What is it about?
The purpose of this article is to understand how seamstresses and dressmakers, in the interwar period, served as a gateway to modernism and aesthetic cosmopolitanism in Portugal and Brazil, highlighting how these women managed the tension between their insertion in the labour market and the hegemonic norms of the time about femininity.
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Why is it important?
The sociological analysis of fashion has received little attention from sociologists. However, when we have examined this object recently, we have seen numerous social issues that, combined with class and gender dimensions, are crucial to contemporary social history. Take the case of tailoresses and fashionistas in Portugal and Brazil between the wars (and for much of the 19th century). These women, the vast majority of them socially disadvantaged, were the gateway to aesthetic cosmopolitanism. This role was especially significant given the historical context experienced in Portugal and Brazil: in the first, due to the impact of the First World War on domestic politics, which resulted in numerous governments and coups d'état; and in the case of Brazil, marked by the waves of European immigration and also by political instability.
Perspectives
Writing this article has been a great pleasure and achievement in my career, as it has allowed me to deepen and expand the study of fashion, particularly from its perspective as a complex cultural, social and artistic manifestation.
Prof. Paula Guerra
University of Porto - Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Costureiras, Modistas e Cosmopolitismo Estético em Portugal e no Brasil entre-duas-guerras, albuquerque revista de história, September 2023, Albuquerque: revista de historia,
DOI: 10.46401/ardh.2023.v15.17914.
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