101. Today in 1920s Turkey: 4 August 1928 (“Pants Trend” May Be Spreading to Women)
English
Is the Pants Trend Spreading to Women, too?
After short skirts and long skirts now women are on the brink of turning a new page in fashion. The kings of fashion in Paris who are never wrong in their predictions say that undoubtedly this trend [missing word?] women are actually about to start wearing pants. Today one can happen upon many women walking around wearing pants on beaches. The photographs we have included show various women with pants.
Türkçe
Pantalon Modası Kadınlara da Sirayet Ediyor mu?
Kısa etek, uzun etek modası derken kadınlar yeni bir modaya yol açmak üzeredirler. Bu moda hiç şüphesiz esasen kadınların pantalon giymek üzere olduklarını söyleyen Paris’in moda kıralları tahminlerinde hiç yanılmıyorlar(Bu cümlede bir kelime eksik, herhalde baskı hatasıdır). Elyevm bazı plajlarda, ayaklarda pantalonla gezen pek çok kadına tesadüf edilmektedir. Derc ettiğimiz fotoğraflar muhtelif pantalonlu kadınları göstermektedir.
Comments:
The back cover of the weekly illustrated journal, Resimli Gazete usually included pop cultural stories or photographs and news of various curiosities from around the world. Today’s brief “fashion update” is fascinating for several reasons. Not only does it remind us that women did not always wear pants, but more importantly, the tone of the article is rather ambivalent toward the impending “trend.” There is no outcry for broken social taboo and no mockery for inappropriate boundary crossing. Rather, the trouser is treated here as just another garment that is free to be adopted by anyone. Since the 19th century, fashion and clothing norms had been changing rapidly in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic (especially, in cosmopolitan cities like Istanbul). Thus, after decades of frequent clothing changes and styles, the onset of yet another “trend,” especially in women’s clothing, is not seen as particularly threatening. Besides, if women’s pants are being sold in Paris, it will not be long before they show up in the boutiques of Istanbul’s posh shopping districts as well.
This particular issue of the journal was published several months prior to the Alphabet Reform (Harf Devrimi) that would take place incrementally over the course of the remaining months of 1928. In preparation for the transition from Arabic letters to Latin letters, all newspapers were required to start featuring the new numbers (most visible in pagination) in July. Other more forward-thinking papers such as Resimli Gazete started publishing their titles in the new letters well ahead of the November reform in a show of support, and perhaps more practically, to ensure their readers have ample time to make the adjustment in order to be able to quickly identify the magazine in its new format. As such, this issue of Resimli Gazete maintains its original Arabic-letter masthead on its front cover but has changed the title to Latin letters for the back cover.
Readers of modern Turkish today would recognize the spelling of Resimli Gazete as being different in 1928, where it has appeared instead as Ressımlı Gazeta. Far from mistakes or typos, these variations in spelling are actually quite common during the first decade of the alphabet reform as the new spellings are still settling in and becoming more standardized.
Originally published at https://steemit.com on August 5, 2018.
