The Rise of Fashion. A Reader by Daniel Leonhard Purdy (review)

148Women in French Studies Métro-Auto: Women's Mobility in Belle Epoque Paris" explores notions of movement and mobility for women in Paris from 1 880 to 1914. She reminds us of the specific parameters that class differences imposed upon women's movement about the city. Her consideration of the two-wheeled bicycle, the metro, and the gas-powered motor car points to new modes oftransportation as primarily reserved for those "who already possessed social, material or cultural capital" (93). Ruth Iskin, in her article "Popularising New Women in Belle Epoque Advertising Posters," explains how advertising posters of the Belle Epoque disseminated these same images ofbourgeois women discussed above. Iskin suggests that "some Belle Epoque advertising posters depicting women . . . flourished by popularising the new woman as a desirable icon. By disseminating such images they themselves helped shape the changing images and identities of modern women" (96). Her analysis extends to images of working class women, from the domestic worker to the office clerk and typist, thus crossing class boundaries and repositioning the female gaze. Part III, "Women and Spectacle," and Part IV, "Women, Writing, and Reception," are devoted to women writers and artists of the Belle Epoque. These two sections in particular situate women in the sometimes conflicting ideologies ofthe period as new visions and opportunities for women collided with more conservative, traditional lifestyle choices. Juliette Roger's "Feminist Discourse in Women's Novels of Professional Development" discusses just this conundrum in the context ofthe novel ofprofessional development, a subgenre ofthe bildungsroman. Likewise, Angela Ryan's "Visions of Reciprocity in the Work ofCamille Claudel" presents the rebellious working artist, but the author proposes an original reading of Claudel's "Sakountala" and "Les Causeuses," one quite consciously positioned outside the influence of the artist's well-known biography. Her discussion of the technical achievement of "Les Causeuses" along with her analysis of the space of communication among women aligns her essay with others in the volume concerned with space and geography. Part V entitled "Colonised and Other Women," includes three articles that travel beyondthe Hexagon. These final essays reflect on how Belle Epoque women navigate and articulate changing roles of women in the context of the Third Republic's colonial discourse. They provide a satisfactory conclusion to a thorough look at France's Belle Epoque both at home and abroad. Most appropriate for graduate and advanced research on the era, the collection is a welcome addition to scholarship on the Belle Epoque. Sara Steinert BorellaFranklin College Switzerland Purdy, Daniel Leonhard. The Rise of Fashion. A Reader. Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 2004. Pp 355. ISBN 0-8166-4393-8. $24.95 (Paper). Book Reviews149 A quoi servirent les déambulations du petit Purdy accompagné de sa grand-mère dans le grand magasin Ka De We du Berlin de son enfance ? Anourrir un intérêt profond et durable pour la mode, comme nous informe la dédicace du présent ouvrage, prolongement en quelque sorte du tout premier, The Tyranny of Elegance: Consumer Cosmopolitism in the Era ofGoethe. Délaissant ici l'école de Francfort, et en particulier Benjamin etAdorno, car très connus, Daniel Purdy nous livre les sources théoriques critiques en amont, du siècle des Lumières au XXe. Après une introduction au sujet, à savoir que mode équivaut modernité, il nous présente, avec entrée en matière à chaque fois, des extraits de philosophes, théoriciens du social, écrivains et critiques,Ancien etNouveau Mondes confondus. La part belle est accordée aux sources allemandes et autrichiennes dont nombre d'écrits, avant la traduction abondante de Kelly Barry, étaient inconnus en langue anglaise, mais place est aussi faite aux Anglais, Italiens, Américains et Français dont Voltaire, Rousseau, Beauvoir, Mallarmé et Barbey d'Aurevilly de qui les réflexions sur le beau Brummel apparaissentpourlapremière fois en langue anglaise grâce à la traduction de D.B. Wyndham Lewis. Phénomène lié à l'ascendance de la bourgeoisie, la mode fut cosmopolite et transgessive des interdits vestimentaires, abolis définitivement avec la fin de l'Ancien Régime puisque celui-ci prescrivait à chaque état un code vestimentaire propre. Au XIXe siècle, le bon ton...