And then there was the idealization of woman at the hands of the artist. Women had some discretion over their choice of dress in earlier centuries, following fashion when they could. But masculine expectations would intervene from time to time, especially when artists got involved. Fashion as art became a means of turning a woman into yet another decorative object, as seen with the Pre-Raphaelites and the men of the Aesthetic Movement.

The perspective of scholarship allows one a look at the larger social context. Radu Stern’s Against fashion: clothing as art, 1850-1930, illuminates the couturier’s artistic impulse in dressmaking as a means of following the changing modern world. Voluptuous femininity was a comforting ideal until the Art Deco age. Perhaps the early modern couturiers understood that artful dressing—independent of the male artist, or in spite of him—could allow the woman in be in control. By the end of the twentieth century, fashion as art permitted women to grasp that control. Just look at the images in Artwear: fashion and anti-fashion to see the progress that was eventually made.

On the day-to-day level, we enjoy purchasing artfully-made clothing, garments that proclaim fashion as art, to make our own personal statements. I notice that holiday markets and major crafts fairs usually have booths with such garments. Yet we don’t really see this kind of clothing worn all the time by individuals, however. Is that because it would be just a little too much? What do you think?