About the Author
Julia K. Moor earned her Bachelor of Arts in History at Siena University (formerly Siena College), where she graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2025. She focused on twentieth century Western European fashion history and haute couture, paying special attention to fashion theory, feminism, and the body. During her time as an undergraduate student, she deepened her knowledge of history by completing rigorous coursework as a participant in several high level seminar-style classes on topics ranging from Japanese samurai to the Catholic Reformation. Her research culminated in her honors thesis, completed as part of her position as an Honors Fellow in the Standish Honors Program. She broadened her cross-cultural communication skills by studying abroad in Kraków, Poland in 2024, where her position as an intern and tour guide at the Galicia Jewish Museum fine-tuned her abilities as an educator. She further sharpened her expertise as a teacher through her multiple peer tutor positions, supporting students in their studies of writing, philosophy, and Greek. In her future pursuits, Julia hopes to draw on her wide range of academic and global experiences. Julia is thrilled to continue studying history by earning her Masters at Lehigh University, where she continues her studies of fashion through the program’s focus on transnational history.
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Examining world fashion history, this article analyzes extant Western women’s evening wear from the early twentieth century that was inspired by contemporary fervor for—and even obsession with—Ancient Egyptian culture, colloquially referred to as ‘Egyptomania.’ It compares dresses from the 1910s and 1920s made by American and French designers in order to trace the evolution of how Egyptomania was manifested in fashion, showing that there was a marked increase in the use of Egyptian motifs and art. This supports the common assertion that Howard Carter (1874-1939), a British archeologist, and his discovery of King Tutankhamen’s (c. 1341 BCE-c. 1323 BCE) tomb in 1922, greatly influenced and increased Egyptomania in Western culture in the 1920s. However, through a consideration of Orientalism and fashion theory, this article exposes the intellectual underpinnings behind the physical dresses. This recontextualizes the dresses as manifestations of imbalanced power structures that privileged Western societies and empowered them to take and manipulate Eastern societies’ material culture and history. This is emphasized through the consistent preference for fantastical caricatures of Ancient Egypt and regurgitated imagery seen time and again in twentieth century media. Designers and brands such as Jeanne Paquin (1869-1936), Simcox (years unknown), the House of Thurn (founded 1870), and Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1975) all included and interpreted various Egyptian iconography in their work, typically drawing on images that were widely known and popular, including scarabs and geometric patterns. Said images were reinforced in consumers’ minds through a variety of channels, including fashion advertisements, amateur and professional archeological study, museum collections, and popular culture. This article draws these varied spheres together to illustrate the broader contexts that the fashion was designed within and to explain the significance of the particular motifs that they display. In doing so, it illustrates the unique circumstances behind the resurgences of Egyptomania in the early twentieth century, but also underscores the centuries of inequality that informed the craze.
Recommended Citation
Moor, Julia K.
(2026)
"“Wonderful Things” Turned Consumable: Egyptomania and Fashion in the Early Twentieth Century,"
Madison Historical Review: Vol. 23, Article 9.
Available at:
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/mhr/vol23/iss1/9
