Abstract
Abstract When turn-of-the-century conservationists in the United States and Europe began to lambast and promote legislative action against the use of exotic bird feathers in women's fashion, French naturalists stood apart from their Anglo-American colleagues in offering an ecological program that emphasized the needs of the French feather trade. This article explores the particular French cultural investment in fashion not only by feather tradesmen but also by conservationists from the 1890s through the 1920s. This attachment to the importance of women's luxury fashion as a French national patrimony meant that French response to proposed feather bans by the United States and Great Britain included a more sympathetic address to the bourgeois woman consumer and patriotic praise for the skill and taste of the workingwomen of the Parisian feather trade.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call