Research Catalog
Young Originals : Emily Wilkens and the teen sophisticate
- Title
- Young Originals : Emily Wilkens and the teen sophisticate / Rebecca Jumper Matheson.
- Author
- Matheson, Rebecca Jumper, 1975-
- Publication
- Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press, [2015]
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Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JQE 15-444 | Schwarzman Building - Art & Architecture Room 300 |
Details
- Description
- xx, 179 pages, 24 variously numbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color); 23 cm
- Summary
- "In the early 1940s, American designer Emily Wilkens went beyond her previous experience in children's wear to create costumes for two teenage characters in a Broadway play. Recognizing the growing importance of the teenager in American culture, she soon launched Emily Wilkens Young Originals, the first designer label specializing in upscale, fashionable clothing for teenage girls. Within the space of a few years, Wilkens skyrocketed from obscurity to national recognition, yet even today many fashion insiders would not recognize her name. Fashion historian Rebecca Jumper Matheson explores intertwining stories of female agency through the history of Wilkens and her teenage clientele. Wilkens retained both artistic and business control over her label in an era when most American ready-to-wear designers were anonymous employees of manufacturers. Wilkens parleyed her relative youth into a big-sister image which, like her dresses themselves, allowed her to mediate between the concerns of her teenage clients and their parents. Contrary to popular wisdom, Wilkens's designs declared that even a teenager could be fashionable. In doing so, Wilkens laid the foundation for the seismic shift that would occur later in the twentieth century, when youth became the fashionable ideal. Young Originals traces Wilkens's career from fashion illustrator in the 1930s to spa and beauty expert in the 1980s, emphasizing her consistent ideal of healthy, youthful beauty"--
- Series Statement
- Costume society of America series
- Uniform Title
- Costume Society of America series.
- Subjects
- Beauty, Personal > Social aspects > United States > History > 20th century
- Fashion > United States > History > 20th century
- Wilkens, Emily
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women
- Fashion merchandising > United States > History > 20th century
- Fashion illustrators > United States > Biography
- Women fashion designers > United States > Biography
- Teenage girls > Clothing > United States > History > 20th century
- Fashion designers > United States > Biography
- DESIGN / Fashion
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-169) and index.
- Contents
- Emily Wilkens : The Early Years -- Junior Miss and the Rise of the Teenager -- Miss Emily Wilkens, Entrepreneur -- Habits of Beauty -- Designing Emily Wilkens Young Originals -- Modern and Historicizing : Reassuring the Public -- Fashion Agency : Marketing to Teens -- Postwar -- A New You.
- Call Number
- JQE 15-444
- ISBN
- 9780896729247
- 0896729249
- 9780896729254 (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2014047391
- OCLC
- 889997158
- Author
- Matheson, Rebecca Jumper, 1975- author.
- Title
- Young Originals : Emily Wilkens and the teen sophisticate / Rebecca Jumper Matheson.
- Publisher
- Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press, [2015]
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Costume society of America seriesCostume Society of America series.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-169) and index.
- Research Call Number
- JQE 15-444