In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Dressing Modern Maternity: The Frankfurt Sisters of Dallas and the Page Boy Label by Kay Goldman
  • Catherine Murtagh
Dressing Modern Maternity: The Frankfurt Sisters of Dallas and the Page Boy Label. By Kay Goldman. (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2013. Pp. 182. Color plates, illustrations, notes, index.)

Kay Goldman’s work is an important book on many levels. Goldman focuses on the “trailblazing” (80) career of the three Frankfurt sisters, Elsie, Edna, and Louise, daughters of Jewish immigrant parents who made their permanent home in Dallas, Texas. In an era when the women’s fashion industry was controlled by males, the sisters carved out a niche market through Page Boy Maternity Clothing, making previously frumpy maternity clothing fashionable. Page Boy remained a family owned concern from its inception in 1938 until it was sold to Mothers Work in 1994. This high-end brand made fashion news as movie stars and other famous women, including First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, wore their outfits. The author successfully blends gender history with social and business history by focusing on fashion. [End Page 103]

Seeing her pregnant sister Edna looking like a “beach ball in an unmade bed,” (22) Elsie, the oldest of the trio, designed a slim fitting skirt with a long jacket, in the process solving an age old problem of fit in maternity clothing, by allowing for both a woman’s expanding waistline through a cut out and a “system of loops and drawstrings” (23) and an even hemline around the body; with a patent for her design, a new business was born. The sisters focused on providing maternity clothing incorporating the latest trends in their line rather than on trend setting. Changing attitudes regarding fashion trends, the rise and fall of birth rates, and employment trends for women are woven together to tell the story of a dynamic business venture. Outspoken in terms of women’s rights, Elsie kept a focus on the professional woman and providing clothing for the working woman. Through a combination of shrewd business decisions and innovative ideas by the Frankfurt sisters, Page Boy became the leading high-end maternity clothier.

Goldman offers a balanced description of the contributions of the three sisters, although their individual commitments varied over the course of the business. Elsie stands out as the most dominant, actively studying fashion trends and giving the company a public face. She served as president of the company, was the first woman admitted to the Young Presidents’ Organization, and attended executive seminars at Harvard. Elsie became a celebrity appearing in magazines and on television as the spokeswoman for Page Boy. Although not the primary designer in the early years, Elsie provided valuable input through trips to the fashion capitals of Europe to keep up with style changes and new fabrics, keeping their maternity line current and cutting edge throughout the 1950s and into the ’70s. Many of the same conservative business practices that allowed Page Boy to be successful, however, led to its decline as the company failed to respond to changing marketing techniques and embrace new technology.

Goodman’s book is wonderfully rich in diagrams, period photographs of the sisters, and color advertisements from their catalogs. The visuals show off the sisters’ creativity and illustrate changing fashion trends. In some areas Goodman offers too much information, as in the case of repeatedly itemizing the coordinating items from the Page Boy catalogues; in other areas she fails to give enough. The book left one hoping for more detail regarding employment at the Page Boy factory, a factory owned by women and where the majority of workers were female. The author offers an overall view of a congenial workplace with an innovative daily factory-wide yoga break but fails to mention details on how well the employees were paid or if there was any employee unrest. These areas should have been more fully developed. Despite these drawbacks, Goldman accomplishes a great deal of important work in this book.

Catherine Murtagh
Texas Christian University
...

pdf

Share