Full Description
Filling a gap in Eastern European fashion studies, this book presents middle-class women consuming fashion in the symbolic 'Little Paris' of interwar Bucharest, and examines how their material and cultural means supported the city's modernisation.
Combining archival research with personal archaeology, this interdisciplinary work explores Romania's reinvention as a modern state, focusing on middle-class women as they lived their lives - walking through the streets, at lavish events, at cafes and clubs, shopping, and working. Analysing largely unseen, unused written and visual texts, The Women of 'Little Paris' encourages exploration of new avenues for research, uniting scholars of Romanian culture, history and fashion and guiding readers through a forgotten, little explored world and, in so doing, adds to our understanding and knowledge of the global image of interwar fashion cultures and the emerging field of Romanian fashion studies.
Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Mapping the interwar World
Inventing Greater Romania
Fashioning the Romanian Paradox
3. Interwar Metropolitan and Urban Cultures
Women, Life, Fashion and Industry in the City
'Little Paris': A National Rebirth Project
4. From the Modern Girl to the New Woman
Gender Dynamics
Crafting the 'New Romanian Woman'
5. Authors and Characters: Women in Literature
Fictional Women, Real Bucharests
Diaries, Memoirs, Biographies
6. From Subjects to Creators: Women Imagined in the Arts
Portraying Fashion
Performing Fashion
7. Transition to New Visual Forms: Film, Photography
Fashioning the Silver Screen
"Pictured with Nose Up, like Moms Wanted"
8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix
Index
