Fashion, gender, and modernity in Galdos, Pardo Bazan, and Picon

This study explores the literary and cultural construction of gender in the context of nineteenth-century fashion and commodity culture. In it, I examine how the descriptions of clothing and accessories in the novels of Galdos, Pardo Bazan, and Picon enrich the cultural image of their main characters and how these images challenge the traditional representation of gender in nineteenth-century Spanish literature and society. Inspired by the ideas of Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Simmel on fashion as a metaphor for modern existence, I argue that the stylish outfits of the protagonists and their fascination with them serve not only as evidence of their frivolity, social aspirations, or the cause of their moral fall, but also as images of modernity embodied in the complex and creative nature of their personas.;In La de Bringas and in La desheredada, Galdos' accounts of his protagonists' love for finery is replete with ironic allusions to the conservative discourse of neo-Catholic moralists on fashion. While neo-Catholic writers were on a mission to tailor their discourse on fashion to fit the traditional angel of domesticity, Galdos presents the female passion for luxury as an indication of middle-class women moving away from this ideal toward a modern, more complex notion of femininity.;Women were not the only figures to be painted with la moda's brush. In La de Bringas, Galdos' dandyish portrait of Manuel Pez serves not only to expose the bureaucrat's personal vanity but also to ridicule what middle-class men's attire was supposed to represent: the bourgeois values of thrift, merit, and industry. Similarly, Pardo Bazan's representation of Diego Pacheco's sensual and sartorial charm in Insolacion challenges the traditional ideal of nineteenth-century man as the embodiment of sartorial austerity and propriety. Depicted as good looking, elegant, and sexy, Pacheco reverses the predictable cliche of male viewer and female spectacle by transforming his adorned body into an object of female scrutiny and erotic desires.;In Insolacion and Dulce y sabrosa, Pardo Bazan and Picon contradict the simplistic image of the New Woman as a marimacho by emphasizing cosmetics, floral accessories, and intimate apparel in the portrayals of their female protagonists. Their descriptions of their heroines as elegant and seductive yet, at the same time, as strong-minded individuals who aspire to greater personal and sexual freedom, demonstrate that the desire to preserve feminine qualities did not necessarily oppose a New Woman's wish to live free from patriarchal authority and to enjoy her fair share of rights and privileges.