New Perspectives on French Fashion History highlights new research by emerging fashion scholars. Come to just one session or take all five and learn about the history of fashion display in Parisian department stores and in presentations at World’s Fairs, the transformative impact World War I had on the French fashion industry, cultural shifts brought about by the introduction of ready-made fashion in the 1950s and 60s, and much more.


Individual classes:
$100 Adults
$85 Students and Educators
$75 BGC Members

Take all five sessions and save!
$450 Adults
$375 Students and Educators
$350 BGC Members
Space is limited

Session Four, Fashion and Labor in Nineteenth Century France, more class details to come.

Meet the Professor

Susan Hiner is Professor of French and Francophone Studies on the John Guy Vassar Chair in Modern Languages at Vassar College. She is the author of Accessories to Modernity: Fashion and the Feminine in Nineteenth-Century France, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2010, which was awarded the Millia Davenport book prize of the Costume Society of America in 2011. Recent publications include 2 chapters for Bloomsbury’s Cultural History Series, one on fashion (2016) and another on work (2019); an essay on nineteenth-century French millinery for the exhibition catalogue Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade (2017), a chapter on the mythology of the milliner in Fashion, Modernity, and Materiality (2018), and an essay on the figure of the catherinette for a collection of critical essays on French cultural studies (2017). She was a Visiting Fellow at the American Library in Paris in Spring 2015 and was subsequently awarded an NEH grant for 2016-17 for a new book project entitled “Behind the Seams: Women, Fashion, and Work in Nineteenth-Century France.”

Other classes in this course include:

Session 1: Fashion on Display, 1900–1937
Taught by Paula Alaszkiewicz
Monday, October 7, 2019

Session 2: War Time Fashion
Taught by Maude Bass-Krueger and Sophie Kurkdjian
Monday, October 14, 2019

Session 3: Gender and Ready-Made Clothing
Taught by Alexis Romano
Monday, October 28, 2019

Session 5: Constructing Femininity: 1980–2000
Taught by Francesca Granata
Monday, November 4, 2019

We are also pleased to extend complimentary need-based community tickets by request to all ticketed events. To learn more, please email public.programs@bgc.bard.edu.

Leading support for Public Programs at Bard Graduate Center comes from Gregory Soros and other generous donors.