A-Lines: Texts, Dresses, and 1960S American Icons

Abstract

This project draws attention to the modernist threesome of line, letter, and dress that reaches its formal apotheosis in the minimalism of the 1960s’ A-line dress. Using Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons as a touchstone for understanding the queer relationship between the material and immaterial, I chart two 1960s objects and events that took the A-line into immortal places in art, aesthetics, fashion, commerce, and politics. In part one, I examine how technological advancements in paper and printing technology are constellated in the figure of the short-lived fad of the 1960s A-line paper dress. Tracing the long history of the interwoven cloth and paper industries, I also consider Andy Warhol’s rarely discussed promotional happening that marketed a “DIY” paper dress painting kit. In part two, I move from a reading of the lines of Jacqueline Kennedy’s storied Chanel suit worn on November 22, 1963, to an analysis of the lines of Elfriede Jelinek’s one-woman play “Jackie.”