Little Black Dreck

This week in my symposium class (the one where we are writing papers that de-bunk fashion myths) we watched a short documentary about the Little Black Dress. The show was actually part of a series called Love/Lust currently showing on the Sundance channel, and the episode about the LBD was the first to air. I was particularly interested to see it because the research team for the show had come to Special Collections many times and spent hours going through sketches and making scans. They seemed like nice people but we did have one moment of suspicion when they asked to see a 1926 issue of Vogue because it supposedly showed the "first ever" little black dress (designed by Chanel, of course). I brought the volume out for them but tried to gently suggest that while this may have been an important little black dress, this was certainly far from the first black dress of moderate size in the history of fashion. As a response, they literally stuck their fingers in their ears and said they didn't want to hear it.

So in class we decided to watch the show with the expectation it would include a few myths that we could discuss. But what we witnessed was awful beyond our expectations. We spent the whole hour alternately laughing, gasping, and groaning at the sheer number of flat-out incorrect statements. They didn't imply untruths, they made made statements that were just flat-out wrong, wrong, wrong. It was quite appalling actually. The core issue was that it was fashion history as told in a VH1 "I love the 80's!" kind of way. They interviewed "experts" tha were really just photogenic people with some connection to fashion who were willing to make statements like "F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were totally the Brad and Angelina of the 1920s!"

The show kicked off by not only claiming that Chanel had invented the first ever little black dress, but she was the first woman (besides nuns) to ever wear black, and that in 1926 she saved the world from Victorian fashion (which actually ended circa 1901) which included bustles (last gasp 1892) and crinolines (R.I.P. cage crinoline 1868). But lest you think this is nothing more than the rants of a picky fashion stickler, there were plenty of groans for everyone else.

For the Historian / People over 55

-By the early 1960s, the tensions of the Cold War were basically over

-The Kennedy Presidency co-existed with the height of the hippie movement.

For the Feminist:

-The LBD is a great way to show the world you are an empowered woman! In fact, Kate Middleton got her man by wearing an LBD in a fashion show Prince William attended. Now she is going to be a princess!! Girlpower!

For people with a basic understanding of size:

-A floor-length evening gown counts as a little black dress

For Humanity:

-Miley Cyrus is the perfect example of class and style today.

The final insult was that the images that they used from Special Collections were literally on screen for about a second. They scrolled through about 10 images from our Bergdorf Goodman archives in rapid fire for one moment at the end. But as my professor pointed out, it was probably good that we were barely associated with that train wreck. It has been thrilling to help people who are working on documentaries or films, but this would be one case in which seeing "Special Thanks to Clara Berg!!" would have been a downright embarrassment.

Next week we plan to see what they have to say about the high heel shoe.