Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 47

Class Comfort—from Corset to Brassiere

43

1920s. Once the corset had been discarded and the fashion silhouette modified
accordingly, class identity was signaled more by the cut and quality of a woman’s
outer garments than by the body image sculpted by the foundation garment. By
that time most women, regardless of social status, were obliged to resort to diet
and exercise to conform to the fashion ideal.
Rutgers University

Betsey Norland

Notes

4.
5.

See Enstad 17-47 for discussion of working women's expenditure on fashionable clothing.
For discussion of evolution o f the new public culture see Erenberg, and Peiss {Cheap Amusements).
For refinement of working-class culture to appeal to the elite see Rosenweig 209-211.
See Peiss, Cheap Amusemetus\ Peiss, “‘Charity Girls' and City Pleasures'’'; Erenberg, Steppin'
Out: Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat for examples of changing moral codes.
See Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat, for examples of changing moral codes.
Fora more coFnplete discussion of the development of the American cosmetics indu.stry, including
contributions of immigrant and working-class women and African American women see Peiss,

Hope in a Jar.
See Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers, 165 and Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, for examples of
working-class women's sacrifices of food or transportation to increase their capacity as consumers
of fashion.
See Valerie Steele's argument that the 1920s figure was more youthful than boyish in Fashion
and Eroticism, 239. This analysis challenges assumptions about the asexuality o f the New Woman.

Works Cited
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Fashion Institute of Technology from the Special Collections at the Gladys Marcus Library: