11
Tpopulated
he entries in this book document the wide variety of street styles that have
the history of American dress across the last 90 years. Many of these
styles originated in the United States and have influenced global dress practices,
while some originated abroad and consequently developed and changed through
their adoption into American culture. One notable point about the A–Z street and
subcultural style entries in this volume is that none of them predates the 20th cen-
tury. In fact, the earliest example included in this comprehensive text, “Zooties”
(marginalized youths, especially African American and Latino individuals who
wore zoot suits), emerged only at the very end of the 1930s. The failure to docu-
ment earlier street styles in the United States is not an oversight, but rather it speaks
to the essential nature of dress practices in the social, cultural, and commercial
context prior to the second quarter of the 20th century. Clearly there is a lengthy
time frame preceding the emergence of consumer-driven styles.
This chapter explores key aspects of the landscape of sartorial and social
practices in the United States and how they changed from the first decades of the
20th century through the post–World War II period. Two prongs of inquiry frame
this endeavor. First, the evolution of the commercial fashion marketplace is funda-
mental to the emergence of street styles. I will demonstrate how mass production,
which facilitated mimicry of high-style fashion trends, ultimately eroded the long-
lived principle of sartorial distinction and thereby paved the way for new modes for
sartorial expression that were consumer driven. Second, this chapter will show that
the development of street style is a radical expression of youth culture and that
social change and development in American society engendered unique expres-
sions of youth only in the 20th century. In order to fully understand street style one
must understand the fundamental sociocultural characteristics within American
culture and the American fashion system that provided the fertile context for its
development.
Street style in its most extreme subcultural forms is essentially a rejection of
mainstream sartorial values. It can be a strong countercultural statement. However,
Chapter 2
The Sociocultural Context for the
Development of Street Style
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