Caroline Elenowitz-Hess
Breeding Lilacs Out of the Dead Land: Floral Modernism in French Fashions of the Interwar Period
My research paper addresses the meanings of floral motifs in French fashions of the interwar period through an examination of fashion publications and analysis of the work of designers Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin. Reviewing floral designs in haute couture garments and fashion illustrations of the interwar period illuminates the timeless yet multivalent function of flowers in fashion. One of definitive markers of this modern postwar world was the increased visibility of women in public life and attention to women’s fashion. The fashions that followed the war were both heralded and criticized as portraying a new postwar woman; visually, they included both modernist influences and floral imagery. This break with traditional womanhood — represented by a new linear silhouette and changed social mores — was also a significant area of concern for the French in the 1920s. I propose that the use of floral motifs in conjunction with modernist fashions signaled a desire to draw upon and reinterpret these long-held signals of femininity, allowing for a new understanding of womanhood while evoking the familiar, eternal, and procreative elements of flowers.