Influences of Jazz Era on Fashion

Duke Ellington and his band wear wool overcoats and tailored dress to signify glory status, Los Angeles, 1934. Courtesy of Bettmann/CORBIS.

From Duke Ellington's houndstooth blazer to Billie Holiday's signature gardenias, jazz musicians and singers throughout history have used mode to challenge stereotypes of race, form and gender.

Born in the tardily 19th century, jazz gained mainstream popularity during a volatile period of racial segregation and gender inequality. It was in these adverse conditions that jazz performers discovered the power of dress as a visual tool used to defy mainstream societal constructs, shaping a new mode and way artful.

A new volume by Alphonso D. McClendon, an assistant professor in Drexel Academy's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, entitled Fashion and Jazz: Dress, Identity and Subcultural Improvisation (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), explores the behaviors, signs and meanings that defined this subculture. The book also addresses Philadelphia'southward pregnant function in jazz history.

At a volume launch event on Mon, April twenty at six p.m. and in commemoration of Jazz Appreciation Month, McClendon will discuss and sign copies of the book. The event is free and open up to the public, and will accept place in URBN Center Room 349 (3501 Marketplace Street). The volume is bachelor for purchase from the publisher and from Amazon.com.

"This book demonstrates how two connected art forms exemplify liberty of expression, improvisational showmanship, pursuits of modernity and cultural transformation in America and globally," said McClendon. "Without jazz – its architects, struggles for equality and the multicultural roots and style of the music – contemporary society would exist less connected."

Cartoon on fashion studies and cultural theory, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the social and political entanglements of jazz and wearing apparel. Including a wide variety of case studies, ranging from Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald to Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker, information technology presents a critical and cultural analysis of jazz performers as modernistic icons of fashion and popular mode.

Addressing a number of previously underexplored areas of jazz culture, such as modern dandyism and the link between drug utilise and glamorous apparel, Fashion and Jazz provides a fascinating history of fashion'due south dialogue with African-American art and fashion.

"I'yard seeing some of the same themes appear in the 21st century that I traced in the book," said McClendon. "For example, the disruption of established aesthetics, the subversive representation of popular music and apparel, the eccentric and elite manner of performers, traits of fashionable addiction and strivings for equality continue to be fastened to new forms of music and contemporary artists. This book is a guide for that discourse."

McClendon's inquiry was conducted at the Plant of Jazz Studies at Rutgers Academy, the Schomburg Center for Inquiry in Black Culture, the Athenaeum Center at the National Museum of American History, the Hogan Jazz Annal at Tulane University, the Fontanes Private Collection in Biarritz and the Gratuitous Library of Philadelphia.

From April to June, McClendon volition exhibit photography from the book by renowned jazz photographer and musician Charles Peterson, courtesy of Don Peterson. Peterson's subjects include Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Fats Waller and other jazz greats in studio, at jam sessions and on the streets of New York Metropolis. The photography tin be viewed in the Charles Evans Library Exhibition Window on the third floor of the URBN Centre.

Almost Alphonso McClendon
McClendon investigates the visual and behavioral representations of jazz and African American aesthetics that influence manner, media and popular culture. McClendon authored "Stylish Addiction," a book chapter on the influence of the heroin chichi aesthetic, in Fashion in Popular Culture: Literature, Media and Contemporary Studies (Intellect, 2013), as well as manufactures on jazz era prohibition, male apparel conformity and defiance and the history and culture of the U.S. drug policy.

McClendon came to Drexel with 15 years of corporate experience equally a fashion designer, product development manager and auditor, having worked with companies such as VF Corp., Nautica, Phillips-Van Heusen, Izod and 3M. He teaches courses in fashion business do and entrepreneurship, digital and manual patternmaking, technical design, CAD textile blueprint and digital portfolio development. McClendon's industry experience with design and production professionals in China, Taiwan and Japan informs his academic engagement. He is the fashion group's area chair for the Popular Civilization/American Culture Associations (PCA/ACA) and serves on the editorial lath of the Journal of Design, Business & Society (Intellect).

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