In Style: The Dress Doctors

March 1, 2015 4:34 PM

"Before ready-to-wear and before fast fashion, American women created affordable clothing for themselves and their families with help from the Dress Doctors—the thrift experts, home economics professors, and fashion guide authors who advised women how to craft the most appropriate looks for less." Historian Linda Przybyszewski talks about the rise of home economics, women's entry into academic departments in higher education, and the origins of American theory on suitable, affordable clothing for everyday wear. Before the Dress Doctors, however, there was Mary Brooks Picken, the First Lady of Fashion.

Although now almost unknown, Mary Brooks Picken was the American authority on domestic arts in her day. Born in a Kansas farmhouse in 1886, she was a granddaughter of pioneers. Mary’s sewing and design talent became apparent at a young age and she set off for a career in fashion that took her to Kansas City and later, Boston. In 1916 she founded The Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The school was the heart and soul of Mary’s vision and combined correspondence courses with classroom instruction in dressmaking, millinery, cooking, fashion design, beauty, and homemaking. It attracted students from around the world as enrollment climbed to almost 300,000 women, making it the largest school in history devoted solely to the education of women. It reached thousands more through its newsletters and other publications.

Picken was not only an entrepreneur, but also a prolific author, penning over 100 books about dressmaking, needlework, and style. These include:

* "The Secrets of Distinctive Dress : harmonious, becoming, and beautiful dress, its value and how to achieve it": "An artist must know the principles of art to enjoy art or to make a success of it, and so must every woman know the principles of dress and enjoy dress to be successfully clothed."
* Complete Home Reference Book of Sewing and Needlework
* Dress and Look Slender

Picken laid the foundation for the study of dress as a practical matter, and her principles were carried on and spread by the women who taught the emerging discipline of home economics; as Przybyszewski says (in the first link), "... home ec became the way in which women created a safe space for themselves at universities. Which is why, startlingly, by 1960, out of the about 475 women at universities teaching science, 300 of them were in home economics departments. So it did give them an entryway in the sciences, it gave them an entryway into the university in a space that was supposed to be only for women. Women were the deans of home economics colleges. So that meant women got into higher administration in the universities as well."

Another center for dress doctors was the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

One group of these women were headquartered at the Bureau of Home Economics, which was of all places the USDA (laughs). These ideas were being worked out in the late 19th, very early 20th century, a time when people still believed in separate spheres, that women were particularly suited for the domestic. At these land grant colleges, which worked closely with the USDA to create programs for farmers, the argument was: well we do this for farmers, what about their wives?

So they wondered, "What can we do for farm women? We can create a program of home economics."

They advocated for understanding principles of dress, and for the merging of beauty and usefulness. "Their idea was that things that were not useful were not beautiful," says Przybyszweski. "So, for example, if you can’t walk in your shoes they weren’t considered beautiful because the human body is beautiful—the healthy, in-motion, functioning human body is beautiful—so they always had this balance between utility that really merged with the decorative arts." But they also recognized that the women they wanted to reach were often on strict budgets, and often without many resources, and their pragmatic approach produced numerous pamphlets put out by the USDA (Selection and Care of Clothing; Making a Dress at Home; Fitting Dresses and Blouses; Work Clothes for Women) and available for free courtesy of Congresspeople's local offices. "Dresses and Aprons for Work in the Home," for example, rates designs according to five principles: comfort; safety; convenience; durability; and attractiveness.

This brief history is only part of the story, but the Dress Doctors' insistence on DIY beauty and usefulness stands in sharp contrast to the current prevalence of disposable fast fashion (previously). And, after all these years, their advice is still valuable.

posted by MonkeyToes (6 comments total)

These are who I need to help solve my Purim costume problem!
posted by Dreidl at 6:47 PM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thanks, MonkeyToes, for an excellent post for the #WomensMarch. I don't know whether to be impressed that domestic work—at least that done by middle class women—was taken so seriously that it required a safe, comfortable, and utilitarian "uniform", or dismayed that even while cooking, cleaning, and gardening women were required to maintain an attractive image (ironed aprons!). Either way, this information is fascinating.

Plus, I love shirtwaist dresses.
posted by angiep at 7:16 PM on March 1, 2015

I, too, love shirtwaists, although I imagine that I wouldn't love the undergarments that you'd need to wear under them.

Linda Przybyszewski's book looks really odd. Historians have actually done a lot of work on home economics, and she sort of seems to ignore all of it and instead uncritically adopts the viewpoints of her subjects in order to write a very weird self-help book/ fashion manual. And I mean, I'm very proud of my radical immigrant garment worker ancestors, who were like the home ec ladies' worst nightmares, so I'm sort of like "fuck your thrifty, modest, subdued, appropriate, scientific rules. I'm going to wear flashy, sexy, frivolous clothes while I smash patriarchal capitalism."
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:20 PM on March 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Coincidentally I just went through one of my periodic "I must totally overhaul my wardrobe and fashion sense" binges, and spent the whole weekend Cleaning All The Laundry! and hauling everything out of my closet with the intent to ruthlessly try everything on and banish whatever didn't fit. I also went on a small shopping excursion (couldn't find the top I went looking for, but I did find one blazer and a scarf that will expand my options quite well) and was going to then play around with what was left, seeing how many outfits I could make out of what I had, but after four solid hours being focused on clothes, I got completely blitheringly bored and gave up.

And I was reminded again of how wasteful it is that we're all trained to buy completely new clothes and a whole new outfit every year. I only bought that one blazer, but that one blazer will make up about THIRTY new outfits working with different things I already have, and that was just for work. Adding my jeans into the mix and I could probably go for sixty. But I'm probably going to forget nearly all of them because we've been trained not to focus on getting just a few pieces and combining them in different ways; we're trained to just get a lot more clothes. And all those outfits I thought up? I'll probably forget them all, because there are just so many OPTIONS in my closet that it is too confusing and I'll just fall back on the same stuff again and again and again.

There are some things about this style of dress that were wacked-out, but the comparative simplicity was a good thing, I think.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:52 AM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

I, too, love shirtwaists, although I imagine that I wouldn't love the undergarments that you'd need to wear under them.

Though in the past you'd have needed something, nowadays modern shirtwaist patterns are for, well, the modern woman. My favorite is an older pattern at McCalls that's been revisited recently: M6891 Shirtwaist. It flatters pretty much everyone – slightly-flared A-line skirt, fitted bodice that has ease (you can move around in it). You can tell it's not tight, and yet it has this wonderful shape, and is SO comfortable. I've made two in cotton and would live in them if I could. McCalls also has one in a similar line but with princess seams and optional godets: M7084 Shirtwaist. And there's one with a wrap bodice that looks totally adorable but I have waaaaay too many patterns so haven't tried it: M7081 Dress with wrap bodice. I sound like an ad, but they are great patterns for any level and really hold their own.

I'm very proud of my radical immigrant garment worker ancestors, who were like the home ec ladies' worst nightmares...

Mine too! I read the bit in that first article about how "proper" women avoided bright colors and was like, well, there's another side of my twice-maternal great-grandma and paternal grandmother that I always noticed was different but had no idea to what extent. They were both color, color everywhere. (I'm quite similar and do get remarks about it.) They were always making something, too. Both refused to leave school and caught hell for it; my great-grandma especially, she studied advanced math, the horrors! Both held down jobs while raising kids, and had husbands who helped keep house (though my great-grandmother also had to deal with an alcoholic husband on top of it all). Whenever people tell me, uninvited, "why don't you follow a more traditional path? Get married, have kids, take fewer risks? It might be for the best," I can say "whut? I am totally traditional, I take after my grandmas. Now excuse me while I manage projects at multinationals while sewing brightly-colored cotton shirtwaists in my spare time. And am happy."
posted by fraula at 4:56 AM on March 2, 2015 [8 favorites]

This is sublime, thank you.
posted by Hermione Granger at 5:14 AM on March 2, 2015