Food and Fashion: Cultural Heritage

Food and Fashion

• Haute couture and haute cuisine are symbols of luxury, distinction, and national cultural heritage
• These are linked historically through refinement, manners, and taste performance, as well as class identity
• Country of Origin Effect enhances a product's marketing power when associated with a country known for excellence
• French origin signifies quality and refinement
• Christian Dior equated cooking and couture as craftsmanship forms that involve "the hands and the mind"
• Under Louis XIV, French court culture encouraged competitive performance of taste, setting the stage for French leadership in food and fashion
• This created a system of discerning judgment when it came to consumption
• Social exclusion, discrimination, and the French Revolution were consequences of this system
• The rise of world exhibitions served as platforms for visual and culinary displays
• Charles Frederick Worth established the first couture house in 1868
• The Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture was founded in 1878
• Ritz (1898) and Maxim’s (1893) made dining a spectacle, where food was a pretext to be seen and fashionable clothing was required

Haute Cuisine

• Marie-Antoine Carême (1783–1833) introduced "nouvelle cuisine," which emphasized light and artistic presentation
• Carême cooked for elites and democratized recipes in publications
• Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935) created the brigade de cuisine, a hierarchical kitchen system
• Escoffier wrote Guide culinaire (1903), which became a culinary standard for chefs
• Brillat-Savarin (1826) stated, "Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you who you are."
• Food discourse in France is nationalized, reflecting culture, identity, and ritual

Michelin Guide & Gastronomy

• Launched in 1900 for car travelers
• Added a star system in 1926
• In 1936, 1–3 star criteria got established
• Expanded to focus from Paris to regional cuisines
• The French gastronomic meal includes an apéritif, 4+ courses (starter, meat/fish + vegetables, cheese, dessert), and digestif
• It emphasizes ritual, presentation, local ingredients, pairing, and sensation

Food as National Symbol

• Wine is considered a totemic object of French identity
• Steak and fries are emotionally charged markers of Frenchness
• De Castries’ request for fries after the Indo-China armistice symbolized reentry into the French national community

Haute Couture

• "Haute Couture" literally means “High dressmaking”
• It is a protected term regulated by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode
• It involves handcrafted garments, high-quality materials, and made-to-measure designs
• Rose Bertin was Marie-Antoinette’s stylist
• Worth was the first fashion “designer”, not just a tailor
• Chambre Syndicale was formed in 1868
• It includes custom fitting
• It is handmade by specialists with high-quality fabrics and exclusive designs
• In 1945, the term “haute couture” became a controlled appellation
• Paris Fashion Week was initially private events, then in 1945 rules required public showings
• The first official Paris Fashion Week was in 1973
• The Battle of Versailles (1973) was a couture showdown between France vs. U.S. designers, with French designers Dior, Givenchy, and YSL and American designers Halston, de la Renta, and Klein

The Intellectual

• An intellectual is a public figure who uses speech, writing, teaching, and media to represent marginalized voices, raise difficult questions, challenge stereotypes and dominant ideologies, and maintain critical alertness
• Intellectuals must resist co-optation by power structures
• The role is defined by a concept of justice, not popularity
• "Speaking the truth to power means carefully weighing the alternatives, picking the right one, and representing it where it can do the most good."

History of the French Intellectual

• Voltaire opposed fanaticism and religious intolerance during the Calas affair
• Victor Hugo, George Sand, and Jules Michelet are other key figures
• Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer, was falsely convicted in 1894
• Public opinion was against him, but friends fought to prove his innocence
• Émile Zola wrote “J’accuse…,” publicly blaming the army and authorities for injustice and risking status to defend truth
• Zola stated: “My duty is to speak out… otherwise I become an accomplice.”

Existentialist Intellectuals

• Simone de Beauvoir was a philosopher, feminist, and novelist
• She wrote The Second Sex (1949), stating “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.”
• Beauvoir advocated for gender as a social construct and co-founded Les Temps Modernes journal
• Jean-Paul Sartre was an existentialist, stating “Existence precedes essence.”
• Sartre wrote novels (Nausea), plays (No Exit), and philosophy (Being and Nothingness)
• Intellectuals developed the idea of committed literature
• Writers bear responsibility for the societal impact of their words

The Négritude Movement

• This was a literary-political movement of the 1930s–50s
• It emphasized rejection of Western materialism, celebration of African culture, assertion of Black dignity and political liberation, and blending poetic tradition with activism
• Léopold Sédar Senghor (later president of Senegal), Aimé Césaire, Léon Damas, and Paulette Nardal are key figures
• Nardal and Césaire worked through journalism, literature, and activism and used writing as tools of cultural resistance

Final Questions

• How do race and gender shape the visibility of intellectuals?
• Why are women like Paulette Nardal less remembered than men?
• How can today’s intellectuals take inspiration from past figures?

Comic Strips

• French comic strips = bande dessinée (BD)
• This is unique to Francophone tradition in France and Belgium
• Astérix, Tintin, Spirou, and Schtroumpfs are famous series
• BD is considered the “Ninth Art” alongside literature, cinema, and photography
• BD is a French-language mixture of image and text forming a narrative

History of BD

• Medieval manuscripts
• Livre d’emblèmes (16th–17th c.)
• Image d’Épinal (19th c.) are pre-history examples of BD
• Tintin debuted in 1929
• Le Journal de Mickey brought American comics to France in 1934
• The 1949 Law prevented comics from portraying immoral behavior positively to youth
• Pilote magazine was founded in 1959
• Cité Internationale de la BD was established in 1990
• Angoulême BD festival began in 1974

Analyzing BD

• Planche: Whole page
• Bande: Horizontal strip
• Case: Frame/panel
• Cadre: Border of frame
• Mise en page: Page layout
• Phylactère: Speech bubble
• Récitatif: Text outside bubbles
• Peritext: Covers, sound effects, etc.
• Uses cinematic codes such as framing, angle, composition, and montage

Astérix the Gaul

• Astérix is a French national myth via satire
• Gauls vs. Romans stand in for French resistance vs. Nazi occupation, France vs. America, and France vs. Imperialism
• Vercingétorix is a historical figure and a national hero of Gaulish resistance
• The comic strip reflects neo-patriotism and complex memory of colonialism and WWII