Paris/Fashion
Long regarded as the “capital of fashion,”
Paris has played an indisputably central role
in leading fashion forward. Surveying the
period of 350 years from Louis XIV’s reign to
the twenty-first century, this course explores
how the identity of the city of Paris and the
history of fashion have been deeply
entangled and mutually shaped each other.
Topics include: French court fashion during
the Ancien Régime, fashion and French
Revolution, the haute couture and ready-to-wear industries, the cultural imagination of
la parisienne, fashion and art, fashion and
literature, the dissemination of Parisian
fashion, and so on. We will examine a variety
of roles that contribute to the fashion culture
of Paris: trendsetters, designers,
seamstresses, artists, and writers, as well as
the textile industry, commerce, and press. 3
credits.