• Crafting Illusions: Fashion as a Means of Decoding Social and Cultural History in Interwar Bucharest

    Author(s):
    Sonia D. Andras (see profile)
    Date:
    2019
    Group(s):
    Cultural Studies, Fashion Studies, Gender Studies, Global & Transnational Studies, History
    Subject(s):
    Fashion--Study and teaching, Women, Social history, Culture, History, Fashion, Romania
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    women's fashion, interwar Bucharest, Fashion studies, Social histories, Cultural history, Gender
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/1vsv-gd63
    Abstract:
    This paper examines the influence of urban fashion ideas disseminated worldwide from France and how they impacted the Romanian ideas of style and beauty, as well as the nature of the communication between Paris and the Little Paris. My aim is to decode the interwar Romanian interpretation of the new woman notion and assess what type of role contemporary French gender philosophies had played in its creation. For this, I will investigate the nature of this inter-capital dialogue in order to determine the intersections and contrasts, which I will integrate within the larger cultural, social, economic and political context in Romania, France, and worldwide. I will treat women’s fashion as the materialization of multiple factors pertaining to interwar Bucharest’s private and public life habits, as a capital embracing both modernity and tradition with an original tone. My sources include relevant local, national and international publications, including periodicals, contemporary books, guides and memoirs. These will also provide a clearer scope of the Parisian influence through articles and fashion spreads, but also through the multitude of ads published throughout interwar Romania. Furthermore, I will underline the theoretical and aesthetic influence Romanians had on Parisian fashion from two points of view. The first will be the case of women used by artists or public and private entities as models or passive agents in fashion creation and dissemination. I will use the Miss Romania pageants as a general example, alongside the more complex story of dancer Lizica Codreanu and her connection to Constantin Brâncuși and Tristan Tzara, and through him to Sonia Delaunay. For the second category I will use the example of Alice Cocea and Elvire Popesco as movie fashion icons, and of Princess Marthe Bibesco as both a style influencer and fashion theoretician. Keywords: interwar, Bucharest, fashion, chic, style, Paris, beauty, gender.
    Notes:
    Final version. Access the article as published in the Annual on CEEOL: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=844919 .
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Publisher:
    \"Gheorghe Şincai\" Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy
    Pub. Date:
    2019
    Journal:
    Yearbook of the \"Gheorghe Şincai\" Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy
    Issue:
    22
    Page Range:
    232 - 264
    ISSN:
    1454-5284
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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