Loved reading this. It is transformative to see some of these garments in person. I had always read about Bonnie Cashin and admired her aesthetic and pioneer role in American fashion. Then I saw a few of her clothes in that Met exhibit (women dressing women? Is that what it was called?) and I was blown away. I could not stop thinking about it until I bought one of those leather coats with toggles ♥️.
I remember taking some post war history class in college that focused on the radical changes to how women were treated during that period (lots on this topic out there) that actually included content on Dior vs. Chanel and how he took women back decades after Chanel had liberated them. Women acquired a lot of agency during the way because society needed them to (all the young men were gone) so when the men came back….we got suburbs, nice kitchens and cinched waists.
Yes! I picked up an amazing Cashin wide wale corduroy skirt suit whose jacket has the turnlocks on TRR. McCardell and Elizabeth Hawes had pieces in that Met exhibit, "Women Dressing Women." I liked that show a lot, wrote about it here: https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/the-power-of-just-looking?
The wartime gains were so quickly undone... Luckily the pharmaceutical companies came to the rescue in the '50s to help them forget the progress that had been made.
Loved reading this. It is transformative to see some of these garments in person. I had always read about Bonnie Cashin and admired her aesthetic and pioneer role in American fashion. Then I saw a few of her clothes in that Met exhibit (women dressing women? Is that what it was called?) and I was blown away. I could not stop thinking about it until I bought one of those leather coats with toggles ♥️.
I remember taking some post war history class in college that focused on the radical changes to how women were treated during that period (lots on this topic out there) that actually included content on Dior vs. Chanel and how he took women back decades after Chanel had liberated them. Women acquired a lot of agency during the way because society needed them to (all the young men were gone) so when the men came back….we got suburbs, nice kitchens and cinched waists.
Yes! I picked up an amazing Cashin wide wale corduroy skirt suit whose jacket has the turnlocks on TRR. McCardell and Elizabeth Hawes had pieces in that Met exhibit, "Women Dressing Women." I liked that show a lot, wrote about it here: https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/the-power-of-just-looking?
The wartime gains were so quickly undone... Luckily the pharmaceutical companies came to the rescue in the '50s to help them forget the progress that had been made.