the figure of Eva Perón, 70 years after her deathhas never ceased to interest the new generations, both for its political legacy and for its his public imagean aspect in which he shone so much that his status as an icon has not lost strength or validity.
A particularly attractive area of her figure is related to the world of fashion. Eva Perón, like few women of power in history, knew how to cross the political and social meanings of her performance within Peronism, with the use of clothing resources, which served to reinforce the fundamental lines of his militancy.
“It is not easy to find another name that has given to the haute couturethis use that is so intensely political and at the same time so transcendent at the communicational level”, explains Marcelo Marinoart historian and researcher at Unsam, in the book “Avoid in front of the mirror” (Ampersand). This volume, of which Marino is also the editor, brings together a set of essays by various authors; to examine, in the light of new research, the former first lady’s relationship with the fashion of her time.
the beginnings
This relationship was greatly displaced in the reading of Peronism, which placed in the foreground the hardworking Evita (for some, Evita montonera), dressed in the famous tailored suit with Prince of Wales print.
The first chapter of this “Argentine history in rags”, as he calls it Adrian Meloauthor of the article on Paco Jamandreou which opens the volume; is exactly that: the story that unites Evita with the designer who invented the famous suit.
“Jamandreu created the dress corresponding to the political body of Eva Perón”, thus defined Beatrice Sarlo, in “Passion and the exception”; this brilliant intuition of the famous couturier who advanced the look of the actress by decades and gave her the appearance that would best connect her with her militancy and her future.
But Jamandreu was also the man who designed the first ball gown that Eva wore at the Teatro Colón, the territory where she fought her main battles against the “oligarchy” that despised her. In two famous books, “La cabeza contra el suelo” and “Evita fuera del balcón”, the couturier narrated with more fiction than reality, the details of that relationship, affective and creative. There he attributes suggestions and models made by others and he even recounts or invents a scene in which Perón asks him, at the foot of Eva’s dying bed, to design a trousseau overnight for a supposed trip. A white lie to console the patient at the end of her life.
According to Melo, the link between Eva and Paco is their mirror story. Both come from the interior, they were born in the same year and arrived in Buenos Aires, with the desire to overcome their origin and change their destiny.
The trip to Europe
One of the least explored and most interesting moments for the history of the wardrobe of the first ladywas the tour of Europe that he made in 1947 and which received the name of “Rainbow Tour”. Eva traveled to Spain, Italy (where the central objective, almost like today, was the Vatican), France and Switzerland. The impoverished post-war Europe, in need of fruitful trade agreements with Argentina, received her like a queen. Her beauty, her youth, her elegance and even her white and translucent skin, were a reason for admiration on the part of the politicians who received her. An article by the researcher Laura Zambrini gives an account in “Evita frente al espejo”, of the luxury luggage that the Argentine haute couture houses prepared for the tour Henriette and Paula Naletoff. her dresser Julio Alcaraz and two dressmakers were essential members of his entourage.
But in Europe it had just broken into Christian Dior’s “New Look” and this would change the aesthetic course of Eva. “Dior had opened its store four months ago and that represented the activation of French fashion after the war,” explains Marcelo Marino. Europe needed figures like Eva to sell its fashion”.
Not only Dior would in the future have a mannequin with Eva’s measurements, to send dresses to Buenos Aires. Also Marcel Rochas, Pierre Cardin and Jacques Fath they would create models for her and lesser known designers would send her accessories and hats.
Eva also used many famous perfumes: Le Dix by Balenciaga, Amour-Amour by Jean Patou and Arpège by Jeanne Lanvin. Most of her shoes were by Salvatore Ferragamo. And she even shared a dressmaker with the queens of England: Norman Hartnell, who came to Buenos Aires to expand the markets for her designs.
Rereading Eva’s wardrobe within the fashion keys of the time means, according to Marino, moving away from prejudiced views and understanding their assumptions “excesses” in relation to the style that prevailed in the world for women of her rank. Eva had criteria to know what she had to wear, she had been a model and an actress and was surrounded by women trained to advise her. “Her wardrobe of hers should no longer be read as the whim of an upstart,” concludes Marino. But as the unprecedented example of the use that it could be given on the other side of the Atlantic, within a complex political discourse such as that of Peronism ”.
The researchers agree that this trip, despite the ultra-luxurious and modern acquisitions that Eva added to her wardrobe; marked a turning point in her towards a simpler style. The suggestion of greater simplicity has been attributed to Dior, but Jamandreu also claims it. The bun became her everyday hairstyle and the suit was her favorite uniform to work hours and hours at her Foundation.
Other wardrobe implications
Three very interesting essays add other topics related to fashion to “Evita in front of the mirror.” The one by Patricia Nobilia analyzes the collection of regional costumes that Eva received as a gift in Spain and that today is housed in the Larreta Museum (in fact, from time to time, the Museum offers samples where they are exhibited). That official gift is one of the valuable legacies of the tour of Europe that is now the patrimony of all Argentines.
An essay by Daniela Lucena analyzes the meaning of the word “shirtless” in the peronist liturgy. What originally was an insult for the lower classes, Perón did not take long to reverse it to transform it into “a powerful symbol of identification and communication with the masses,” explains the author of the study. In fact, the General himself abandoned his coat to meet the workers and adopted his shirt sleeves rolled up as a sign of his closeness to the people. “This word that is so structuring of Peronism has to do with the half-dressed body, which is more transgressive than the naked. He embodies what Peronism is, a constant ‘nuisance’ in Argentine politics”, explains Marcelo Marino.
Lastly, the work of Mariano López Seoane follows Eva’s trail in the pop culture of the following decades, right up to the “drag” aesthetic.
“The references to Eva are constant, from the opera ‘Evita’ to Lady Gaga -concludes Marino-. Even a production on ‘clutches’ in Vogue introduces a photo of Eva to compare her look. What is very valuable is the short time in which she manages to refine that weapon that is fashion. And the ways in which she finally manages to become a legend ”.
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