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
Request for On-site Use Request Scan 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

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 series

Costume Society of America series.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-169) and index.

Research Call Number

JQE 15-444

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