woman, one who chose
to wear pants outside of proscribed social protocol. Audrey Hepburn ignited its
association with the rebellious single girl as Jo Stockton in Funny Face (1957), while
Mary Tyler Moore subverted the image of the dutiful housewife by wearing it in her role
as a stay-at-home mom on the Dick Van Dyke Show (premiered 1961). Although
sponsors originally urged the television network to limit Moore’s wearing of Capris to
one scene per episode, she gradually incorporated them into more scenes, eventually
making them her signature. Credited as the first to wear pants on an American
television sitcom, Moore brought the image of a woman in pants to millions of families
across the country. The Capri pant has since continued to embody a combination of
rebelliousness, freedom, ease, and practicality.

Zoot Suit

In 1975, author John T. Molloy canonized the suit as the “central power garment in any
business combination.” But despite its reputation as a bastion of tradition and
conformity, the suit exists between the desire to personalize through tailoring and the
need for homogeneity within professional etiquette.

Ushered into existence in the 1930s in America on a wave of jazz music and
jitterbugging, the zoot suit stands as a prime counterpoint to the notion of the suit as
corporate uniform. Its name—“zoot”—is jazz-speak for “exaggerate.” Which is precisely
what it did to both the silhouette and the persona, with its broad-shouldered, wide-
armed jacket enhanced by a narrowly cut waist, and ballooning pegged trousers. Such
volume offered its wearers—primarily young, black, Latino, Filipino, and Jewish men—
differentiation within a majority white, Christian country, and, importantly, of movement.
In the years leading up to and during World War II, American swing clubs and dance
halls were filled with zoot suited jazz musicians and patrons who danced
unencumbered.
A Close Look at the Items: Crafting
Savile Row Suit

Perceived as a bastion of tradition and conformity, the suit in fact has no single
definition. Among its iconic iterations is the bespoke ensemble carefully pieced together
by the tailors of Savile Row. Synonymous with exquisite craftsmanship, Savile Row is a
street in London’s Mayfair district that has housed almost exclusively men’s tailoring
establishments, like Anderson & Sheppard (est. 1906), since the late 18th
century. Its suits have dressed and defined both real (Prince Charles) and fictional
(James Bond) famous men.

Giorgio Armani and Carlo Brandelli Suits

Among the designers to challenge Savile Row’s hegemony over the suit were Giorgio
Armani and Carlo Brandelli. Both men altered what they saw as the suit’s outmoded
structure, pushing it into the modern era.

Armani established his own label in 1974, and presented his first collection the
following year. Inspired by mid-20th century Italian cinema, he sent out finely tailored
suits in lighter weight, supple fabrics free of stiffened lining. As he described: “I wanted
to…make [the jacket] more closely attuned to its wearer. How? By removing the
structure. Making it into a sort of second skin.” The wearers Armani had in mind were
both men and women, and his softly draping suits imparted to them a sense of graceful
ease and seriousness—a look that redefined business attire and dominated fashion
throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

“In 1991, everything was wide and…everything was Armani,” reflected Brandelli. “And I
wanted narrow trousers, slim silhouettes that were modern.” To achieve this, in 1992 he
founded Squire Gallery, an art, design, and fashion shop, where he presented pared
down, narrowly cut suits in a monochromatic palette, ushering in a new way forward for
suit style. In 2003, he moved onto Savile Row when he joined Kilgour, a house
established in 1880. There he set to work revolutionizing its style from within, merging
the sleek cuts of his Squire suits with Savile Row’s honed-to-perfection tailoring. Taking
his work, perhaps, to its logical conclusion, from 2001-2008 Brandelli developed
“Unstructured,” a suit stripped of lining to enhance its comfort and made of sheer fabric,
which revealed its construction.

Shawl

The English word “shawl” comes from the Persian shāl, meaning finely woven wool
cloth. Kashmir (often spelled cashmere) shawls are the finest. They are made from the
soft belly and throat hair of Himalayan mountain goats, which herders collect on combs
run through the animals’ pelts. For centuries, the collected hair has been transported
across the Himalayas to Kashmir, India, where it is handspun and hand-woven into
shawls in intricate, multistep, labor-intensive processes of highly skilled craftsmanship.
A single shawl may take 18 months to complete, while the most elaborate creations
can take up to three years.

Such fineness of craft and material made Kashmir shawls coveted signs of status and
privilege for the royals and noblemen of the North Indian Mughal court. The shawls also
had long been exported to and treasured in Asia and North Africa, and they reached
markets across the Middle East and into Russia. British colonizers in India brought
them home as precious souvenirs; an English gentleman’s Kashmir shawl came to
symbolize his embodiment of the Empire’s global domination and wealth.
In France, Paris, Lyon, and Nîmes became production centers for the garment. By the
mid-19th century, the mechanical Jacquard loom was turning out shawls with complex,
large motifs, making inexpensive versions of the Kashmir originals abundantly
available. In the late 1990s and early 2000s in the United States, solid color cashmere
shawls were introduced and marketed under another Persian word, pashmina, which
means wool.

Panama Hat

The Panama hat (more accurately called toquilla straw hat or Montecristi hat) is in fact
from Ecuador. Straw hats have been made and worn in Ecuador since the pre-
Columbian period. By 1630, after Spanish colonization, native weavers of Manabí
province were selling their hats to a population now including Spaniards and people of
mixed Spanish-native Indian race. In 1840, many toquillas were sent to Panama, where
travelers en route to California purchased them. Because of this, the hats became
linked to and named for Panama.

Artisans in Manabí and the weaving town of Montecristi make Panama hats. They
begin with the center of the crown, tightly weaving the toquilla fibers into a lattice
pattern. A hat’s quality and value largely depends on the color and fineness of the fiber
and on the number of woven rows in the crown, with more than 15 considered
extraordinary and providing better sun protection. Usually, after the weaver completes
his or her work, a small team finishes the hat by shaping, tightening, trimming, and sun
drying and bleaching it. This meticulous process makes the Panama hat a prime
example of merging craftsmanship and design, and has prompted its inclusion on
UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.
A Close Look at the Items: Producing
Clogs

Wood has long been a pragmatic material for footwear that is durable, low-cost, readily
available, and can be custom fit to the wearer’s foot. Accordingly, nearly every culture
has developed a variant of the wooden-soled shoe. In Western fashion, that shoe is the

clog. Dutch klompen are the archetypal clogs, embraced for centuries by farmers,
laborers, and peasant workers as a sturdy safety shoe that shielded feet from the wet
climate. This humble shoe made a foray into fashion in the early 1970s. With their thick
wooden soles, clogs dovetailed with the vogue for chunky footwear and platform shoes
established during that decade. The Swedish traskor clog became the most popular.

In America, the rise of yoga and jogging during the 1970s brought greater awareness of
posture and gait and the dangers of injuries caused by improper shoes. Wooden clogs
proved both fashionable and ergonomic, since they softened the impact of walking on
hard surfaces and provided even support for the entire foot. Fashionable men and
women embraced the traditional Scandinavian clog as a stylish symbol of authenticity
and practicality. But the shoes had their detractors, both in fashion and in the medical
profession. In 1969, Time magazine commented that the style looked like "matching
gravy boats….Thumbscrews would seem more comfortable to wear. Still, such is the
rage for wooden shoes these days that no one cares." Like the platform shoe, the clog
eventually fell out of fashion. Today, it remains alternately loved and loathed by fashion
designers.

Aran Sweater

Aran sweaters were born from the centuries-old tradition of hand-knitting ganseys
(jerseys) among the fishing population of the Aran Islands off of Ireland’s west coast.
Historically, they were knitted using minimally treated sheep’s wool, whose naturally
occurring lanolin oil made them water resistant and provided insulation against wet
weather and fishing activities. Different stitches are named for sources from the bible
and nature, including Jacob’s Ladder and moss stitch. The genesis of the Aran sweater
has been linked to the Book of Kells, a medieval illuminated manuscript, because of
connections between the manuscript’s patterned geometries and the complex knit-
work.

The iconic off-white variation of Aran sweaters is a product of the early 20th century.
Knitted with coarser wool, they were left in their natural color. This lighter color is
impractical for fishermen, whose work makes their clothing susceptible to stains from
seaweed, oil, fish entrails, and more. These sweaters were a phenomenon of the Irish
mainland—and of popular fashion, television, and film—through the efforts of Muriel
Gahan, who opened The Country Shop in Dublin in 1930 and was the first broker
between Aran women knitters and the mainland. Gahan supported development and
monetization of the craft, encouraging islanders to create unique patterns—a boon for a
community with limited resources to export.

Biker Jacket

The biker jacket conjures strong associations: edge, aloofness, danger, coolness.
Though its mystique owes much to a history of provocative wearers—including the
Hells Angels, Marlon Brando, and Debbie Harry—its appeal is equally indebted to a
design that balances streamlined sophistication with chaotic asymmetry.

Brothers Irving and Jack Schott, who made jackets for the U.S. military during World
War I, introduced the biker jacket in 1928. Dubbed the “Perfecto,” their jacket included
a zippered front closure, a pioneering addition that solved the problem of protecting
motorcyclists from extreme wind. By the early 1930s, America’s growing motor sport
enthusiasts had generated demand for the garment, and companies like Harley
Davidson joined Schott Brothers in producing it. With Schott’s addition of a belted hem
and cuff zipper closures to prevent wind entry, a vented back yoke to moderate wind
impact, and an asymmetrically placed zipper closure to maximize coverage of the neck,
the 1940 Perfecto was a functional marvel. Shoulder epaulettes, easy-to-access
asymmetrically placed zippered pockets, and chrome snaps to hold the collar in place
e a ced ts u ct o a d so d ed ts sua pact

By the 1970s, the biker jacket had infiltrated rock ‘n’ roll and become such an icon of
self-styled outsiders that its rebellious status bordered on artifice. At the end of the 20th
century, its subversive connotations were firmly entrenched in everyday fashion. It
became a classic among fashionistas seeking to give their ensembles irrefutable edge.
A casing, a shell, perhaps even a façade, it continues to intrigue nearly a century after
its birth as a utilitarian garment.

A-POC

Issey Miyake has probed the relationship between the body and cloth, exploring the
space between the two as the focus of his designs. He began developing the A-POC (A
Piece of Cloth) project in collaboration with textile engineer Dai Fujiwara in 1997,
utilizing computer technology to produce clothing in the most efficient, economical,
widely accessible, and environmentally friendly way possible. “I have endeavored to
experiment to make fundamental changes to the system of making clothes.” Miyake
explained. “Think: a thread goes into a machine that, in turn, generates completed
clothing using the latest computer technology, eliminating the usual needs for cutting
and sewing the fabric.”

A-POC Queen was a single bolt of fabric constructed from raschel-knit (which makes it
resistant to runs) tubes that were generated from computer-programmed industrial

knitting machines. With patterns programmed into the textile using an intricate system
of links and holes, it featured a series of perforated garment pieces that wearers could
cut out in a range of variations, with no sewing required. The A-POC Queen
encompassed a complete assortment of garments, down to socks and a bag. This
maximized the output of a single piece of cloth and provided a total system of dress for
wearers, while empowering them to be the final arbiters of the design of their garments.

The A-POC Queen draws on the history of garment patternmaking. Miyake identifies
the Industrial Revolution as a turning point in this history. But while technology has
democratized fashion production, it has also made clothing easier and cheaper to
produce, thereby feeding environmentally unsustainable overconsumption and waste.
The A-POC Queen provokes us to evaluate the relationship between cloth and the
body within the larger context of technology, the global economy, and
environmentalism.

Elizabeth Arden Winged Victory Red Lipstick

Painting the lips dates to antiquity, crosses cultures, and was done by both men and
women until the 19th century. But it was not until the early 20th century that lipstick—
especially red lipstick—often became a sign of women s boldness and empowerment.

At the turn of the 20th century, crimson lips were identified both with prostitutes as well
as with women’s emancipation, since American suffragettes like Elizabeth Cady
Stanton wore it to their rallies. The booming cosmetics industry at this time contributed
to the increasing acceptability of lip coloring. In 1915, Scovill Manufacturing introduced
lipsticks packaged in portable metal cases. The craze for red lips soon blossomed, and
lipstick became an indispensible accessory for many women.

During World War II, wearing red lipstick was seen as a gesture that defied the banality
and despair of daily life. Toward the war’s end, American cosmetics company Elizabeth
Arden released Winged Victory, a crimson lipstick in a case stamped with an “A”
sporting a pair of bird’s wings—emblematic of the victory soon to come. As Harper’s
Bazaar stated in 1946: “Proud fingers wield their weapon. The act reinforces the spirit.
The streak of red steadies trembling lips. For one poignant moment, the little stick takes
on the significance of a sword.”

MarsBoot

When Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon, he, as well as his spacesuit, became
a symbol of human achievement. Today, the frontiers of science take us deeper into the
planetary system to Mars. And where the future goes, so goes design. Liz Ciokajlo’s
speculative prototype for a women’s MarsBoot responds to the challenges and
opportunities presented by the prospect of travel to and habitation on Mars. The
underlying concept for the boot combines both H. G. Wells’s dystopian view of scarcity
on Mars and the utopian view of Mars as a site of female liberation envisioned in the
nineteenth-century novel Unveiling a Parallel by Alice Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella
Merchant. Its form references the Moon Boot, a popular 1970s snow boot inspired, in
turn, by the boots American astronauts wore during their history-making walk on the
moon.

A Close Look at the Items: Shape

Little Black Dress

The little black dress—a notion that has been interpreted in myriad ways—is central to
fashion. As historian Valerie Steele explained: “The little black dress is not a style per
se, but it’s a conceptual fashion that’s entirely versatile. There are many ways to design
it.” In 1926, Vogue declared Coco Chanel’s black, long-sleeved, silk crepe sheath the
little black dress of record, claiming that it was “the frock that all the world will wear.” By
1944, the magazine wrote of little black dresses: “Ten out of ten women have one, but
ten out of ten want another because the little black dress....is a complete chameleon
about moods and times and places. [It] has the highest potential chic….the longest
open season.”

Black dresses had long been worn for mourning, and because the color was expensive
to produce with natural dyes, black also connoted refinement, wealth, and social status.
Accordingly, the 15th-century Spanish aristocracy and the Dutch commercial class
wore it. By the 19th century, with the advent of less costly synthetic dyes, it became
more widely available across classes. Women laborers of the lower classes adopted
black dresses, likely to hide dirt stains sustained during work. Black remained stylish
among the upper classes, worn as a statement color by fashionable women.

Shift Dress

If the little black dress offers unvarying color but limitless opportunities for silhouette
experimentation, the shift dress, with its consistently straight and loosely fitted shape,
instead offers unending opportunities for experimentation with materials and colors.
This unassuming, easy-to-wear garment arrived in the early 20th century. It was loose
and ankle- or knee-length until World War II, when it was shrunken in volume to
accommodate wartime rations on material. In 1943, Vogue promoted a version that

was flush to the body and featured minimal construction detail to accord to these
regulations. Its 1960s shape—straight, spare, featuring some form of bust shaping,
typically sleeveless, and above the knee—remains current.
In the 1960s, a variety of prints emerged for the shift dress. By 1966, disposable paper
dresses became widely available, eliminating the need for laundering and tailoring and
allowing affordable access to many designs. Later that decade, designer Harry Gordon
released a series of poster shift dresses inspired by pop culture and politics, including a
1967 version with an image of Bob Dylan.

Constantino Nivola's Mannequins

In 1944, architect and designer Bernard Rudofsky presented a meditation on modern

clothing in an exhibition at MoMA titled, Are Clothes Modern? It explored everything
from head ornamentation to shoe styles to provoke people into thinking critically about
the way they dress. Among his considerations was a woman’s natural shape versus the
ever-changing silhouettes that fashion imposed upon her form. In his words: “Our
civilization keeps alive the fascination for monsters and, at the same time expresses
disdain for the normally built human body. The female figure is redesigned from time to
time, like furniture or automobile bodies.”

To illustrate how drastically women’s garments deviated from their actual anatomy,
Rudofsky designed four plaster mannequins that showed how a woman’s body would
appear had it filled out the clothes of four fashion periods. Modeled by sculptor
Costantino Nivola, these stark, strange figures highlight the exaggerated modern
silhouettes, beginning with the bustle of 1875, which extended the wearer’s backside
out so distinctly that it seems to transform her into a four-legged centaur. Moving
forward to 1904, women’s breasts were merged to become, in Rudofsky’s description,
a “shelf-like overhanging mono-bosom.” The situation worsens in 1913, era of corsets
and hobble skirts, which made women into one-legged, top-heavy hourglasses. By the
1920s, curves were stripped away in favor of what Rudofsky calls “the concave flapper
form.” He asserted: “We can not make a prognosis of future body ideals; it may be safe
to say, however, that our mania for aping the creator will stay on for a long while.”

Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body—and Become One

In the spring/summer 1997 “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body—and Become One”
collection for her label Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo foregrounds the
relationship between body and dress. Derisively called “Lumps and Bumps” by critics,
this collection features dresses in cheerful colors and gingham patterns morphed into
shocking silhouettes with swells of padding strategically placed beneath the fabric. The
padding may sweep asymmetrically across the torso, balloon out of the bottom, or

bulge from the back. In some looks, the dresses seem about to burst open from the
pressure of the protrusions, while in others, padding reminiscent of organs may be
seen through diaphanous fabrics.

While some read Kawakubo’s masses as deviant deformities, others celebrated such
transgression, seeing in them a feminist subversion of (often male-imposed)
conceptions of ideal beauty and femininity, or a conceptual remapping of disabled or
pregnant bodies. Kawakubo admits to none of these interpretations and is famously
reluctant to offer her own. As the Comme des Garçons’ press release announcing the
collection stated: It is “not what has been seen before, not what has been repeated,
instead, new discoveries that look towards the future, that are deliberate and lively.”
A Close Look at the Items: Growing
Biocouture

As its name suggests, biocouture is an approach to fashion that brings together the skill
of couturiers and tailors with cutting-edge biotechnology. The designers, scientists, and
engineers involved in this work aim for a future of environmentally-friendly biological
materials that reduce or replace our reliance on animals, chemicals, and land for our
clothing. Trained in fashion design, Lee began experimenting in 2003 with the microbes
in kombucha—popularly known as a healthy fermented drink—to grow her own clothes.
She brews vats of the mixture, which she describes as “green tea, sugar, a few
microbes, and a little time,” and then harvests the thick mat of cellulose that forms on
its surface from fermentation. Though it has not been perfected for general use, once
dried, this material could potentially be utilized like a textile or animal skin to make
compostable wardrobes. Lee acknowledges that kombucha-derived cellulose may not
fully replace materials like cotton and leather. But the team at biotech startup Modern
Meadow, where she serves as chief creative officer, seeks to replace animal-derived
leather with a lab-grown equivalent. They grow collagen, a protein in animal skin, which
they use to create biofabricated leather. Their process allows for complete control over
the product, which can be tanned and finished more ecologically than animal leather,
and which brings us closer to what they describe as “a future where animal products
are animal-free.”

Pearls

Pearls have long been treasured as natural wonders. For thousands of years, pearl
fishing was centered in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, Southern India, and Sri Lanka.
The pearl trade linked Asia to Europe. Natural pearls are formed when a mollusk’s
mantle tissue encrusts parasites with a substance called nacre (mother-of-pearl). In the
8th century, the Chinese pioneered artificial pearl cultivation, implanting irritants into
mollusks to trigger this coating process. Today, natural pearls are extremely rare.

Japanese company Kokichi Mikimoto (named for its founder) industrialized and
perfected the Chinese implantation method and began producing spherical pearls in
the early 20th century. Mikimoto revolutionized pearl production by selecting and
breeding high quality oysters and establishing streamlined, tightly controlled
implantation and farming systems reliant on a combination of hand- and machine-labor
and, more recently, computer technology. This has ensured the regular availability of
pearls, and their consistency of colors, shape, luster, and quality.

The pearl’s formation and beauty has inspired many meanings throughout time. In
medieval Europe, pearls represented the power and authority of churches and
sovereigns. Pearl necklaces also denote maternity and death, symbolism that persists
today. The Jazz Age infused pearl necklaces with new dynamism and seduction, as
embodied by the era’s flappers. Coco Chanel popularized fake pearl necklaces in
defiance of conventional definitions of wealth and class, wearing long, layered strings
draped alternately down her front or back. Here the pearl necklace came to mark a
different kind of female empowerment: one of freedom, caprice, and independence.

Kinematics Dress

Designers and co-founders of Nervous System studio Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse
Louis-Rosenberg merge nature and technology in their line of Kinematics garments,
including the Kinematics Dress. This 3-D printed nylon dress is composed of thousands
of individual triangular panels connected by hinges.

Each dress is unique. Using an app created by the designers, wearers indicate their
body shape and specify their desired length, patterning, silhouette, and other
customizable design details. These requirements are transmitted, adjustments are
made, and the dress is printed in its entirety and ready for wear. “Instead of creating…
millions of items that are all the same, we’re creating something that maybe only just
appeals to one person, but they can get that exact one thing that they want,” explains
Louis-Rosenberg.
A Close Look at Design Collective threeASFOUR
Around 2009, avant-garde design collective threeASFOUR—Gabi Asfour, Angela
Donhauser, and Adi Gil—began experimenting with the nascent technology of 3D-
printing, first in collaboration with Bradley Rothenberg, and then Travis Fitch. The team
used 3D-printing to rework the building blocks of fabric, seeking to make textiles and
silhouettes modeled on natural geometries, such as those found in cell structures and
animal scales.

To date, threeASFOUR has presented three 3D-printed designs in their runway shows.
The dresses are composed of hundreds of interlocking printed plastic parts that are
then assembled using traditional hand sewn techniques. The production of these
sculptural garments epitomizes the couture approach to fashion in that they are
extremely time- and resource-intensive, but with continued experimentation, the team
envisions a future in which such textiles and forms may be more readily produced and
worn.
A Close Look at the Items: Jeans and White T-Shirt
Jeans

Jeans are among the most widely worn garments in the world. Though denim pants
existed before Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis presented their first pair of Levi’s 501
jeans in 1873, the garment we know today is indebted to their innovations, including,
significantly, their addition of copper rivets to the pocket corners and other key areas
prone to tearing. Since their original target customers were California’s gold miners and
laborers, Strauss and Davis made hardwearing and long lasting jeans. But beginning in
the late 20th century, the role of denim as a durable workwear material, and attendant
expectations that jeans were meant to last, have been challenged by dramatic changes
in the ways that jeans are produced and consumed.

A single pair of jeans can take thousands of gallons of water to produce. This has
wrought staggering damage to the environment and to many of the people involved in
the production of this iconic garment.

“Fast fashion” is a practice that has accelerated the proliferation of jeans. Developing in
the 1990s, the term refers to the rapid pace at which collections are designed,
manufactured, and stocked on the shelves of multinational clothing retailers like H&M
and Zara—a process that can take as little as two weeks. The frequency and quantity
of new trends encourage ongoing consumption. This is further fostered by low prices
enabled by supply chain practices that include employing low-wage workers subject to
lax or nonexistent labor standards, and using cheap materials and unsafe chemicals
and production processes.

Fast fashion jeans contrast markedly with those produced using the sustainable
materials of organically grown cotton fiber and indigo dye. Natural and free of toxic
chemicals, these materials result in garments that can biodegrade; whereas the cotton-
synthetic fiber blends and polluting washes and dyes used to produce fast fashion
jeans cannot. Growing recognition of the environmental impact of production and
consumption of jeans has led some companies to research and develop more
sustainable practices. In 1991, Levi’s pledged renewed commitment to ethical
production and labor practices by, for example, sourcing organically grown cotton and
setting standards for workers’ rights.

White T-Shirt
The white t-shirt crosses cultures, classes, and styles as a classic, unisex wardrobe
item. It ranges from fast fashion staple to highly priced commodity. Its proliferation was
fostered, in part, by manufacturing inventions of the Industrial Revolution that
mechanized and sped up the weaving process. Additionally, since early colonial
expansion, Western governments secured a ready supply of cotton and a market for its
clothing products through methods like subsidizing their own cotton growers and
heavily taxing cotton imports from their colonies. The industry is also indelibly
connected to the history of slavery, sharecropping, and racial violence in America,
since it was enslaved Africans who formed the cotton-picking workforce.

Today, the white t-shirt may be held up as a lens through which to examine some of the
most pressing issues that the field of fashion and society at large confront, including fair
labor practices and the environmental toll of processing raw materials, like cotton, into
garments. Despite the significant economic, human, and environmental footprint of its
production and distribution, the white t-shirt is often cheap to purchase and considered
disposable. The ethical issues such mass-produced and -purchased garments raise
were crystallized in 2013, when more than 1,100 garment workers died in the collapse
of the Rana Plaza factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This disaster highlighted the
devastating consequences of fast fashion on its undervalued workforce, largely
invisible to the consumers at the other end of the chain. In response, some companies,
including Everlane and Patagonia, have used basic “wardro.

A Close Look at the Items: Anew

Plaid Flannel Shirt

The use of plaid cloth in American workwear began with the Buffalo Check Shirt,
introduced in 1850 by Woolrich Mills. Made of soft, durable wool flannel, the shirts
proved extremely successful among workers and outdoorsmen, who needed garments
that could protect them from the elements without hindering their movements.
Americans adopted these shirts for leisure and casual wear, but by the 1980s, they had
fallen out of fashion.

Their music, known as grunge, was a genre of rock ‘n’ roll and a subculture that
developed in the region. Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, who donned plaid flannel
shirts, would become the face of grunge, and among others, inadvertently brought the
shirts back into style. Companies once again stepped up production, and the shirts
soon began appearing on the shelves of stores, from discount to high-end.

Patagonia

Outdoor sportswear company Patagonia has been committed to environmentalism

since its inception. Patagonia s ethos stems from Chouinard s and his co founders
experience as long-time rock climbers and surfers. The company’s Synchilla® fleece—
a warm, water-resistant, comfortable pullover introduced in 1985—encapsulates both
the opportunities and complexities of attempts to make earth-centered garments.

Aaron Feuerstein, CEO of Malden Mills, developed fleece in 1979. A form of polyester,
it is made of fine plastic strands. These are crimped and chopped to take on the
elasticity of wool, spun into thread, and woven into cloth. Recognizing an opportunity to
reduce waste, Patagonia partnered with Malden Mills to develop its fleece for
outerwear. They made it out of recycled polyester and branded it Synchilla. Patagonia
positioned its Synchilla fleece as an alternative to wool and offered it in a range of
bright colors. It took off in the marketplace, and remains popular.

Patagonia’s emphasis on their product’s longevity reflects a commitment to

environmental sustainability. The company provides mending kits and repair services
for its fleeces, and is working towards creating opportunities for customers to return
their fleeces or other polyester-based jackets to its stores to be made anew into fiber or
other plastics.

Premaman

While clothing worn by expectant mothers has changed significantly over the past 100-
plus years, the need for garments that may be adjusted anew to accommodate their
changing bodies remains constant. Until the turn of the 20th century, pregnant women
often repurposed dresses they already owned, or wore maternity garments
predominantly in the privacy of the home, as pregnancy was still considered something
to be hidden from public view. Fashion editorials addressing pregnant readers emerged
slowly in mainstream publications from 1900 onward, highlighting darted, pleated, and
laced dresses that could adapt to a changing shape, as well as roomier couture styles.

Dressmaker Lena Bryant led the shift toward supplying women with garments intended
for all sizes, including maternity. She launched her business, Lane Bryant, in 1904; a
client’s request for a maternity dress catalyzed what would become a cornerstone of
her business. Other designers and retailers followed. By the 1930s, major department
stores were stocking maternity fashions. Maternity line Page Boy offered one of the
most widely adopted midcentury pregnancy skirts, which featured an oval cutout with

an adjustable tie to accommodate growing bellies, with a matching smock-like top. By

the mid-20th century, high-fashion designers were producing their own maternity
garments.

With the rise of second wave feminism in the early 1960s and policies designed to
protect pregnant women’s rights, many more women required professional clothing not
only throughout but also after pregnancy. Designs to augment or repurpose existing
clothing for pregnancy proliferated from the 1970s, among them a coat extender to
keep the stomach warm. As in other segments of the garment industry, the rise of fast
fashion has impacted maternity wear by making it possible to buy cheap, disposable
clothing in larger sizes that can be discarded when no longer needed. By contrast,
some contemporary designers have introduced adjustable clothing that can span an
entire pregnancy into postpartum.
A Close Look at the Items: Forever
Birkin Bag

In 1981, during a chance airplane encounter between British actress Jane Birkin and
Jean-Louis Dumas, chief executive of Hermès, the contents of Birkin’s small purse
spilled to the floor and Dumas offered to design her a better one. Released in 1984, the
bag was not an immediate success, but with the explosion of the fad for limited-edition
luxury handbags in the 1990s, the Birkin became the paragon of the It Bag—from “die-
for-it bag,” a term first that appeared in Vogue in 1999.

Meticulously crafted and made using fine materials, the Birkin bag commands a high
price point. Its monetary and symbolic worth is established in part by the effort it
demands, and in part by its rarity––with a little help from marketing campaigns
encouraging conspicuous consumption. Its accessibility is carefully controlled through
waitlists and limited production, both canny strategies that increase desirability. The
bag is framed in some measure by the notion of luxury as timeless; it is to be taken
care of not only because it is expensive but because of the expectation that it will last a
lifetime.

Extravagantly expensive even on the secondary market, the Birkin and other luxury
bags have generated a market for cheaply made knock-offs, prompting Italy and other
countries to create legislation that protects the original brands.
Little Black Death Dress

Interlandi conceived the Little Black Death Dress to decompose along with its wearer,
since all of its component materials are biodegradable. By using fabric responsive to
body heat, she offers the bereaved an opportunity to leave their mark upon the

shrouded body. Wherever they touch the dress, their warm hands turn it from black to
white, creating an imprint.
A Close Look at the Items: Head and Neck
Turtleneck

The turtleneck’s defining feature is a rolled collar covering the neck. A precursor is the
late-medieval arming doublet worn under armor to mitigate chafing. The modern
turtleneck is similarly flexible, emerging from the late-19th century as an all-weather
sports uniform and as part of naval, military, and school attire.

The turtleneck entered mainstream fashion in the 1960s, when designers paired it with
suits, eschewing the shirt and tie. For women, Yves Saint Laurent controversially paired
a leather jacket with a turtleneck in his last collection for Dior in 1960. These designers
were quoting the anti-uniform stereotype of 1950s Beatniks.

Hijab and Capster

For many Muslim women the hijab remains a mainstay of contemporary dress that both
enables and signals modesty. Covering the head (and often neck), hijabs vary widely
and are shaped by factors including fashion trends and doctrinal distinctions.

Led by sports fashion, retailers and designers have capitalized on a fast-growing

market for modest fashion. Cindy van den Bremen founded her company Capsters in
2001 to empower hijabi women in sport. Multinational companies such as Nike have
followed suit. A number of fashion houses, including UNIQLO and Dolce & Gabbana,
now design collections aimed at women seeking modest fashion. Since 2012, blogging,
social media content, and YouTube tutorials from modest fashionistas on topics like
hijab styling have subverted binaries of tradition and modernity, East and West, and
conservative and liberal, placing an emphasis on personal style.

Kippah

The kippah (Hebrew, plural kippot) or yarmulke (Yiddish) is worn on the head to signal
Jewish faith and identity, and, more recently, secular selfhood and style. Traditionally
worn by men, kippot declare piety and humility under God’s omnipotent eye. Though
ancient texts describe only Jewish religious leaders as wearing head coverings, laymen
have been wearing kippot since the 19th century. The vast variations among kippot
reflect regional differences, influences from surrounding cultures, sects within Judaism,
and degrees of observance. Among these are the large, black, velvet kippot worn by

Hassidic men and the knitted or crocheted kippot of Zionists. Parallel with second and
third wave feminism, and since the emergence of women as rabbis in the 1970s, some
female rabbis and laywomen have also donned kippot—a move that has generated
controversy. In doing so, they participate in an act of modesty historically reserved for
men while simultaneously expressing equality within and personal connection to their
faith.

A Close Look at the Items: Swimwear

Bikini

Since its 1946 debut in France, the bikini has challenged societal constructs of beauty,
modesty, and etiquette. A two-piece bathing suit offering minimal coverage, it is
attributed to two creators: couturier Jacque Heim and engineer-turned-designer Louis
Réard. Both named their creations—Heim chose “atome,” Réard “bikini”—after the
nuclear-weapons tests then being conducted by the United States on Bikini Atoll,
referencing the similarly explosive impact their swimwear would have on society and
the garment’s tiny size. But the bikini’s move into the mainstream did not mean it was
depoliticized. When the Brazilian military initiated an oppressive political regime in
1964, it became a garment of protest, symbolizing cultural fantasy in opposition to rigid
political hegemony. While the bikini has been the subject of controversy in patriarchal
cultures, where women’s behavior is subject to restrictive standards of modesty,
propriety, and beauty, it has nonetheless become an international fashion mainstay, a
provocative yet ubiquitous beachwear staple.

Speedo
For more than a century, designers have strived for optimal hydrodynamics in
swimsuits that are tight, light, and unencumbering—all while meeting shifting social
standards for modesty. In 1928, Speedo innovated a men’s one-piece with a V-shaped
back strap, increasing upper body motion and reducing drag. Four years later,
Australian Olympian Clara Dennis was almost denied a medal for wearing a women’s
version, deemed immodest for showing too much skin. Men first wore topless
swimsuits in the 1936 games, while the women’s Speedo featured a “modesty panel,”
or small skirt, into the 1970s. With his introduction of the “skinsuit” in 1969—boasting a
radically sleek design engineered for minimum water resistance—West German
designer Konrad Döttinger set a new standard for swimsuit function. By the 1976
Olympics, Speedo was meeting this standard; women’s suits, now skirtless,
incorporated a high neckline and racerback straps. In 2008, Speedo introduced
polyurethane suits that corseted the body into streamlined form. Performance effects
were so strong that new rules were soon developed to place limits on this design.
Within this standard, designers continue to seek newer approaches to skin coverings
more hydrodynamic than no covering at all.

Burkini

The burkini is an amalgamation of two different garments: the burqa, a garment

covering the face and body worn by some Muslim women, and the two-piece bikini
bathing suit. Australian Aheda Zanetti designed the burkini (trademarked as Burqini) in
the early 2000s, wanting to help her relatives participate more easily in school sports
and beach culture while adhering to Islamic tenets interpreted by some to require
women to cover their head and neck. It is comprised of loose leggings and a roomy
tunic top with an attached, close-fitting head covering. Colored stripes or transfers
decorate its bust to further camouflage the body’s shape. In 2016, Zanetti described
her initial outing in her creation: “It was my first time swimming in public and it was
absolutely beautiful….I felt freedom, I felt empowerment, I felt like I owned the pool.”

The burkini has proved popular not only with Muslim women but also those from many
other cultural and religious backgrounds who feel disenchanted by other forms of
swimwear, are concerned with modesty from other perspectives, or as a precaution
against skin cancer. But the burkini has been a lightning rod for larger tensions
between Islamic and Western cultures.

A Close Look at the Items: Legs

Miniskirt
 ed to o e s age cy, yout cu tu e, a d ode des g , t e s t as e c ted
fascination since it emerged in the 1960s. Associated with the rejection of traditional
social codes and the rules of fashion that reinforced them, the miniskirt allowed women
to show their legs. It soon came to symbolize sexual freedom, emerging at the same
time as the birth control pill. Its simple construction and sparing use of material made it
broadly affordable and easy to wear and move in.

British designer Mary Quant and Parisian couturier André Courrèges have both been
credited with the miniskirt’s invention. A member of London’s burgeoning youth culture,
Quant felt that clothing for her age group did not exist and introduced designs reflecting
the youthful energy of “swinging London.” The above-the-knee skirts she debuted in
1958 soon became her signature. Often paired with brightly colored tights, the skirts
increasingly inched their way up the thigh. Around the same time, Courrèges was also
experimenting with youth-oriented styles, giving his miniskirts a stark, futuristic

aesthetic. But as Quant claimed, “Fashion, as I see it, is inevitable. It wasn’t me or

Courrèges who invented the Miniskirt…it was the girls in the street who did it.”

Harem Pants

Liberty, simplicity, androgyny—in many ways the jupe-culotte (also known as harem
pants or Turkish trousers) redefined the female silhouette and anticipated modern
fashion. French fashion designer Paul Poiret introduced the jupe-culotte as the central
piece in his 1911 collection inspired by Middle Eastern styles. These high-waisted,
ballooning trousers were made of lightweight fabrics that tied around the ankles. They
had long been a motif in European representations of the Middle East, reflecting a
stereotyped, “Orientalist” vision that imposed Western fantasies of decadence and
eroticism onto Eastern people and cultures.

Before the 20th century, trousers were not part of Western women’s wardrobes. The
billowing shape of the jupe-culotte was a step toward freeing women from the corseting
forms of contemporary fashion, which were thought to keep the body modestly
contained and more pleasingly shaped than its natural state. Poiret’s trousers caused
controversy. Criticism centered on two related threads: the xenophobic claim that they
were too “exotic” and therefore foreign to French couture taste, and the fear that they
threatened gender roles by allowing women greater mobility and, by extension,
freedom.

Tights

Before the invention of tights—a single garment covering the legs from waist to toes—
in the 1950s, both women and men wore knitted socks that extended above the knee,
called stockings. Originally, stockings were integral to menswear, since women’s
dresses modestly concealed the legs, while men’s clothing revealed them in what was
considered a display of masculinity. The shift away from the exposure of legs in men’s
fashion during the 19th century helped contribute to the association of stockings with
women.
With the shortening of hemlines that began when the miniskirt was first introduced in
1958, tights quickly became a must-have item. Glen Raven seized the opportunity to
position its product alongside these shorter skirt lengths. The company advertised its
tights as a liberating garment for women in campaigns that set the stage for the
marketing of hosiery for decades. At this time, however, the sizing and shades of their
garments were limited to women within a relatively narrow range of body shapes and
skin colors.

A Close Look at the Items: Appropriate

Doorknocker Hoops

Hoop earrings trace to c. 2500 BCE Sumer, the earliest urban civilization in southern
Mesopotamia, now part of modern-day Iraq. They have since appeared in various
forms across cultures throughout history, symbolizing power, prosperity, infinity, and
dynamism. Doorknocker hoops are typically made of gold or silver and are so-named
because their shape recalls the metal knockers on doors. In the 1960s, these earrings
became integral to the Afro-centric dressing of the Black Power movement. Among
their most recognizable iterations is the gold bamboo hoop, popularized during the late
1980s by female hip hop artists. Since the beginning of this century, doorknockers have
been more broadly embraced as a fashion accessory. Such mainstream appropriation
is viewed as problematic by many black and Latinx women.

Polo Shirt

The polo shirt’s significance largely stems from the meanings its diverse wearers have
imbued it with. Its design was solidified in the 1920s as a knitted, short-sleeved pullover
with a turndown collar and central slit, often fastened with buttons.

Originally named for its uptake by polo players, its 20th-century popularization began
with French tennis champion René Lacoste, who designed a version for competition
featuring a crocodile logo referencing his nickname, “The Crocodile.” His shirt became
a staple for European sportsmen. Lacoste’s polo shirt arrived in America in 1952,
licensed under the name Izod and advertised as an elite status symbol. Initially slow,
sales increased when the shirts were given to people like President John F. Kennedy
and crooner Bing Crosby, who mostly wore them for leisure and soon transformed them
into a coveted, aspirational fashion item. In the early 1980s, the shirt became
synonymous with preppies, men and women often affiliated with the elite schools of the
Northeast. The shirt was soon adopted by the mods and skinheads, two working-class
British subcultures.

Designer Ralph Lauren’s polo shirt was introduced in 1972, featuring a logo of a polo
player on horseback. Unlike the Lacoste and Fred Perry iterations, which were
intended as elite performance wear garments but were later ascribed fashionable
meanings, Ralph Lauren’s polo was sold as an aspirational symbol of an American
leisure lifestyle from the outset.

Lo-Life Crew
While Ralph Lauren marketed its clothing to the white middle-class, some of the best
collections were owned by people living in marginalized urban communities. Among
those who embraced the Ralph Lauren polo shirt were the Lo-Life Crew, formed in
Brooklyn, New York, in 1988. They were the most prominent of the Polo Ralph Lauren-
loving crews, amassing collections of merchandise that also included the brand’s other
articles of clothing.

Acquired through a combination of stealing and black market entrepreneurship, the

polo shirt allowed Crew members to project affluence against limited opportunity. The
brand’s color blocking, oversized logos and lettering appealed to them. “It made us feel
exclusive,” recalled Lo-Life co-founder Thirstin Howl the 3rd. “The colors stood out and
people were able to identify us. Polo became a uniform.”

Asked if he considered Polo a part of black fashion, Lo-Life co-founder Rack-Lo

claimed: “Lo Lifes made Ralph Lauren urban….It took some unique brothers who had
visions and a liking for different styles to introduce Polo to the people….It wasn't made
for us, so when we got introduced to it…it energized us to want it and to be a part of
that life through a fashion sense.” Layering themselves in matching Polo from head to
toe, and choosing sizes that were intentionally larger so that their outfits were baggy
and loose, the Lo Lifes “created a style within a style,” as Rack-Lo described. By the
1990s, Ralph Lauren’s polo shirt had become integral to hip hop streetwear.

Monogram

Monograms are identity markers formed from the initials of a name. Early European
monograms took the form of royal seals and artisanal marks, often derived from
heraldry and family crests. During the Industrial Revolution, the professionalization of
advertising gave rise to brand identification. The monogram was deployed as company
sign and a decoration that exponentially enhanced an item’s marketability and price
point. Monograms were adopted by the fashion industry beginning in the 19th century
in Paris when licensing, franchising, and copying became standard practices.

The 1960s and 1970s saw an explosion of monograms in runway collections. Self-
taught designer Dapper Dan, a formative figure in making hip hop style mainstream,
recognized an opportunity to capitalize upon the wealth, craftsmanship, and social
status signified by these high-fashion monograms. In the 1980s and 1990s, when a
number of higher-end brands refused to stock his Harlem clothing store, he engaged in
a provocative and exuberant appropriation of their monograms. Together with his
designers, he developed a method for silk-screening monograms on large pieces of
leather, claiming these elite symbols for a previously excluded new market.
A Close Look at the Items: Subvert
Slip Dress

In 1993, Calvin Klein presented a collection of dresses that prompted New York Times
critic Bernadine Morris to observe, “The thin fabrics offer no camouflage….Mr. Klein,
who has always been a minimalist, pushes his position to its limit.” The garment she
described came to epitomize the slip dress of the 1990s. Shapeless, body grazing,
sleeveless, and typically made of silk, it was emblematic of the period’s minimalist
aesthetic, and it encapsulated the era’s underwear-as-outerwear trend.

The term “slip dress” has connoted different silhouettes throughout history, ranging
from simple wool sheaths in the 1950s to slinky silk spaghetti strap gowns in the 1970s.
The dress has an implied relationship to its namesake undergarment, one that has
changed in accordance with fashionable standards of modesty.

When supermodel Kate Moss stepped out in a transparent slip dress in 1993,
accessorized with flip flops and underwear (and cigarette and beer), the shock of the
ensemble came not from its sexual overtones but from the nonchalance with which she
wore it. Lead singer of the band Hole, Courtney Love, famed for her brash
performances and confrontation of gender norms, often wore slip dresses during
concerts, accessorized with a guitar and red lipstick. Her sardonic punk style
destabilized the slip dress’s connotation of femininity, repurposing it to convey defiance
and independence.

The Unisex Project and Le Smoking

In the 1960s, the term “unisex” was coined to describe clothing, footwear, or hairstyles
that could be worn by both sexes. At this time, designers Rudi Gernreich and Yves
Saint Laurent, among others, presented their own visions for the future of clothing,
unified by a goal of reinventing notions of masculine and feminine style.

A Close Look at the Items: Message

Bandanna

The bandanna’s uses and meanings are as diverse as the motifs adorning its surface.
Its design is rooted in India, with its most definitive incarnation featuring a red ground
with dots and paisleys. By the end of the 18th century, it had become a chief textile
export to the American colonies.
The bandanna was first used as a means of communication during the American
Revolution. In 1775, Martha Washington is said to have protested a British ban on
textile printing within its American colonies by commissioning a bandanna featuring her
husband, General (later president) George Washington, on horseback, surrounded by
flags and cannons. This promotion of Washington’s political image inspired future
production of political bandannas.

In the second half of the 19th century, American cowboys used the bandanna as
protection from dust and sun. Early 20th century Western films heightened its
symbolism and helped solidify its association with the outlaw cowboy. During World
War II, the bandanna became a symbol of American patriotism. Since cotton was not
required for the war effort, bandannas could still be produced and used as hair covering
for women, many of whom were engaging in factory labor in their husbands’ absences
—as embodied in the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter.

In the 1970s, handkerchief (“hanky”) code emerged among gay men, who placed
differently colored bandannas in various pockets to signify their specific sexual
proclivities. The use of bandannas among gangs, on the other hand, indicates group
identity and demarcates turfs.

Graphic T-Shirt

Since its ascendancy in the 1960s and 1970s, the graphic t-shirt has come to
communicate memory, identity, experience, and connection. Early examples emerged
with the fashionable rise of the plain white tee, around World War II. By the mid-1950s,
graphic tees began appearing as promotional items for tourist destinations.

In the 1960s, technological advancements to screen-printing, like colorfast inks, made

production of the graphic tee fast and inexpensive. Coupled with a growing current of
individualized expression within fashion, the graphic tee flourished as a promotional
tool, a form of advocacy, and an expression of freedom and allegiance.

The graphic t-shirt’s use for advocacy is exemplified by British fashion designer
Katharine Hamnett’s screen-printed protest shirts that she has produced since the
1980s, including ones that read: “Worldwide Nuclear Ban Now.” The rock t-shirt
signifies wearers’ embrace of the rebellious, independent spirit of rock ‘n’ roll and their
allegiance with fellow fans. One of the most enduring of its kind is printed with the “Hot
Lips” logo of the Rolling Stones. More recently, the tees of streetwear brand Supreme,
which feature an artfully haphazard selection of imagery and graphics ranging from film
stills to manga characters, have generated a large following of people who regard them

almost as collector’s items.

Lapel Pin
The lapel pin is a tiny but mighty signifier of achievement and allegiance—political,
social, pop cultural, or aesthetic. Medieval fibulae brooches of the fifth century CE
onward anticipated the modern lapel pin’s position on the collarbone as a decoration
and declaration of status, diplomacy, and belonging.

Flowers often inspired lapel pin design. From the late 1890s, the National American
Woman Suffrage Association produced pins with the year 1848 (the initiation of
women’s rights advocacy) inscribed within a sunflower and the slogan “Votes for
Women!” on a flag. Since World War I the red poppy has symbolized commemoration
most prominently in the United Kingdom, and paper versions of this bright flower are
donned by public officials, royalty, and citizens.
A Close Look at the Items: Identify
Dr. Martens

Nicknamed “doc Martens,” “docs,” or “DMs,” the Dr. Martens 1460 boot is one of the
most widely worn fashion items among youth subcultures. Made in England and
released in 1960, the boot was named for German doctor Klaus Maertens, who
invented an orthopedic shoe that became its prototype. Together with Dr. Herbert
Funck, Dr. Maertens created an air-filled, honeycomb sole for this early shoe. In 1959,
British bootmaker Griggs Company acquired the exclusive license to produce the sole,
applying it to a sturdy black work boot featuring a bulbous leather upper, distinctive
yellow welt stitch, eight lace rivets, and a two-toned, grooved sole edge. Many workers
embraced the boot for its low cost, comfort, and durability.

Denizens of London’s war-ravaged East End and the grim proletarian neighborhoods of
industrial cities like Glasgow and Birmingham, the skinheads were descendants of the
hard mods of the early 1960s, who emphasized working-class pride by adopting the
steel-toed boots and jeans worn by manual laborers. Dr. Martens became integral to
their look.

As different subcultures adopted the boot, its meaning evolved. In the 1970s, Dr.
Martens emerged as a standard component of punk fashion. Punk subculture led to the
boot’s gradual uptake by Americans and its adoption by the grunge subculture in the
1990s. Frequently worn with colored, untied laces and sometimes scrawled with
drawings, it reached a point of personalization by the late 20th century that
demonstrates the boot’s potential as a canvas for self-expression.

Kente Cloth

A traditional cloth made of woven strips originating in Ghana and Togo, kente has been
translated into popular fashion worldwide. From tailored ensembles of the 1960s to
designer Jeremy Scott’s kente sneaker collaboration with Adidas Originals in 2009, the
cloth signals identification with African heritage. Kente is traditionally worn wrapped on
both men and women. Historically, the Asante and Ewe weave kente cloth. It is
comprised of strips woven on looms, which are then sewn together to create variously
sized fabrics. Machine produced cloth proliferated from the mid-20th century, as have
shortcuts like roller-printed fabric.
In the postcolonial period, kente was important in shaping a nascent public national
identity for Ghana and for Africa on the international stage. Ghana’s first president,
Kwame Nkrumah, was an early architect of the modern Pan-African movement that
sought cooperative action between people of African descent. He used Asante kente
as a powerful signifier, wearing it during public ceremonial events.

In the late 20th century, kente cloth became incorporated into mainstream globalized
and localized fashion and was tailored into Western clothing styles and haute couture.
Graduating students in many countries incorporate a kente stole into their robes,
signifying pride in African heritage, and figures like Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela
have donned the textile for important occasions. Kente masters in the Asante weaving
center of Bonwire, Ghana produce cloth that is purchased as souvenirs and in bulk for
distribution. Today it is found as a motif on everything from backpacks to Band-Aids.
A Close Look at the Biker Jacket Prototype
Asher Levine’s biker jacket prototype pays homage to the utilitarian functions of its
classic predecessors: it incorporates pockets, zippers and hardware, and is made from
flexible polymers with padded shoulders that serve to protect its wearer with a “second
skin.” The white jacket, designed for women, includes embedded LED lighting that
communicates with the rider’s motorcycle via Bluetooth to create a traffic signaling
system, improving rider visibility and safety. Building on his work designing stage
garments for performers such as Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, Levine’s prototype biker
jacket is both a novel wearable technology and an aesthetic shift that expands the
expressive possibilities for the leather jacket. Since its inception, the biker jacket has
imbued its wearers with an indefinable aura of “cool”—whether through the risk-taking
pursuit of fast motorbikes or the performance of toughness associated with leather in
popular culture. The silhouette, color, and texture of Levine’s prototype play with this
heritage and, together with the lighting system, forge new, performative identities for
those that dare to don the biker jacket.