'The Wishful Feeling About Curves': Fashion, Feminity, and the 'New Look' in Australia

Through the (New) Looking Glass

“…Involving as it did an hourglass figure which emphasized bust and hips, the New Look has been regarded by some feminist historians, as well as Dior himself, as symbolizing a postwar 'refeminization' of women and an accordant retreat to women's ostensibly 'natural' sphere of the home following women's increased involvement in paid work during the war (Maynard, 1995). Bordo (1993) has argued that the often-corseted wasp waist, a centrepiece of 'the Look', had long symbolized and reinscribed separate social spheres for men and women (p. 181).…”

“…In its original form the fashion restricted freedom of movement for the wearers, as restrictive undergarments including bodices and corsets were employed to achieve wasp waistlines for those not lucky enough to have a small waist already (Maynard, 1995;McKergow, 2000;McNeil, 1993). The New Look dovetailed with injunctions to women to rediscover their feminine 'beauty' in order to satisfy their returning servicemen husbands and boyfriends, and a sexualization of women in advertising and popular literature which accompanied pronatalist rhetoric (Lake, 1996).…”

“…Much of the analytical writing about the New Look focuses upon the stylistic details of the fashion, and upon the social context in which the fashion is embedded (McNeil, 1993: 293). It has sometimes been assumed that women have taken pleasure in the Look, and it has been argued that this pleasure is positive for women rather than signifying a return to traditional forms of femininity (Maynard, 1995). Elsewhere, the fashion is described in broad historical sweeps with the suggestion that, while women viewed the Look negatively at first, it became popular later on (McKergow, 2000: 177;Walsh, 1984: 77).…”

“…However, most of the recent international academic literature on the New Look argues that the style was welcomed, if perhaps a little belatedly, although it represented a return to a more traditional form of femininity. According to this analysis, the Look was embraced as a bearer of style and glamour in the postwar years where rationing and shortages of many commodities had left a population weary and in need of some luxuriousness and elegance (Maynard, 1995;McNeil, 1993;Zweiniger-Bargielowska, 2000).…”

“…The privileging of pleasure has the unfortunate result of suggesting that those who opposed aspects of the New Look for any reason were grim promoters of postwar austerity, puritans who opposed expressions of women's sexuality, or women who were unnecessarily 'anxious' about the style. In this vein, Maynard (1995) writes that women 'consumers' were 'anxious' about the implications of the Look, while officials 'moralized' about waste and 'denounced' the fashion's 'reactionary nature ' (p. 45).…”