ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the work of fashion designers Paul Poiret and Lucy Duff-Gordon (“Lucile”), which demonstrate the dangers of collapsing costume and clothing. An actress in a couture gown awakened modernist anxieties about what or whom could be created, displayed, or sold. Adjectives like “stagey” and “costumey” sought to establish boundaries between real clothing – and perhaps real women – and their onstage representations. I suggest that early haute couture extended the transformative possibilities of stage costume to all, converting not only unknown actresses into celebrities, but also nouveau riche or scandalous women into virtuous aristocratic ladies. Couture designers encouraged audience-consumers to believe that, for the right price, life could imitate art. The emerging practice of the runway show, considered here as a kind of immersive theatre, blurred the line between spectators and actors, creating a setting in which anyone and everyone could perform. A second kind of transformation occurred in the triangular interaction between fashion, theatre, and fine art – through an engagement with theatre, I argue, couture garments were able to legitimate themselves as original art objects suitable for the gallery or museum.
