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Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress (Knopf, 1994) Reissued by Kodansha in paperback in 1995. Hollander, an art historian and a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities, traces the history of clothes and fashion in Sex and Suits from the Middle Ages to the late 20th century to show how clothing has been a symbol of sexual expression and equality (or lack thereof) between men and women. She uses the traditional male suit as her prime example and analyzes how it changed in its look for men, and how women have adapted and changed it as well. For Hollander, there is a difference between clothes and fashion. Fashion, she argues, is much more personal. She writes, "...fashion goes farther than clothing, to engage with the idea of an individual body having an individual psyche and a particular sexuality, a unique youth and maturity, a single set of personal experiences and fantasies." She argues that fashion has a particularly erotic function; fashion, moreover, has changed to respect new modes of sexual expression as well as art and design. With words and illustrations, Hollander traces the evolution of pants for women to changing necklines and bodices to even the implications of loose hair for both men and women. A big change occurred, she writes, when women started to wear pants. Articulating women's legs, she argues, was a necessary step in the theatre of sexual politics. Pants demonstrate women's full humanity, and that they have bodies not unlike men's in many ways. Major changes also came about in the late 1600s when women began making clothes for other women. Women's skirts looked less like male coat-skirts and hats, shoes, and gloves for women began to look much different from those of men. Hollander follows clothes into the 20th century when, for the first time, female clothing began to directly appeal to the actual sense of touch and not just sight. She says women began dressing in men's suits in the first half of the 20th century, which suggested a giving-in to male dominance. In contrast, in the last third of the 20th century, both men and women are dressing as kids, wearing child-like zipper jackets, sweaters, pants and especially tee-shirts and gym shorts that are "connoting absolute body freedom" as well as freedom from the burden of adult sexuality. Even the traditional suit is disappearing as it is replaced with more informal jackets and slacks. She ends by commenting that the people who are the best-dressed are those with the greatest self-knowledge, a sexual self-awareness of how their bodies appear and behave even if we find their clothes to be silly. We reveal ourselves through the clothes we decide to wear and those we reject. Sex and Suits was a 1994 National Book Critics Circle Nominee. MORE: Hollander's New York Review of Books Articles Hollander on New York City Cop Garb |
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