Clothing Used to Show Emotional Aspects and Underlying Themes: The Great Gatsby ~ Fashion RI write-up by Sara Faella

I had the honor of attending the Lecture "Dressing Up Daisy"~The fun facts behind the fiction of Fashion in the Great Gatsby. Thursday, February 18, 2010 @ The RoseCliff Mansion in Newport, RI given by Rebecca Kelly (Assistant Conservator of The Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York NY), who is an original Rhode Islander that was formerly employed at The Rose Cliff Mansion. Her lecture was well-spoken, inspiring and delightful.


The Great Gatsby is a novel and then turned film from the original american Author, F. Scott Fitzgerald where fashion and dress play a major roll in emotion, social status, time period setting and love. The novel was published April 10, 1925 but strictly references the summer of 1922. An era, of the "roaring 1920's" where the "American Dream" fell and "The Guilded Age" emerged.


Designers surfaced, one of the most influential, I believe was Paul Poiret, although his reign was short lived in House of Worth for rumored being to "modern" and "bold" in 1915, he yet stood to build his own House where is eccentricity, empire waistlines and linear silhouettes claimed his name as the "Reigning King of Fashion". He stepped away from tailoring and focused more on draping the body. From here the Corset was over. But after World War 1, Poiret struggled to regain his Reign because of the War Effort, this is where Coco Chanel and Ralph Lauren stepped forward and set the trend for the casual yet english inspired pant and skirt, not only for men but for woman as well, which up until this time period had never been seen. Coco Chanel was on the cutting edge of fashion and by 1928, she had crafted "The Little Black Dress", interestingly enough Paul Poiret "King of Fashion" (yet drastically declining in fashion and in debt because of his then "dated" fashions) disliked the work of Chanel and her simplistic silhouettes and one day on a street in Paris there paths crossed and Poiret asked Chanel "For whom, Madame, do you mourn?" and Chanel classically replied "For you, Monsieur". A fashion visionary was born. Vogue commented on Chanel "Chanel's silhouette, staying close to the lines of the uncorseted figure, begins to make the skirts of Lanvin look old-fashioned and Poiret too theatrical.". Fitzgerald, takes these influential time periods and legends and encompasses them into his characters, using they're dress to state their social statuses, their riffling love triangles and passionate romances. He turns articles of clothing into a romantic, tragic, historical novel. Applauded and Inspired truly and deeply by Sara Faella of FashionRI.