Elizabeth Hawes - Fashion Criticism

Fashion Criticism

From a young age Hawes described herself as having believed in the "French legend" that "All beautiful clothes are designed in the houses of the French couturiers and all women want them."

Her mother's wedding trousseau came from Paris, and her grandmother annually travelled to Paris, bringing dresses back for her grandchildren. When Hawes began designing and making her own clothes, she referred to Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. The prevalence of Paris and French fashion in these magazines reinforced the impression that only French fashion was worthy of attention. Hawes set out to challenge this, and to dispel the concept that American design was only for leisure-wear and sportswear.

In Fashion Is Spinach, according to one summary, she said that "Style ... changes only in accordance with a true change in public taste or need, whereas fashions change because the industry must meet payrolls, magazines must be published, and a myth must be perpetuated." Sometimes it is style's utilitarian nature, its close adaptation to the needs of the user, that she praises: "Style in 1937 may give you a functional house and functional clothes to wear in it. Style doesn't give a whoop whether your comfortable clothes are red or yellow or blue, or whether your bag matches your shoes. Style gives you shorts for tennis because they are practical. Style take away the wasp-waisted corset when women get free and active." She noted how men by contrast were not subject to fashion: {{It is the prerogative of the working man, the lower class guy, to wear no collar and no tie. He may go without a hat if he likes. He can wear loose, unpleated blue jeans. He can show his suspenders if he wants. He can go shirtless in the hot summer, the straps of his overalls barely covering his hairy chest.... He is not admitted to the best clubs, nor even allowed to ride up in the elevator of the Squibb Building without a coat.... But he has nothing to risk by being comfortable.}}

Hawes urged men and women to speak up for clothing that suited their lifestyles. For example, in 1938 she used men's suspenders to illustrate how the fashion industry forced substandard-quality but "fashionable" merchandise upon consumers. Hawes interviewed normal men and found they universally preferred wide elastic suspenders with button fastenings, but could only buy narrow suspenders that cut into their shoulders, with metal grips that tore their trousers. Hawes used this to illustrate her point that the fashion system worked against the customer, offering poorly-made clothing not intended to last beyond a single season.

Hawes was an outspoken champion of dress reform. She encouraged women to wear trousers, and felt that men should feel free to wear robes, coloured clothing, and soft garments if they so wished. She preferred the concept of style to that of fashion, stating that style evolved naturally, whereas fashion was faddish and artificial. Hawes felt everyone had a right to good quality clothing in their personally favoured colours, styles and fabrics, rather than having to choose from the limited range of styles and colours offered by the fashion industry that season. While she made clothes to order, she believed that ready-to-wear was the only way ahead, and thought clothing retailers should each cater to one specific type of customer instead of all stocking the same styles. For her, the only useful purpose of fashion was to entertain, i.e., "to give a little additional gaiety to life".

Life magazine used the publication of Fashion Is Spinach to present its readers with a series of fashions photos so they could determine which deserved which of Hawes' two labels, fashion or style. The magazine quoted her:

Style gives the feeling of a certain period in history. Fashion is a parasite on style. He is the horrid little man who tells you last winter's coat may be in perfect condition but you can't wear it because it has a belt.

She wrote with style. According to one fashion historian, her writing made her "the Dorothy Parker of fashion criticism, with her snappy tone and tell-it-straight attitude". She makes a careful distinction about Hawes and her notoriety: "In reality, her clothes did not appear radical for their time; it was her outspoken philosophy that set her apart."