Tailored for Freedom

Book excerpt: Seen as an expression of individuality and personality, fashion around 1900 became a synonym for the physical and social emancipation of women and progressed to become an object of artistic interest. The clothes designs of famous artists like Heinrich Vogeler, Henry van de Velde, Josef Hoffmann and Sonia Delaunay reveal both a new aesthetic and a new attitude to the role of women. The unity of art and life which the reform movements of around 1900 strove to achieve inspired artists to experiment with th e design of women's dresses. The artist's dress as a part of the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk reflects the image of woman in its various facets: as a decorative object, as an artist and as an emancipated businesswoman. This volume will delight readers with the beauty of the clothes and artworks it shows, which it classifies controversially and under new interdisciplinary perspectives in the period of change at the beginning of the twentieth century - from the German Reform Movement and the Wiener Werkstätte to the English Arts and Crafts Movement and the development of Haute Couture in Paris.