What Is Fashion?

Abstract

The interwar years, in particular the 1930s, saw transformations both in understandings of what was deemed to be “fashion” and “fashionable” and the ways in which this was achieved. Paris is often cited as the centre of fashion during the 1930s, as the city was the centre of haute couture and the heart of the high-end international garment business, and associations with Paris or French mode were an aspirational source for consideration when British women would purchase a new garment. They would have admired, from a long distance, the styles from the French capital, as journalists and advertisers recognized. For the majority of women understanding of exactly what a couture house was or the processes involved in the production of haute couture garments were vague with Parisian couture out of the reach of the majority of women and limited to the wardrobes of the wealthy, yet this did not prevent them becoming fashion innovators. It was self-presentation and clothing selection on personal terms that were key to cross-class dissemination of fashion. This chapter intends to reflect on past academic considerations of class constructions through dress, and to unpack the perceptions and misconceptions of fashion worn by young working-class women in 1930s England. The findings will provide a framework for understanding how concepts of fashion and fashionability were achieved in the wardrobes of these women.