Fashionable Mowatt

by | Oct 17, 2011 | City on Stage, Fashion, Writing New York

In the epilogue to Anna Cora Mowatt’s comedy Fashion (1845) — modeled, as Edgar Allan Poe pointed out in an early review, on Sheridan’s plays — one character expresses her hope that Fashion will become fashionable. The play’s republican...

Paul Bunyan in Billyburg

by | Feb 4, 2010 | Fashion | 2 comments

Did I call this one in lecture the other day or what? This week’s New York Magazine contains the late-breaking news that — imagine! — plaid flannel shirts are back. (Thank God they’re fitted this time around, is all I have to say: if this...