^{Recently, I found this picture of old-timey students in a Home Ec class. Remember when Home Economics was taught in school—cooking, sewing, housekeeping, budgeting, childcare, even etiquette and dressing? I do, but only because I caught a magical glimpse of it while watching 80s/90s TV shows as a kid.}

^{I wish Home Ec had still been around when I started high school. By the 1990s and early 2000s, it had been renamed “Family & Consumer Sciences,” then largely scrapped because of budget cuts, standardized testing pressures, and the emergence of more tech-based electives. (Also, I guess, society no longer expected most girls to go straight from high school graduate to young wife and mother?)}

^{But boo, I say. Boo. (Not about the young wife and mother thing). I say Home Ec should still be valuable for both boys and girls. And why not wood and auto shop?—but that’s a post for another newsletter.}

^{The Lost Art of Dress by Linda Przybyszewski chronicles the heyday of Home Economics and the women called “Dress Doctors”, those Home Ec educators installed as leaders of female fashion etiquette during the gloriously chic days of early and mid-century America.}

^{But this piece isn’t really about Home Ec…not really. It’s essentially about how what we wear expresses our tastes (or lack thereof), can shape our own and others’ emotions as well as influence the ways we move through the world.}

^{When the Dress Doctors taught women about cut and fabric and all the rest, they weren’t only teaching them the fundamentals of dressmaking, but also teaching them how to develop taste, to understand why an outfit did or didn’t work aesthetically.}

^{Przybyszewski notes that The Dress Doctors prescribed Five Art Principles for choosing what to wear as paraphrased here:}

👗 ^{Harmony - this referred to the attractive unification of shape, texture, idea (like decorations/patterns on a dress), and color.}

👗 ^{Rhythm- the movement of a dress according to the purpose for which it is worn and the woman’s personality.}

👗 ^{Balance- perfect symmetry or “occult” balance.}

^{*My examples of an occult balance:}

👗 ^{Proportion - requires that a woman avoid making her figure look out of scale by the clothes she wears or the accessories she uses. Large woman ≠ tiny purse; Small woman ≠ enormous purse…Did I just do some girl math?}

👗 ^{Emphasis- an element/decoration of a dress/piece of clothing that is used sparingly and in the right places.}

^{Dress Doctors also taught girls and women how to be frugal, wasting as little fabric as possible, even redesigning old dresses to conform to the fashions of the day.}

(As I try to shop less for clothes, I’ve been cutting up my tops and skirts and restyling them in ways that better suit my current tastes. I’m even mending old tights—yeah, the cheap kinds…don’t care…still determined do it.)

^{In addition, for the Dress Doctors, dress didn’t only have to do with the literal attire a girl/woman wore, but also involved ideas of what was appropriate for an occasion or activity. They included: School, Spectator sports and active sports; Street, travel or work; Housework; Afternoon affairs or tea; After-five or formal evenings.}

^{Some might argue we don’t, as a whole, dress with intention anymore because crap is all we’re offered by brands, whether the clothes are mass-produced or designer. What are we to do, especially when even the quality of high-fashion luxury is failing inspection?}

^{(Remember, for example, the Miu Miu controversy?)}

^{Yet, I maintain that if the effort’s made, good-quality, unique treasures can still be found—online, at e-auctions, at thrift and vintage stores, at estate and garage sales, clothing swaps, heck even a friend’s closet cleanout.}

^{I sometimes imagine someone magically getting transported from the 1800s to the present day and how she’d be less terrified of cars, planes, and AI than she would be of the mass dystopian generic bleh-ness of modern fashion.}

^{I have to say the blame isn’t wholly on us. We’ve stopped expecting more because many designers (okay, let’s be real, fashion conglomerates) take advantage of the fact that they’ve trained us to conflate a designer tag or logo with style and good quality, despite the bland fare offered by these labels nowadays.}

^{In addition, we’ve also stopped being encouraged to cultivate taste because who needs to worry about taste when brands crown themselves cool and desirable before you’ve had the chance to really judge the clothes for yourself and hone your personal style? We’ve stopped being curious about what could actually look better on us individually or what basic good quality actually looks like, stopped believing we deserve clothes that are well-designed and not merely designer or hype.}

^{Of course, I’m not saying we must dress fancy all the time and I certainly don’t hope we go back to wearing frilly dresses with corsets and bustles…just that we build the discernment that people back then were explicitly taught to refine, because what we put on affects our whole lives more than we may think.}

INTERMISSION |

Fashion Focus: The Kashmir Shawl

Published by Hannibal Publishers in 2025, Fashion & Interiors: A Gendered Affair explores the relationship between fashion and interior design in the West through a gendered lens. It may leave readers wondering whether the poor materials, bland design, “millennial gray” and neutral colors that have become popular in many modern homes and apartments have a connection to the poorly constructed clothes in stores today, with their bland shapes and neutral color palettes.

Throughout a good part of Western history, at least for the wealthier classes (who the less endowed always inevitably copy), fashion reveled in remarkable symbolism and craftsmanship. Good taste often entailed excellence in detail and construction.

In 1899, French author and all-around rich guy, Robert de Montesquiou, gushed, “…Cloisonneé enamels of wool…the wings of a Hindustan butterfly…continents of turquoise, emerald and ruby…”1 and he was just waxing poetic about Kashmir shawls!

First imported from the Kashmir region of India and then mass-produced in Scotland and France, Kashmir shawls used to be all the rage in the West. The shawls were much bigger than the kinds we wear now—if we wear them at all—and could be wrapped over coats. They were made of pashmina (fine cashmere wool) or shahtoosh (Tibetan antelope fur).

A woman owning such a shawl typically meant her husband had that

For Fashion & Interiors: A Gendered Affair, Dries Debackere tells us “…interior gowns [worn indoors] made from Kashmir shawls had a closer-fitting bodice and were meant to be worn with a corset. This made them more formal and thus suitable for wearing in front of a wider audience, for example at the jour de réception held by the lady of the house. This was a fixed afternoon in the week on which she received visitors at home in the *salon. During the Belle Époque, these daytime receptions were an important way of strengthening the family’s social network, and the clothes worn by the hostess could play a role in this. Some women, therefore, chose to wear a luxurious interior gown known as a tea gown—so named because of the tea and refreshments the hostess would serve. As a tea gown was often inspired by historical or non-Western dress, an old Kashmir shawl was a suitable material for making this type of interior gown.”2

*French name for an informal living room.

But Kashmir shawls not only provided the material for a hostess’ dress but could also be made into a household item, like a tablecloth…3

In the same book, Wim Mertens writes, “A British cartoon showed a woman dressed in a gown made from a medley of tablecloths and table runners in various styles, reflecting the mishmash inside the home. If she was to sit on a divan, she would completely merge with her surroundings.”4

^{Plenty of studies and books reveal how closely our everyday clothing choices are tied to how we feel and how capable we believe ourselves to be. Ever heard someone say, “Dress for success”?}

^{Clothing affects us emotionally, and by extension, may affect others around us. I think the way we dress can even shape the “emotional climate” of the places we live in, especially cities.}

^{However subtle it may seem, the way we dress influences how we feel and move through the world. A flowy, flattering, flittering blouse won’t save souls or fill emotional holes (I’m a poet!), but it might lift our shoulders a little higher. It might make someone else smile or remind us that we’re people with the capacity to express beauty and taste, not background extras in our own lives.}

^{When we move through the world with care, dressing with intention and knowledge, adding even the smallest hint of personal style—that pop of originality—it can lift the environment around us.}

^{I feel this at church, during Sunday service, when people look more put together.}

^{I don’t feel it as much when I’m on a street full of people wearing basic jeans, hoodies, leggings, sweatpants, and baseball caps (sometimes I’m one of them).}

^{I get that it’s easy and comfortable wearing basic clothes, wearing what everyone else wears. Mmmm. Don’t have to think hard about what to wear. Nobody’s sticking out and I’m not either.}

^{In 1918, Mary Brooks Pickens told women to “take the matter of dress seriously and conscientiously,” like they do “reading matter for the development of the intellect.”}

^{Comfort doesn’t have to mean giving up on displaying good taste. It can mean starting small by choosing to put on just one thing like a contrasting scarf, a patterned skirt, a pair of earrings…the smallest tweak that can complete and enhance an outfit. Dressing with the smallest bit of intention isn’t vanity. It’s self-care for your eyeballs, and everyone else’s. Hmm, can this be classified as an act of public service?} 🙃

^{Maybe our “I don’t want to stand out” has slowly turned into “I don’t want to try.” And I get it…life is ex-haus-ting. Still, I think we lose something when every day is athleisure day. Where’s the glamour? The sense of aliveness in seeing someone wear a striking outfit?}

^{In high school, I religiously watched What Not To Wear.}

^{Recently, Stacy and Clinton reunited for a one-season Amazon series called Wear Whatever the F You Want…so maybe I’m the wrong one here.} 😅

^{But there’s a caveat. According to the show’s description blurb:}

^{So they aren’t giving up on style in favor of people wearing pajamas outside. Sounds like they still have standards and want to help their guests enhance their innate sense of style with, I’m sure, a side of taste education.}

^{After all, this is the same pair who made fun of a guest’s jeans for dragging on the ground, joking that she must’ve been the one who swept her city’s streets clean.}

(btw, they also have a fashion commentary web series and podcast called Why'd They Wear That?)

^{Whether “dress doctors” are past (Home Ec educators) or present (Stacy and Clinton), they are essentially on the same page: trends and fashions come and go, but cultivating taste is evergreen.}

^{So we should care a little, choose with intention, and it’ll show.}

1

2

3

4

5