Parisian fashion or functional style? : Ideal dress of the modern woman in Finnish women’s magazines in the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

The ‘New Woman’ of the 1920s with her modern dress was a controversial figure. In this article I analyse, how the new dress style was discussed in Finnish women’s magazines in the 1920s and 1930s. The article reconstructs the genre of women’s magazine by showing that in addition to commercial women’s magazines there were also several bulletins published by different kind of women’s organization. The analysis shows that many of the political magazines discussed also fashion, and political content was typical also for the commercial women’s magazines, which makes them mixtures of political and fashion (consumer) magazines. Each magazine formulated its own version of an ideal dress style that represented its political goals. Additionally, each magazine reconstructed its own version of a ‘women’s magazine’. The concept of ‘women’s magazine also changed during the time period under study, which underlines the need to carefully contextualise each magazine when they are used as research material.