Fashion and the Contemporary

[PatienceP]

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chad wrote:
At one point in the story, Seward meets Lucy at Harrod's department store in London where the elite meet and gossip and probably find "contemporary" or "fashionable" clothes. This is a black hole in my mind- I'm not sure who sets the trends in clothing design or the current mode of fashion, but it's an example of a "created" sense of the contemporary. And styles seem to come from big cities like London, not Whitby, where there's a sense of timelessness...I don't know if anyone could shed some light on the fashion world.

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 10-30-2007 03:01 PM

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You have it down. The fashion industry, in various forms, has been around for centuries. (Ladies didn't wear corsets because they were comfortable or practical.) Because of this, fashions themselves have been volatile for about that long. And fashions do normally come from places like London rather than small country towns; that's as true now as it was then. This is in part because fashion requires peer pressure to catch on; big cities simply have more people who care about fashion, and the more people who care about fashion, the more they can punish those who don't comply. By the time fashions trickle out to, and are worn in, the far countryside, new fashions are likely already being devised by the designers...
This affects the timelessness of the novel relatively little because the fashions themselves aren't dwelt on.

[chad]

Corsets were once a form of abuse perhaps supplanted by an hourglass figure that women have to achieve in the present. I agree that there probably is more peer pressure in big cities, but an election of clothes does not seem to take place by the masses....In any case, clothes seem to have a date attached to them. I can tell a contemporary style of clothes vs. something worn in the 50's or 60's vs. Native clothes or costumes of a particular culture or past for example. You might look at styles in Star Trek for futuristic attire....

Chad

PS- I'm sorry for not relating this to maybe the larger issue of the impacts of a large metropolis or urban centers, centered on trade, on the world. They seem to control the lives in the present or create a "contemporary spell", if you will, influencing people well beyond their districts or boundaries, much like Dracula. The London Times correspondent gathering facts from the London Zoo zookeepr might be a good example of a collection of facts, or a story that will sell, buying what he may want to hear from the zookeeper. Collectively, the newspapers is or are ?- this drives political scientists and history professors insane.

Message Edited by chad on 10-31-2007 04:41 PM

[whitefloyd]

Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of N.D.!
Who hasnt seen these movies or some adv. about these?

I purchased an 1897 Dracula /Stoker a while back and finally reached it in my stack.
The type of writing is so realistic. I could have sworn I had been in the carriage going to the castle before. I have not finished the book but please, if you have not experienced the real thing before. Try it. Movie versions and off springs hardly touch me like the first edition.

I also just finished Kiplings Jungle Book series. I obtained 1894 and 5 First Editions
upon hearing of the re release of the cartoon movie. I remembered the movie when I was younger and just wanted to touch base with thoughts of long ago.

I am still singing... bear necessity.... ha ha ha just like when I was younger.
I will never grow up.
Thankfully.
WP