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Reviews 77

Staging 1880–1920

Focus Gallery, Bard Graduate Center, New York (January 18–April 8, 2012)

Staging Fashion 1880–1920: Jane Hading, interview included in the exhibition, Majer Lily Elsie, Billie Burke. Edited by Michele Majer. explained that the choice of the three case Published by the Bard Graduate Center, 2012. studies was driven to a great extent by the Distributed by Yale University Press. survival of ephemera related to them. Over Staging Fashion 1880–1920: Jane Hading, 150 pieces of ephemera were on display. Lily Elsie, Billie Burke, an exhibition held in the The number of images of Hading, Elsie, and Focus Gallery at the Bard Graduate Center: Burke points to the power of their fame. Decorative Arts, Design History, Material An additional factor governing their selection Culture (BGC) in New York, laid bare the was the ability to include related garments historical foundations of today’s celebrity and accessories on loan from the Museum industrial complex in the late nineteenth of the City of New York, the Philadelphia and early twentieth centuries. Through the Museum of Art, and private collections. The ephemera of the period’s visual culture, exhibition’s four intertwined themes, fashion, including theater and fashion magazines, photography, the press, and advertising, were trade cards, and picture postcards, developed through the narratives of the supplemented by designed by Lucile actresses’ careers. and Redfern, and millinery, the exhibition Before entering the Focus Gallery, the offered abundant evidence of the presence of visitor was introduced to the tripartite stage actresses in the media and their structure of the exhibition by the display of influence on fashion. The emergence of the three , all variations on the wide- actress as a fashion leader whose image was brimmed Merry Widow launched by Lily promoted in the press and used by advertisers Elsie in the 1907 production of Franz to sell skin cream, chocolate, and cigarettes, Lehar’s operetta. The role of photography in among other products, is a vast subject the crafting of an actress’s public image while involving the history of the theater, costume simultaneously spreading fashion news was and fashion design, photography, journalism, dramatized by an adjacent wall papered in and advertising. The organizers of the reproductions of thirty-six picture postcards exhibition—curator Michele Majer, an of Elsie, “the most photographed woman in assistant professor at the BGC, assisted by the world,” according to a Chicago newspaper graduate students Maude Bass-Krueger, in 1910. William DeGregorio and Rebecca Perry— Once inside the gallery, the visitor found chose to focus on three women: the French an array of actual postcards depicting Hading, dramatic actress Jane Hading (1859–1941), Elsie, and Burke, cleverly displayed in a considered a rival to Sarah Bernhardt; the double-sided case that allowed views of the English beauty Lily Elsie (1886–1962), whose messages written on the reverse. “How is your image on a picture postcard inspired the old merry widow did you take it down with young Cecil Beaton’s lifelong passion for you, I am still wearing mine. . .” wrote “H.H.” theater and fashion; and the effervescent to a Miss E. Craig in 1908, while another American musical comedy star turned film postcard sender asked in the same year: actress, Billie Burke (1884–1970). In a video “What do you think of this hat?” Other © Costume Society of America 2014 DOI 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000025 78 Staging Fashion 1880–1920

correspondents remarked upon the the same , a pictorial convention appearance of the actress on the card, like borrowed from fashion illustration. Not only commenters on today’s celebrity gossip blogs. do they function equally well as celebrity Some cards showed the actress in costume for portraits and as fashion photographs, they a particular role, others in their perpetual, show clear evidence of retouching in order to offstage roles as fashionable women. Some make Hading’s figure conform more closely had been hand-painted to add color and to fashion’s ideal. Learning that an actress’s metallic “glitter” to certain details in the waistline was artificially whittled away in photograph. Visitors to the exhibition learned the 1880s gives the visitor a new sense that collecting, decorating, and sending of perspective on today’s alterations in picture postcards were enormously popular digital photography. From the first use of pastimes; 750 million were sent in the United photography in the service of celebrity and States in 1906 alone. fashion, images were carefully composed and The story of this phenomenon began both manipulated and manipulative; this to unfold in the section of the exhibition insight is one of the most valuable offered by devoted to Jane Hading, whose career Staging Fashion. spanned key changes in the technology and By the late 1890s, the smaller, more function of photography over more than portable picture postcard, reproduced by thirty years. Born Jeanne Alfredine Trefouret means of the new halftone printing process, in Marseilles in 1859, the daughter of an actor, supplanted the cabinet card as the dominant she worked her way up from roles in medium for celebrity photography. Postcards provincial productions of comic operas to of Hading from the 1890s show the evolution dramatic roles in Paris theaters by the early of her public image. She was among the first 1880s. Furthering her career meant posing generation of performers to benefit from a regularly for Boyer, Nadar, and Reutlinger, the more enlightened and tolerant view of the leading photographic studios in Paris, who acting profession in late nineteenth-century supplied booksellers and stationers with France, a subject addressed further in an essay celebrity photographs to display in their in the exhibition’s catalogue by the cultural windows. These portraits of “professional historian Lenard R. Berlanstein. No longer beauties,” well-known society women as necessarily confined to the demi-monde, an well as actresses, printed on “cabinet cards,” actress could be respected and admired as attracted customers and were sold and long as her image struck the right note with collected in albums. For an actress, the public. In her photographs, Hading as the curator convincingly argues, the achieved a balance between dignity and photographer’s studio became an extension of glamour with a distinctive soulful stare and a the stage, a space where she could create a romantic style of dress, developed through persona to appeal to a wider public beyond her collaborations with the couture houses of the walls of the theater. Laferrière and Redfern, who supplied most of The earliest photographs of Hading in the her stage costumes as well as her personal exhibition were cabinet cards dating to the wardrobe. The traditional requirement that 1880s, on loan from the New York Public actors supply their own costumes could be Library for the Performing Arts, that show her financially burdensome, but it preserved in elaborate evening dresses. Two of these artistic freedom in an important aspect of a offer front and back three-quarter views of performance. An actress could also work with Reviews 79

a couturier to create a consistent personal (1911). In all of these productions, as in her style, onstage and off. Representing Hading’s private life, Lily Elsie was dressed by Lucile. style in the exhibition is a 1904 evening dress As Sheila Stowell points out in her of silk satin, chiffon, and lace, trimmed with essay in the catalogue, “Lucile and the iridescent sequins, designed by Charles Theatricalization of Fashion,” Lucile not only Poynter, the head of the Paris branch of designed the costumes for , Redfern. It has the rich materials, flowing she coached the former Elsie Cotton in every silhouette and fluttering that Hading aspect of her role, using skills she had gained preferred, and resembles a dress she wore transforming other beautiful working-class onstage in the play Serge Panin (1906). girls into elegant fashion models. The Lying nearby in a display case was a costumes as a whole caused a sensation made of silk georgette, silk that was somewhat overshadowed by the satin, and lace, trimmed with rhinestones prolonged craze for the Merry Widow hat. and beads, that was too fragile to be shown Lucile used richly embellished but soft otherwise. On loan from the Museum of materials, lightly constructed in layers and the City of New York, it was made for an with an advanced, high-waisted silhouette. American bride in 1912 by the English An innovative fashion designer who loved the couturière Lucy Duff Gordon, known theater, Lucile had installed a stage around 1900 within her couture house, where models professionally as Lucile, who by that year had paraded in choreographed fashion shows to branches in London, Paris, and New York. musical accompaniment. She was aware of It is another version of the Lucile dress worn the effects of stage lighting and of the life by Lily Elsie at her wedding to a Scottish the costumes would have beyond the stage, in 1911. Since she rose to stardom in through photography. Members of the London in 1907, even private events in Lily audience could appreciate the fluid lines and Elsie’s life were widely publicized. Though she shimmering surfaces of Lily Elsie’s , never performed in America and her marriage but the details would only be captured by the soon led to the end of her stage career, her camera’s eye. In the exhibition, over forty image exerted a powerful influence through photographs represent Lily Elsie, who for the the media. In the section of the exhibition span of her brief career, in Cecil Beaton’s devoted to her, visitors were surrounded by words, embodied “the fashionable concept of her beautiful face and graceful figure on perfect beauty.” picture postcards and in the heavily illustrated The third actress featured in Staging magazines that covered the theater and Fashion, Billie Burke, was probably the only fashion. The halftone printing process that one whose name was familiar to many had sparked the vogue for postcards also visitors, thanks to her performance as Glinda, made it practical for magazine publishers to the Good Witch of the North, in The Wizard of fill their pages with photographs. The Play Oz (1939). In the exhibition’s final section we Pictorial, a London magazine that functioned learned that she was likely the most intensely as a publicity organ for theatrical producers fashion-conscious of the three. Looking back and as a souvenir program for audiences, on her career in her 1949 autobiography, With dedicated entire issues to Lily Elsie’s string a Feather on My Nose, and considering the of successful light operas: The Merry Widow factors that contributed to her success, Burke (1907), The Dollar Princess (1909), A Waltz wrote: “I was a new kind of actress, carefree Dream (1911), and and red-headed, and I had beautiful clothes.” 80 Staging Fashion 1880–1920

Like Jane Hading and Lily Elsie, Billie Hayward. In 1912, for The “Mind the Paint” Girl, Burke was born into a theatrical family and in which she played an actress, she turned to began performing as a child. The daughter of Lucile. a singing clown in the Barnum & Bailey circus Fortunately preserved at the Museum of who moved his family to London, she the City of New York, one of The “Mind the appeared in West End musicals as a teenager Paint” Girl costumes was included in the and returned to America in 1907, at the age of exhibition. Visitors could see a perfect twenty-two, as a star under contract to the example of a “Billie Burke dress,” combining producer Charles Frohman. Burke’s natural sweetness with modernity, perfectly charm was well suited to the taste of the late complemented by photographs of her wearing Edwardian era, on the brink of modernity. it in performance. The dress has a simple, She was piquantly pretty with a girlish, bubbly straight silhouette but is made of delicate, voice; judging from the messages sent by her ultra-feminine materials—floral-patterned fans on picture postcards, the word that most lace layered over silk faille, silk chiffon for the often came to mind to describe her was long, sheer sleeves, trimmings of silk flowers, “sweet.” Yet she also had a breezy, dizzy quality and a in Burke’s favorite color, mauve. and a loose-limbed way of moving onstage The modern side of Burke’s image was that prefigured the 1920s flapper. Indeed, the stressed in Lucile’s costumes for Jerry (1914), reader of Marlis Schweitzer’s essay on Burke which called for her to jump in and out of bed in the catalogue will learn that in she in a pair of . Frohman’s response to was called “the American Flapper,” using the the controversy over this daring scene was to original meaning of the word—a young bird provide the press with a photograph of it, who is learning to fly. A postcard dated seen in the exhibition. Burke herself had a around the time of her arrival in New York sophisticated understanding of publicity. She showed how this personality was expressed granted many interviews in which she allowed through fashion. Reclining casually on a glimpses of her private life and shared beauty couch, she wore a jauntier version of the and fashion advice, encouraging fans to “Gibson Girl” of white shirtwaist identify with her. “A Sunday Morning Chat and dark . Her skirt was patterned with Billie Burke,” which visitors could read in with white polka dots that gradually increased a 1908 issue of the magazine Theatre, was not in scale at the flounced hemline. Schweitzer, too different in content or tone from an a lender to the exhibition as well as a interview with a celebrity cover girl in a contributor to the catalogue, stresses how fashion magazine today. Then, as now, hard Burke worked to create and maintain her favorable press coverage led to product public image. She points out that she was endorsements, and vice versa. fortunate to be a “Frohman star,” for he took The advertising theme was well care to select properties that suited her represented in Staging Fashion. All three talents and was one of the few producers actresses lent their names and images to who assumed financial responsibility for promote various products. Jane Hading contemporary as well as period costumes endorsed a “youth serum,” Jane Hading Eau de for his stars, while still leaving them free to Jeunesse, and a perfume, Jane Hading Aux choose costumes themselves. Even after Roses d’Orient. The advertisements, appearing moving to New York, Burke continued to in luxury fashion magazines such as La work with the London dressmaker Madame Gazette du Bon Ton, prolonged her fame for Reviews 81

years after her retirement from the stage. of the dress was a book, a novelized version of Lily Elsie promoted a brand of ready-made the play, displayed open to a photograph knitwear and Billie Burke a brand of silk, as showing Billie Burke wearing the very same well as Pond’s Cold Cream. The film industry dress. In the absence of a label for the book, inherited this system that linked actresses to and with other items in the case competing the fashion and cosmetics industries. for the visitor’s attention, the significance of Staging Fashion helped visitors to the connection might easily have been understand how the thriving celebrity sector overlooked. Nevertheless, the visitor left of our late capitalist economy first developed, Staging Fashion with much food for thought. and the critical role that fashion played in it. As BGC founder Susan Weber wrote in Some may have been overwhelmed by the the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, amount of ephemera on display—no fewer the story of these three actresses “has a than twenty-two postcards parodying the fascinating, if somewhat troubling aspect, craze for Merry Widow hats!—but the especially when one reflects on the density worked to give a sense of the era’s sensationalist celebrity images that visual culture. The digital technology installed overwhelm our lives today.” throughout the gallery, designed by Han Vu, In keeping with the mission of the Focus served to supplement the material on view Gallery, which is dedicated to exhibitions in logical ways. An iPad afforded a look at drawing from the research interests of BGC additional pages of press clippings from the faculty and their collaborations with graduate New York Public Library’s Billie Burke students, Staging Fashion began in a seminar scrapbook, on display nearby. Another on fashion and the theater taught by Michele contained additional examples of the three Majer and was further developed in a actresses’ press coverage, and information subsequent tutorial. The BGC deserves praise about the leading theater and fashion for supporting the project and the substantial magazines of the period. The exhibition publication that documents it. Michele Majer design, by Ian Sullivan, conveyed a sense of edited the generously illustrated, 200-page richness with wine-colored walls and graphics catalogue and wrote the essay introducing that included enlarged photographs of the the exhibition’s themes. Authors Berlanstein, interiors of a postcard shop in Paris and a Stowell, and Schweitzer, whose works the theater in New York. The visitor with time class had relied upon during the seminar, to take it all in was rewarded by many contributed essays enlarging on those themes interesting and amusing details. It would have and providing historical and cultural context. been helpful, however, to those who were not The three graduate students who joined students of costume history, to draw a greater Majer’s curatorial team prepared the catalogue distinction between period costume and entries and wrote informative chapters on fashion, both visually and in the exhibition each actress. The twelve participants in the texts. Conversely, some of the connections seminar provided readers with two very between images and objects could have been useful features: a chronology interweaving emphasized further to make sure the visitor events in the history of theater, photography did not fail to appreciate them. To see a dress and fashion, and a list of selected from 1912 that had served as a theatrical performances for each actress, including costume, preserved in excellent condition like the names of costume designers, if known. Billie Burke’s dress from The “Mind the Paint” Staging Fashion thus serves as an example Girl, was a rare pleasure; inside a case in front of what can be accomplished in a short 82 Staging Fashion 1880–1920

time with a collaborative approach and Material Culture. The BGC website provides institutional support, by channeling students’ highlights of the exhibition, including a video energies and abilities into intensive research, interview with Michele Majer and the collation of material, and scholarly photographs of the installation, at writing. http://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery. Staging Fashion 1880–1920: Jane Hading, Lily Elsie, Billie Burke was on view from Lourdes M. Font January 18 through April 8, 2012 at the Focus Associate Professor, History of Art / Fashion & Gallery of the Gallery at the Bard Graduate Studies, Fashion Institute of Technology, Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, New York, USA Reviews 83

PUNK: Chaos to Couture

Andrew Bolton, curator. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. May 9–August 14, 2013

“Punk is Dead. Long live ” could UK produced much more in terms of fashion. Gallery view from Punk: Chaos to Couture, © The Metropolitan have been the tagline for The Met’s spring Since the exhibition’s focus was on fashion, Museum of Art. 2013 offering PUNK: Chaos to Couture, curated it was then a bit jarring to find, in the first by Andrew Bolton of The Costume Institute. room, a product of the American movement: The exhibit focused on punk culture and its a reproduction “period room” of the CBGB influence on high fashion from its emergence bathroom behind glass. Music by the in the 1970s with from early Ramones echoed through the bathroom Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren walls, and the dim lighting, which continued to Dolce and Gabbana’s Spring/Summer 2008 throughout the exhibit, gave the feeling of splatter-painted ballgowns. Throughout the entering into the underground clubs of the exhibition, punk music and media streamed punk world. I was oddly charmed by the across screens and from overhead speakers, “facsimile” bathroom, which served as an while exhibit panels concisely delineated introduction to the grunge, filth, and poverty the history of the punk movement and the out of which punk fashion was born. influences that worked their tendrils into The masonry was rough, the floors and runway fashion. While there were many urinals were dirty, the walls were covered in elements of both content and design that graffiti, and the lighting was on the fritz. were very well executed, Chaos to Couture Nevertheless, how scrubbed was this vision also left me strongly aware of the sanitized of the past? Images of the CBGB bathroom nature of the exhibit space in contrast with from before it was torn down suggest that the the potent anti-fashion, counter-culture reproduction was sterilized for the public— movement that it described. The fact, for both in terms of hygiene and language. example, that guards stood at each turn of From the entrance, the visitor proceeded the exhibit curtly reminding visitors not to through five galleries. Each gallery began with take photos or touch objects, left me and my a large text panel that discussed the theme exhibit companion (my father) giggling at the illustrated by the therein. Beyond notion of an anarchy-loving punk trying to these introductory labels, the only other interact with this controlled environment. texts were the object labels at the foot of each The exhibit was laid out railroad style— dressed mannequin, which effectively allowed one entrance, one exit, and hall-like rooms the clothing to speak for itself, with just a hint in between that encouraged unidirectional of curatorial guidance. The exhibit galleries movement. Inside, visitors were greeted by a were titled: Clothes for Heroes, DIY: wall-sized video of punks pogo dancing at Hardware, DIY: Bricolage, DIY: Graffiti CBGB (Country, Blue Grass and Blues), the and Agitprop, and DIY: Destroy. New York club often cited as the birthplace The room titles themselves clearly of the American punk movement. On the illustrate that one of the big themes of the adjacent wall, the title panel gave an overview exhibit was the Do-It-Yourself nature of the of the birth of the movement in both the US punk rock movement. In fact, the opening and UK. The exhibit explained that the US title panel called punk rockers “passionate movement was largely intellectual, while the amateurs more interested in creating than 84 PUNK: Chaos to Couture

 Andrew Bolton does address this in consuming,” and marked today’s DIY of one wall, playing footage of Jordan (Pamela his discussion of the exhibit (http:// www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/ movement, which it expands to include the Rooke), a punk model, actress and fashion video/collections/ci/punk-gallery- fast-paced, user-designed nature of the icon. views) by saying, “The punk ethos of do-it-yourself does seem, you know, internet, as punk’s “greatest legacy.” While I DIY: Hardware, as its name suggests, on the surface, at odds with the understand that the curator’s focus was on showed fashion that appropriated locks, couture ethos of made-to-measure, but I think both are defined and how haute couture appropriated elements of chains, spikes, safety pins, and other driven by these impulses of punk fashion, after reading the opening panel functional objects. Fashions were displayed in originality and individuality.” I was surprised and disappointed to find that the archways of a monumental, Roman-style  Roberta Smith, “Made for ‘Ugh,’ all of the objects on display were designer Appropriated for ‘Oooh’ ‘Punk: Chaos hall constructed entirely of white Styrofoam. to Couture,’ at the Metropolitan made.¹ What happened to the DIY that At the end of the hall was a video of a Sex Museum,” The New York Times, May inspired the designs? Even in Clothes for 9, 2013, accessed July 22, 2013, http:// Pistols concert. I regret not finding out www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/arts/ Heroes, where recent garments were paired whether the graffiti slogans, names and design/punk-chaos-to-couture-at- with vintage ones from the early movement, the-metropolitan-museum. drawings that were carved into the Styrofoam html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. these inspirational fashions were by designers walls were the work of the exhibit team or Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. if visitors had added them. With guards on Notably missing were garments that were every corner, I was hesitant to make any mark crafted and worn “on the streets” or by the of my own, though the messages surrounding who were often making and setting me made me feel like just another participant their own fashion. The text panels alluded to in “the system.” stories that I wished were more explicitly DIY: Bricolage looks at the appropriation played out in the displays. We were told, for of garbage—plastic bags, plates, postage example, that the Clash helped inspire envelopes, and so on, into punk and then paint-splattered fashion when they wore to into runway fashion. The walls in this gallery their performances the same paint-stained were tiled with pink plastic vacuum-molded clothes they had worn at their day job of impressions of trash, a very effective design painting a warehouse. The Sex Pistols, the element. text told us, used safety pins as a cheap repair because they could not afford new clothing. DIY: Graffiti and Agitprop, surrounded by These anecdotes just made it more apparent distressed Styrofoam walls, which that there was an element missing from Bolton referred to as a “bombed-out building,” this story. and a screen playing a video of The Clash, Despite these drawbacks, the design in all displayed clothing with splatter paint and five rooms was not only aesthetically pleasing, large swaths of paint as well as clothes printed but spoke well to the clothing in each room. with political and environmental slogans. The Clothes for Heroes displayed garments from “graffiti” garments were among my favorites, the early movement and set up a social and featuring bright colors and energetic paint conceptual background for the punk marks. These included D&G bustled gowns movement. This module featured a “period with broad paint swashes, an Alexander room” that recreated Vivienne Westwood and McQueen dress sprayed (by robots!) Malcolm McLaren’s boutique, Sex, at 430 with black and green paint, printed work by Kings Road in London. From overhead, audio Moschino, and Vivienne Westwood hand- clips featured Vivienne Westwood and other painted graffiti on pencil-skirted dresses and key players discussing the style and attitude covers. Like New York Times reviewer that defined the punk movement in the 1970s Roberta Smith,² I found crediting the and 1980s. A video screen extended the height punk movement with the appearance of Reviews 85

environmental slogans on clothing, such as in seeing the words “anarchy” or “androgyny.” the work of Martin Margiela, questionable. The concept of anarchy seems so core to the The preceding hippie movement already punk movement, especially in the late 1980s worked such slogans into its fashion. through early 2000s, that it seemed incredible DIY: Destroy was the sleekest of the spaces to have not a single big, red, circled ‘A.’ It was which emphasized the torn apart and restyled even stranger to me that, although we saw clothing within. A wall lit up with the huge on men and even an outfit that was slogan “No Future” reminded us again of half of a sewn together with half of a the Sex Pistols style of poverty, while skirt and blouse ensemble, there was no clothing was largely black and white and mention of the gender-bending qualities of deconstructivist. The center of this room was punk fashion. an imitation of a runway with eight fashions Overall, Chaos to Couture was enjoyable, by the Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo. but big on couture and short on chaos. The These avant-garde artistic garments, heavily message of fashion’s appropriation of punk layered with pieces of , bustled aesthetic could have been strengthened by gowns and even leg-of-mutton sleeves placing designer fashions next to their street sticking out in all directions were perhaps counterparts. Without artifacts to illustrate the least attractive or functional garments punk history and DIY, the exhibition could I have ever seen; however, they well illustrate have focused rather on the appropriation of the fashion-questioning attitude of the punk punk for fashion and commercial purposes. rock movement. I will leave the reader with one last Danielle Funiciello criticism. Having read every exhibit panel MA student, Department of Public History, State that we could find, I found it strange that we University of New York at Albany, Albany, New traversed the entire exhibit without once York, USA 86 On the Button

On the Button: The Significance of an Ordinary Item

Nina Edwards London: I.B. Tauris, 2012

In her social history of the button fastening, to be “buttoned-down” suggests you are On the Button: The Significance of an Ordinary conservative or conventional, as in “a Item, Nina Edwards sews facts, historical buttoned-down corporate culture. (17) context, and personal anecdotes to the cloth Edwards regards this “bearing down on. . . of human experience like buttons on the metaphors” (23) as a tool for extracting the outfit of a Pearly King or Queen. While its buried meaning in our daily usage, bringing narrative is not as fluid as in other recent our awareness to how metaphor, like the social histories, this book recognizes the button itself, has slipped into our collective important role of contemporary art and unconscious and deserves another, closer individual collecting in the button’s long look. Edwards has done an impressive job history. Interlacing centuries of idiom, collecting examples both linguistic (idiom, historical evidence, museum objects, and metaphor) and physical (extant buttons in literary and film quotations, Edwards museum collections, art works) to create establishes a well-researched social history value for and reawaken the reader to each of the button, using multiple approaches individual button on one’s or on one’s simultaneously and with great vigor, if at tongue in recounting a story of a man on the times they are jumbled and lacking structure. London tube who was “a button off.” Recent books on buttons and other In her preliminary chapter, Edwards gives “notions” insist that, because the button is so numerous examples of buttons in our daily ubiquitous and familiar, it has not been seen lives: in film, Coraline by Neil Gaiman (12); as important and scholars have overlooked it in art, Josef Beuys’ Felt ; in folk tales, in favor of objects that are more controversial “The Gingerbread Man.” The reader will or rare, such as nineteenth-century or already have a strong sense of the author’s designer gowns. In On the Button, the author style, intertwining anecdote and metaphor. skillfully promotes the button as more than Edwards interrogates “Why We Collect” in simply a “notion:” here, the button is glorious chapter two. This respect for the act of in its own right. She shows how much we collecting by the private enthusiast is what value this little piece of material culture makes this book especially interesting to through an extensive examination of idiom dress scholars. Enthusiasts who collect and and colloquial speech that uses the word write about vintage clothing are not always “button” in her first chapter, “As a Notion.” included in the “academy,” often considered An avalanche of metaphors springs from outsider amateurs if they do not work at the button: “to button your lip” is to keep certain institutions or did not earn quiet; someone who is “buttoned up” is a higher degree. On the Button brings the thought to be inhibited, passionless or private collector back from the passionate taciturn; if you are unbuttoned,”you are edge (“akin to the collectors of beer mats, uninhibited or unrestrained. . . .Conversely, wasting their time with things of no value or Reviews 87

significant provenance” (45)) to become a vital The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1970s fashion theorist source of connoisseurship and stewardship: Quentin Bell, and the 1950s children’s book “Knowledge relies in part on the comparing The Borrowers—and this all in the first seven and sifting of masses of examples of similar short pages of the chapter. This formula of objects, and without the collector’s work this blending the historical with the contemporary, would be impossible” (29). dizzying though it may be, is engaging, Edwards cites button collectors Jackie exhibiting a truly deep knowledge of the Kennedy Onassis, Baroness Edmond de subject and an ability to connect objects, Rothschild, and Charles DeGaulle as evidence events, and art across disparate eras and of the hobby’s potential celebrity, and fields of study. promotes interface between the private This romp through the enviable British collector and the museum with the example appetite and skill for collecting costume and of a man named Tony Pilson, who has been dress objects over the last three or four licensed to trawl the Thames River in London centuries of buttonhood continues apace for “treasure” for over thirty years (43). His through the remaining seven chapters. The collection of more than 2,500 buttons was fourth chapter, “Gentlemen Prefer Buttons,” recently given to the Museum of London. takes us through the nineteenth century with Without private collectors, who may have aplomb, and the fifth chapter, “Commerce the , interest, or freedom museum and Cuteness,” takes the reader through the employees do not (one would be hard pressed twentieth. The sixth chapter is a rich and to imagine curators dredging the Thames for somewhat unexpected section on how the fun), our cultural institutions might lack such button functions in the heavy subjects of “treasures.” However, Pilson donated his “War and Grief.” collection to the Museum of London because Edwards warned us early that buttons are it continues to be seen as an important maker largely a Western construction, and this book of cultural meaning. focuses mostly on European use. However, Each subsequent chapter presents a she does devote chapter seven, “Culture and specific theme, following in generally Creed,” to non-Western examples, such as chronological order from the buttons worn the “mandarin frogs” of early Chinese , in the Enlightenment to those created by the which represent “the five Confucian virtues artist Perry Grayson in the twenty-first of humanity, justice, order, prudence and century. In chapter three, “The Enlightenment rectitude” (161). After traveling through Button,” she notes the highly ornamented Norway, Africa, and the Navaho nation in clothing of Elizabeth I and James II (both America, the story comes full circle to seventeenth-century British monarchs) describe the modern button industry based before jumping into a general history of the in China, where the majority of the world’s Enlightenment button. Confusingly, she uses buttons are manufactured (173–174). nineteenth-century theorist Thorstein Veblen Chapter eight returns to the button’s to discuss eighteenth-century social theory romantic sexuality mentioned in the (56–58); one wonders why she does not use introduction. As the author suggests explicitly, eighteenth-century social commentators, who “buttons are to do with dressing and were far from quiet on the subject of dress undressing” (184). The next chapter, devoted and wealth. She then cites buttons in the to “Arts and Crafts,” encompasses a discussion twentieth-century collection of Baroness of the making of buttons as well as their Edmond de Rothschild, the catwalks of 2006, use in jewelry and art. From the unique 88 On the Button

handmade buttons of British artist Lucie familiar with: the metal stud in the waistband Rie (202), to the dresses Elizabeth Lecourt of a pair of , the title of the book fit onto constructs from paper maps (211–213), “the a Levi’s-like red tag. artists mentioned here are only a small At times I wished for a storyline in lieu of sample of those who use the button in their the -of-thought rush of examples that work, and my main point has been to try to stacked upon one another like so many show how they capture the button in a way buttons on a string, but this book is certainly the collector does not” (216). The final chapter a pleasant read. On the Button presents reassures the reader that other types of personal anecdote, our common cultural fasteners exist, and provides fine closure. history, and private collections in engaging Edwards notes that she is “left with the and easy-to-digest prose. The form is impression that most of civilized life turns relaxed and would make an excellent reading in some small way upon the button,” while assignment for students of material culture, acknowledging the “maze”-like nature of the as it reminds the scholar of the colloquial, book. The reader will almost surely come universal nature of things. On the Button, a away with the same impression, but thoughtful and passionate book, could attract enjoyment of this maze will rely upon a a wide audience, which would benefit the field of dress history as a whole. certain patience for and interest in a wide spread of information, like a long but shallow Further Reading dive into a deep lake. Beaudry, Mary. Findings: The Material Culture On the Button is not strictly academic, but of Needlework and Sewing. New Haven: Yale it offers a useful bibliography and informal University Press, 2006. parenthetical citations that add authority to the flow of information. The photographic Epstein, Diana. The Button Book. New York: illustrations are generally well chosen, Running Press, 1996. presenting an effective mix of historical Meredith, Alan. Buttons. Oxford: Shire Library, objects and art objects. However, I would 2008. have been glad for more varied use of the allotted color plates as well as more direct Arianna E. Funk connections of those useful images to the Contributor and Book Reviews Editor, Worn text. The cover cleverly references the one Through, Apparel from an Academic Perspective, button her modern readers are probably most www.wornthrough.com Reviews 89

Victorian Fashion Accessories

Ariel Beaujot London and New York: Berg, 2012

Victorian Fashion Accessories is the first book The author first looks to other historians by fashion scholar Ariel Beaujot. It focuses of the nineteenth century who have offered thematically on four fashion accessories that definitions of the middle class in Britain. were common between 1830 and 1920: the Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, for glove, fan, /parasol, and vanity set. instance, consider class to be defined as a Beaujot chose to focus on these artifacts group of people with similar characteristics because she maintains that they are not as based on moral, family, and gender values. commonly studied as , hats, and bags, Dror Wahrman argues the middle class was an and that they reflect the Victorian concept of imagined social category where shared class womanhood that extended through to 1920. values were created by politicians as a way to Beaujot’s research was guided by a material unite people and diffuse social unrest. Beaujot culture approach which involved closely found a middle ground between the theories studying accessory artifacts to uncover the and contends that “class should be conceived beliefs and values of Victorian society. of as an ongoing accomplishment.” Her belief She gained many great insights into how is that the people of Victorian Britain actively accessories were used, made, and designed, aspired to embody certain characteristics thus strengthening her understanding of the of class. This definition of class becomes subject and opening up new lines of inquiry. important when Beaujot argues that She conducted artifact research in mainly accessories were “consumables that helped to British museums such as Museum of London, differentiate the middle class from other the Axminster Museum (Devon), the Fan classes” (4). She demonstrates this by showing Museum (London), the Museum of Costume how the middle class modified the fashions of at Bath, and museums in Canada that the upper class. included Museum of London, Ontario, Throughout the book her use of primary and the McCord Museum, Montreal. sources provides a window into Victorian The overarching issue explored in Victorian mindset, which she convincingly claims Fashion Accessories is the class structure of persisted through to 1920. Her focus is on the Victorian Britain. The author places widely available prescriptive literature from accessories at the heart of fashion, this time such as fashion magazines, etiquette consumerism, and identity for middle-class books, fashion plates, and trade journals. women during this period. She examines the These texts encouraged women to be middle class because they were an economic more critical of their bodies and to make classification with rising income levels improvements by buying commodities such that allowed them to participate in the as accessories. In addition, her use of other conspicuous consumption of items like diverse sources such as company records, clothing and accessories, a practice sometimes medical journals, hunting journals, and emulated by the working class. She makes a government records connect the use and strong case that these particular accessories production of accessories to the wider world. played a more important role than scholars of In chapter one, Beaujot presents the glove fashion history have generally assumed. as a symbol of class. Here, she turns her 90 Victorian Fashion Accessories

attention away from the middle class to the respectable feminine occupation that did not working class, who used white gloves to hide challenge gender roles. Beaujot contrasts their work-worn hands. The signs of upper- this modern, assertive role of British women class women were light skin from not being with the more traditional, innocent, and exposed to the elements, and also smaller submissive view of women in Japan where hands that did not undertake manual labor. the fan originated A fascinating source in this chapter is a diary Chapter three looks at the meanings of the entry by a Victorian gentleman, Arthur umbrella, which in Britain, was used primarily Munby, where he describes his interactions as protection from the rain. In warmer with a servant woman. The story highlights climates the parasol was used as protection his almost fetish-like obsession with from the sun, and British journals and working-women’s hands: “I passed a tallish magazines linked the parasol to tyranny woman, evidently a servant, who was through its origins in India where rulers used noticeable for the size of her gloveless them as symbols of power with sumptuary hands. . .” (49). The servant was ashamed of laws restricting the use to royalty. Victorian her “large and red” hands and expressed her discourse contrasted the umbrella—which in envy for Munby’s aristocratic white male Britain had been democratized—to the hands. Munby was intrigued by how this parasol, which represented oppressive states story played with gender role reversal, in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa—thereby suggesting she was the large-handed working justifying Britain’s imperialism. male and he the delicate-handed leisured lady. Other types of practices showed the But, most importantly for the servant, it umbrella was not only used for protection showed her desire to be part of the upper from the elements, but also for flirtation by class. White and delicate hands were a sign of bringing couples close together during walks, the leisured class, and wearing white gloves or when used as a “rescue” device by a man helped to emulate that symbol. covering a female with his umbrella during a In chapter two, the author demonstrates that the fan revealed cultural concerns for the rainstorm. In another example the umbrella Victorians, particularly the changing roles of could enhance a woman’s glow through the women in society. The “language of the fan,” reflection of its coloring on her face. Much whereby unspoken communication was like the fan, the accessory connects to themes expressed through certain motions of the fan, exploring white middle-class womanhood and likely began in London in the mid-nineteenth the use of the umbrella as a device for flirting. century with fan makers Maison Duvelleroy, In her final chapter, Beaujot explores the who included fan communication directives ivory vanity set, an important symbol of with the sale of their fans. Beaujot maintains mature womanhood for the Victorians. The that this practice was viewed with suspicion hunting of elephants and the quest for their because it may have actually empowered ivory was especially tied to colonialism, and British women by allowing them to express an authentic ivory vanity set was an everyday their inner thoughts; and because unmarried reminder of colonial rule. With the decline of middle-class women could use the fan as a elephant populations, however, it became device of flirtation with potential husbands. harder to acquire ivory. By the 1880s, Furthermore, new employment opportunities substitutes like celluloid were produced in were created in the actual production of fans, large volumes for the Victorian middle class. allowing women to support themselves in a Until the 1920s the vanity set reinforced Reviews 91

messages about the superiority of the British describing how they differed in design and Empire over the countries it conquered. were made available at different price points However, by the 1920s, new style trends, for consumers, would have also greatly innovations in plastic technology, and an strengthened the author’s case. unstable world market led to the demise of Although they are just small everyday the celluloid vanity set. As with other now objects, Beaujot’s impressive study shows the obsolete accessories discussed in this book, great importance of clothing accessories both the changing world views after World War I as an industry and as powerful cultural led to a move away from Victorian fashion symbols of class, gender, colonialism, and traditions: long hair gave way to a shorter British nationalism. An important bobbed style which no longer required a observation made by the author in the vanity set for grooming. introduction was that although the written Although the book is predominantly about histories and narratives about accessories women’s accessories, only the chapter on found in much of Victorian literature were not and parasols deals with their use always accurate, these stories provide a lens by men. With the author’s strong background into the Victorian mindset and how they in accessories, one hopes that she will shed viewed their role in the world. The study also further light on the subject of men’s illuminates the key part that a woman’s accessories in the future. Another area that fashion accessories played in establishing and might have been improved in this book was elevating her social status, thus empowering the selection of artifact images. Chapter one Victorian women. Victorian Accessories shows contains the only artifact image—a pair of kid the central role gloves, fans, umbrellas/ gloves and a stretcher set from the McCord parasols and vanity sets played in Victorian Museum. The rest of the images are society and into the early twentieth century. illustrations, photos, or ephemera such as For scholars in a number of fields such as calendars, advertisements, or cartoons. world history, fashion, and museums, where Although this is not intended to be a picture vast numbers of Victorian accessories are book, the images are numerous, with 47 stored, this book will expand ways in which among its 215 pages. The author visited some clothing accessories can be interpreted. of the world’s most important fashion museums and readers are left craving more Andrea Melvin images of exemplary artifacts from the period. Collections Curator, Grand Rapids Public Providing images of these artifacts, and Museum, Michigan, USA