Fashioning Bodies and Gender

Baronial ladies at the courts of the 18th century emphasised their bust, waist and hips. They used stays to lace the waist and chest into a conical shape. These were reinforced with whalebone made from the bristles of the baleen whale that hang down instead of teeth. Panniers, from the French word for "basket", were large hooped petticoat frames with which women emphasised their hips. Court dresses worn by high-ranking women were particularly wide. Expansive hips were considered a sign of fertility, which was necessary to maintain the dynasty.

The political upheavals at the late 18th century also led to a reorientation in men's fashion. Inspired by the English landed gentry and the working classes, the new bourgeoisie abandoned the expensive fashions of the aristocracy. Men's suits increasingly consisted of woollen fabrics in muted colours. Instead of colourful silks, fashion-conscious men showed their taste through simple elegance.

The bourgeois woman of the 19th century showed her status through sweeping silk dresses. During the 1860s, the typical hourglass figure was taken to extremes with tight corsets and wide cage petticoats. New steel underskirts, so-called crinolines, freed the body from heavy textile petticoats. Steel bones replaced the old whalebone for stabilising corsets. 

Resistance to the supposed bourgeois idyll of the 19th century grew. While the first women's movement caused a political upheaval, the first rational dresses for women emerged in artistic circles. Supported by doctors, artists and social reformers, women's rights activists declared war on the corset. With untucked, loose dresses, disparagingly called "reform sacks" by critics, they underlined their political opinion.

During the 1920s, working women raised by the war and social upheaval to be independent, increasingly strived for equal rights. A type of woman with a boyish figure and a straight silhouette was in demand. In keeping with the new Charleston dance, women wore calf-length skirts and for the first time their legs came into focus.

The New Look of the 1950s revived the ideal of the hourglass figure for women. With the increasing prosperity of the post-war generation and the ideal of the caring housewife and mother, a new longing for a feminine silhouette emerged. The steel petticoats of the previous century were replaced by petticoats made of modern synthetic fibres such as nylon.

Established by cinema stars of the 1950s such as James Dean and Marlon Brando, jeans, T-shirts and sneakers achieved cult status. Since the 1970s, jeans have also become an everyday wardrobe staple for women. Today, these three items of clothing form a kind of unisex outfit for both sexes. But does this seemingly equal appearance of men and women also mean equality in terms of their social, political and financial status and opportunities?