Overview

How did women begin wearing pants? Prior to the 1920s it was a rarity to see women in pants in the Western world, but as the silk pajama trouser suit moved from the boudoir to the beach in the early 1920s it cemented the image of the trousered woman. Worn by Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich, painted by Raoul Dufy and immortalized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, between the two world wars pajamas came to symbolize much more than sleepwear. This book explores how the pajama phenomenon was not only critical to the careers of designers such as Chanel, Patou, Poiret, and Schiaparelli, but how the versatile garment was also bound to the independence of women and influenced culture more broadly. Through meticulous research and never-before-seen images, the authors position pajama fashion in the context of the Golden Age of Travel, the rise of Hollywood, and the changing political climate of the early 20th century, to reveal how the rising trend in sleepwear influenced The American Look, modern sportswear, and the image of the trousered woman.

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9781350231931

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Reviews

D’Agati and Schiff’s insightful and detailed analysis elevates pajamas, at last, to their rightful position in the history of modern fashion. Enriched by a superb collection of illustrations, this book represents bedtime reading at its most sophisticated. * Alison L Goodrum, Norwich University of the Arts, UK * Drawing from a wealth of original material, D’Agati and Schiff provide a long overdue investigation into a transformative garment that embodied modernity in the early twentieth century. The connections between beach pajamas and orientalism, casual dress, and women’s rights are skillfully explored and contextualized in this beautifully illustrated book – an enriching contribution to fashion history. * Sonya Abrego, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA *

Author Information

Janine D’Agati is the owner of Guermantes Vintage, specializing in 1920s-1940s women’s fashion. She has been interviewed on theartofdress.org, acknowledged in Fashion Studies Journal, and has contributed to period wardrobe for numerous film, tv, and theater productions. She holds a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University. Hannah Schiff is a fashion historian with an MA in Costume Studies from New York University. She is published in The Hidden History of American Fashion: Rediscovering 20th Century Women Designers (Bloomsbury, 2018). She is a fashion photography producer and has collected and studied vintage clothing for over a decade.

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