Fashion and Femininity in Emilia Pardo Bazán's Insolación

Abstract

This article explores the role of fashion in the construction of the modern woman in Emilia Pardo Bazán's 1889 Insolación . By taking into consideration the author's comments on the art of feminine dress during her time as a reporter at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889 and again in 1890, as well as the focus on female clothing styles in connection with changes in the traditional gender divides in Pardo Bazán's essays, this study examines the ways in which feminine toilettes are implicated in the novel in the subversion and reinforcement of the established gender order and in which beauty products, clothing, and accessories function to signal the ambivalent nature of late-nineteenth-century femininity in Spain.