Advertising the Synthetics Revolution

Professor Regina Lee Blaszczyk will look at how the world’s largest chemical company influenced post-war fashion in this talk at the London College of Fashion on 8 June.

Nylon, Orlon acrylic, Dacron polyester and Lycra spandex. These brand names rolled off the lips of American consumers between 1945 and 1970, thanks to the extensive advertising efforts of the American synthetics fibre maker, the DuPont Company. This lively presentation explores the story of DuPont as a marketer and advertiser, drawing visual images from popular magazines such as Life, House & Garden and Vogue, and the DuPont corporate archive in the USA.

Regina Lee Blaszczyk is Professor of the History of Business and Society at the University of Leeds, and project leader for The Enterprise of Culture, EU-funded collaborative research project on European fashion since 1945. She has published nine books, including Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers (2008) and The Color Revolution (2012), which is the first historical study of colour forecasting. She specializes in the history of design and innovation for the creative industries, and makes a point of looking behind the scenes to connection fashion to the supply chain.

The event takes place on Wednesday 8 June 2016 from 5.30 to 7.30pm at RHS West, London College of Fashion. It is organised by the LCF Fashion Media & Imagery Research Hub.

See here for full information about the event, including how to book.

Image: Hubert de Givenchy prêt-a-porter in French fabrics made from DuPont fibres, 1954. Courtesy, DuPont corporate archive, Hagley Museum and Library, USA.