The Women of 'Little Paris'

Filling a gap in Eastern European fashion studies, this book presents middle-class women consuming fashion in the symbolic ''Little Paris'' of interwar Bucharest, and examines how their material and cultural means supported the city''s modernisation. Combining archival research with personal archaeology, this interdisciplinary work explores Romania''s reinvention as a modern state, focusing on middle-class women as they lived their lives - walking through the streets, at lavish events, at cafes and clubs, shopping, and working. Analysing largely unseen, unused written and visual texts, The Women of ''Little Paris'' encourages exploration of new avenues for research, uniting scholars of Romanian culture, history and fashion and guiding readers through a forgotten, little explored world and, in so doing, adds to our understanding and knowledge of the global image of interwar fashion cultures and the emerging field of Romanian fashion studies.>

Auteur

Sonia-Doris Andras is a postdoctoral fashion researcher, primarily focusing on themes related to fashion, gender, urban cultures and modernity in a Romanian context. She has a PhD from London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK.

She is Associate Researcher within the research project The Ethos of Dialogue and Education: Romanian American Cultural Negotiations (1920-1940) at the Gheorghe Sincai Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities in Târgu-Mures, Romania, within the UEFISCDI-funded sub-theme Embodying the American feminine ethos: Renegotiating Romanian women's identity from Hollywood to Rockefeller.

Contenu

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Mapping the interwar World
   Inventing Greater Romania
   Fashioning the Romanian Paradox

3. Interwar Metropolitan and Urban Cultures
   Women, Life, Fashion and Industry in the City
   'Little Paris': A National Rebirth Project

4. From the Modern Girl to the New Woman
   Gender Dynamics
   Crafting the 'New Romanian Woman'

5. Authors and Characters: Women in Literature
   Fictional Women, Real Bucharests
   Diaries, Memoirs, Biographies

6. From Subjects to Creators: Women Imagined in the Arts
   Portraying Fashion
   Performing Fashion

7. Transition to New Visual Forms: Film, Photography
   Fashioning the Silver Screen
   Pictured with Nose Up, like Moms Wanted

8. Conclusion

Bibliography
Appendix
Index