Feminine modernity in interwar Britain and North America: Corsets, cars, and cigarettes
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Issue Date
2008
Editor
Authors
Tinkler, Penny
Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick
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Subject
Abstract
Cars, corsets, and cigarettes occupied a prominent place in British and
U.S. editions of Vogue in the interwar years. All three products were
presented as quintessentially modern and possessing the capacity to
modernize the women who used them. This article addresses the relationship
between consumption and feminine modernity, showing how
affluent British and North American women were encouraged to remake
themselves as modern feminine subjects through the purchase of cars,
corsets, and cigarettes. By scrutinizing representations of women’s relationship
to modern and modernizing goods, key constituents of interwar
affluent feminine modernity are identified. While Britain, Canada, and
the United States took distinctive routes through twentieth–century
modernity, Vogue encouraged wealthy women to imagine and create
forms of feminine modernity that transcended the specificities of place.