Colin McDowell, a former chairman of the Costume Society of Great Britain, made his name as the senior fashion writer for The Sunday Times in the 1990s and 2000s. The now-legendary journalist and academic is releasing a new book: The Anatomy of Fashion: Why We Dress The Way We Do. McDowelll is uniquely well-placed to produce a definitive tome such as this, having written over 20 books on fashion and style. Unlike most fashion writers, however, McDowell is celebrated for his analytical and intellectual approach towards style. The central thesis of McDowell’s new volume focuses on the idea that the body is the foundation of all fashion, and it explores fashion through human anatomy. McDowell shares some key images and ideas from The Anatomy of Fashion in conversation with Tom Sykes.
“The best present you could give Elizabeth I was a bolt of rare cloth," McDowell says. "Her dresses were always covered in jewelry, because it never decays and was a portable form of wealth."
So why don't they dress up any more? Why is it all LK Bennett and TopShop?
"The current royal family is much less showy, because you have to be careful when you are in a position to be hated for who you are. Their hearts are in the country and they are happiest when out stalking deer, wearing tweeds."
“This Count with his long hair is making a statement," says McDowell.
Was long hair an act of rebellion even then?
"It is not an act of rebellion, but an act of arrogance. He is saying, ‘I am not part of society, I can do my own thing, I am above it, I am important enough and rich enough not to worry about what you think.’ Hair has been demonized many times but also accepted as a sign of power and individuality."
2012 Photo Scala, Florence/White Images
“Clothes are not only about sex but also about power," says McDowell. "This is a classic example of this -- the emperor riding into battle, or into a city, dressed to command respect. This is what dress was for. It made you different, grander, and more powerful than ordinary people. Ordinary people were very often nearly naked, and if they were not naked, they were unlikely to be clean. Cleanliness was one of the great class divides in history. The reason Regency bucks changed twice a day or Beau Brummel disposed of 15 neckerchiefs before he got it right was because they could, because they were rich.”
Did Marie Antoinette's love of fashion really cost her her life?
“It did. Marie Antoinette was the first fashion victim, because on the flight to Varennes, she wanted to go back for her jewelry, and that is the only reason she was caught by the revolutionaries. She was a bored woman, unhappy, and she took refuge in clothes."
Like many other women have done, right?
"Yes. Versailles was a game of charades on a huge scale. Whatever hat or glove Marie Antoinette was wearing at noon, all the other ladies would have to have copies by 3 pm.”
The Art Archive
“There is nothing more seductive than half-seen parts of the body, including the face. Diaphanous clothes and drapes that slip and slide as one moves are very sexually exciting," McDowell says of the image of former spy Mata Hari, who is rebranded as an exotic dancer and performing the dance of the seven veils in Paris. "They also have a power because men are intrigued by them and want to know more. A spy like Mata Hari wants to intrigue men (or women) and she does it through her dress which fascinates, intrigues, and puzzles."
“The policeman with all of his accoutrements is the modern equivalent of the courtier. His clothes say, ‘Don’t mess with me.’ Policemen and the military do not necessarily dress to be sexy, but they are sexily dressed because they dress in such a way as to look physically powerful.”
“James Dean was the first modern young man (not teenager) who did not dress like a man five years older. His face portrayed the angst and the uncertainty of the young man who wanted to be a man but did not know how to do so -- so what is he to do? Dean found the answer in a hat. A hat covers the eyes, and he was smart enough to know what hiding one’s eyes could do,” McDowell said, adding that Che Guevara also knew the power of a good hat.
“This punk, the markings on his forehead, the gesture, the snarl, all sums up England in the 1980s -- the moment when the urban young were so alienated that in the ultimate act of transgression they shaved off their hair. The punks very deliberately chose to wear American working class clothes: braces, boots, and denim. They liked to give the impression that they were a bit dirty as well, that they were too hard to wash.”
“This advert for the Wonderbra -- Hello Boys -- was a throwback to the days of Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Lauren, the pneumatic Italianate starlets. Men have a great fixation with breasts, and these breasts are a) very beautiful and b) prominently pushed forward. Then there is the text, the invitation, “Come and get it.” It traumatized the feminists, but it also traumatized men," says McDowell. "It was a seminal moment, and it shows how underwear is just as liable to be a thing of fashion as outerwear.”
"Stockings were a revolution," says McDowell, quoting (but alas not singing) the Cole Porter line: "In olden days a glimpse of stocking / Was looked on as something shocking / But now, Heaven knows / Anything goes." As McDowell says, the fact that the church had for so long prohibited bare legs were a sign of just how "dangerous" they were. "Legs have always been exciting. "The church knew they were exciting -- a dangerous area -- and persuaded society that women’s legs should be covered. But that only made them even more exciting! Legs are the twin conduits of desire because all the important stuff goes on at the top of them.”
Tom Marks/Corbis
$100, 358 pages, published by Phaidon Press.
