In its clothing fashion as in everything else, the French Revolution of 1789 sought both a rupture in time and a return to the republican values of ancient Greece and Rome. This talk presents French fashion revolution as it has been known, and as Dr. Anne Higonnet have recast it in her recent book, Liberty, Equality, Fashion (Norton, 2024). Traditionally, revolutionary fashion has been considered neo-classical, and a key influence on future moments of classicism in the cycles of European fashion. A closer look at history, however, reveals colonial models taken from the Caribbean Antilles, India, and Kashmir, as well as a politically charged public liberation of women’s bodies unrivalled until late in the 20th century.

Anne Higonnet is the Barbara Novak Professor of Art History  at Barnard College, Columbia University. She has published, most recently, the widely reviewed Liberty, Equality, Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution, as well as pieces in Vogue and Town & Country. She has also written five other books as well as many essays, and directed two book-scale digital projects. Her research has been supported by Getty, Guggenheim, Social Science Research Council, and Harvard-Radcliffe Institute fellowships, as well as by grants from the Mellon, Howard and Kress Foundations. She is a prize-winning teacher of popular lecture courses. During spring 2024, one of her courses was offered in hybrid form through Educational Equity Laboratory to five underserved New York City high schools. She received her BA from Harvard College in 1980 and her PhD from Yale University in 1988.

Please RSVP to [email protected] for readings. This event is presented as part of the NEH/VSRI Images Out of Time Seminar.