The Fashion BusinessIn the 1950s Robert L. Steiner and Joseph Weiss revised Thorstein Veblen’s
theory of conspicuous consumption to demonstrate the elite’s need to
constantly create new status symbols to maintain their position as taste-
makers, in an increasingly prosperous America, where more and more could
afford the obvious splendours of luxury. Steiner and Weiss wrote, ‘As a result
of the long practice of conspicuous consumption, ornate objects have become
associated in the common mind with vast wealth. Therefore, if the old elite
is to demonstrate a disinterest in money, it must deplore ornateness and adore
simplicity.’^12 This so-called ‘counter-snobbery’ ensured that the old elite
maintained the moral high ground, able to assert their superior style, through
their apparent contempt for such base instincts as the accumulation and
display of vast wealth. However, as the authors pointed out, ‘underneath
the shy, retiring, unassuming ways and masquerading as quiet, good taste,
shines forth a distinctive exhibitionism quite as flagrant as the pomp and
circumstance of former years’.^13
This contradiction was encapsulated in the 1970s by Roy Halston’s designs.
Halston’s work was the favourite of fashion insiders, who enjoyed the contrast
of minimalist clothing worn in the context of the decadent extremes of New
York’s Studio 54 nightclub. He added sensuality to McCardell’s utilitarian
aesthetic by using fluid luxurious fabrics to enliven his trademark twinsets
and wraparound skirts. In a double page spread from a 1975 edition of
AmericanVogue, Halston’s easy daywear is displayed in the clean lines of a
mulberry car coat and olive suedette trouser suit. His eveningwear was more
daring, for example in a purple dress which is slit to the waist, seemingly
held together only by the broad yellow belt, the restrained feel of the
silhouettes undercut by provocatively revealed flesh. His work stood out as
coolly sophisticated, at a time when most designers were dabbling in hazy
images of romantic nostalgia.
However by the end of the 1980s simple clothing, had come to be associated
with a conservative need to ensure the validity of the status claim rather
than as a preoccupation of the fashion cognoscenti. While McCardell, like
Chanel, had been regarded as avant-garde, labels like Donna Karan and
Calvin Klein were viewed as taking a ‘safe’ approach to design, providing
the essential wardrobe for those who wished to be viewed as serious and
career-minded. American designers’ more casual diffusion lines were also
signifiers of a functionalism and conformity that sidestepped the flamboyance
of much of the era’s fashions. Even in the 1990s the New York collections
are famous for making the more outlandish trends from European catwalks
- Steiner, R. L. & Weiss, J. vol.IX, no.3, March 1951. ‘Veblen Revised in light of Counter-
Snobbery’,Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, p. 263. - Ibid., p. 265.