You can't blame them. Just as dreamy Hollywood glamour reached new heights amid the Great Depression, today's designers are doing their part to help us forget things. There has been a resurgence of bright color, bold prints, and high glamour in recent years, and a certain idealization of more carefree times. But you can't escape the fact that the fashion industry has been taking hits and there is little reason for optimism. So it's especially interesting that one of the few collections to tackle the lifestyle transition from the roaring '20s to the depressed '30s comes from the same man asking for $10 million a year from Dior.
Marc Jacobs's Spring 2012 RTW collection, while not his most successful outing, fills a certain void left in the fashion world in recent years: the idea of facing the reality of economic hardship, and the fact that it doesn't have to mean drab and purely functional clothing.
The girls who strutted the runway in this collection were those who grew up in the carefree '20s and are now working in the '30s. There were still the flapper silhouettes, but there was a sense of heading off to work rather than dancing in the streets, except for a few questionable street walker looks, though I guess that's heading off to work in another sense.
There was also the mix of country elements (gingham prints and cowboy boots) with a more urban vibe, reflecting on the rural exodus during the Dust Bowl years in which farmers were forced to flood the city unemployment lines. This all makes for a collection that takes the most direct stab at economic hardship and reminds us that just because we may be working harder than ever, we don't have to hide behind an idealized image of a more carefree and glamorous time.
1930s working class women in the city
1930s women and girls in the country
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