Switch Editions? Copy Share URL. Channel: Footpath Zeitgeist. X Are you the publisher? Claim or contact us about this channel. Remove ADS. Viewing latest articles. Browse all 35 Browse latest View live. When I was writing the book, I did a lot of scholarly research about theories of fashion. Pretty much all that remains of that in the finished volume is my experience of sitting in the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne.
I did some intensive study there at the start of last year, taking notes from academic books. I love the Baillieu. Working in there is like stepping back into the Mad Men Time.
A librarian checks books in the newly opened Baillieu Library, Students in the second floor study area, Check the Mitzi chairs. The Baillieu Library today. Mitzi chairs! The reason I was researching theories of fashion history was that I wanted to explain the mechanisms that drive our ideas of fit. We have a certain understanding β either intuitive, or explained to us by the fashion media β of how tightly or loosely our clothing should fit, and in which places on the body, in order for us to feel the most attractive and morally appropriate in our clothes.
Those ideas change over time, and when we look at them in hindsight they become the 'fashion' of certain historical periods.
The cast of Beverly Hills, model early s-style jeans. Fashionable jeans during the s were commonly high-waisted, tight across the torso and narrow at the ankle. They became baggier in the s, and by the early s they were flared at the ankle and very low-slung on the hips. Even though not everyone dressed like this, the fashion was widespread enough, and expressed often enough in pop culture, that we can guess when a photo was taken by the style of someone's jeans.
