However, in Fifty Years of Fashion, Steele presents an argument that might be read as being against the Seduction Position using the controversy over the ‘Sack’ dress introduced by Givency in 1957. There was popular protest against this waistless dress because it was considered unsexy. She quotes Kenneth Collins from Women’s Wear Daily in an attack on Lucie Noel, fashion editor of The Herald Tribune who was among those lamenting the trend: “You still believe that women adorn themselves to entice men… Well, it just isn’t so. The ungainly chemise is everywhere, yet boys date the girls as eagerly as ever. So clothes, evidently, have nothing to do with these masculine urges.”255 What she seems to be advocating is what Laver calls the race for ‘contemporary seductiveness,’ rather than the more radical understandings of the role of Seduction in trends, as governed by biological determinism. So although one might expect some difficulty translating a theory developed in the 1930s to the 21st century, the Seduction Position is prevalent in descriptions of trend mechanisms today. An example is offered in the December issue 2008 of Danish Elle in which it is declared that ‘the back is back.’ Curiously, Laver also mentions the bare back – ’backlessness’ – in relation to the 1930s bathing suits.256 While his focus relates to shifts in moral and social attitudes, the concern with contemporary seductiveness and shifting erogenous zones is similar. Analytical potentials: Seduction As we will see in the Analysis, the presence of the Seduction Position is evident both in the textual and visual material concerning trend mechanisms in the empirical material from Eurowoman magazine. The Seduction Position holds potential for unlocking an understanding of trend mechanisms as rooted in the body and as part of an erotic strategy concerned with the expression of erotic allure and the personal experience of feeling attractive. As we have seen through the various sources on which the Seduction Position is based, the approach is focused on two tools: The more literal concern with shifting erogenous zones and the more abstract notion of 255
Fifty Years of Fashion, 42. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History, 241. Laver argues that the focus on the back had to do with the evolution of the bathing suit, which were modest in the 1920 but became more revealing of especially the back in the 1930. This was a result of the increased popularity of sunbathing, which naturally demanded bare skin. This explanation leads up to the Zeitgeist Position and shows how the Positions offer various explanations to the same trend. 256
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