(VERY) DRAFT PAPER - Inter

(VERY) DRAFT PAPER
Manuel Charpy
Universities Tours & Lyon II (France)
[email protected]
Craze and shame. Rubber clothing during the 19th century in Paris, London and New
York.
In 1858, silhouettes slid along seaside resorts’ shores of Normandy. They braved the bad
weather with an elegance that seduced a journalist of the review L’Artiste: « In Cherbourg, all
of beautiful Parisian and foreigner women […] are distinguished from the uniformity of
costumes by silky and smart rubber clothes […] that reproduce Scottish patterns and taffetas
[…]. It is its indisputable superiority: be useful and elegant. ».1 This « secret publicity » for
the Parisian firm Rattier exaggerated the rubber clothing’s craze. But this article – among
many others – shows that the rubber made one’s appearance on the fashion stage. The
vulcanization of rubber – simultaneously in USA, UK and France –at the beginning of the
1840s opened an infinite number of uses for this « miracle » matter and particularly in
clothing. Nevertheless, half-century after, the matter was regarded as vulgar and indecent by
bourgeoisie.
I would like to understand how, in the great cities (Paris, London and NYC) fashion
phenomenons were build in the industrial age2. Questioning the fashion through a matter is a
way to examine clothing from every angle. Why between 1840 and 1860 rubber appeared in
industry as the magic solution? How the rubber found a legitimacy in the somatic culture, in
the relations between clothes and bodies? How was appreciated this matter – touch, smell… –
and how it went in the cultural and social distinction? Finally, how the social and cultural
representations of a matter shaped by medicine, sexuality… determined crazes and rejets.
1. Rubber clothing: an industrial dream
During the1840s, one could see a disruption in the production of clothes and, consequently, in
1
L'Artiste, 1858, tome 5, p. 48, « Courrier de la mode ».
2
Voir les travaux de Giorgio Riello et notamment The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850.
fashion: a new clothing industry started with ready-to-wear clothes organized on fixed sizes 3.
In the same time, after the mechanization of weaving appeared the sewing machine4. In this
context, rubber stimulated industrial imaginations of chemists, mechanical engineers,
industrial tailors…
Rubber had an obvious and new advantage: its elasticity5. In thread form – jagged strips or
coated threads –, it produced elastic fabrics6. Manufacturers dreamt about mass production
clothes with fixed sizes but which could fit all the bodies as tailors’ clothes. This property was
also attractive in the mass production of shoes where the issue of size was very complex.
From the end of the 1840s onwards, Rattier in France, Hutchinson in UK et Goodyear in USA
marketed shoes that imitated the shoemaker’s made-to-measure work: they imitated the
leather and fit the foot7. Advertisements described them as “rubber’s Cinderella”8.
Rubber was all the more attractive because it could be, according to vulcanization, soft or
hard. While clothes and shoes were made with about ten materials, it could replace all of
them. It settled the problem of sewing them together: it replaced seams – until 1860s his
industrialization remained difficult – and screws in the shoe industry9. Manufacturers dreamt
about clothes and shoes cast in one go or stick by a rubber emulsion. Even for shoes and
clothes mendings, rubber was regarded as wonderful: all “you have to do to repair is seal on
the worn zone a new piece of gutta-perka” 10. In a society where mendings of tears were
frequently, eternally repairable clothes – a kind of second skin that heal – were a dream.
During the 1850s the fashion chronicles that celebrated the elegance of rubber celebrated in
practice its ability to imitate all of materials. While industry turned papier maché into
mahogany, staff into stone, plaster into bronze, rubber appeared as one of these plastic
material that imitated others, casted on delicate fabrics – rep, taffeta, damask, lace…– or
3
Voire l’article “Confection”, Dictionnaire du commerce et de la navigation…, Paris, Guillaumin, 1861.
4
Il faut cependant attendre l’essor des magasins de nouveauté et des grands magasins pour que le prêt-à-porter parviennent à
conquérir les classes moyennes des pays industrialisés. Voir notamment Michael B. Miller, The Bon Marché. Bourgeois
Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920.
5
Voir Guillaumin, Dictionnaire du commerce et des marchandises, Paris, Guillaumin, 1852, « caoutchouc » et les nombreux
articles dans le Harper’s weekly et Le Magasin pittoresque (+Musée des familles).
6
Brevets INPI + Dictionnaire Laboulaye / Goodyear et Rattier & Guibal
7
8
Catalogues BHVP + publicités
L’Artiste, 1858, op. cit. Voir en outre, Charles Dupin, Exposition universelle de 1851: Travaux de la Commission
française… « Rattier et Guibal – Caoutchouc », p. 10.
9
Cf. CNAM + Partick Verley ; Dictionnaire du commerce et de la navigation…, Paris, Guillaumin, 1861, « chaussures » /
Godillot.
10
Charles Dupin, Exposition universelle de 1851: Travaux de la Commission française… « Rattier et Guibal – Caoutchouc
», p. 10.
« Ces sortes de semelles, qui coûtent moins que la semelle de cuir, qui résistent plus au frottement, qui sont moins
susceptibles d'usure, qu'on peut si aisément réparer quand elles se percent après un si long temps d'usage, en soudant sur la
partie hors de service un nouveau morceau de gutta-percha, sont d'un emploi très-économique,
pasted with flock11. Moreover, rubber have no colour: with white zinc oxide, it could take all
tints and be weaved on Jacquard looms12. In this way, rubber could dress people from head to
foot: overcoat in imitation of wool or velvet, dress in false taffeta, underwear looked like
linen or cotton, imitation of flower for hat trimming, shoe in leather imitation… Rubber
appeared as a universal matter.
The other reason of this craze for rubber in industry was its waterproof qualities. They were
useful for the outdoor clothing – rain and snow could not go in gaiters, shoes, hats,
overcoats… – and for underwear. In societies where life of clothes lasted more than ten years
despite fashion cycles13, sweating had time to damage bourgeois clothes – bourgeois had
always to wear suit – as workers clothes – the new blue overall14. The solution was the dress
shield (« dessous de bras ») that protected from rings and corrosions. If rubber favoured
sweating, it could support it: manufacturers marketed rubber dress shields and a rubber coat in
clothes allowed to control sweating1516.
Besides, one discovered that a rubber coat on luxurious fabrics (alpaga, taffeta, satin…) or on
fatigue fabric (check) offered a better draper and some non-crease clothes, advantage for
manufacturers as consumers17.
11
12
INPI, Lejeune 4 août 1849 « Application du caoutchouc à la peluche » + patents (London).
Changements possibles d’autant que dans le même temps la chimie organique en est à ses balbutiements et que les matières
tinctoriales change le paysage vestimentaire ; voir Jules Michelet, Le Peuple, 1846 (« [...]. Mais la grande et capitale révolution a
été l’indienne. [...] Toute femme portait jadis une robe bleue ou noire qu’elle gardait 10 ans sans la laver, de peur qu’elle ne s’en
allât en lambeaux. Aujourd’hui, son mari, pauvre ouvrier, au prix d’une journée de travail, la couvre d’un vêtement de fleurs. Tout
ce peuple de femmes qui présente sur nos promenades une éblouissante iris de mille couleurs, naguère était en deuil. Ces
changements qu’on croit futiles, ont une portée immense… C’est un progrès du peuple dans l’extérieur et l’apparence, sur lesquels
les hommes se jugent entre eux.»
Voir en outre, Dictionnaire de chimie industrielle… 1861, p. 401-440 « Caoutchouc et gutta-percha » : « Les feuilles
obtenues par le procédé ci-dessus peuvent être de couleurs diverses ; en mélangeant à la masse du caoutchouc du blanc de
zinc, on a une teinte blanche ; le vermillon donne un beau rouge, les ocres, l'outremer, les noirs d'ivoire et de fumée, etc.,
peuvent être employés ; l'action du soufre, lors de la vulcanisation. n'a que peu d'effet sur eux. Ces feuilles peuvent
facilement être ornées de dessins en creux ou relief, une sorte de gaufrage. Pour cela, nous prenons une pièce de toile, dont la
surface a été décorée par le tissage du grain ou du dessin que l'on veut reproduire sur le caoutchouc. Après l'avoir légèrement
humectée, nous appliquons à sa surface la feuille de caoutchouc frottée de talc (silicate de magnésie), puis nous enroulons
fortement sur un cylindre en tôle ; l'on soumet alors le tout dans la vapeur d'eau, à une température de 115° environ »
13
Je me permets de renvoyer à mon article Manuel Charpy, “Forms and Scales of Second-hand Market in the NineteenthCentury : case-study of Clothes in Paris”, in Alternative Exchanges: Second-Hand Circulations from the Sixteenth Century to
The Present, Laurence Fontaine (dir.), Oxford, New York, Berghahn Publishers, 2008.
14
Voir notamment John Plumb (+ Thompson, Formation de la classe ouvrière anglaise) et pour la France Manuel Charpy,
op. cit.
15
Dictionnaire du commerce et des marchandises, Paris, Guillaumin, 1852, « Caoutchouc », « Dans la fabrication des
bretelles, des ceintures, des jarretières, en un mol de toutes les parties de l'habillement qui duivent élre appliquées
immédiatement sur la surface du corps, et qui, par conséquent, sont souvent exposées à l'action de la sueur, l'emploi des tissus
de caoutchouc est incontestablement préférable. »
16
INPI, 618° Le brevet d'invention de quinze ans, dont la demande a été déposée,le 11 octobre 1865, an secrétariat de la
préfecture du département de la Seine, par le sieur Lejeanc (Emile-Albert), fabricant d'articles en caoutchouc, représenté
parle sienr Lavialte, à Paris, boulevard Saint-Martin, n° 29, pour dessous de bras en flanelle de toute sorte dits dessous de
bras hygiéniques. »
17
Le Génie industriel, 1855, p. 129, « Produits fabriqués par M. Charles Guibal et Cie. La fabrication du caoutchouc ».
The 19th century was the century of the washing: linens and underwear were more present and
numerous and its scrupulous cleaning point out the new obsession for hygiene 18. Boiled,
beated, dived into chlorides, underwear and linen had to be impeccable because it testified to
the owner’s morality. Rubber or celluloid underwear – detachable collar and cuffs in
particular – was easily clean, quickly dry and they support detergents. The new “white
collars” of clerical post from the middle-class found the way to wear clean collars without had
recourse to paper collars19 [*ill.]20.
The rubber clothes’ success was all the more strong because rubber became in the collective
imagination the matter of personal hygiene. From the 1840s onwards, people familiarized
oneself with rubber with enema syringes (clysopompes), jockstraps, bandages…21. Clothing
dealers played with this imagination: in Paris, London and NYC they marketed rubber as
« tissus hygiénique » [hygienic fabrics].
2. Rubber clothing, between vapours and deportment
Examining clothes and fashion it is also speaking about the somatic culture of a society22. A
cloth impose a way to move, to behave. For example, as Thorstein Veblen noted at the
beginning of the 20th century, the bourgeois clothing has to be non practical: it has to show in
the social stage that bourgeois was unable to do manual work 23. Social rank, but also morality,
deportment and medicine were involved in the somatic culture of a society.
In this angle, rubber clothing brought up many issues from 1840s onwards. The savoir-vivre
recommended people to control emanations. But in the same time, in the neo-Hippocratic
economy of body’s flows, the body should permanently evacuate vapour. The waterproof
qualities of rubber appeared as a problem. Rubber was disparaged by hygienists because it
stopped the circulation of air around the body, the skin’s respiration and “concentrate the
perspiration”2425. Doctors – and all bourgeoise society – were scared of strokes because of
18
Alain Corbin « Le grand siècle du linge » Ethnologie francaise XVI, 1986 et Victoria Kelley, Soap and Water: Cleanliness,
Dirt and the Working Classes in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2010.
19
Voir Thuillier, La Vie de bureau…
20
Les publicités pour le linge en caoutchouc le clament aux États-Unis : il menace de mettre au chômage des Chinois – qui
incarnent le stéréotype du blanchisseur [*image] New York Public Library
21
Brevets INPI ; catalogues BHVP série Actualités
22
Voir notamment Alain Corbin, Georges Vigarello et Jean-Jacques Courtine, Histoire du corps…, tome 2, Paris, Le Seuil,
2006.
23
Thorstein Veblen, The theory of the leisure class…
24
25
Michel Lévy, Traité d’hygiène publique et privée, Paris, Baillière, 1845 (+Londres)
Julien Turgan, Les grandes usines…, 1865, “Rattier & Guibal”.
rubber hats and congestions of the lungs because of rubber waistcoats and corsets26.
Manufacturers tried to make “hygienic fabrics permeable to perspiration and air and in the
same time waterproof “2728. Solutions were complex: overlap of rubber strips and linen strips
(France, Rattier) or several minuscule pipes that came through the cloth (UK, Hutchinson and
USA, Goodyear)29.
From 1870s onwards, the growth of physiological studies and the passion for gymnastics – for
the men – condemned rubber clothing. The review Le Magasin pittoresque, laudator twenty
year before, wrote in 1873: “All the year round, skin exhale some vapour, but imperceptible
[…]. This vapour is a necessity of health; this consideration is sufficient to banish rubber from
our clothes […]. That is the reason why rubber shoes make quickly moist feet and skin
becomes sweaty with a rubber cardigan”30.
Paradoxically, rubber had a great success because his ability to shape bodies and gestures.
Indeed, medical theories and social representations of bodies were many-sided. Besides the
neo-Hippocratic conception, a mechanistic vision of body existed. In this angle, rubber could
reply to a conflicting vision that gathered comfortable and orthopaedics. “Comfortable”
became a leitmotiv in the middle of the century: land as piece of furniture could be
“comfortable”. The word designed a new relationship between man and goods. The body was
comfortable when it was relaxed, like a anaesthetized body. Rubber appeared as the matter of
comfort par excellence because it could hug the body and for people who suffered from
26
Album de l’Exposition de 1855, Paris, L’Abeille impériale, 1855 : « Le reproche qu'on a fait aux vêtements imperméables
s'applique surtout à la coiffure nous craindrions que les principes d'une bonne hygiène ne permissent pas l'emploi de ce
chapeau [en caoutchouc]. » + traité sur les chapeaux années 1830
27
Rapport du Jury central sur l’exposition des produits de l’industrie, Paris, 1844, p. 710, « Tissus imperméables de MM.
Ch. Boulanger et Cie, rue d’Hauteville, 35 ». « MM. Boulanger et Cie sont parvenus à donner à divers tissus employés pour
vêtements extérieurs, depuis les blouses en toile jusqu'aux manteaux en drap, une imperméabilité suffisante pour prévenir
l'infiltration de la pluie […]. Sans doute ils obtiendraient une imperméabilité plus complète, s'ils ne trouvaient, avec raison,
convenable de laisser aux étoffes qu'ils préparent une certaine perméabilité qui permette un renouvellement d'air salubre » +
Harper’s weekly 1854..
28
INPI, n°13621, « brevet en date du 21 août 1855, Au sieur Perra, à Paris, Pour l'application de la vapeur d'eau dans les
dissolutions du caoutchouc. ».
29
Alfred Picard, Le bilan d'un siècle (1801-1900). Mines et métallurgie. Industries de la décoration et du mobilier.
Chauffage et ventilation. Éclairage non électrique. Fils, tissus, vêtements… : « Depuis 1878, l'industrie des vêtements imperméables a pris en France une importance considérable, conquis la vogue et obtenu la faveur du'grand public. Nous; disputons
avec succès le premier rang aux fabricants étrangers. Les articles de Paris ont une prépondérance marquée, par l'élégance de
la coupe, par la légèreté, par la modicité des prix, par la variété des modèles, par la bonne appropriation des formes,
combinées de manière à enve- lopper convenablement la personne, tout en se prêtant à un pliage facile, sous un volume
restreint. Nos seuls concurrents sont les Anglais. Ils cherchent à rendre les vêlements hygiéniques par la ventilation et les
munissent à cet effet de tubes, dont les uns aspirent et évacuent les émanations du corps, tandis que les autres amènent et
distribuent l'air extérieur. Les articles ainsi établis ont un cachet original, mais sont lourds, peu pratiques, incommodes au
pliage. La chaussure imperméable a réalisé de notables progrès ; les formes sont améliorées; des modèles nouveaux ont été
créés; la consommation s'est accrue, en restant toutefois bien au-dessous de celle de certains pays, tels que les Etats-Unis.
Dans la liste des récompenses figurent les maisons Rallier et Guibal, qui fabriquent en France les vêlements imperméables,
depuis 1828, et auxquelles on est redevable de nombreux perfectionnements. »
30
Le Magasin pittoresque, 1873, p. 72.
nerves, a rubber mattresses inflated with air or water could silence the body31[*ill.]. At home,
armchairs with rubber paddings incarnated the absolute comfort [*ill]. In wardrobe, girdles,
belts, stockings and socks – all with rubber – hugged bodies. One example: straps became
essential with the spread of trousers in Europe and USA. Hygienists condemned the straps
with metal springs in use during the first part of the century because they deformed bodies
and put a brake on bone and muscle growth32. Straps with rubber threads appeared
comfortable and hygienic because its elasticity permits free gestures and growth.
In the same time, bourgeoise western societies wanted clothing that remodel silhouettes and
define body movements. Rubber belts remodeled male and female silhouettes33. Against
prolapse of organs, hanging stomachs and breasts, rubber belts – more comfortable than old
leather or metal belts – supported fleshes [*ill.]. 19th century was obsessed with deportment.
The corset that mobilized lot of rubber is the best example. Corset knew a strong growth after
187034 because it could remodel silhouette and give a deportment, in societies that dreamt
about the 18th century way of life. With a corset, a bourgeoise stood up straight – obsession of
hygienists, moralists and tailors –, did not make uncoordinated movements and limited its
efforts. Thanks to rubber threads, deportment and hygiene – women could breathe – were
combined35.
3. From elegant beaches to sidewalks: the social downgrading of rubber
By definition, fashion cycles are short: mayfly produce distinction36. But with the entrance of
clothing in industrial era, fashion linked with new matter arrived in imitation and distinction
phenomenon37. Unlike fashion phenomenons from court – in France and UK –, these new
31
Publicité Smith & Son, 253 Tottenham Court road, 1855 / Arnott’s water bed [lit_a_eau_1855]
Andraud et Blanqui, Encyclopédie du commerçant: Dictionnaire du commerce et des marchandises, 1841, p. 360. Article
Bretelles « L'adoption générale du pantalon a rendu général aussi l'usage des bretelles, qui se sont successivement répandues
en Europe et dans toutes les parties du monde. Grands et petits, tout le monde en porte aujourd'hui, et pourtant je ne sais pas
jusqu'à quel point l'introduction de cette nouvelle gène sur le dos est conforme aux principes d'une saine hygiène ; car les
bretelles ne sont pas toujours suffisamment élastiques, et les jeunes gens sont ainsi quelquefois arrêtés ou contrariés dans leur
développement. Il ne s'en fait pas moins une consommation considérable. »
33
BHVP série actualités + NYPL Ephemera collection.
32
34
Voir Valerie Steele, The corset: a cultural history…, 2003.
35
Alfred Picard, Le bilan d'un siècle (1801-1900). Mines et métallurgie. Industries de la décoration et du mobilier.
Chauffage et ventilation. Éclairage non électrique. Fils, tissus, vêtements… : “L'Exposition de 1889 a été tout à l'honneur de
la France, qui s'y distinguait par la variété de genres, de coupes et de formes, par un judicieux emploi des tissus les plus
divers, par le bon ajustage et l'élasticité, par les qualités hygiéniques, par la liberté de mouvements que conserve le buste. On
sait que les corsets actuels sont d'une seule pièce, dont les bords s'agrafent sur la poitrine, ou de deux pièces, qui s'agrafent de
même sur le devant et se réunissent à l'arrière par un lacet simple ou un lacet à âme en caoutchouc : ce dernier type est le
meilleur pour l'hygiène. »
36
Voir Philippe Perrot, Les dessus et les dessous de la bourgeoisie, Paris, Fayard, 1989 et Gilles Lipovetsky, The empire of
fashion: dressing modern democracy, Princeton University Press, 1994 [1987].
37
Voir Patrick Verley, L’échelle du monde. Essai sur l’industrialisation de l’Occident, Paris, Le Seuil, 1997 (sur châles et
indiennes).
phenomenons concerned almost all the social scale. So, the cost issue was essential. From the
end of 1840s to the middle of 1850s, smart people worn rubber clothes because of their price
and because of their very newness. Rubber clothing was display in the elegant urban spaces:
rue de la Paix or close to Galerie Vivienne in Paris (Rattier), in the London West End
(Hutchinson) and in Canal and Broadway Street in NYC38. With rubber clothing, high society
showed that it was a leisure class.
Nevertheless, from the middle of the 1850s onwards, industrial dreams became reality 39. With
the increase in shipping traffic and the control of vulcanization prices fallen. A new era was
opened where rubber became the symbol of popular and industrial clothing. The new name of
rubber clothing in France and UK was significant: “linge américain” (american underwear).
Rubber and celluloid straps, collars and cuffs appeared as the underwear for poor clerks. They
were named “american” because American people consumed many items but also because
“american” became at that time in Europe synonymous with democratic, cheap and vulgar
goods. From 1855 onwards, rubber shoes were named also “american shoes” even if they
were produced in Europe40. Until the end of century, everyday rubber clothing became the
sign of the democratization of fashion by the ready-to-wear industry41. The easiness of
cleaning became the sign of negligence: a member of high society was capable of wearing
cloth that showed the dirt – buttercup yellow gloves, patent leather shoes, white dresses… –
and cleaned by a numerous domesticity.
Moreover, in the same time, rubber was used in many new professional clothing for its
waterproof qualities – in chemical industries, abbatoirs…42. In the country, delicate rubber
shoes for urban tourists became, in USA then in industrialized Europe, rubber (or wellington)
boots for rich peasants. At last, the increase of rubber for wheels of bicycles and motor cars
around 1890 completed to make the rubber vulgar. An industrial matter, connected to muddy
grounds of country or to macadam, could not wear anymore in high society. Dealers of
raincoats, boots or umbrellas specified in their advertisements that one could not find rubber
38
4 rue des Fossés Montmartre (Annuaire bottin-didot du commerce) ; pour Londres Directories + NYC : Trow’s Directories
(and Fellow’s) + publicités du Harper's Weekly (08/01/1857, J. B. MILLER & CO.`S LADIES GOING INTO THE
COUNTRY wishing their supply of Shoes, can find Gaiter Boots from 12s. to 20s.; Ladies' Slippers, Tyes, and Toilet Slips,
from 6s. upward; India Rubber Shoes and Gloves, with Boys', Misses', and Children's Boots and Shoes of all kinds and
rices, at J. B. MILLER & CO.`S, No. 134 Canal Street »
39
Patrick Verley, op. cit.
40
41
1855 « Grand choix de chaussures américaines » (Publicité Guibal et Lebigre).
Paul Vibert, La Concurrence étrangère. Industries parisiennes, politique coloniale,..., « Une des applications les plus
originales et, sans contredit, les plus heureuses du celluloïd est le linge américain fabrique également à Paris. Tous ces cols et
manchettes que vous voyez dans des aquariums, au milieu de beaux poissons rouges, sont en celluloïd; ils sont inusables, se
lavent à volonté et, naturellement, ont tué sans retour le linge en papier » ; Édmond Bourdain, Manuel du commerce des
tissus, vade mecum du marchand de nouveautés, Paris, J. Hetzel, 1885, « la société Chromolithie, Paris, de cols et manchettes
en sorte de caoutchouc, linge américain ».
42
Voir John Plumb sur l’affirmation d’un vêtement ouvrier + Thompson, The making of the English working class…
in their goods. The change of olfactory sensitivity is a sign of a deep transformation: from
1860s – not before –, rubber was regarded as nauseating matter43. The power of social
distinction resides in details: senses of smell and touch were ways to appreciate matter and
goods. Wearing a rubber cloth became a sign of a coarse sensitivity.
As a result of his democratization and the increase of uses, rubber was moved away from
bourgeoise wardrobe. It remained only in underwear clothing.
4. From medicine to sexuality
The social imagination of a matter determine its consumptions, uses, success and failures.
Rubber had many applications in spheres close to clothing, in particular in the medical sphere.
Elasticity, hygiene, waterproof qualities were appropriate to medicine. From 1840 onwards,
rubber manufacturers developed surgical instruments and bandages, orthopaedic corsets… It
became also the matter of artificial limbs: breast, nose, leg, arm… 44. In France, UK and USA,
wars and above all operations left many limb amputated. In the same time, between aesthetic
and medicine, rubber corsets and bandages contained hernias and shaped silhouettes45.
Beside, if rubber remained in underwear clothing, it became the sexual matter par excellence.
On the one hand, from the 1840s onwards, it was the matter of jockstraps and bandages that
supported male and female sexual organs46. On the other hand, in a century haunted by
onanism, rubber was the perfect matter for anti-onanism belts for young girls and boys.
But without surprise, it was used to give pleasure. From the 1880s onwards, it became an
erotic matter. Bidets – part of contraceptive methods – were in rubber47. Moreover, rubber
condoms had a great success. Sent by mail in boxes of cigarettes or cigars, rubber condoms
were shameful48. Rubber became in this way the matter of sex toys marketed – discreetly – by
rubber manufacturers from the end of the 1880s [*ill.].
This success in the medical sphere and then in pleasure had an influence in social
imagination. His smell, his touch, his contact became erotic and demonic. The innocent
Mackintosh raincoat became, with the elegant rubber boots, exquisite goods by fetishists;
anti-onanism belts became itself toys in Parisian brothels.
43
Sur l’odorat, voir Alain Corbin, Le miasme et la jonquille [The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social
Imagination] + publicités L’Univers + harper’s Weekly ; Le Magasin pittoresque, 1862, p. 246, « Arrivée du printemps « !
Fini du mêrne parapluie et des caoutchoucs nauséabonds ! Vivent les frais souliers vernis où l'on peut mirer sa toilette ! »
44
NYPL ; A. A. Marks, 701 Broadway (“The largest artificial limb manufactory in the world”) + Lebigre, Claverie / BHVP
45
Publicité Harper’s weekly + BHVP série actualités (orthopédie)
46
BHVP catalogue 1850 (Français/Espagnol)
47
Catalogues L. Simon 1876, bidets + Sears et Constable & Co (Harper’s Weekly 1878-1882)
48
Pour la France, voir le procès du fabricant Claverie pour obscénités ; Archives de Paris, D2U6/110.
Reader can guess these intimate passions for the rubber second skin resulted in its
disqualification from the public society life.
Conclusion
Thinking about matter in fashion is maybe a way of crossing history of fashion phenomenons
and clothing history with his technical and economic dimensions. Mechanisms of fashion,
craze but also of disenchantment – often forgotten – are social mechanisms but they don’t
concern only taste and newness. Social sensitivity included smell and touch, the somatic of
societies and the uses of the matter around clothing shaped social and cultural imagination
and in this way fashion phenomenons. With this angle, it will be, maybe, possible to write a
history that would include the social, cultural and industrial aspects of clothing in the
industrialized societies of the 19th century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Forthcoming)