second skins

Halston bodysuits for day and evening.

Detail from 1963 Frederick's of Hollywood catalog spread.

Just received news that my paper "Second Skins: Spandex Pants and the New American Woman" will be a part of the 1st Global Conference: Fashion- Exploring Critical Issues to be held at Mansfield College, Oxford University from September 25 - 27. This will be my first time presenting at an academic conference, which is very exciting. Here are some excerpts from the paper:

"Such were the revolutionary shaping qualities of the new stretch fabrics that in a 1940 issue of The Science News-Letter Robert D. Potter exclaimed, “for the first time since Adam killed an animal and used its skin for clothing, man has at last achieved a fabric that will hug the figure and not hang in folds.” Potter’s biblical reference took fashion back to basics, before heavy draperies and superfluous layers, before structured garments with boning and hoops. It signaled a new body consciousness and a determination on the part of science to develop new figure-hugging materials. These fabrics were akin to the animal skins worn by the couple banished from paradise. As they attempted to survive on their own outside of the Garden of Eden, they wore second skins, a new layer demanded by modernity.

Perhaps the Adam and Eve figures are best represented by Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson from the 1978 film Grease, whose matching skin-tight ensembles in the film’s last scene come together to represent a lusty freedom of sartorial expression in their snug, black second skins. In the scene, Sandy reveals her dramatic change from a conservative schoolgirl in full skirts and bobby socks into a sexually charged woman in body-hugging spandex pants, tempting her “Adam” with a shapely figure, accentuated by stretch material. Sandy’s transformation signaled the discovery of the woman’s body by women themselves.

This new social consciousness of the figure prevailed as fashion evolved over time, but the female figure underwent many significant changes during the course of discovery. Molded, shaped, flexed, and manipulated by the whim of the designer and the silhouette of the period, waists have been tightly cinched, bodices curved, hips exaggerated, breasts flattened, shoulders padded, legs both hidden beneath long layers and brazenly exposed from underneath miniskirts. In its endless variety of looks, trends and fashionable shapes, sculpting the ideal female figure has been a significant aim of twentieth century fashion. In the midst of these changes the idea of fashion as a second skin had been lost, until materials utilized in foundation garments, such as lastex from the late thirties and 1940s were later used in pants of the same material manufactured by Frederick’s of Hollywood in the fifties and sixties. As women became more active and aware of the health and fitness of their figures in the 1970s, silhouettes began to narrow, and by the latter part of the decade when disco became mainstream, slim fitting pants were a must have article for evening wear. These narrow pants represented a new freedom of movement and daring personal display of the body for women. Giving her an almost naked look sheathed in shiny confetti colors, the skintight trouser was the ultimate symbol of second skin exposure, a celebratory layer allowing for the raucous freedom of movement associated with the 1970s disco club scene."

Clubgoers at New York, New York disco, June 16, 1979.

"The skintight spandex pant made a woman look fabulous while she lived out her wildest fantasies in the dark shadows and colorful lights of the discotheque. Frederick Mellinger, whose aim was to “glorify and re-glorify a woman’s figure,” had been producing various styles of these fantasies since 1957, selling them to women across America through his famous Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogs. Styles like the “Sizzler” “Cock-O-the-Walk” and “Wow!” had names and looks with a dynamic aura of brazen sexual confidence. This self-assurance could be found in the illustrations of women posing on the pages of Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogs through the 1950s, and into the sixties and seventies. However, it wasn’t until the late seventies that the sexually confident woman, aware of herself and her body, made her entrance into the world of fashion.

In the creation and production of the most body-hugging trousers of the twentieth century, Frederick’s of Hollywood utilized new stretch fabrics like lastex and spandex to accentuate and hug the female figure. Early styles of the pant were constructed in a variety of lastex blends with nylon, wool, cotton batiste, lurex and satin. The latter was the most popular for its glamorous shine, and lurex made every curve of a woman’s hips and legs sparkle. Throughout the fifties and sixties, the lastex pant aimed to lengthen and slenderize the natural shape of the feminine leg with its light-catching shine and sinewy lines.

In the 1970s the California based Frederick’s remained the most prolific manufacturer of the garments, still faithfully producing the shiny trousers in spandex rather than lastex. Most styles were constructed of ninety percent nylon and ten percent spandex combining shine and stretch to make a sturdy material that provided support. Straight-as-an-arrow off the body but spectacularly full of life when worn, the two-pocket, zip front pant became the ubiquitous figure- revealing garment of the late 1970s, leaving a woman looking as if she had been dipped in any vibrant color of the rainbow: gold, electric blue, pink, red, green, orange, brown, white, burgundy or black.

As its popularity grew, other brands produced “body-beautiful” versions of the sought after trouser. Le Gambi, Michi, TA, DBA for Bojangles and Bojeangle’s Skin Ease were the most popular makers besides Frederick’s of Hollywood (see fig. 10). Other brands followed suit, producing spandex and lycra pants in addition to their own designs. Danskin had their popular “Pantskins,” Frangipani of California created a line of “Franiskins,” Gilda-Santa Monica made “Flexatard Body Designs,” and jean companies such as Sassoon and Chemin de Fer also came out with clinging stretch trousers. With an overwhelming variety of companies manufacturing the garments, they were readily available to women everywhere, allowing them to make daring statements from the waist down in snug but comfortable second skin stretch materials."