2573395

"Fashion" in Women's Clothes and the American Social SystemAuthor(s): Bernard Barber and Lyle S. LobelSource: Social Forces, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Dec., 1952), pp. 124-131Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2573395 .

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124 SOCIAL FORCES

for sociologists to explore. In the second area, analysis of the national economy as reflected in factory systems, we need to restudy such phe- nomena as rationalization, work discipline, the fixed status of the worker, and boredom, as these impinge upon worker-manager relations. Marxian students were the first to point to these characteristics of industry, and sociologists have tended to accept the Marxian descriptions as valid empirical statements, and also to accept the explanation that these characteristics create conflict. Actually, there are only a few empirical investigations of these institutional characteristics of factories. Last, in studying the relationship of economic institutions

to the larger society, there is a great need for cross- cultural studies dealing with industrialization. We still have no adequate studies of workers' values and orientations towards the industrial world."7 We know little about the stages of industrial develop- ment as revealed by cross-cultural comparison and know little about the relations between workers and managers outside the factory. All of these gaps then point to a vast area of inquiry on which sociologists can bring to bear their concepts about group and institutional life.

17 Wilbert Moore's recent volume, Industrialization and Labor (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1951), is a start in this direction.

"FASHION" IN WOMEN'S CLOTHES AND THE AMERICAN SOCIAL SYSTEM

BERNARD BARBER Barnard College, Columbia University

AND

LYLE S. LOBEL

Harvard University

INTRODUCTION

JN SOCIAL science usage, "fashion" is still an overgeneralized term. One writer lists the following "fields of fashion": values in

the pictorial arts, architecture, philosophies, religion, ethical behavior, dress, and the physical, biological, and social sciences. "Fashion" has also been used in reference to language usages, litera- ture, food, dance music, recreation, indeed the whole range of social and cultural elements. The core of meaning in the term for all these different things is "changeful," but it is unlikely that the structures of behavior in these different social areas and the consequent dynamics of their change are all identical. "Fashion," like "crime," has too many referents; it covers significantly different kinds of social behavior.'

The description of "fashion" behavior suffers also from treating "fashion" as socially "irrational." "Fashion" is usually grouped with "fads" and "crazes." Robert Merton has shown how many

kinds of patterned social behavior have latent, or unintended, as well as manifest, or purposed, consequences for the social systems in which they exist. This distinction, he says, often "clarifies the analysis of seemingly irrational social patterns."2 We shall confine ourselves to "fashion" in Ameri- can women's clothes and show that this behavior is not at all socially "irrational" when seen in relation to the American class structure, age-sex roles, and economic system.3

SOURCES OF DATA

The field of "fashion" in American women's clothes is an area of rich, accessible, but still

I Cf. E. H. Sutherland, White Collar Crime (New York: The Dryden Press, 1949).

2 R. K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1949), p. 64 and Ch. 1 entire.

I We ignore the psychological dimension of "fashion" behavior. The writer of the following Wallach's Store advertisement in Tuze New York Times is obviously playing on this theme: "Psycho-analysis has helped some men to overcome obstacles and gain new con- fidence. So has good tailoring."



"FASHION" IN WOMEN'S CLOTHES 125

largely unexploited empirical materials.4 Our data have been taken primarily from a rough content analysis of "copy" in several women's "fashion" magazines. "Fashion copy" is part successful social analysis, part unexamined social sentiment; and its dual nature reflects and successfully affects, all at the same time, the social structuring of "fashion" behavior.

We have studied the "fashion copy," the advertisements, and some of the stories in Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Ladies' Home Journal, and Woman's Home Companion for the 20-year period, 1930- 1950. Mademoiselle (for college girls and young white collar women workers) was studied from its first issue, in 1935, to 1950. Seventeen (for teen- agers from 13 to 17) was studied from its first issue, in 1944, to 1950. Harper's Bazaar and Vogue are written for "the trade" and for the higher reaches of the social class system: upper middle and upper; Ladies' Home Journal and Woman's Home Companion are written for the middle and lower parts of "the middle classes." We shall see that these magazines define "fashion" differently from one another.

I. THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF CLOTHES AND THE

MEANING OF "FASHION"1

In all societies, the clothes which all people wear have at least three (mixed latent and manifest) functions: utilitarian, esthetic, and symbolic of their social role.5 In all societies, clothes are more or less useful, more or less handsome, and more or less indicative of their wearer's social position. We shall be primarily concerned here with the independent role-symbolic functions of clothing, but this will require us to see the interdependence of these functions with the utilitarian and esthetic ones. "Pretty" clothes for the teen-age girl in American society, for instance, are defined by her social role, especially by her presumed sexual innocence.

Just a few comparative illustrations of role- symbolic functions of clothes may be useful. In France, during the centuries prior to the Revolu- tion, when class position was clearly defined as a matter of law, there was detailed legal prescription of the relation between social rank and style of dress. Silks, traditionally an emblem of elegance, could be worn only by princesses and duchesses; ladies of high rank alone were permitted to wear muffs of fur or fine materials. When it wanted to abolish all class distinctions, during the Revolution, the General Assembly abolished all laws relating to distinction in dress.6 Or, to take one more example, in Classical China, the mandarin showed his class position and his abstention from manual labor by his ankle-length gown and his long fingernails.7

It should be noted, in passing, that the symbolic function of clothes in society is only a specific phrasing of the more general sociological fact about all consumption. As Talcott Parsons has put this fact: "Though the standard of living of any group must cover their intrinsically significant needs, such as food, shelter and the like, there can be no doubt that an exceedingly large component of standards of living everywhere is to be found in the symbolic significance of many of its items in relation to status."8 This general point is, of course, the rationale behind Chapin's living-room equip- ment scale for social class status.9 The clothing style which is considered serviceable, appropriate and becoming in one social role and "style of life" is not so for every role and life pattern.

We may now give a preliminary definition of

4For some excellent sociological journalism on the economics of the "fashion industry," see: Fortune Magazine, "Cloak and Suit," (June 1930), pp. 92-100; Ibid., "The Dressmakers of the U. S." (Dec. 1933), pp. 36-41; Ibid., "Adam Smith on Seventh Avenue" (January 1949), pp. 72-79.

5 For a general discussion of these three types of functions of any culture-object and a specific applica- tion to a different area of behavior, see Bernard Barber, "Place, Symbol and Utilitarian Function in War Me- morials," Social Forces, 28 (1949), pp. 64-68.

6 E. B. Hurlock, The Psychology of Dress (New York, 1929), p. 66. See also, Elinor G. Barber, The Position of the Bourgeoisie in the Class Structure of 18th Cen- tury France, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rad- cliffe College, 1951, esp. Ch. 5, The Bourgeois Way of Life.

7 Max Weber, The Religion of China. Trans. and ed. by H. H. Gerth (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1951), pp. 156, 161ff.

8 Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1949), p. 180.

9 F. S. Chapin, Measurement of Social Status by the Use of the Social Status Scale (Minneapolis, 1933). Also on the symbolic function of house furnishings, see Irving Rosow, "Home Ownership Motives," American Sociological Review, 13 (1948), pp. 751-55. Despite its limitations, Veblen's analysis of this sociological prob- lem is still very much worth reading. See. A. K. Davis, "Veblen on the Decline of the Protestant Ethic," Social Forces, 22 (1944), pp. 282-286. On Veblen, see also Merton, op. cit., pp. 69-70.



126 SOCIAL FORCES

"fashion" for present purposes, a definition which will be expanded by the rest of our analysis. "Fashion" in clothes has to do with the styles of cut, color, silhouette, stuffs, etc., that are socially prescribed and socially accepted as appropriate for certain social roles, and especially with the recur- ring changes in these styles.

II. "FASHION IN WOMEN S CLOTHES AND THE

AMIERICAN CLASS SYSTEM

A. The functions of consumption in the American class system. The American social class system ap- proximates the open-class "ideal type" of insti- tutionalized class structure, in which moral ap- proval is placed on mobility from lower to higher social class. The primary criterion of a man's social class status (and that of his wife and de- pendent children) is his occupational position. Occupational achievement is the primary determi- nant of social mobility. One of the chief, but by no means the only, index of relative rank of occupational position and achievement is money income and capital wealth. Hence the great symbolic significance of all consumption in American society. At least on first glance we all apply the following social equation: consumption equals wealth or income, wealth or income equals occupational position, occupational position equals social class position, and, therefore, consumption equals social class position. Even when this consequence is not in- tended by any particular consumer, his consumption has this latent function. The kind of house a man owns, the kind of car he drives, where he sends his children to college, etc., etc., all have symbolic significance for his social class status.

In the American class system, women take their class status, by and large, from their relationship to men: unmarried young women from their fathers, adult married women from their husbands. Hence the symbolic significance of women's consumption. The way a woman furnishes her house, the clothes she wears, "put in evidence," as Veblen said, "her household's ability to pay."10 Not wholly, but in important measure, it is the "office of the woman to consume vicariously for the head of the household," that is, the adult male job- holder.11 However, this is not at all the passive, uncontrollable function it is often alleged to be.

Women can perform the consumption function in general, the buying and wearing of clothes in particular, more or less effectively. Not only can a wife's good taste enhance a little her family's social status, but her skill in maximizing the number and quality of the clothes she acquires on a given budget also counts. We shall see that some women know devices for such maximization that others do not: making their own clothes, buying "seconds" and manufacturers' overstock, and pa- tronizing "bargain" stores.

Despite the stereotyped complaints and ridicule in jokes and cartoons about wives' conformity to fashion, there is good evidence that husbands as well as wives know the functions of women's clothes consumption. A poll conducted by the Woman's Home Companion (April 1947) yielded some comments which indicate this. One woman says, for example:

My husband says I don't spend enough and don't represent him fairly.

Certainly the writers of "fashion copy," ever sensitive to the sentiments of their readers, take the class-symbolic functions of women's dress for granted:

If at first you don't succeed, change the way you dress.12

Clothes for climbing, or what to wear on your way up the ladder; to build that graciousness which leads first to charm and eventually to financial advance- ment, proper, attractive clothes are a sound invest- ment.13

In American society, all but a few groups are oriented to social mobility and therefore also to the functions in women's clothes "fashions" for mobility. So at least we may infer from the vast volume of "fashion copy" addressed to the American people. In all newspapers there are pages of advertisements for women's "fashionable" clothing, editorial "fashion" pages or columns, and, in the large cities, the newspapers periodically issue "fashion supplements." The general circulation magazines, like Life, pay a great deal of attention to "fashion"; almost every issue has something directly or indirectly about it. Several magazines specialize in "fashion" and all the general women's magazines maintain regular "fashion" sections or features. The general women's magazines stress

10 Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (reprint, New York: The Modern Library, 1934), p. 180.

11 Ibid.

12 Ladies' HEome Journal (November 1934), p. 32. 13 Mademoiselle (July 1939), p. 71.




that "fashion" is available to all. In its regular "How America Lives" series, for instance, the Ladies' Home Journal portrays the "fashion" con- sciousness of the relatively poor (a woman whose family has an income of under $2,000 a year) and of the ordinary farm family.'4

B. The dilemma of equality and difference in the class system. In concrete social fact, American society has been a relatively close approximation to the "ideal type" of an open-class system. A great deal of social mobility actually exists, so that social class boundaries, especially as between any few adjacent. social classes, are somewhat vague. The American class system is a finely- graded continuum of strata rather than a series of sharply separated ranks with little mobility between them. The result of this kind of class structure, in combination with American egalitarian values, has been the possibility of asserting the equality and similarity of everyone in the society, despite the actual class differences which exist. The ideology of equality and the social fact of difference are not so obviously inconsistent that they cannot seem to square with one another.

"Fashion" in women's clothes plays its part in helping to resolve this dilemma of equality and difference. Marked dress differences are not appropriate in the American class system, so one strong tendency in "fashion copy" is to stress the similarity of appearance among women of all class levels. Here are some typical expressions:

There goes an American . .. the classless way they dress. Filing clerk and company president's wife, the same nylons, little hats, tweed suits, navy-blue dresses.15

A democracy of government achieves also the only democracy of fashion in the world.16

In women's clothes themselves, the most easily observable characteristics of what is currently "new"l are provided for all social levels. For example, hem length, one of the most noticeable characteristics of a dress, is always the same for all social classes. Many women can easily raise and lower hem length as it fluctuates from year to year and thus stay "in fashion." But to have the "fashionable" silhouette, fabric, and color, the aid of the "fashion industry" is necessary, and here is where difference as well as equality enters. The

"fashion industry" is founded upon the "trickle down" pattern, which makes possible both gross similarity and subtle difference in "fashion, and thus helps resolve the dilemma of equality and difference in the class system. As usual, "fashion" writers know the social score:

In fashion ... a "trickle" system exists; a silhouette starts in the couturier collections, slowly trickles down through all the strata of ready-to-wear . . .17

This is how the "trickle" system works. When Paris couturier "openings" are held each season, American "fashion industry" representatives are present, together with those few American women who buy their clothes in Paris and serve as "style leaders" for the whole society. American designers immediately adapt the newest Paris couturier "fashions" for the very high-priced ready-to-wear market. It should be noted that American dresses sell in a price range from $1500 to less than $5. The true mass production dress, priced under $25, is cut out by the hundreds. Fewer copies are made of the medium- to high-priced dresses, cut and finished individually. At the highest price, relative exclusiveness is possible and is offered:

Fashions, cut one at a time, but ready for you to wear. Limited editions. She wears a ready-to-wear "name" dress with the same pride that a Frenchwoman has made to order a "name" dress . .. upper bracket ready-to-wear ... enough ahead of the general fashion to assure long wearing.18

As the new styles, set by Paris and first imitated by the designers of expensive "limited editions," gain wider favor, the designers of each lower price range include the new "fashion" points as best they can in the lines they create, in response to actual or anticipated demand from those on lower class levels. As the "fashion" trickles down, fabrics become cheaper and mass production necessary. But even at the lower price and lower social levels, there is an attempt to avoid complete uni- formity. Manufacturers try to distribute their job lots over a wide geographical area, including only a limited number of dresses of the same style, fabric, and size in a shipment to any one city, any one retailer. When a general style has "trickled down" through all levels, the "fashion" must change. The universalization of what started out as "4Ladies' Home Journal (September 1940), p. 62;

(March 1945), p. 132. 1" Vogue (February 1, 1950), p. 125. 16 Vogue (February 1, 1938), p. 87.

17 Harper's Bazaar (February 1949), p. 112. 18 Vogue (February 1, 1948), p. 184.



128 SOCIAL FORCES

distinctive cheapens its symbolic value. A new change, a new "fashion" symbol, is necessary.

For the most part, the "trickle" system does not result in a progressive imitation of exact models in all the strata of ready-to-wear. There are real differences. For example, to indicate difference, reliance is often put on patently expensive materials:

You won't see them elsewhere, for both fabrics are exclusive with us.19

However, American technical proficiency is continually producing good imitations of the finest fabrics, so there is a continual search for the obviously better and more expensive. Despite real differences, the lower-priced stores are driven to advertise the identity of their goods with the best. They may even claim, "An exact Molyneux copy." This encourages the lower social strata to buy what is "trickling down," but it also encourages the upper strata to look for something new, something "more fashionable." The following tale is probably a modern myth, with important functions for the "trickle" system:

... we parted with approximately four weeks' salary for a little sheaf of fine wool with crepe. It was distinctive, expensive, original. We were distinguished, ele- gant, proud. Two weeks later we saw the sheaf- cheapened but very recognizable, on Sixth Avenue (at a price!), and in subsequent weeks we followed it on its downward path all the way to Fourteenth Street and a raging popularity at six-ninety-five. Result: dis- card ....20

The "trickle" system is perpetutated because the American class system makes some women continually seek for symbols of their difference from those just below them in the class system and at the same time makes other women continually seek for symbols of their equality with those just above them in the class system.

C. Social class differences in definitions of "fashion." We must abandon the stereotype of complete standardization in American women's "fashions." Although there is a certain similarity at all class levels, there are also important differences. Let us consider some of the different phras- ings of the "fashion" theme that are used in "fashion copy."

At the top of the American social class system are those families where lineage, or family connections extending back one or more generations, counts in addition to present occupational position. These are the "old money" families with estab- lished preeminence of social status. At this top- most level, where there is little need to compete for status through consumption, women may even maintain a certain independence of current changeful "fashion." Their quality clothes can remain roughly the same for several years. They can stress the esthetic functions of clothes somewhat at the expense of "fashion's" dictates.

Individualists ... Mrs. Byron C. Foy ... who even in this era of wide skirts is seen at night in severe, high-waisted dresses... 21

At an extreme, one may even be queer and eccen- tric in one's dress, like the old ladies on Beacon Street in Boston. A woman in this highest social class position might have written:

There is grace and charm in continuity. There is vulgarity in sudden, constant change.22

So far as it is uniform, the taste of these women is more British than French. It runs to tweeds, woolens, and it avoids the "daring" so character- istic of French fancy dress. This symbolic identifi- cation with the British upper classes reveals a concern for birth distinction and English heredity as against the distinction of occupational achievement. Advertisements appealing to this taste stress adjectives like "aristocratic," "well-bred," "distinguished," or phrases like "a fox and hounds flare at the hip."23

In the social class just below the "old money" families we find most of the "high fashion," Paris- conscious style leaders whom we have already men- tioned. Their clothes symbols are related to wealth and high living rather than to family connection. Cosmopolitan, Parisian French styles express their values better than do conservative British modes. Yet, since they are aware of the class above, perhaps trying to gain entrance into it, these women seek to combine opulence with "quiet elegance." "Fashion copy" for this group stresses the pose of assured distinction, effortless superi- ority, and inbred elegence. The recurrent symbols

19 Saks-Fifth Avenue Store advertisement in Harper's Bazaar (January 1931), p. 8.

20 Mademoiselle (January 1936), p. 64.

21 Vogue (May 15, 1938), p. 262. 22 arper's Bazaar (June 1947), p. 100. 23 Harper's Bazaar (November 1946), p. 180.




of prestige are sophistication and chic; the word "glamor" is never used, for "glamor" is "cheap." These women read Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, where they can at once learn about "high style" and get advice about displaying some of the "aristocratic" clothes symbols effectively. Espe- cially they are cautioned against the nouveau riche sin of obvious ostentation:

No woman of taste wishes to appear as though she had spent a great deal of money on her clothes.... The desired effect is price-tag anonymous....24

That is, one must actually spend a great deal on clothes, but one must not too obviously appear to have done so. This is a lesson which these women can also learn from a good "fashion" store. Witness the comment of an executive of one such store:

New millionaires from the oil fields of East Texas came to Neiman-Marcus (in Dallas). Their tastes began to be molded and shaped by the clothes they wore and the furniture and decor selected for their homes, and in a relatively brief period it was difficult to distinguish them from any "old" money group in America.25

In the middle and lower middle classes, the groups that read the Ladies' Home Journal and Woman's Home Companion, "fashion" has a different meaning. There is a distaste for "high style," for what is "daring" or "unusual." When the Woman's Home Companion polled its readers on the question, "Are women interested in Paris fashions?", there were many negative answers. "Too extreme," said some; "not the kind of clothes you can P.T.A. in or afternoon shop in-they would be laughable in our community," said others.26 "Respectability" is the standard, not "breeding" or "effect." Clothes are conservative but "smart," and "smart" is what everyone else in one's social class is wearing. "Everybody is wearing it" would never be a selling point in Vogue, but rather, "The elite are wearing it." The Ladies' Home Journal prefers the former appeal:

Popularity plus.... Like an album of popular tunes, these clothes and their near cousins are sweeping across the country. The simple fact that thousands of women are choosing them for important spots in their ward-

robes indicates their rightness, their universal becoming- ness.27

At first sight, then, it may appear incongruous that their magazines refer all the time to "glamor" and especially to "Hollywood glamor." But it turns out, on closer view, that "glamor" does not mean "slinkily sexy" but only "femininely pretty." And Hollywood movie stars are appropriate clothes models because Hollywood does not set "fashion." The Hollywood stars usually wear clothes that are "in fashion" and not ahead of it.

We can compare upper with middle class definitions of "fashion" in another way, by noting the appropriate role models that are used in "fashion copy." For the higher classes, socially prominent, sophisticated, chic women like Mrs. Harrison Williams (a perennial "style leader") and the Duchess of Windsor are featured. These women have the "New York look," they are cosmopolitan symbols. For the middle classes, the wives of well- known businessmen or politicians are more suitable models: women like Mrs. Earl Warren, Mrs. Thomas E. Dewey. These ladies are attractive; they go to church; they are concerned with the cares of home, husband, and raising a family. The clothes they wear picture:

A wardrobe for a busy life: house-wife, mother-an all-purpose glamor wardrobe to use as a working plan- kitchen, bridge, P.T.A., Sunday church, "dress up"

28

III. AGE-SEX ROLE STRUCTURING OF

AMERICAN "FASHION "

The various meanings of "fashion" are defined not only by the class system but also by American age-sex role structuring. Girls become aware of this, for instance, when they struggle with their parents for permission to wear their "first black dress," a symbol to both mothers and daughters of an age-sex role in which sexual enticement is permissible. Hence the unsuitability of such a symbol to young girls.

A. College girls. "Fashion copy" for college girls is written with an overwhelming emphasis on the appropriateness of "casuals" and "classics" in clothes styles. This seems to be a reflection of the college girl's temporary but socially structured re- moval from the need to display her social class status. It is no social accident, for example, that

24 Vogue (October 15, 1945), p. 87. 25 H. S. Marcus, "Fashion is My Business," Atlantic

Monthly (December 1948), p. 44. 26 Woman's Home Companion (May 1949), p. 12.

27 Ladies' Home Journal (April 1947), p. 60. 28 Woman's Homne Companion (October 1948), p. 22.



130 SOCIAL FORCES

the extremes of "casualness"-blue jeans, shorts, rough outdoor clothing-are found at the Eastern women's colleges, where there is relatively great social class homogeneity and where there are no potential mates to impress. Nor is it chance that the same girls who are "casual" on weekdays are pain- fully or beautifully "in fashion" when they engage in weekend, oft-campus dating. "Style leaders" and models come from within the college girl group itself. Each year, for this reason, Mademoiselle sponsors contests for clothes designs created by and for college girls. Each August, a "college board" takes over the production of the fall college issue of Mademoiselle. Department stores also set up "college boards" at this time of the year, and they hire college girls to sell other college girls the "fashionable" uniform.

"Fashion copy" for college girls frowns on "sexy" clothes even for dating. Feminine attractiveness in this age-sex role is defined by such terms as "romantic," "demure," "pert," and "simple."

Look natural. Your man expects to see you, not a clothes horse. A simple, becoming dress is preferable to something vampish, shoot-the-bank roll, or high fashion.29

Clothes should bring out a college girl's softness, femininity, intelligence, and good companion qualities.

B. Teen-agers. Many of the same features hold for precollege, teen-age "fashion" behavior:

High school girls of America: your clothes are pretty but not too different from the other girls' . . .30

How to be a heart-breaker: Put on your prettiest smile, your palest pastel-skirt soft, full, and feminine, the little sleeves draped, the bodice embroidered with sweet posies . . .31

Physical sexual appeal is not "nice" for teen-agers, says the "fashion copy" written for them. In a story appearing in Seventeen, for instance, a tale is told of the success of a girl who wears a dress with "simple neck and cunning little sleeves" and who "looks her age": innocent, sweet, and young at a dance where the other girls have tried to look older than their years.2 At this age, sophistication con- notes "cheapness." Seventeen campaigns against it with parables like this one:

Sixteen years old apiece. Connie's so lovely it hurts but Gloria weighs more with her makeup on-her

tortured pompadour, dowager jewels, and sophisticated femme fatale gown will land her on Wallflower Row.33

The twelve-to-seventeen-year-olds are at an age when "fashion," in its most usual loose meaning, is not at all "fashionable." They must be taught to suppress their incipient interest in adult women's "fashion" for the time being and conform to the appropriate symbols of their own age-sex role.

IV. WOMEN S "FASHION" AND THE AMERICAN

ECONOMIC SYSTEM

One notable consequence of the treatment of "fashion" behavior as "irrational" has been the neglect of its connections with the American economic system.34 We shall only touch briefly on a few relevant points.

The most obvious thing to be said is that it is American mass production which makes "fashion" available on all social class levels. But, note, mass production is not an independent, one-way "cause": there is an interaction of social structures here. That is, the class structured and pervasive desire to stay "in fashion" has encouraged the "fashion industry" to develop its technical and organizational virtuosity. Mass consumption, in women's "fashion" as in other things, is cause as well as effect of mass production. We can see this the more clearly if we compare the United States with France. In France too there is "conspicuous consumption," but it is "fundamentally different" from the American pattern.35 French women's clothes consumption stresses quality of goods, personalization of the relation between producer and consumer, and individuality. This requires French textile manufacturers to make vast num- bers of different materials, and each woman selects her own material carefully and makes it up herself or has it made for her by a small dress-maker. In this way, individualized consumption makes mass production of materials or clothes impossible. This is the typical situation for most French industry. American industry has a more favorable situation for its mass production because of the existence of

29 Mademoiselle (July 1945), p. 104. 30 Seventeen (September 1944), p. 46. 31 Mademnoiselle (January 1946), p. 108. 32 "First Formal" (May 1945), p. 167.

33 Seventeen (October 1944), p. 34. 34 But see references in footnote 4 above. 35 David Landes, "French Business and the Business-

man: A Social and Cultural Analysis," in E. M. Earle, ed., Modern France (Princeton: University Press, 1951), esp. pp. 343ff.




socially structured mass consumption. Of course, as compared with other American industries, the American "fashion industry" is not at all highly organized for mass production.36 The demand for women's "fashion" is much less standardized than, say, the demand for automobiles or men's suits or canned foods. But, as compared with its French counterpart, the American "fashion industry" is based on mass production. The relative degree of individualization of consumption is always important for the possibility of more or less mass production.

There are other examples of this interdependence between "fashion" behavior and the American economic system. For instance, at all income levels but the very highest ones, women need to get the most for their money so that they can maximize their claim to social class position. For this reason, women's magazines at all class levels include regular advice on how to make a limited clothes allowance secure as much as possible of what is currently 'fashionable":

Even your best friends won't know how few clothes you've got if you plan at least part of your wardrobe around separates.37

She dresses on an allowance, and people wonder how she does it. She competes successfully with any woman in the room, and her answer is that she makes her own.38

Each magazine provides its readers with the benefit of its own shopping expeditions, marking its dis- coveries variously: "Lots for Little," "Scoops of the Month," or "The Well Spent Dollar." For what Walter Firey has called the "shopping pattern" is a much more common practice, probably, than "making one's own."39 American women spend a great deal of time "shopping," that is, in

comparing the clothes sold by different store in order to get the most for their money. One of the aids to the "shopping pattern," and one of its consequences at the same time, is the concentration of retail stores in an accessible location so that comparisons may be made efficiently and in the shortest time.

For some women, especially those in the large cities, there are still other ways of maximizing the returns on one's clothing allowance. Some women can shop at out-of-the-way stores which undersell their more accessible competitors who are paying more for rent in central locations. In New York, for example, Klein's and Ohrbach's, which are in less costly locations, which offer none of the more expensive customer services, and which have a very large volume, sell "fashionable" clothes to the energetic and the knowing at the lowest possible price. Some women can buy "seconds"- clothes with a slight damage that is usually un- noticeable but which still cannot be sold in more respectable stores. In Boston, Filene's Basement Store specializes in "seconds." Or, finally, some women can buy at stores which are known to be outlets for manufacturers' surpluses. Filene's Base- ment does this kind of merchandising also, and so too do such stores as Klein's and Loehmann's in Brooklyn. In these several ways, the women who know what the current "fashion" is, either from reading the magazines or first "shopping" in better stores, can get clothes which would other- wise be beyond their means. This is part of what we meant when we said above that the American woman's share in "conspicuous consumption" was not a wholly passive one.

V. CONCLUSION

"Fashion," we may now say in summary conclusion, is not socially "irrational." It means several different things, even in regard to women's clothes alone; and all its different meanings are socially and culturally structured. "Fashion" behavior has functions, latent as well as manifest, for many different aspects of the American social system.

36 Fortune Magazine, "Adam Smith on Seventh Avenue" (January 1949), pp. 72-79.

37 Woman's Home Companion (January 1946), p. 54. 38 Vogue (February 1, 1938), p. 89. " Walter Firey, Land Use in Central Boston (Cam-

bridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), pp. 254-259.



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