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Exhibit shows similarities between men's and women's fashions
September 14, 1996
web posted at: 9:00 p.m. EDTFrom Correspondent Janine Sharell
NEW YORK (CNN) -- In the royal courts of 18th century Europe, a well-dressed woman commanded much power -- resulting in a trend of men dressing and looking like women, says Richard Martin, curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Menswear of the period matched the women's in extravagance and discomfort: corsets were common for both.
A new museum exhibit, "Two by Two," compares fashions of the two sexes. In the process, Martin is opening a Pandora's box of gender politics.
"This is the 1780s," he explains, "the beginning of a revolution -- but also a revolution that was, in fact, very much about equity between men and women."
By the Industrial Revolution, the gap widens. Men don black suits -- practical for work in the dirty city -- but women stay home, and keep some of the decorous look of the earlier era.
"Here's where we get the beginning of the man in gray, the man in black," Martin says. "In the 1860s, the woman is Scarlett O'Hara in this great violet dress or with all of this embroidery. The men have banished all of that additional adornment." They also tossed aside those uncomfortable undergarments.
At the start of the 20th century, women became more active outside the home, and their clothing reflects their ventures into the community and workplace. Women were seen as often in a sailor-cut suit with a tie, or a driving coat, as they were in the more elaborate dresses of just a few decades earlier.
"These are the first two decades of the 20th century, and it is the era of women's suffrage," Martin says. "It is about women doing the same things as men."
But pants for women weren't common until the 1960s, although there were some versions of pants in the late 1920s -- in the form of pajamas.
In the 1960s, the lines blur between men's and women's clothing. Martin points out a pinstripe suit that's actually a very mod mini-dress.
"It gets best of both possible worlds, perhaps," he laughs, "power and flirtation."
The exhibit ends in the 1970s with a pair of blue jeans -- bringing the differences in women's and men's fashion back together after centuries apart.
And Martin sees a future full of shared designs.
"I think were going to see a constancy of that kind of exchange," he explains, "that men and women become more equal, work in the same places and have the same clothing needs."
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