Competing Images:  Silk and Rayon in Popular U.S. Fashion Publications of the Nineteen Thirties

by Jocelyn Gottschalk

 

Although the first manufactured fiber was produced in 1883, it was not until the nineteen thirties that the textile industry, through a concerted effort, began to market synthetic fibers to a mass audience.  Early marketing efforts focussed on the idea that synthetic fibers, particularly viscose which was dubbed rayon by the industry, was just like silk—it was “artificial silk.”  Rayon was sometimes promoted as superior to silk in a number of ways.  It was better able to withstand the activities of the wearer, such as sports and dancing, and it was less susceptible to the effects of the weather.  More durable than silk as well as more affordable, rayon was widely championed.  The focus of this paper will be to analyze the images of silk and rayon in popular and industry publications in the United States during the nineteen thirties.  I will concentrate on advertising images from Women’s Wear Daily and other fashion publications, exploring the relationship between silk and rayon.  How did silk respond to the new fiber, especially considering that much rayon was woven at silk mills?  I will also provide a background against which the marketing campaign of rayon was launched.  Issues such as the importation of raw silk from Japan and the signing in 1933 by President Roosevelt of the Silk Code, a set of rules established to govern a wide range of aspects of silk production such as minimum wages, affected the images of silk and rayon within the textile industry. 

 

Jocelyn Gottschalk completed course work in May 2001 at The Fashion Institute of Technology for a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies:  Costume and Textiles.  She is currently working on her thesis, the subject of which is fashion in the United States in the nineteen thirties.  She has presented papers at The Fashion Institute of Technology, and at The Southwest Wisconsin Medieval and Renaissance Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.  She currently works at The Textile Museum in Washington, DC.