Background
The beginning of the 18th century saw Europe at war once again. The War of the Spanish Succession involved just about every country in Europe. In France, Louis XIV reigned at Versailles and France was at the height of its power. But as the century progressed change was on the horizon.
L'Enseigne de Gersaint, Antoine Watteau
Advice for interns, recent college grads, and entry-level employees
If you’re still in school, or freshly launched from the halls of academia into the cubicles of commerce, the rules of business casual dressing will bend for you … to a point. Some corporations show a certain indulgence toward their new hires. It is understood that the young, entry-level—and, in some cases, unpaid—members of their staff are in the midst of a stylistic transition. It isn’t easy to go from club kid to copy guy. So, when avant-garde artists become administrative assistants, when ravers appear as receptionists, or when Goths are hired as gofers, there is usually an unspecified (and largely implied) grace period when the junior staffer in question is allowed to incorporate a bit of trendiness or unconventional spunk into the business casual mix.
The Yale Club’s leap into the modern world had been a long time coming. The seeds of business casual, according to some, were first sown as far back as 1960, when the employees of a prestigious Big Eight accounting firm were no longer required to wear hats to work—though they were required to at least carry them. John R Kennedy, the first hatless U.S. president, shortly thereafter established the hat-free look for good.
Featured a marcasite brooch, a pearl necklace, ruby earrings, and a sapphire ring
Marcasite
Marcasite has been adding light and movement since the time of the ancient Greeks. Set in silver or pewter, marcasite gets its sparkle by refracting light, rather than from internal light found in true diamonds.
Amber
Amber comes with centuries of back story. One of the oldest known ornamentation, men and women from the time of the Stone Age wore amber charms to protect them from evil spirits. Warm to the touch and magnetic when rubbed, amber seemed to be drenched with magical powers. Roman soldiers wore amber amulets into battle, Renaissance women clutched strings of amber beads for protection against sorcerers, and Victorian mothers pinned amber charms to their infants’ clothing.
Featured amber, amethyst, Bohemian garnet, and Lucite
Upon its publication in 1975, a groundbreaking book entitled Dress for Success caused a furor in the fashion industry. Its author, John T. Molloy, set forth a system of dressing for the ambitious professional male that would assist him in his ascent up the corporate ladder. What scandalized Seventh Avenue? Molloy’s characterization of it as an evil empire out to separate a man from his earnings. In 1977 Malloy produced the sequel The Woman’s Dress for Success Book. Legions of ambitious women adopted the deliberately anti-fashion uniform promoted in this book: comically feminized business suits with shawl collars and demure knee-length skirts, high-necked blouses with jabots and vests, and men’s-style shirts with bow ties. Validating Molloy’s assessment of the fashion industry as one based on greed, enterprises such as the women’s outfitter Alcott & Andrews quickly cropped up to cash in on the demand for what was arguably the nadir of twentieth-century women’s fashion: corporate drag.
Michael Douglas in Wall Street and Melanie Giffith in Working Girl
Basic dress
Eskimo men and women dressed much alike; the few differences in their garments reflected specialized activities. It was also hard to differentiate between basic wear and outerwear because, given the harsh climate, almost all Eskimo garments were outerwear. Indoors, both sexes stripped down to fitted undergarments, briefs made from de-haired sealskin or caribou calf. Outdoors, a tunic or shirt of water-resistant sealskin, with the fur turned inside, was the usual summer wear, together with sealskin trousers that tied below the knee with a drawstring and tucked into boots.
An old Eskimo man and an Eskimo child
Born in a Basque fishing village in 1895 and brought up by a widowed mother who taught dressmaking, Cristobal Balenciaga showed an early interest in the design of clothing. He became an apprentice to a tailor in San Sebastian, a fashionable resort frequented by the Spanish aristocracy which streets and promenades were a catwalk of a sort for high-quality clothing and luxury goods. It was in this milieu that Balenciaga opened his first couture house in 1919, followed by a second outlet in 1931 with further branches established in Madrid and Barcelona. The outbreak of civil war in 1937 led him to Paris,via London, where he founded his house on the avenue George V during the same year. The patronage of the influential Duchess of Westminster and orders from major American department stores cemented his reputation as a gifted manipulator of color and structure.
Balenciaga's signature style has been characterized as timeless, but his methods and outlook were influenced by his Spanish heritage.
Given the tumultuous nature of human history, it is most unusual for any of the world’s remaining folk costumes to have evolved through a steady, unbroken process. Korea provides a dramatic case in point: the country’s current “traditional” dress is the result of a conscious decision to reach back across decades of devastating turmoil to reconstruct the clothing of Korea’s final royal dynasty, the Joseon (a.d. 1392 – 1910).
Korean traditional hanbrok
The 17th century belonged to France. A new era of refinement had dawned across Europe. Privileged society had become more sophisticated and it was France that led the way in this new grand age. Gone were the days of Renaissance Florence. However, Rome had already spawned the century’s dominant artistic and cultural style – the Baroque.
Versailles, Hall of Mirrors
