Sexing La Mode: Gender, Fashion And Commercial Culture In Old Regime France

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The connection between fashion, femininity, frivolity and Frenchness has become a clich?. Yet, relegating fashion to the realm of frivolity and femininity is a distinctly modern belief that developed along with the urban culture of the Enlightenment. In eighteenth-century France, a commercial culture filled with shop girls, fashion magazines and window displays began to supplant a courtly fashion culture based on rank and distinction, stimulating debates over the proper relationships between women and commercial culture and between morality and taste. The story of how ''la mode'' was ''sexed'' as feminine offers compelling insights into the political, economic and cultural tensions that marked the birth of modern commercial culture. Jones examines men's and women's relation to fashion at this time, looking at both consumption and production to show the origins of the idea of shopping and fashion as specifically feminine.

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Sexing La Mode This page intentionally left blank Sexing La Mode Gender, Fashion and Commercial Culture in Old Regime France Jennifer M. Jones Oxford • New York English edition First published in 2004 by Berg Editorial offices: 1st Floor, Angel Court, 81 St Clements Street, Oxford, OX4 1AW, UK 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA © Jennifer M. Jones 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Berg. Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1 85973 830 3 (hardback) I SBN 1 85973 835 4 (paperback) Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Wellingborough, Northants. Printed in the United Kingdom by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin. www.bergpublishers.com To Melisande and Gerald Skillicorn This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Illustrations ix Abbreviations and Measurements xi Acknowledgments xiii Prologue: The Morning Toilette xv Introduction 1 Part I La Cour: Absolutism and Appearance 7 1 Courting La Mode and Costuming the French 15 2 Objects of Desire, Subjects of the King 47 Part II La Ville: Clothing and Consumption in a Society of Taste 71 3 A Natural Right to Dress Women 77 4 The Problem of French Taste 113 5 Coquettes and Grisettes 145 6 Selling La Mode 179 Epilogue: From Absolutist Gaze to Republican Look 211 Bibliography 221 Index 239 – vii – This page intentionally left blank List of Illustrations 1 La toilette, Jean-Baptiste Pater, courtesy of the National Museums of France (RMN). 2 Portrait d’une femme à sa toilette, Friedrich Heinrich Fuger, courtesy of RMN. 3 Louis as Apollo, ballet “La Nuit,” courtesy of RMN. 4 Louis XIV et les dames de la cour et de sa famille, École française, seventeenth century, courtesy of RMN. 5 Dame de qualité portant une lévite de deuil, courtesy of RMN. 6 “Man’s Summer Dress, 1678,” Mercure galant (July 1678), courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale. 7 “Woman’s Summer Dress, 1678,” Mercure galant (July 1678), courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale. 8 Portrait d’Elisabeth Charlotte de Bavière, princess Palatine d’Orleans, by Hyacinthe Rigaud, courtesy of RMN. 9 Anonymous engraving with multiple hairstyles, courtesy of RMN. 10 “M