An Illustrated Archive of Style
Case studies of a single, consequential piece.
A single-indigo twill, first woven for dockworkers in Genoa, crossed the Atlantic and rode out with the miners. A hundred and fifty years later, it is the closest thing humanity has to a common uniform.
In August of 1966, an evening tuxedo appeared on a Paris runway. The model was a woman. The century shifted, quietly, on its heel.
For half a century, a single undergarment tethered womanhood to whalebone. The arguments against it were medical, moral, and, finally, modern.