Losing it Like a Lady

Hello, my name is Susan Dawson, and I have been interested in fashion for as long as I can remember. My mother made a good deal of my wardrobe until I went to college – I was a picky bastard, and this let me customize everything I wore. She made me a super-complicated Ralph Lauren outfit for an 8 th grade concert and humored my desire to dress like a little rockabilly girl when I discovered the Stray Cats, patiently tolerating most of my fashion whims. I read my first Vogue in junior high, and never looked back; I can even remember Cindy Crawford’s first cover and thrilled to each supermodel cover when my magazines came in the mail every month. I wrote my dissertation on fashion and diplomacy. I’m pretty sure my advisor wasn’t thrilled with the topic, but I got to read every issue of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar from 1945-1960, so I didn’t care. In the words of the inimitable Tim Gunn, I made it work. I’ve been looking for a research project to get me excited about history again; I...