Anya.Georgijevic – fashionma

The Sporting Twenties

“Le Golf.” Sports et divertissements. 1923.Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum and Archives.(Photo by author.)

The Roaring Twenties are known as the Jazz Age, the time of jazz, gin, and flappers. But, less obviously, sports also played a big part in the shaping of the decade. The twenties’ love of sports is beautifully conveyed in Sports et divertissements, a rare avant-garde publication that pairs twenty musical compositions by Erik Satie with pochoir illustrations by Charles Martin, hand-coloured by Jules Saude. The Royal Ontario Museum’s Library & Archives recently acquired number 107, out of only 225 produced copies (Sherman). Published by Lucien Vogel in 1923, the magazine takes the reader on various chic excursions, from sailboats to lush picnics in the park, to my two favourites: the tennis court and the golf course. Both of these sports made a significant impact on fashion in the 1920s. “In the years following the First World War, participation in sport and leisure activities – most often tennis, golf, swimming, or sunbathing – became popular and fashionable among women of the upper classes” (Pyper). The women depicted in Sports et divertissements are no exception.

“Le Golf” depicts a woman holding a golf club, with a man with his back turned. The fetching blonde is clearly the star in Martin’s eyes. The pair dressed in their best golf whites, and matching white hats, although her much wider brim sports a pink ribbon, while his features a purple-brown one. She has white wrist length gloves with matching pink bows. The short sleeves of her dress have treble clef musical signs as the embellishment. Most surprising is the shallow v-cut neckline that reveals the shapes of her breasts, and fabric so thin that we can see the outline of a nipple. Golf is sexy; Martin must have thought. This sassy blonde is there to get some birdies, and some male attention while at it. As for Satie, his composition does not exactly correspond to the image. It reads: “The colonel is dressed in “Scotch Tweed” of a violent green. He will be victorious. His ‘caddy’ follows him carrying the ‘bags’. The clouds are astonished. The ‘holes’ are all shaking. The colonel is here! Here it is that ensures the blow: his ‘club’ shatters!” We do not see a man in tweed, and if he were here, he would have probably sweated under the heat of this blissfully sunny sky. However, Satie’s lyrics pay close attention to the clothing, with the emphasis on the tweed suiting and the bags. Fashion was most likely of importance to the composer.

“Le Tennis.” Sports et divertissements. 1923. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum and Archives. (Photo by author.)

In “Le Tennis,” Satie’s lyrics read, “Play? Yes! The good server. As he has beautiful legs! He has a beautiful nose. Service cut. Game!” The corresponding illustration by Martin depicts a man and a woman whose tea service was violently interrupted by a flying tennis ball from a match happening below. The pesky ball made its way to them perhaps right after one uttered Satie’s praise of the male tennis player. He is dressed in white trousers, white short-sleeved v-neck shirt, accessorised with a black belt and what looks like a baseball hat. The stylish player is engaged in a tennis game with two women, a blonde in a pink dress and a brunette in a yellow and white ensemble. They project an image of health and sass. Our two spectators are also a stylish pair: he in a light brown fluffy, (perhaps mohair) sweater, tan trousers and two-tone black and white Oxford spectator shoes; and she in a long-sleeved sailor-inspired frock, accessorised by a thin black choker necklace. These two are members of what Veblen would have categorised as Leisure Class.

Engagement in sporting activities first came into prominence during the Victorian era, when upper-class men and women started to integrate physical activity into their daily lives. “Physical education, like related facets of material culture, became a means by which an increasingly stratified social structure (marked along the lines of class, gender, ethnicity and age) was codified and understood” (Breward, 18-19). Sporting engagement represented a certain social status, or what Veblen referred to as Leisure Class. While Veblen mostly saw sports as a frivolous activity, the focus on one’s body personified religious values of the time. Breward (19) states that “these included the concepts of ‘self-help’ and ‘self-control’, and were summoned up in the popular motto mens sana in corpore sano (‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’).” The phenomenon, whether religion or frivolity drove it, lead to growing commercialisation of sport and sporting attire. By the turn of the century, golf graced the cover of popular women’s publications such as The Ladies’ World (renamed later as The Woman’s World).

“Cover: Vogue.” (Vogue, vol. 58, no. 8, Oct 15, 1921, ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/904309290?accountid=13631.)

“Cover: Vogue.” (Vogue, vol. 60, no. 1, Jul 01, 1922, ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/879157732?accountid=13631.)

In the 1920s, sportswear had found itself into daytime wardrobes. “Between 1925 and 1928, the difference between sport and day wear seems to be in name only, as styles and fabrics for both spheres converged” (Pyper). Tennis had appeared on the cover of American Vogue in October 1921 and again in July 1922. The 1921 cover has a dreamlike quality, with a woman in a luxuriously ruffled dress floating under a starry sky. She is getting ready to hit a shooting star with her tennis racquet. On the other hand, the 1922 cover depicts two women in the midst of conversation while resting with their racquets in hand. They are dressed in long, narrow-cut frocks, perhaps not ideal for the game of tennis. The woman in white sports a red and white striped overcoat, while the woman in orange has a plush purple scarf. It is difficult to decipher if these clothes are meant for tennis or tea.

“Fashion: The Golf Clubs at “La Bouille” and “Saint Cloud” are Smart Places for Sports and for Sports Costume.” (Vogue, vol. 58, no. 6, Sep 15, 1921, pp. 78, ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/904310105?accountid=1361.)

Golf also made its way into Vogue. “Fashion: The Golf Clubs at “La Bouille” and “Saint Cloud” are Smart Places for Sports and for Sports Costume” reads a September 1921 headline. The accompanying editorial illustrations depict willowy men and women congregating around the idyllic golfing grounds, engaged in all kind of profound conversation. No one is actually playing the game, but a golf club was a place to be seen. There is perhaps no better confirmation of that statement than the character of professional golfer Jordan Baker in the iconic 1925 Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby. Jordan is described as a 1920s ideal of beauty and an object of affection for the story’s narrator, Nick Carraway. “I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body at the shoulders like a young cadet” (11). Nick enjoys the status associated with the sport. “At first I was flattered to go places with her, because she was a golf champion, and everyone knew her name.” (57) Aside from golfing, Jordan enjoys ample leisure time.

Dancers costumed by Coco Chanel in Le Train Bleu, 1924. (Fashion V Sport, edited by Ligaya Salazar. V&A Publishing. 2008. p. 27.)

Fitzgerald worked on the novel while residing in the chic French Riviera, at the time a playground of the rich and famous, according to Pyper. “Even women who appeared to have no interest in sporting pursuits began to dress in this manner while on holiday, conforming to the new craze for physical culture and the simplified silhouettes that accompanied it” (Pyper). The French used to term sportive to describe the clothing and the women who wore it. One of the designers who embraced this look was Coco Chanel. The designer had famously integrated jersey into her collections, fabric that allowed for simpler construction techniques and the ease of movement. In 1924, Chanel designed costumes for Ballets Russes’s production of Le Train Bleu, an avant-garde ballet featuring a cast in golf and tennis gear, as well as swimwear (Breward, 27).

While it may be a common interest nowadays, active lifestyle was part of the avant-garde echelon. It certainly inspired someone like Satie to pen Sports et divertissements. Completed in 1914, the composer’s twenty piano pieces were shelved for almost a decade due to World War I. When they were published together with Martin’s marvellous illustrations, they were largely ignored by critics and the general public but were revered by fellow musicians and connoisseurs (Davis, 432). Today, however, they are considered some of the composer’s best works. Satie scholar Alan M. Gillmor considered them “purest examples of the composer’s peculiar genius, revealing in abundance the endearing qualities that have become virtually synonymous with his name: wit, parody, irony, fantasy” (2). The publication was in many ways ahead of its time. Sports et divertissements pair fashion, visual art, language, and music before it was common to do so. The publication perfectly captures the decade of excess and optimism, and a time when sport was a stylish affair, perhaps more than any fashion publication possibly could have.

Works Cited

Breward, Christopher. “Pure Gesture: Reflections on the Histories of Sport and Fashion.” Fashion V Sport, edited by Ligaya Salazar. V&A Publishing. 2008. pp. 17-29.

Davis, Mary E. “Modernity à La Mode: Popular Culture and Avant-Gardism in Erik Satie’s Sports Et Divertissements.” Musical Quarterly, vol. 83, no. 3, 1999, pp. 430.

“Fashion: The Golf Clubs at “La Bouille” and “Saint Cloud” are Smart Places for Sports and for Sports Costume.” Vogue, vol. 58, no. 6, Sep 15, 1921, pp. 78, ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/904310105?accountid=1361.

Fitzgerald, F. S. The Great Gatsby. Scribner, 1953.

Gillmor, Alan M. “Musico-Poetic Form in Satie’s “Humoristic” Piano Suites (1913-14).”Canadian University Music Review, vol. 8, no. 8, 1987, pp. 1-44.

Pyper, Jaclyn. Style Sportive: Fashion, Sport and Modernity in France, 1923-1930, Apparence(s) [Online], 7 | 2017, Online since 01 June 2017, Connection on 19 March 2018. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/apparences/1361

Satie, Erik. Sports et divertissement. Dessins de Ch. Martin. Gravés sur cuivres et rehaussés de pochoir par Jules Saudé. Paris: Publications Lucien Vogel, [1923]. Print. Royal Ontario Museum Library & Archives. Rare Oversize M25 S27 S7 1923. ROM copy is numbered 159.

Sherman, Ketzia. Sports et divertissements: a unique resource for researchers in design history [Web log post]. 2017, January 27. Retrieved from https://www.rom.on.ca/en/blog/sports-et-divertissements-a-unique-resource-for-researchers-in-design-history

Veblen, Thorstein, 1857-1929. The Theory of the Leisure Class; an Economic Study of Institutions., United States, 1924.

The Modernity of the Victorian Era White Dress Shirt

White linen dress shirt (FRC2016.11.002), c. 1840-1860 and modern dress shirt, (illustration by author)

There are only a few fashion items that can be considered genuinely iconic. The term is usually reserved for garments that have stood the test of time—such as the little black dress, the blue jeans, or the trench coat—and continue to be a staple in today’s wardrobes. The same can be said for the white dress shirt, particularly when it comes to menswear. Over the last century, it has become a closet essential in men’s wardrobes, with publications like GQ affirming that “Every guy needs a stable of white dress shirts” (Woolf), while many designer labels vie for their place in the market despite very few variations between the styles. Although the brand Brooks Brothers is widely credited (Antonelli, Fisher 185; Sims 142) for the invention of the modern button-down shirt, the popularity of the garment can be traced back to the early Victorian era when the white dress shirt first adopted the streamlined look. The shirt became an “important symbol of wealth and class distinction and a powerful emblem of sobriety and uniformity for men” (Brough 2). The tailored shirt from the mid-nineteenth century can be considered an early prototype or precursor to the now classic design. The white linen dress shirt (FRC2016.11.002) from the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection is an excellent example of a garment that embodies this theory.

White linen dress shirt (FRC2016.11.002), c. 1840-1860, Ryerson Fashion Research Collection (image by author)

Using the Checklist for Observation from The Dress Detective (Mida and Kim 216), I carefully analysed and measured the garment. I then illustrated it as an attempt to capture its construction beyond the photograph. For comparison purposes, I also illustrated a contemporary slim-fit dress shirt. Upon careful inspection, the two garments bear a significant physical resemblance that is perhaps not apparent during the initial observation.

Dated 1840-1860, by the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection curator, upon first glance, the garment is a far cry from today’s modern button-down shirt. It seems unnecessarily voluminous and cumbersome for a garment that was meant to be worn underneath something else. For example, its length from shoulder to hem measures at an astounding forty-two inches, which would sit at mid-thigh on an average height male. When compared to its contemporary version, which averages at around thirty inches in length, it reads more like a sleep shirt or a chemise rather than something that is commonly tucked into trousers. However, the rest of its proportions are comparable: the width is a tad broader than the modern slim-fit shirt while the sleeves are approximately the same length. This is not uncommon for the era.

White linen dress shirt (FRC2016.11.002), c. 1840-1860 and modern dress shirt, detail (image by author)

According to Brough, between the 1840s and 1870s, the shirt became increasingly slimmer in popular fashion due to the popularity of fitted suits and the developments in tailoring (2). Most unusually, the sleeves have a rather large seven and a half inch gusset at the armpits, giving them a dolman-style shape. The small rounded collar is made to fit a fifteen-inch neck width and is secured in the front by a single plastic button that was most likely a twentieth-century replacement for the original mother of pearl. Similar dress shirts featured in Dressed for a Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900 show similar style collars worn both turned up and down, most often with a necktie underneath. Unlike the modern Oxford, the two collar ends do not meet in the centre.

The garment’s front body is made out of a single piece of fabric, with a ten-inch-long placket with embroidered owner’s initials, F.M. and a button enclosure in the middle. The shirt’s back body is also made from a single piece of fabric, and unlike the modern shirt, it doesn’t feature a yoke at the rear shoulder. Instead, two symmetrical panels are placed as shoulder reinforcement, quite similar to a Western-style shirt. The only decorative element, aside from the embroidered initials, is the thin ribbon finishing at the edge of the cuffs, which are smaller in size than on contemporary shirts. The cuffs’ decorative elements suggest that they were meant to peek out of the overcoat sleeve.

The garment’s panels are cut with straight lines, without the usual curve at the armhole and the hemline. This cutting technique perhaps helps date the shirt closer to 1840 than 1860, since Cunnington and Willett trace the beginning of a curved hemline to 1853 in The History of Underclothes (140). The heavy use of pleating and ruching to compensate for lack of curvatures in the pattern is exemplary of garment construction before it was factory streamlined later in the nineteenth century.

Tintype, 1852-55, National Museum of American History (59.229) (Severa, Joan L. Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900. Kent State University Press, 1995., p.142.)

The garment was a gift from Kevin Manuel to Ryerson Fashion Research Collection, and nothing is known of its origin. The owner, F.M, remains a mysterious figure. Since the shirt is made of high-quality linen, it perhaps suggests that the owner was someone that belonged to the middle class. However, the relaxed collar suggests that the shirt was worn in a more casual, working-class manner. Still, a white shirt was a wardrobe standard for men of all classes. According to Brough, “The white formal shirt, until the end of the nineteenth century, was a significant symbol of wealth and class distinction, as only a person of substantial prosperity could afford to have their shirts washed frequently and to own enough of them to wear” (3). During the visit to the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection, curator Ingrid Mida and professor Alison Matthews David suggested that the embroidered initials were placed for laundering purposes, which was a necessity for many since most people didn’t have running water at the time. Upon my remark on the unusual length of the garment, Mida and David advised that the shirt might have doubled as an undergarment since the idea of underwear had not yet been popularised. Although its collar and part of the chest was meant to be worn visible in accordance with the popular fashion of the time.

Men’s walking costume and sports costume, Gazette of Fashion, 1861 (Laver, James. Fashions and Fashion Plates 1800-1900. London and New York: The King Penguin Books. 1943. Plate 12.)

Cunnington and Willett consider the white shirt as an undergarment until the First World War, when it became fashionable to wear on its own (15). However, by the early nineteenth century, the garment, which had previously been relegated as an undergarment, began to peek out more and more, thanks to the era’s trendsetter, George Bryan “Beau” Brummell (Brough 2) and his elaborate upturned collars and ruffles. Lord Byron is also said to have popularised the modern shirt collar by laying them flat against the collarbone rather than upright as it was worn at the time (Antonelli, Fisher 183). By mid-century, the shirt’s features have become less decorative as those features were “reviled for being non-masculine” (Brough 3).

The concern with masculinity was of great importance to the men of the Victorian era. As fashion became thought of as a feminine interest, men’s clothing became more utilitarian. (Breward 171). According to both Breward (171) and Brough (3), male dress codes began to prioritise uniformity over individualism. Brough goes as far to suggest that the “pure white colour fulfilled masculine ideals of resolute austerity and the shirt, through its constancy, epitomised conformity and dependability” (3). He goes to explain that later in the century, the terms “white collar” and “blue collar” began to emerge (4), placing additional symbolism on the garment and its social status.

Those same connotations are still very much present today. The contemporary white button down shirt is still considered to be formal dress despite its ubiquity, and it is still regarded as part of the daily middle-class uniform. Class connotation aside, the austere nature of the Victorian garment can be considered on the cusp of modern, adhering to the idea that “less is more” over half a century before architect Adolf Loos gave his Ornament and Crime lecture with the now-infamous quote. Apart from the yoke and the full-length placket, all the parts of the modern shirt design are in place. Regarding Kopytoff’s idea of object biography (65), a biography of a white dress shirt can be looked as an anthology, from undergarment to a style icon.

As for F.M’s biography, it is open to interpretation. His fifteen-inch neck circumference suggests that he was he was a slim individual. We can conclude that he did not do his own laundry, nor it was done within his household. Little wear and tear perhaps indicate that F.M had many shirts in daily rotation. Taking into consideration Brough and Breward’s findings on the Victorian gentleman, F.M. was maybe someone who appreciated restraint when it came to dressing, someone who did not love to stand out from the crowd. And it is my interpretation that he inclined towards modernity, that his shirt represented more than merely a garment, but a movement.

Works Cited

Antonelli, Paola, Fisher, Michelle Millar. ITEMS: Is Fashion Modern? Museum of Modern Art, 2017. p. 83-84.

Breward, Christopher. The Culture of Fashion. Manchester University Press, 1995. pp.145-180.

Brough, Dean. “The classic white formal shirt: a powerful emblem of social change.” In 15th Annual IFFTI Conference: The Business & Marketing of Icons, April 2-6, 2013, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Cunnington, P. and C. Willett. The History of Underclothes. London: Dover Publications. 1992.

David, Alison Matthews. Personal Interview. 23 January 2018.

Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” The Social Life of Things, 1986, pp. 64–92.

Laver, James. Fashions and Fashion Plates 1800-1900. London and New York: The King Penguin Books. 1943.

Mida, Ingrid. Personal Interview. 23 January 2018.

Mida, Ingrid, and Alexandra Kim. The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-Based Research in Fashion. Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015. Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/59300/

Severa, Joan L. Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900. Kent State University Press, 1995.

Sims, Josh. Icons of Men’s Style. Laurence King Publishing, 2011.

Woolf, Jake. “The Only Seven White Dress Shirts You Need to Know About.” GQ. 10 April, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.gq.com/gallery/the-only-eight-white-dress-shirts-you-need-to-know