ABSTRACT
The mid-twentieth century was a prolific period for the investigation of fashion. Fashion offers a rich source of irrational and superstitious behaviour, indispensable to novelist and social commentator. The concept of ‘modernity’ is useful in elucidating the rather peculiar role played by fashion in acting as a kind of hinge between the elitist and the popular. Because fashion is constantly denigrated, the serious study of fashion has had repeatedly to justify itself. Almost every fashion writer, whether journalist or art historian, insists anew on the importance of fashion both as cultural barometer and as expressive art form. Fashion is a branch of aesthetics, of the art of modern society. It is also a mass pastime, a form of group entertainment, of popular culture. Related as it is to both fine art and popular art, it is a kind of performance art.
