Aesthetics of women’s business suits in the fashion of the XX – early XXI centuries

The article is devoted to one of the aspects of fashion – the concept of power, which found vivid expression in the women’s business suit of the 1980s. The increasing demand for women in the business sphere, their desire to achieve success in it equal to men’s, led to the creation in the 1970s of the so-called dress for success, and with the advent of a female executive model, to the birth of a style that creates the image of an authoritarian personality. In the philosophical environment of these decades, the concept of symbolic power as a system of relations is maturing (M. Foucault, J. Lacan, P. Bourdieu), who replaced the model of disciplinary dominance. Through it, fashion can be studied as built on the establishment of symbolic values. Achieving the quintessence of a business woman’s style, a suit for success received in the early 1980s the name power-dressing – an imperious manner of clothing. Conditionally, from this time on, the direction of the so-called «domineering style» fashion develops, similar to the disciplinary power that forms behavioral skills, subordinating the body to itself. So, women try not to demonstrate their femininity, which they rightly believe is associated in society with their lack of business qualities; they are forced to exclude trousers from the composition of a business suit, and again put on skirts. The costume, despite the skirt included in it, was not supposed to demonstrate the femininity of its owner. That is, there is a continuation of the power of the patriarchate, resorting to other forms of subordination. High-ranking female politicians tried to find a way out between feminine and masculine ways of dressing. An inspiring example of a business woman’s costume was the costume of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, designed in the aesthetic canons of classics and national traditions. By the beginning of the XXI century, there was no need to assert oneself through signs and symbols of masculinity in a women’s business suit, this allowed the business suit to become softer, freer, more comfortable, aesthetically diverse. But changeable in all respects, fashion remains unchanged in only one way – it always functions as an element of the power regulations, determining the style of behavior, changing some elements of the dictate to others.