Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution: A Celebration of Design from Art Silk to Nylon and Thinking Fibres

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Summary: ARTFULLY TOLD STORY OF THE FASHION-TECHNOLOGY INTERSECTION
Review: "Artfully told . . . Succeeds as a history of advertising, of fashion and of chemical textiles. The expertly selected photographs in it provide a first-rate visual articulation to the text. In fact, they are so appealing that 'Nylon' could do very well as a coffee table book-but that would give short shrift to Ms. Handley's enjoyable prose and history of a surprisingly interesting subject."-Pia Nordlinger, Wall Street Journal

From the 19th-century laboratories in which the quest for artificial silk was first pursued to the 1939 World's Fairs in San Francisco and New York, where Du Pont introduced nylon stockings; from Paris couture's New Look and Swinging London's Carnaby Street and King's Road boutiques to the flashbulb-illuminated fashion runways of Milan, Paris, and New York today: fashion scholar Susannah Handley traces the remarkable story of nylon and other artificial fabrics which have transformed the way we live and the clothes we wear in 'Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution.'

As Handley relates in this lively take on fashion history, illustrated throughout with full-color and black-and-white illustrations, the dream of replacing organic textiles-particularly silk-with synthetic ones goes back centuries. But it was only in the late 19th century that scientists working in France, England, and the United States were able to produce such usable semi-synthetics as viscose rayon and acetate rayon. In the U.S., Du Pont aggressively marketed rayon-made clothing- particularly lingerie and hosiery-between the wars, even as it continued to fund research into producing a fully synthetic fiber. When nylon, called Rayon 6-6 and then Fiber 66 before acquiring its current consumer-friendly name, was first produced by Du Pont's Pure Science Division in 1934, it had taken the chemical giant eleven years and $27 million dollars to develop the super-polymer which was about to revolutionize the clothing industry.

Nylon's first widespread application was in the production of stockings. On "N" Day, May 15, 1940, nylon stockings went on sale for the first time simultaneously in department stores across the country; by 1949, 85 percent of stockings were made from nylon (their popularity due in large part to the absence of Japanese silk during the war). Other clothing items made with nylon and other synthetic fibers followed shortly, with Du Pont's marketing department introducing such advertising icons as Miss Chemistry of the Future, who modeled "lace evening gown, stockings, satin slippers, and undergarments," all made from nylon.

Clothing made with polyester, nylon, acrylic, and acetate, most often blended with natural fabrics, enjoyed huge retail success in the 1950s. However, it was not until later in the decade and in the 1960s that the real fashion potential of synthetics began to be unlocked and exploited as nylon manufacturers experimented with new weaves, textures, and colors and as designers began looking for new materials and fabrics with which to undermine the conventions of traditional couture.

In the mid-1950s, Paris's top designers, including Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain, Jacques Heim, Jean Lavin, and Jean Dessès had created gowns and other haute couture elements from nylon, Orlon, and Dacron. London's hottest fashion designers-most notable, Mary Quant and John Stephens- enthusiastically adopted synthetic fabrics in the 1960s and established an international market for the "London Look." In the 1970s, however, overexposure, overproduction, and bad design, as well as the rise of an environmental consciousness which privileged the natural over the artificial, turned consumers against synthetic fabrics.

The 1980s saw nylon's reputation revitalized by Japanese designers such as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo, who introduced Western fashion to a sophisticated alternative design aesthetic for synthetics. Working more closely with textile manufacturers than their Western counterparts, Japanese designers saw the nearly limitless possibilities synthetic fibers offered far earlier than the design houses of Paris and Milan. Their revolutionary designs seamlessly melded art and science and inspired Western designers-most notably, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, Moschino, Hervé Léger, Helmut Lang, and Miuccia Prada-in the late 1980s and 1990s to once again take advantage of the remarkable properties and potentials of synthetic fabrics. From Lyrca leggings to Prada bags, synthetics have become an integral part of fashion today across the fashion spectrum. At the end of the century, wearable computers and passive biological defense outfits promise to take synthetic couture into the next millennium.

"Synthetics," Handley writes, "have generated more excitement and more disillusionment than any other material previously known. Their story is infinitely complex and riddled with metaphor and paradox . . . At the heart of the rise, fall, and rise of synthetics in fashion lies their own amorphous character . . . ." 'Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution' tells this endlessly fascinating story of the intersection of fashion and technology with both flair and wit.

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Summary: finishes the story of 1939
Review: This book is a tour de force narrative of the modern world, using, of all things, fashion as the yardstick. Dr. Handley has shown with firm authority the relevance of fashion to everyday living using copious, well-chosen examples from haute couture, pop, and ready-to-wear markets to elucidate the link between these markets and the amazing marketing and technical campaigns of du Pont and Imperial Chemical Industries. The role of plastics in today's world starts with nylon, and the introduction of synthetic fibers. This story is seldom told, and by being sympathetic to all participants in this saga, Handley weaves an excellent story. The chemical details are weak, but everything else in this book is great.

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Summary: !
Review: This is an incredibly well-researched, well-written, and interesting book on an obscure topic. The photographs included are amusing and helpful.

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Summary: Fabric Into Fashion
Review: Which do you prefer, synthetic or natural? The answer is obvious to everyone, but on closer examination, the question becomes cloudy. Take fibers, for instance. There has been a boom in cotton and even hemp clothing because it is "natural," but then one has to consider the artificial fertilizers used and all the insecticides poured on the land to make the plants to make the textile. "Polyester" is something of a bad word to many people, as it is a synthetic, but it comes from petroleum derivatives, remnants of plants that are millions of years old rather than grown last season. Ever since artificial fibers were invented, there has been a see-saw of taste for them and against, for sensible reasons and for irrational ones. The history of this see-saw forms much of the story in _Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution_ by Susannah Handley.

In the US, the story of artificial fibers has been the story of Du Pont. Dupont made gunpowder in the nineteenth century, and boomed during WWI, but it had an image problem after the war. "Better Living Through Chemistry" became the slogan, and the better living was going to start, of all things, with better stockings. There was a wildly fluctuating silk market based on imports from Japan; American women were buying 1.55 million pairs of silk stockings a day. The Japanese cornering of the market was resented by the American government and citizens, but that didn't curb the appetite for silk.

Stockings were a huge market, but Du Pont dragged the textile industry into re-inventing their stagnating wares. Nylon for dresses, nylon for wedding gowns, nylon for everything possible was advertised by Du Pont, and synthetics were linked to fashion forever. Polyester and Dacron, launched in the fifties, were light and resistant to stains and wrinkles. Sales of irons went down, sales of washers and dryers went up. There was a positive image of scientists taking part in fashion and popular culture.

Synthetics drastically affected even the couture of the Paris salons. The post-war cultural shifts meant that the salons could not continue to exist on a small number of wealthy clients, but had to start licensing such things as perfumes and ready-to-wear clothes. The sixties had a vogue for all sorts of technological materials, and especially for synthetic fashions. Du Pont worked hard to integrate its fibers into fabric manufacture and fashion design. It commissioned top fashion photographers to photograph synthetic fashions and sent the results out as press releases, a free publicity outlet to French couturiers. In America, 20 of the 21 layers in the Apollo moon suits were Du Pont fabrics originally developed "for earthbound use," and Du Pont encouraged "spacey" looking designs in clothes. Synthetics were pitched to the youth market, which had no prejudice that they were inferior to the "real" thing.

There was a bust. Polyester and nylon were in everything. Polyester especially peaked in John Travolta's disco leisure suit, and has had a bad reputation ever since. Overproduction of synthetics caused a classic boom and bust; with so many wonder fibers, people were free to notice that they caused static, retained moisture, and yellowed in perspiration. Natural fibers became more fashionable, both because of the ecology movement and because with more money, people could afford the extra cost of washing and ironing them. Raw materials for synthetics became more costly with the gas crisis. Attempts to shore up synthetics in the fashion industry were unsuccessful, and they took their places mostly in blends.

All things come full circle. Engineered fibers were reintroduced to European fashion in the eighties by none other than the Japanese. They married amazing new microfibres and the ancient craft of textile making, to produce brand new forms of cloth. Sculptural textures are formed by blending fibers of different shrink ratios and popping them into a hot dryer. Metallic films are imbedded into the threads. Even stainless steel could coat the fabrics. The Japanese recognized that silk has a desirable audible quality when it rubs on itself (called "scrooping"); new fibers passed sound-wave tests to verify that they scrooped satisfactorily. Next up: clothes that change colors or other properties based on heat, moisture, or anxiety levels, or wearable computers that control the appearance of the cloth. Will these be the next objects of desire, and if so, will they become just another burned out fad? Predict fashions accurately, and get rich.

_Nylon_ is a lively history of modern technology and fashion. Handley covers engineering, advertising, and fashion house philosophy with insight. The excitement, disillusionment, and excitement again of synthetic fabrics is a surprisingly alluring topic. Her book is beautifully illustrated with many historic advertisements, fashion model shots (both beautiful and absurd), and pictures of such novelties as the two ton leg in a huge nylon stocking to advertise a Los Angeles hosiery shop.