Societies between Trends

The aim of this book is to understand the presence of French and American fashions in the outfits and modes of dress of the elite women of Fortaleza, and how the adoption of styles, trends and elements of dress (clothes, shoes, accessories, fabrics and the like) under foreign guidelines correlates with Material Culture and the processes of Social Distinction and Cultural Translation seen in Fortaleza between 1925 and 1947. To do this, we analyse advertisements from commercial establishments, texts, official data, news from social columns, calls for beauty contests, illustrations and photographs of women from the wealthy class who fit into the fashion guidelines, belonging to an extensive corpus of documents. Throughout the book we discuss fashion and the relationship between individuals and clothes during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and before. Here we survey the experience of French, North American and Fortaleza fashion aimed at the female public corresponding to this period, concomitantly weaving a connection between these and the universe of events, on a macro scale, that influenced them considerably.