Every great story has a subplot, and the subplot to fashion is trends! We all know the sweeping saga of Forties’ fashion; it’s a tale of uniforms, utility and rationing. Yet within its familiar fashion landscape of shoulder pads and ‘Make Do And Mend’, there existed a trend that embraced – not only fashion – but everything from music to movies, and from hobbies to home ware to hobbies; Latin America!
With most ‘South of the Border’ nations undeclared at the onset of WWII, Roosevelt set out to woo – not only our soon-to-be allies to the South – but a weary American public. Re-billing the decades’ old Pan-American Agreement, “The Good Neighbor Policy” was launched upon a war torn American public, each longing for the tropical idyll and the carefree exoticism they imagined existed in Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, et al.
A forgotten slice of American cultural history, “The Good Neighbor Policy” heralded many fashion trends still popular today (espadrilles, peasant blouses), and in her paper, “SALUDOS, AMIGOS!”: Fashion and The Good Neighbor Policy, Professor Amanda Hallay will disinter a moment in 20thCentury History when all one needed was rum-based cocktail and a Bakelite sombrero pin to transport oneself away from the worrisome Home Front and into a land where perhaps people really didwear bananas on their heads.
Amanda Hallay will be presenting “SALUDOS, AMIGOS!”: Fashion and The Good Neighbor Policy on Thursday, October 22, 2015 at the Fashion: Now & Then: Passé, Presente, 未来 Conference.