I haven't blogged about my primary research in awhile, and this week's find is too good to pass up! When searching American Periodicals this week using the key words "Lady Liberty," I discovered a letter to a young lady with a very different explanation of liberty. The letter (five pages in two columns) appears as a reprint from the Monthly Magazine in The New York Magazine, or Literary Repository (1790-1797) in the Nov. 1797 edition (very close to the end of the eight year run). This letter entitled "FASHION--A VISION. In a Letter to a young Lady" is, in truth, about liberty, but in significantly different terms than we may expect. The author introduces his dream or vision with the statement:
"Young as you are, my dear Flora, you cannot but have notices the eagerness with which questions, relative to civil liberty, have been discussed in every society. To break the shackles of oppression, and assert the native rights of man, is esteemed by many, among the noblest efforts of heroic virtue; but vain is the possession of political liberty if there exists a tyrant of our own creation; who, without law, or reason, or even external force, exercises over us the most despotic authority; whose jurisdiction is extended over every part of private and domestic life; controuls our pleasures, fashions our garb, cramps our motions, fills our lives with vain cares, and restless anxiety. The worst slavery is that which we impose upon ourselves; and no chains are so cumbrous and galling, as those which we are pleased to wear by way of grace and adornment."
Nice intro, huh? A total prank in which you begin by thinking about liberty and end with a brilliant thesis on fashion. The rest of the letter is equally captivating. The author continues: "-- Musing upon this idea, gave rise to the following dream or vision:" and begins to describe a scene (reminiscent of Gulliver's travels) in which he is in a new world ruled by an evil queen who forces her subjects to change the shape of their bodies, paint their faces and hair, and changes the unwritten laws every hour, punishing those who do not follow the rules by allowing her subjects to ignore and starve the perpetrator. The dream is brilliant, three and a half pages describing fashion rituals and comparing the corseted figure to a wasp, false moles to "some pestilential disorder," and fashionable collars to goiters. The author describes the altered silhouettes made by clothes and causes us to imagine how horrified we would be if our bodies were really shaped that way. The author also describes corseting and hair fashions for adult women as a type of bondage and punishment, but praises the Queen of fashion and her assistants Vanity and Caprice for the commerce and value to the economy which feeds the poor and gives jobs to the needy, but the author does see this as a contradiction at the same time-- perhaps because it is the wealthy who are enslaved? In the end, the author sees his own Flora taken up to the alter of fashion, and just as the corset is brought up, his extreme fear and emotion for her wakens him.
On the surface, the social commentary of this letter on fashion is fascinating by itself. However, the connection to liberty and (fashion as repressing liberty) is even more interesting. Further, the ideas of a queen and an alter of fashion bring up the British monarchy in a negative light and put a twist on the ideas of the church at the same time. The author mentions the British connection "I saw the genius of Commerce doing her homage, and discovered the British cross woven into the insignia of her dignity" when he notices the "industrious poor" working behind the throne and paid by the queen. The author admits this is a complication to his ideas of fashion, but is then distracted by the appearance of Flora at the alter of fashion. Unfortunately for us, he doesn't really explain his meaning here, but it appears to be a positive British description, a complexity to the queen of fashion the author did not expect.
I think the letter relates to national identity building and feminism, which I find interesting, but mostly I was captivated by the message and the way it was presented. I have been present for a few lectures by parents explaining to their daughters that makeup and fashion is just hiding their real beauty, but this is one of the first that has compared it to a monarchy. Still, the tone of a parent guarding his or her daughter comes through and the descriptions of fashion from an outsider's perspective are brilliant. Unlike the satire of Pope and Swift, this one seems directed from individual to individual, but in a relationship the audience could all relate to. The rhetorical device is deeply political, but pointed to what we often consider to be a superfluous area, and the power of the device makes the issue of fashion seem much more significant. Rather than joking that high heels and pantyhose are made by men to change improve women like you may hear in modern circles, this letter makes fashion seem even more devious and controlling.
Okay, I went on and on about that, but seriously, you should read this letter! The descriptions are captivating and so true!
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