A Modern(ist) Mode: Fashion, 1910, and the Limits of Modernism
Mod modern(ist): moda, 1910 şi limitele modernismului

Summary/Abstract: Since the British Association of Modernist Studies conference in Glasgow, December 2010, which considered Virginia Woolf’s famous assertion that “on or about December 1910, human character changed”, there has been a resurgence of interest in modernism’s origins. Developed from a paper given at this conference, this article interrogates the modernist construction of chronological limits, examining why such limits were imposed. Engaging with Woolf’s statement, it considers her claims from a hitherto unexplored angle – from the perspective of modern fashion. Focusing on the 1910/1911 season, and Paul Poiret’s revolutionary catalogue illustrated by Georges Lepape, it asks firstly whether Woolf’s claims can be substantiated, and secondly, and more importantly, whether limits themselves are a critically useful way of ordering and interpreting the past.

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