Fashion and women in the İstanbul of the armistice period, 1918-1923

Abstract

This thesis examines women̕s changing fashions throughout the Armistice period to understand the transformation of Istanbul women before the foundation of the Turkish Republic exploring mainly articles published in popular women̕s periodicals. The hypothesis is that Turkish women in Istanbul experienced a relative liberty most explicitly in their clothing due to the extraordinary conditions of the Armistice periodthat would later contribute to their emancipation movement after the foundation of the Republic. Throughout the occupation the coexistence of the extreme poverty and excessive wealth due to wartime speculations increased the moral degeneration in the city, but at the same time forced women to work outside. Many Muslim women entered into prostitution to survive and this increased the importance of girl̕s education in a profession as a protection for times of privation. Working life, making lower-class women more visible in the street, also encouraged upper-class women to make more radical changes in their appearance. Russian refugee women served as models in this transformation. The expenditures of upper-class women on European fashions would be criticized in diverse ways in the popular periodicals of the time and in the literary works. As opposed to Anatolian women, who were idealized as "mourning nurses" of the nation, Istanbul women, with their fondness for fashion and the new entertainments, were despised and were accused in the writings of many intellectuals of being indifferent to moral, economic and national concerns.