Queen Of Fashion Summary

Superior Essays
In the book, Queen of Fashion. What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber, the author stresses the notion of how fashion can be used to uplift a person’s status and importance in society. In other words, a person’s fashion can dictate just how worthwhile he or she is because the apparel they are wearing helps to define the type of contributions and involvement they have in society. In particular, Weber’s focus on Marie Antoinette shed light onto the stereotypes of women during eighteenth-century France and how the Dauphine redefined gender roles through her fashion. With this in mind, an apparent correlation can be made between the former Queen of France and another historical figure, a fictional character named Rosie the …show more content…
This wartime propaganda image was created on May 29, 1943 by Norman Rockwell, a cover artist for Saturday Evening Post, with the intent to “…encourage women to become wartime workers and enlist them in the World War II workforce” (Moorkoth). This is implied by the type of clothing and fashion that is exhibited by Rosie in the image. Rather than dressing in clothes that women are normally expected to wear, like dresses, hats, scarves, etc., in this particular image, the essence for what a woman is has changed. In this photo, the red-haired Rosie is depicted with partially loose, baggy denim overalls, brown shoes paired with reddish orange socks, and a hairstyle that clamps her hair all the way back, away from her face. She is also accompanied by some fashion accessories, including a riveting gun, some buttons across her denim top, a pair of circular goggles placed on her forehead, a welding mask extended to the back of her head, a lunchbox in her right hand, and a sandwich and brown leather belt bracelets on her left hand ("Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion and Style"). All of these fashion details are of importance because it points to the shift and change in gender roles during World War II. Rather than having women watch the war from the sidelines, they instead became a part of the war and made contributions, mainly in industrial and factory work. Furthermore, because Rosie is dressed in ways similar to how men would dress when they would work, it indicates that women were starting to perform tasks that were originally considered as being men’s work only. Thus, it was the fashion and apparel in the image of Rosie that expressed the message of how a new role for women was being formed in society during World War II. This, in a sense, correlates to Marie Antoinette, when she began to ride horses. Antoinette combated the stereotypes of women

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