This article presents the history of the mode in France .

As the words “Costume” and “Habit indicate it”, the fashion has very Coutume, or of a Habitude, with this close which it does not develop the Tradition, but on the contrary the innovation, the “modern one”. Appeared at the 19th century, the fashion designer wants to be a Esthète, not the servant of the codes of the Bourgeoisie. On their side, since at least the Zazou S, under the German occupation, the modes of the Adolescent S are registered readily in rupture with the established social order. The mode does not have of it less one bond indisputable with the Consumer society, the industry of the Vêtement, but also the bright face of this industry: the constitution of an elite of the image by the reviews of mode, the Photography, the Cinema and the Television.

The prehistory of the mode

At the time baroque

Whereas during the Guerre Thirty Year old the fashion was rather varied, the court of the Sun king was at the origin of a big change.

The male fashion had a “female” side then, the men wore “clothes of women”. At the beginning of this period, clothing incarnated the facility, freedom and they were marked by a picturesque appearance. Payments which existed since the 13th century determined the fashion: written in the communes by Magistrate S and Lord S, the purpose of they were to preserve the moralities, to help proper industry, to protect themselves from the foreign influences and useless luxury, but the principal goal was to preserve the differences of the classes.

The women carried collar S more frayed, because the Décolleté was widened to the shoulders. They generally carried Jupe S in the shape of bells and corselets with large a Décolleté. The handles arrived to the elbows to the maximum. To the house each woman carried a coat of house. In France and England, the women protected the face with a Masque, and much later with a veil. Italy and Germany did not join with this habit. Around the Neck, the women liked to put a collar out of furnace, which was called “small furnace with the chips”, because it was thought that it was intended to attract the insects. Contrary to Italian, the women in Spain, Germany, France and England never showed their truths Cheveu X. The general thinness of the women was underlined by the corselets, which were provided with steel springs a length of a half-meter. At the end of the 17th century the first “flies” appeared on the faces of the women.

XVIIIe at the XXe century

See also: Costume at the XVIIIe century

The preindustrial world was not indifferent to appearance, but this one had as a function to dramatize the social hierarchy. Contrary to the contemporary rejection of the uniform, the habit assigned with each one its dress at the same time as its social status. Until the 20th century, the clothing of the woman changes little in her general line, except at the time of the Directoire, but clothing of the courtiers strikes by their splendor. The large lord carries on his back his land richness, to show it, with the risk to waste it. The independence of mind of the aristocracy appears at certain times by the development libertine of the body.

In France, it is at the 14th century that start to diffuse in the country the vestimentary uses of the Court. The Parisian Haute couture will be the heiress of this phenomenon. But the nobility is protected from all true interference by its privileges, including that to carry red heels. Little before the French revolution, of the illustrated almanacs of mode makes known the fashion of Paris to the readers of province and Europe. The same phenomenon had occurred a little earlier in England. It is there the appearance of the press of mode, this essential vector of the liberalization of the dress.

With the Sans-culottes, clothing takes a political significance. Stripes and pants pervert the vestimentary codes of the Old Mode. Royalist side, Muscadins with the fall of Robespierre, Marvellous and Incredible under the Directory, precede the dandyism, even the future urban tribes. But the accent remains obviously put on the membership at an aristocratic elite: the right to the eccentricity is itself a privilege.

Empire of the transitory one: haute couture and clothes industry

See also: fashion in 1900

The fashion is really constituted with the invention of the haute couture which, while recruiting its customers among the traditional elites, did not cease putting in scene its proximity with the new aristocracy of the artists. The fashion designer succeeds in being essential like a “artist of the luxury”, according to the expression of Lipovetsky in the Empire of transitory the .

At the 19th century, Charles Frederic Worth invents the alive mannequins and, at the beginning of the XXe century, Jeanne Paquin the fashion shows. There was a score from designers houses in Paris in 1900 (a hundred in 1946,14 currently after last fusions). The large dressmaker is not any more one craftsman with the service of his customers, he belongs to their world, a world more mixed which is constituted under the second Empire and seeks a heart at the same time as a legitimacy. With the dandyism, theorized by Baudelaire, it finds them: the correction of elegance holds birthplace, so much esthetics constitutes in fact an ethics, inimitable for that which is not already an elected official.

At the beginning of the XIXe century, the clothes industry (the future Ready-made clothes) appears, at the same time as the department stores. It can popularize the fashion, to use cheap imitations of the noble materials. It has its own talented creators, like Cacharel or Jean-Paul Gaultier. Since creation by Yves the St. Lawrence of his collection Left bank , one can speak about a ready-made clothes of luxury, which is not a simple substitute of the haute couture. The haute couture, which works for a very reduced number customer, seems to hesitate between the statute of pure art and that of a tool for promotion for the fashion accessories and the Parfum S.

To diffuse itself, the fashion knew to make alliance with the image, of the illustration on television. Coco Chanel concludes in 1930 an agreement with Samuel Goldwyn to equip the stars with United Artists. Starting from 1985, the signal models become media high-speed motorboats with whole share.

Great jamming

After the Second world war, the production is especially marked by the emancipation of the body of the woman, is prepared by Paul Poiret, then Coco Chanel, the invention of the “young people” and increased industrialization. The democratization of clothing goes hand in hand with a proliferation of the adolescent movements of mode, inseparable from the musical currents. It is not so any more easy to reduce the fashion to the prestige of a defined elite, would be this that of the spectacle, nor with the preoccupation with a distinction to the sociological direction of the term. English differentiates usefully what is about the middle-class fashion , or fashion, and what is lived like subversive, or fad.

Thanks to the media, the spectacular caste , high-speed motorboats, artists and, finally, Top model S, provides to the company models of consumption. This middle-class of appearance always belongs, in fact, with socio-economic reality, but seems to be detached about it. Moreover, the report/ratio of the mode to the street became complex. Who imitates who?

One can, indeed, note that the port of such or such clothing, of such or such accessory, become often with the mode after a personality (People, actor, Signal-model, etc) carried it. Thus became with the mode to dress itself in many ways. For example:

• the port of the T-shirt quickly developed after the movie actors John Wayne, Marlon Brando and James Dean carried from there on television. The public was first of all shocked, for finally accepting it with time. Brooke Shields contributed launched the mark Calvin Klein with his famous sentence: " do you know what there is between my Jean and me? "
• the port of the bikini took a very important rise lorqu' in 1956, Brigitte Bardot made it popular in film “And God… created the woman” in whom it carried it in Vichy fabric.
• the port of the Turtleneck quickly developed after the movie actor Noel Coward carried from there.
• the Bag conceived by the company Hermes, became very with the mode under the name of bag Kelly after the princess Grace Kelly carried it. The photograph published by the review Life magazine into 1956 which showed Grace Kelly hiding her pregnancy behind large a bag Kelly was at the origin of this myth.
• the signal with turtleneck presenting a low neckline became with the mode after the Princess Stéphanie of Monaco was made photograph vêtue thus.

In the Years 1960, the uniformity was more manifest than the will to be distinguished, which is used as grid of interpretation to the sociologists of the mode, since Georg Simmel (1904). The Jean triumph in France starting from 1967. It constitutes soon the uniform of world youth, boys like girls. It is a way paradoxically there of asserting individuality and relaxation, by rejecting “middle-class” clothing. In the Years 1980, differentiation includes its rights: future the televisual art critic Hector Obalk (alias Eric Walter), Alain Soral and Alexandre Pasche meets an unquestionable success by explaining (with humor) “to the parents” these movements of mode in competition the ones with the others. Pussies pops , Hippie S , BCBG (Good Knack Good Kind), baba cools , Punk S , New Wave , pirate , etc They draws up an anthology, remained single, differences modes (vestimentary and cultural) of 1964 to 1984. The work includes/understands their description (panoply drawn) but also their genesis compared to the standards established by the parents or the big brothers: passage of conformism small middle-class man of the years 1960 with nonconformism hippy or gauchist of the years 1970; passage of nonconformism baba with the nihilism punk , then with the worship of artificial the New Wave .

The competition in the looks however seems to be calmed with the profit of the eclecticism inspired of the World music. One will note also the success of the sporting silhouette to American: Track suit, Tee-shirt, Cap and flexible Shoe S, as well as the return to the elements of mode of the Eighties.

Lastly, in the Years 2000, two tendencies seem to be essential in parallel: On a side, the aspect of clothing tends to becoming less important than the mark, expression of the purchasing power of the consumer and the image or philosophy of life to which it is identified. Universalization and competition involved the fusion of the groups of the industry of the mode and the luxury and a thorough marketing. The needs related on profitability and the return on investment increased the number of collections per annum, accelerated the bearing of the new products, while making and demolishing the modes in very little time. Contrary, one could observe a rejection of the mode as a mark of consumption with excess, with the phenomenon " No Logo" - in reference to the work of Naomi Klein, being reproduced in 2000 on the list of Gardian Award, then published in France in 2001. This will to resist the diktats and appearances consumerists was in particular illustrated in the refusal to carry marks to the ostentatious logos.

The contemporary fashion would express at the same time a certain gregarious attitude and the rejection of any membership of a given category. Adolescence is a class which is not one, a transitory age group. The elite of the media seems to live in an unreal, unstable world. The same applies to the mannequins. As there exists also a recent fascination for the gay world , which disputes the traditional sexual roles.

Years 2000 seem favourable with the bringing together of the mode and the Contemporary art. The fashion borrows esthetic references and sets of themes developed by the artists, and also plays an increasingly dominating part in the financing of their works, via the patronage and the orders of works (in particular by Bernard Arnault and François Pinault) for launchings of shops and products.

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