Description
Fashion and clothing garments are not only functional ways of self expression but they are visual markers of inclusion and representation. An era is often depicted through its style of clothing and many times individuals rebelled against society through a radical form of dress. This is the case for women during the Women's Liberation Movement and the setting for many novels including Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives (1974). The narrative follows the lives of American suburban women who desire a life of independence until their husbands interfere and set out to bring back older ideals and expectations of women's roles of submissiveness. I argue that the clothing allows the female characters to negotiate sartorial forms of agency and I turn to fashion as a construction of the representation of Westernized femininity. Furthermore, I contend that individual garments function as a costume which allows the women in The Stepford Wives to embody a character and fulfill a role assigned by society, and through each individual garment we can observe the desires valued by the individuals and by the community of Stepford as a whole. This thesis discusses the representation of sexual desires, domestic practicality, indication of class, as well as a uniform for housewives depicted by the clothing of the middleclass white woman of the 1970s era. Ira Levin's narrative not only includes his novel but spans to two movie adaptations: Bryan Forbes film (1975), and Frank Oz film (2004). I use Forbes' adaptation and the novel as complementary works, displaying fashions of the 1970s as well as the 1950s and 60s, which allow the viewer to understand the standards of dress for these times. The adaptation created in 2004 is a newer transformation that recalls what time was like in the 50s but with a dramatized and nostalgic view recreating the 1950s not as they actually are, but more as a dream-like fantasy. Each text reveals characteristics displayed by clothing that help to define the role of house wife, the specific identity and role that the husbands in The Stepford Wives force their wives to embody.
