Fdshzon md Si$e in tbe Twentiec The Chdnge

LINDA HALL*

HE 1'320s ushered in a new era of American fashion that was unlike anything that had come before it. It was different not only in the fashions themselves but also in people's attitudes toward them. Influences from abroad,

particularly from France, were becoming far more important than they had been in earlier years. It was clear that the American involvement in World War I had broadened the horizons of the country at large and particularly of the men who had been there. Moreover, the deprivation of consumer goods during the war combined with the prosperity that followed it led to an increase in consumption based more on style than on quality. Style changes tended to accelerate, exaggerating the problems of both manufacturers and consumers. Wealthy women, intent on having the latest fashions straight from Paris, were frequently disturbed to find their newest purchase duplicated within a month or two in a cheap copy. Changing styles again, they found that the second style also was soon available at a much lower price. The average price of clothes items dropped during the decade, and although more clothes were being purchased, the total spent on them declined after a peak in 1921.

The changes in fashions themselves were radical enough to merit attention. The softening of lines and fabrics, the rise in hemlines and the tendency toward nudity generally, the increasing use of silk and rayon in place of cotton in stockings and underwear, and the rise of sports clothes were the major tendencies. Bobbed hair and the cloche hat completed the new look of the '20s.

The silhouette itself did not change drastically however. During the preceding decade, clothes had in general been tubular. However, they now became clingy. Cotton and woolen mills in France had been considerably damaged in the war: therefore, post-war couturier showings concentrated on silk from Lyons in

T

*The author is a graduate student at Southern Methodist University and a mem- ber of Eta Chapter. She received the Dr. George P. Hammond Prize in the 1971 Phi Alpha Theta Prize Eaay Contest for this article.

485

The Historian the south of France, which had not been as seriously affected. Less material was being used even as early as 1918 when Good Housekeeping‘s report on the fall collection noted that French designers, with rare good taste, had adhered to the straight line, showing patriotism in the conservation of fabric. Certainly French designers were doing what they could to cooperate with the fabric manufacturers in a situation of scarcity. This habit of cooperation was thought to be one of the reasons that Paris had been pre-eminent as a style center.a

Narrow lines emphasized the figure, and a narrow figure was required to wear it well. Women became flatter, skinnier, and more tubular in shape to suit the new styles, or at least they tried to. One contemporary observer has noted that the Ruben- esque ideal disappeared at this time, Botticelli was discredited, and El Greco reigned supreme. Reducing diets began to appear in Good Housekeeping, replacing earlier ads for products designed to help the woman add “twenty pounds of solid flesh,” and Sears dropped the Featherbone Bust Extender which it had featured in 1915 for styles which suppressed rather than emphasized that particular female attribute. Moreover, in 1925, Sears led the fight against fat with the rubber corset urging the ladies to “Remove your excess fat1 Increase your vitality1 Improve your health! Be stylishl”‘

However, the more important change associated with the scarcity of material was the shortening of skirts. Few women in 1917 imagined that by 1927 they would almost all be wearing skirts which not only revealed the ankle but all of the calf and sometimes the knee itself. Again, the original inspiration came from the French designers soon after the end of the war, but American women did not rush to shorten their clothes immedi- ately. Constant pressure began to tell, however, and in 1925 hemlines, which had been hovering a few inches above the ankle, suddenly zoomed to knee-length.

The change was associated with all sorts of social implications, particularly in regard to the female’s morals or her lack of them. Nevertheless, women at all social levels very quickly adopted the new style, either in spite of or because of its associations with flaming youth. In the small towns as well as the big cities ladies

‘Helen Koues, “Faahion,” Good Housekeeping, 66 (February 1918), 68. *“Style Changes and Textile ProEta,” Literary Digest, 85 (November 1927), 150. ‘James Laver, Women’s Dress in the Jazz Age (London, 1964). 14. ‘David Cohn, The Good OM Days: A History of American Morals and Manners

as Seen Through the Pages of the Sears Roebuck Catalogs 1901 to the Present (New York, 1940). 378-379.

‘Lavet, Women’s Dress, 20.

486

Changing Fashions of leisure and ladies of pleasure, shop-girls and telephone oper- ators were wearing shorter skirts. By 1927 even a few precursors of the mini-skirt were being shown, with the caution, of course, that they were meant for “young girls.”e

The change was viewed with alarm by a large section of the society. Episcopal churchwomen in New York, among them Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, and Mrs. James Roose- velt, inveighed against “nudity.” The YWCA opened a national campaign to make working girls more modest, and designed what it considered a proper “moral” gown: loose-fitting, long-sleeved, with the skirt seven inches from the floor. There is little evidence that anyone actually wore it except possibly YWCA employees, in spite of the fact that ministers of fifteen denomintaions endorsed it. An attempt was even made to legislate morality, when bills were introduced in Utah and Ohio to make the wearing of short skirts a criminal offense. Both bills failed.’

The short skirts compelled women to think more about the appearance of their legs, which had been hidden, in many cases happily, in earlier years. Stockings, which in years of less exposure had been made of cotton and were usually black or white, now were made of silk and were usually flesh-colored. Stocking manufacturers, riding the boom, pushed the beauties of silk, urging women to “Look to your ankles: everyone else Another boon to stocking manufacturers was the fact that silk, and later rayon, stockings ran much more easily than cotton. Not only were they getting about $2.00 a pair as opposed to about 40# a pair for the cotton variety,e the normal life of a pair of silk stockings was less than a week versus several months for the cotton ones.

An enormous increase in the demand for silk from the Orient was one of the results. By 1928, a Silk Special of 21 train cars loaded with 28 tons of raw silk each sped from Vancouver to New York twice a month. The silk came to Vancouver by steamers from Japan, and on its arrival the schedule permitted three hours to load it onto the train, which took off eastward with a running schedule of eighty hours to New York. The Silk Special had priority over every other train on the track, and insurance was taken out to cover the $1,000 penalty for every

aHelen Koues, “Fashions as I Saw Them in Paris,” Good Housekeeping, 85

Frederick Lewis Allen, only Yesterday (New York, 1959; originally published (August 1927), 61.

in 1951). 64-65. *Vogue, 70 (July 1, 1927), 2. @Cohn, The Good Old Days, 357.

487

The Historian hour or part of an hour that the S ecial was lateelo Thus were the mills of New England stocke a with the raw materials to replace the thousands of stockings that were constantly snagging all over the United States.

The demand for silk was not only increased by its use in stockings but also in underclothes. As early as 1920, the Sears catalog offered three pages of assorted silk petticoats and bloomers, but the offerings were still dominated by ten pages of cotton union suits, vests, and drawers. The cotton garments were offered in white and occasionally cream color, but the silk ones came in such seductive shades as black, sapphire, and Russian green.ll As the decade wore on, the use of cotton for women’s underwear dropped significantly, and rayon, a cheaper substitute for silk, was more and more widely used. By 1925 the United States was using 53 million pounds weight of rayon as opposed to 3 million pounds weight in 1920.1a A government bulletin announced a fact of who knows what Freudian significance: the change to silk and rayon was much more common among single than among married women. 18

An equally important change in style was the new popularity of what in the twenties were called “sports clothes.” Women were becoming more active in sports, companions to their hus- bands in such strenuous activities as tennis and golfing, and they began to dress accordingly. Before the First World War, approved tennis dress for women included a long skirt with many petticoats, a fussy long-sleeved blouse, and a wide-brimmed, flower-trimmed hat. The ladies did, however, forego high heels for tennis shoes. After the War, a more or less modern tennis dress was introduced by the continental star Suzanne Leglen. It consisted of a sleeveless middy blouse, a gored skirt which stopped well short of the ankles, and tennis shoes with short socks. At the time, it apparently had all the impact that Gussie Moran’s lace panties had some years later, and it certainly enhanced Miss Leglen’s game. Annette Kellerman had shocked the swimming world still earlier when, in 1910, she had introduced a one-piece knit suit complete with feet.” By 1924, suits were knee-length, and by 1929, stylish beach dress revealed the entire leg.

Two major manufacturers, Davidow and David Crystal, entered the sportswear industry after the War, and rode the crest

m“Clear the Track for the Overland $7,400,000 Silk Freight Flyer;’ Literary

uSears Roebuck ond Co. Catdog (Issued at Dallas, Fall, 1920), 164-168, 178-186. *Allen, Only Yesterday, 73. =Cohn, The Good Old Days, 387, quoting U. S. Government Report. l‘ Women’s Wear Daily, Fif ty Years of Fushion (New York, 1950). 18-23.

Digat, 97 (April 14, 1928). 58.

488

Changing Fashions of the wave to prominence and financial success. The clothes hit the high-priced market first, selling principally to ladies who had the leisure to play golf and tennis or swim. By 1925, Vanity Fuir was carrying a regular feature called “Women of the World Out-of-Doors,” which was, by the way, the only fashion feature for women that they ran. 16 Sports clothes were rapidly becoming acceptable for daytime wear as well, as the simple lines were translated into clothes never meant to grace a tennis court. By 1926, Neiman-Marcus in Dallas was advertising sports dresses, sports coats, sports suits, scarves, gloves, hats (cloches), sunshades, and even sports bags made in Paris and adorned with silk embroid- ery. The copy accompanying the advertisement stressed that the “sportsmode” was particularly significant now, “not only in Texas but also in all clirnes.”l6 The hems shown were barely below the knee.

The daytime adaptation of sports clothes hit the more conservative, less avant-garde market very quickly. Good Housekeeping, reporting the new Paris collection in 1927, announced that sports clothes were now correct for everybody for informal daytime wear. l7 Moreover, the style was not limited to the leisurely days of summer but could be worn year round. Good Housekeeping did not go so far, however, as to accept the wilder innovations on the sports-wear scene such as beach pyjamas. While Vogue readers were informed that pyjamas had emerged from the boudoir to the beach and were urged to distinguish between the four types of pyjamas - those for beach, tea-time, lounging, and sleeping - Good Housekeeping readers remained in ignorance of this great step forward.

The obvious accompaniments to the advent of sports clothes were simpler hair and make-up styles. Long hair was bobbed, and after 1923, shingled. Curls came along with the short hair, and beauty parlors enjoyed a boom in business as women needed haircuts more often and permanent waves as well. Along with the short hair, cloches were practically the only acceptable hats to wear. These were fitted close to the head with no brim to speak of and with practically no trim except for an occasional simple ribbon. The Sears catalog in 1915 showed an array of ostrich-decorated hats with the caption: “A fine plume never

An example is “Women of the World-In Sporting Out-of-Doors,” Vanity Fuir, 24 (May 1925). 82.

* T h e Dallas Morning News, April 11, 1926, 6. 1‘ Caroline Grey, “Our First Autumn Patterns,” Good Housekeeping, 85 (August

""Pyjamas and Negligees Seen in the Shops,” Vogue, 70 (July 1, 1927). 73.

489

1927), 17.

The Historian goes out of style.” By 1925, the same source offered only one wisp of an ostrich tip for die-hards.19

The make-up to fit the toneddown sporting look had to be unobtrusive even if it took hours to apply. More and more cos- metics were necessary to achieve this natural look, and French cosmetics were preferred for achieving it. French perfumes continued to be popular, and as early as 1920 the Sears catalog offered several different brands as well as a few French rouges.20 By 1925 Sears had added a complete line of the famous Coty cosmetics.21 Plenty of the domestic products were sold as well. In 1927, Elizabeth Arden announced commercially in Good Housekeeping that “A Painted Face is Disgusting” and offered eight products to help readers avoid looking painted. 22

The new styles were sweeping the country. In the Lynds’ study of Middletown, they discovered that the high school girls from even moderate income families felt that they had to wear silk stockings to school. Moreover, the styles were available in the most remote hamlet through the Sears catalog or through shopping services such as Good Housekeeping maintained offering selected items from New York shops which could be purchased directly through the magazine itself. 23 More important, however, was the rapid copying of styles by manufacturers in all price levels in all sections of the country, to say nothing of the women who were sewing the new fashions for themselves. Good Housekeeping itself offered patterns which were, if not identical to the latest Paris and New York styles, at least strikingly similar. 24

The rapidly changing styles, although seemingly trivial in broad social terms, nevertheless had a profound effect on at least one section of the society: the business sector. One observer from the field of advertising wailed in 1927:

. . . what woman has done to many long-established industries is a tale to make bankers weep and economists tear their hair. Never in the history of mankind has woman undergone so com- plete a transformation-social, political, moral, and sartorial, as in the last decade.25

”Cohn, T h e Good Old Days, 349.

aCohn, The Good Old Days, 278. Scars Catalog (Fall, 1920). 457-459.

Good Housekeeping, 85 (November 1929, 150. “Let us Buy for You in the New York Shops,” Good Housekeefiing, 85 (Novem-

ber 1927), 73. ”Grey, “Our First Autumn Patterns,” 17. =Ernest Elmo Calkins, “Business Has Wings,’’ T h e Atlantic Monthly, 139

(March 1927), 306.

490

Changing Fashions The sartorial change was the one which so affected the

businessman. Many businesses were hurt seriously by the changes in style, the most obvious one being the textile industry. In England, the disastrous decrease in demand caused by short skirts and fewer layers of clothing by 1925 was partially offset by the growing popularity of Oxford bags, a wider, looser version of the “wide, loose trousers known in the United States as bell- bottoms.” 26 British manufacturers were delighted. Unfortunately, these seem to have enjoyed a stronger vogue in England than the United States, because no similar joy can be found in the trade publications of the time in this country.

In fact, both the wool and cotton industries were considerably depressed during the twenties. A1 though the periodical Commerce and Finance tried to put an optimistic face on its predictions for the wool and cotton markets in 1925, they were forced to admit that prices in both had been declining. 27 The manufacturers were perfectly aware of why this was happening: in fact, leaders in the cotton industry were heard to say that the only thing that would save it was for women to wear longer skirts and petticoats and give up silk stockings. They even decried dieting, as it took less material to cover the sylph-like flapper figures than it had to cover their more pulchritudinous predecessors in the teens. In a more serious, or at least more hopeful, vein, suggestions were made for the increase of cotton consumption by substituting cotton burlap for jute burlap and the use of cotton in strengthening rubber tires. 2s Wool was in equal if not more trouble, as the trend toward lighter and lighter fabrics caused even winter woolens to be mixed with silk or rayon. Women had stopped making the once-a-winter purchase of a suit and were wearing dresses of softer materials year-round. One unhappy observer attributed the decline of wool to the increase of heating in houses and a supposed population movement southward. He had no solutions to offer, unfortun- ately. 2O

Meanwhile the silk industry was booming and the development of rayon was proceeding apace. Rayon had not caught on particularly well in the early twenties, but by 1928 it was in enormous demand. During that year various manufacturers of rayon, among them Dr. Jacques Hartog, President of Dutch Enka, visited the United States to explore the possibility of establishing

““Style Changes and Textile Profits,” Literary Digest, 86 (July 18, 1925), 65. nTheodore H. Price, “The Passing Show in the Cotton Market,” Commerce

and Finance, 14 (Tanuary 28, 1925). 216 “Wool and Woolen Goods,” ibid., 228. =“Helping th; Cotton Industry Come Back,” Literary Digest, 94 (July 2, 1927),

64-66. =“The ‘Sick‘ Woolen Industry,” ibid., 89 (June 26, 1926), 60.

49 I

The Historian viscose yarn plants to complement their European operations. Extensions and construction of American plants were continuing on an enormous scale. Commerce and Finance announced in May of 1928 that Viscose, Du Pont, and other industrial interests were proceeding with building programs in the South, and that the Glantztoff and Bemberg units in Tennessee were ready to start production.80 The rayon industry showed all the signs of growth, vigor, and optimism that the cotton and wool industries lacked.

The clothing industry itself, both at the retail and at the manufacturing level, was strikingly affected. Local attention to style was reflected by the statement of the advertising manager of a leading department store quoted in the Lynds’ Middletown. In an address to the local Advertising Club he described their pragmatic policy of “appealing first to style, second to price, and last to quality.” 81 A Middletown retailer, discussing pricing policy, indicated that if two garments had good style, women were inclined to buy the higher priced item because they felt that it must be of higher quality, reflecting a confusion over the new approach to price. Only among the very poorest group in the community was advertising emphasizing low price effective and successful, and was used by only one store specializing in this trade.a2 In addition, the price of an item was very important simply in establishing that the individual had the money to pay for it. The Lynds repeatedly emphasize that more expensive, stylish clothes were looked upon as symbols of social advance, and that the social rituals, particularly in the high schools, required a large outlay to provide the latest in gowns, shoes, stockings, and other adorn- ments. (The Lynds also note that another symbol of status was beginning to be important - the automobile.)

The ready-to-wear clothes manufacturers were unable to take advantage of prosperity and rapid style changes. The industry had suffered a severe blow during the last part of 1920 and early 1921, when the enormous postwar demand for ready-to-wear clothing suddenly declined. The price of clothing had been hiked dras- tically during the brief boom, but by June of 1920 consumers had had enough. People rebelled against the prices asked, and many cities suffered consumer strikes and public demonstrations in protest. Millinery, which was quite susceptible to changing fashion, was the only apparel line which did not show a decided decrease in production in 1921 as compared with 1919. The

““Rayon and Its Products,” Commerce and Finance, 17 (May 2, 1928). 1008. aRobert S. and Helen M. Lynd. Middletown (New York, 1929), 161. -Zbid.. 166.

492

Changing Fashions consumer protests were only the beginning of the clothing manu- facturers’ problems. 33

The growing interest in style and fashion was difficult to cope with and caused changes in business practice in an attempt to overcome the problems it presented. T h e manufacturer who did not pay attention to style did so at his own peril, for if he did not have available the style that people wanted when they wanted it, he could not sell his merchandise. Moreover, he had to have a substantial stock ready for shipment, as retailers bought only what they could sell immediately and were unwilling to buy on order and wait several months for delivery as they had before the war.

Therefore, the manufacturer was faced with the problem of what styles to produce. Earlier, the buyer (the retailer) had determined style because he would tell the manufacturer in detail what he wanted, how many and what color. Manufacturing for stock rather than on order meant first of all that the product must be considerably standardized for production in quantity and that it be readily saleable. The Gotham Silk Hosiery Company, which prior to the war had required six months for delivery, was by 1928 producing exclusively for stock. Sales between 1922 and 1927 had increased 541%, and orders which were received between 9:00 A.M. and 4:OO P.M. of a given working day were filled before the day’s work was ended. The maintenance of this capability required an enormous stock of hosiery in a number of sizes and colors, and a mistake on color, for example, could cause a sub- stantial loss. Therefore the Company itself had to determine what the retail demand would be.

The Gotham Company begnn to make its own studies of the market. I t began to receive detailed reports daily from 100 large stores showing what had been sold in each. The company used these figures to enable it to shift its production quickly and also to plan production for a period of time.34 Such market studies were not widespread in the late ’ ~ O S , but they did furnish a way of coping with rapid style changes.

Another way of coping was adopted by Cheney Brothers, a manufacturer of silk. This method involved a three-phase deter- mination of what would be produced. The first and largest phase was the production of developed versions of the preceding year’s successful creations. The second was developed versions of items launched in kindred industries. The third and smallest was

”Paul H. Nystrom, The Economics of Fashion (New York, 1928), 421. *‘Charles P. White, “Shall We Control Demand or Follow It?” Annals of the

American Academy, 139 (September 1928), 131.

493

The Historian novelties or new creations to be tested or launched.35 The third phase obviously had further implications. Because it was the manufacturer who was introducing a new style, the burden of creating a demand for the product was shifted to him rather than the retailer. As a result, advertising also became the problem of the manufacturer rather than the retailer and led to an enormous spurt of growth in national advertising as opposed to local. It was estimated in 1927 that .$750,000,000 would be spent on national advertising in that year, and more than one-fourth of it would be devoted to style. 36

One of the major problems that manufacturers had to face was that of style piracy. In Cheney Brothers’ scheme of determining production, a major part of the line was devoted to items which had been proved saleable by “kindred’ industries, or, in other words, their competitors. By 1927, the National Retail Dry-Goods Association was resolved to ask Congress for a bill to prevent style-pirating for commercial purposes. 97 The industry, however, was unsure about what controls could be instituted and how effective they might be without involving government too heavily in their business. The balance of protection with restriction was never resolved, and no effective legislation was passed.

Meanwhile the fickle demand for style was multiplying upon itself, leading to much soul-searching among ad men, businessmen, and even college professors. Many theories to explain the phen- omena were suggested, but it was clear that the demand for current styles had filtered down from the upper classes to the country as a whole and that the latest style was being injected into areas which had been relatively untouched by fads.Ss Houses, furniture, automobiles were quickly affected. Then the idea of style moved into other areas: flake breakfast foods, safety razors, kitchen utensils, even player pianos.Se The buying mood of the American public was unstable, fickle, and excitable. Changes spread with extraordinary rapidity via the channels of mass communications: magazines, motion pictures, and then radio told everyone what he should be doing, using, wearing. Style began to double back on itself. As the essence of style is exclusiveness, and as the copying of a style became more and more rapid, the style cycle became more and more abrupt, leading observers by the end of the decade to raise questions about the whole frantic thing.

Professor Charles P. White of the University of Pennsylvania

as Ibid.. 130. ”“Styie Sells the Goods,” Literary Digest, 95 (October 8, 1927). 78.

Ibid. “White, “Shall We Control Demand or Follow It?” 126.

Calkins. “Business Has Wings,” 308.

494

Changing Fashions noted in 1928 in the Annals of the American Academy that the prosperity of the country was the significant factor. He noted that wealth elevated consumption from the level of necessities to com- forts, therefore substituting beauty and style for the satisfaction of physical needs. 40 Ernest E. Calkins, an advertising man writing in the Atlantic Monthly a few months earlier, had said that prosperity had brought a fading emphasis on thrift and a greater emphasis on gratification, and that this change was a logical result of abundant money, shorter hours, and the five-day week. He noted that price levels for staples had almost disappeared, and that price was now based more on style than on quality.“ Pro- fessor White viewed the proliferation of styles as wasteful, whereas Calkins viewed style as a road to more advertising and higher profits, but in their discussion of what was actually taking place they were in substantial agreement.

Other shifts in business practice were significant. First of all, manufacturers and retailers had to have more and more frequent contact. As consumers prior to the twenties had concentrated their purchases in the spring and in the fall, only two seasonal market openings were necessary for retailers to make their pur- chases from manufacturers. After 1921, the trend was toward more and more market openings each year. By 1929 most areas had openings at least four times a year, and in the North, five became standard with the addition of a December opening to show resort merchandise. 42

Retailers made most purchases on a hand-to-mouth basis, that is, buying only what they needed for current sales. This practice originated as an emergency measure during the war, and at that time was regarded as a rather dangerous and unsound procedure. However, its advantages in an era of rapidly changing styles were obvious, and it was soon adopted by almost all retail stores. Buyers made more and more frequent trips to the centers of production, and many stores even established resident buyers in those cities. 48

At the local level, the big change was from yard goods to ready-to-wear. In Middletown in 1910, there was practically no advertising of women’s dresses in the local newspapers, and yard goods were prominently featured. By 1925, sales of dress materials had dropped to a fraction of their former level. Home-made clothing was definitely regarded as inferior and most home sewing was done for small children or the lady of the house. Young women of high school and marriageable age bought things off the rack.

White, “Shall We Control Demand or Follow It?” 127. “Calkins, “Business Has Wings,” 311. UNystrom, The Economics of Fashion, 426. a Ibid., 427. See also Calkins, “Business Has Wings,” 313.

495

The Historian Four out of five working class wives did no sewing whatsoever except for mending for their families, although they estimated that the proportions would have been only one in three for their mothers.44 One estimate places ready-made clothing sales in the United States at almost $400,000,000 in 1909 and at more than four times that figure for 1929, when the population had increased only 25%.46

This increase in ready-to-wear sales led to a depressing phen- omena: although styles were changing rapidly, or perhaps because of it, at any one given time everyone tended to look alike. Manufacturers, producing for stock, would make a great many of one standard item, hopefully sell it widely, and then start over on a new one. One businessman complained that he used to be able to tell about the background of a girl applying for a job as a stenographer by her clothes, but “today I often have to wait till she speaks, shows a gold tooth, or otherwise gives me a second clew.” 46

This standardization had its defenders as well as its detractors. One observer declared that it was difficult to overestimate the “social, economic, political, and spiritual value of nation-wide distribution of ready-to-wear clothes.” He continued that it was a standardization up, not down. It was a positive boon to a democ- racy both in a class and an industrial sense, because it ignored the line of social barriers. He emphasized that Europeans and particularly the British decried this standardization because they wanted to be able to tell the classes apart and were uncomfortable in a world in which all were equal. He concluded by saying:

For this American type at its best, well-housed and wellclothed, is something that all the satire of BABBITT and European envy cannot prevent the world from regarding as superlatively fine. 47

Whether or not the world regarded it as “superlatively fine,” there is no doubt that women all over the country were trying to look as much like the wealthy and famous trend-setters and as little like they themselves had looked yesterday as possible. The women were ahead of the businessmen, the clergymen, and the husbands of the country, but these groups were unable to change the direction of the trend. They simply had to adjust. Widespread changes took place in business practices, moral judgments (at least about clothes), and buying habits. The use of the sewing machine at home declined before the growth in the

Lynd, Middletown, 161.

Lynd, Middletown, 161. aCohn, T h e Good Old Days. 291.

“H. W. Watts, “The American Miracle,” T h e Forum, 13 (April 19n), 578.

496

Changing Fashions ready-to-wear clothing industry. Legs emerged as hair got shorter, those armpit-to-hip braces known as corsets disappeared, and woman’s freedom of movement if not her freedom of action in- creased. The accompanying moral uproar slowed down the change almost not at all. Prosperity fed the fire, but the importance of style destroyed more manufacturers than it made rich. Women of all classes adopted the new styles as soon as their pocketbooks made it possible, and the styles that were free, such as shorter skirts, spread over the country with virtually no time lag at all. The new clothes reflected a new self-image for American women and perhaps a new life-style. A whole new relationship of style, quality, and utility was being developed which was to set the pattern for the next fifty years.

497