"Our dress…in order to serve its purpose effectually, should not only be expensive, but it should also make plain to all observers that the wearer is not engaged in any kind of productive labor… A detailed examination of what passes in popular apprehension for elegant apparel will show that it is contrived at every point to convey the impression that the wearer does not habitually put forth any useful effort. […]

"The dress of women goes even farther than that of men in the way of demonstrating the wearer's abstinence from productive employment. It needs no argument to enforce the generalization that the more elegant styles of feminine bonnets go even farther towards making work impossible than does the man's high hat. The woman's shoe adds the so-called French heel to the evidence of enforced leisure afforded by its polish; because this high heel obviously makes any, even the simplest and most necessary manual work extremely difficult. […]

"But the woman's apparel not only goes beyond that of the modern man in the degree in which it argues exemption from labor; it also adds a peculiar and highly characteristic feature which differs in kind from anything habitually practiced by the men. This feature is the class of contrivances of which the corset is the typical example. The corset is, in economic theory, substantially a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her permanently and obviously unfit for work. It is true, the corset impairs the personal attractions of the wearer, but the loss suffered on that score is offset by the gain in reputability which comes of her visibly increased expensiveness and infirmity. It may broadly be set down that the womanliness of woman's apparel resolves itself, in point of substantial fact, into the more effective hindrance to useful exertion offered by the garments peculiar to women" (emphases mine).

• What is "fashionable" and "desirable" in a society conveys the impression that the wearer belongs to the "leisure class", i.e. can afford not to engage in something so distasteful as actual physical work
• Women in particular who aspire to fashion, by dint of the gender division of labour and women's station in life as symbolic extensions of their patriarchal figures, are expected to dress in a manner that actively impedes their range of movement, dexterity and stamina. Think Christian Louboutins, or the painful and crippling practice of foot-binding in dynastic China.
• The more frail, delicate, and obviously unfit for any kind of physical activity you are as a women, the better this reflects upon your social status, and more importantly, the social and economic status of your parents, boyfriend, or husband.

Lottusse woven flats // Lottusse woven sandals

Espadrilles by Gaimo // Serena D. suede moccasins

Labels: bcbgeneration, chloe chen, fashion notes, gaimo, lottusse, milana, peeptoe, rebeca sanver, sheme, thorstein veblen

8/29/2012 [8]

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