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SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR AND RUDI GERNREICH:

EXISTENTIAL FEMINISM AND EXISTENTIAL FASHION

DENNIS A. GILBERT

Dennis A Gilbert is currently completing a

Ph.D. degree in French at the University of
Southern California. He was instrumental in
organizing a Simone de Beauvoir Colloquium
which took place at U.S.C. on December 6, 1986
and is currently working on a proposai for a
~~ Simone de Beauvoir - Jean-Paul Sartre Center
~~ for Research at U.S.C.
~

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The plan and intent of this paper is to pay hom age to

two of the most important and original minds of our century:

Simon e de Beauvoir and Rudi Gernreich. 1 In it, I will show

how the development of Beauvoir's theoretical enterprise,

which I call existential feminism, created an intellectual

climate which allowed for the dissemination of these radical

id eas to other arts, here notably fashion, and how Gernreich

was able to translate many of these same concepts into a

philosophy of fashion which may be called existential.

The initial stages of this project, however • . were not

so well integrated. As is often the case, its birth grew

out of the death and our loss of these two individuals . In

a recent article, "April Is the Cruellest Month," Yolanda

Patterson speaks very tenderly of the emotions she felt

upon hearing of Simone d e Beauvoir's death on 14 April 1986.

Indee d it was not surprising she should pass away almost

six years to the day since the death of Jean-Paul Sartre

in 1980. Without a doubt, these were gloomy days for my-

self as well. Two of the most i mportant intellectual fig-

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ures of our century in France were go ne , and what we were

left with was an abundance of material and inform at io n

looking back on their careers. In between 1980 and 1986,

the cultural world lost another major fi gure, Rudi Gern-

reich, who died, also dur i ng the month of April, in 1985.

This was more of a persona! loss for me and first prompted

my desire to write someth i ng on his contribution to the

history of ideas as reflected in fashion. With Beauv oir's

passing the following year, I found myself with two unfin-

ished projects, not thin k ing there to be any connection be-

tween them. After all, it is not immed i ately obvious how

the creator of feminism and author of The Second Sex could

be associated with the designer of the topless ba th ing

suit, the thong, and the pubikini.

However, the more I researched, t h e more I realized

that they were both talking about the same thing, each in

his or her own medium. Also, it became clear that this

rapport I was s eeing was not just indirect and my own f ab -

ric ation but actually existed between them in a no t -so-

indirect dialogue. What follows, then, is a brief expla-

nation of how philosophy and fashion have contributed to

a common goal: the emancipation of woman.

II

The moment of i mpac t between the artist and

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the public is not necessarily a moment of rec-

ognition and appreciation.

--Jean-Paul Sartre

The first stage of Beauvoir's exis t ential feminism

lies in her Ethics of Ambiguity published in 1947. It

should be noted as well that Sartre was working on his

"first" ethics at this time and that i t is commonly ag-

reed that her text adapts Sartre's thinking to a great ex-

tent.2 While it is true that Beauvoir's po i nt of d e partur e

is Sartrian, I do believe she branches out already in this

text to areas of interest different from his and ver y dif-

ferent from what was commonly accepted by the general pub-

lic.

What she shares with Sartre is t h e belief tha t man is

a sovereign and unique subject amidst a universe of objects.

But man can also be an object for others, as in t h e case

of an individual who depends t o o much on the coll ect i v i t y.

He n c e arises the tragic ambiguity of t h e human condition.

What is most optimistic and humanistic in their though t at

this time is the notion that the world is not a gi v en world,

for e ign to man, but a wil l ed on e by man . Like a c h i ld, how-

e v e r, s ome p e ople c a n exercise t h e ir f r e edom only wi t hin a

universe which has been set up before th em, withou t them.

It is at this point that Beauvoir f irst makes the connection

wi th h e r futur e raison d'être: "This is a l so t h e s i tuation

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of women in many civilizations; they can only submit to the

laws, the gods, the customs, and the truths created by the

males" (37) . For Beauvoir there is an i mportant difference

in this analogy: the child's situation i s imposed upon him

or her whereas the woman chooses it or at least cons ents to

it. Woman, then, has not raised h e rself to the cons c i ous-

ness of her slavery. Wha t is critical f or Beauvoir in The

Ethics of Ambiguity is the necessit y for the triumph o f free-

dom over the facticity of this given situation, to surpass

the g i v en toward an open future. In so doing, toes must be

stepped upon. An existen ti alist ethics, therefore, is

grounded in "the rejection of all the previous just i fica-

tions which might be dra wn from the civilization, the age,

a nd the c ultur e; it is the rej ect i o n o f every pr i n cipl e of

authority" (14 2 ).

Very idealistic wor d s , indeed. In retrospect, Beauvoir

has never been comfortable with the conclusions o f this text.

The at tempt to bas e a mora l ity in a metaphysical context a nd

not i n a h ist ori ca l or socia l one prompted her to stat e in

Force of Circumstance, "Of all my book s, it is the one that

irritates me the most toda y. I wa s in error when I

thought I could define a morality independent of a soc ial

con text " (67). But as her rece nt biographers, Clau d e Fra n cis

and Fernande Gontier, insist: "Beauvo ir's feminism rests on

her ethics: to strive thr ough action t o create a world in

which inequa li t ie s are suppressed; she holds liberty as es-

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sential and all the rest as accessory" ( Simone de Beauvoir

371, my translation). It is this lacuna which Beauvoir

corrects in The Second Sex.

As we have seen, thé perspective of Beauvoir's exis-

tentialist ethics is based in the philosophy of Sartre.

Yet the subject of woman as r~pressed is not touched upon

by him supposedly because he left that to her. However,

in an interview of him by Beauvoir in 1975 a quite different

picture emerges: Sartre's ignorance of t h e oppression of

wom e n. He thought that it was a cas e o f individual relation-

ships and not a general trend: " I t h ought it was the

individual fault of the man to be domineering and a charac-

teristic of that woman to b e particularly submissive" (Life/

Situations 94). It took their fifty-y e ar relations h ip to

chang e Sartre' s p e rsp e ctive : "Ye t our e quality did not se em

to me to be simply the particular equality of two individuals,

but to reveal the profound equality of the two sexes," he

adds lat e r on in that same i nt e rview ( 9 7).

In The Second Sex, Beauvoir e xt e nds existentia l ist ethics

beyond the subjective to the collective, beyond individual

ethics to the situation of women in general. She likens

t h em to slave s to whom o n e mus t furnish the mean s b y which

they may tran s c e nd th e ir situat io n. Th e o ppressed can only

fulfill their freedom in revolt. But in order to do so,

they must have at their disposal the the o retical basis for

t h e ir ac t ion; th e y must be conscious of th e ir situat ion .

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It is precisely this n oti on of "cons c iousness i n r e vo lt" t h a t

defines existential fem i nism: " Femi n i n e literat u re . is

in our day animated less by a wish to demand our r igh ts than

by an effo r t toward clar i ty and understanding" ( v) . Her

aim is to raise the cons c iousness o f women; it c l early pre-

cedes the f eminist movement as action .

Her central thesis h as become, however, the fo undation

for contemp orary feminism: since patr i archal times women

have been forced to occupy a secondary place in t h e world

in relation to men. Yet this seconda ry standi n g is not im-

p os e d of n e c e ssity by n a t ural "f e min ine " charac te r i s t ics but

rather by environmental and social f orces. In t h is text,

as we saw i n The Ethic s of Ambiguit y , the duality of sub-

j e ct a nd o bj e ct is " a fund a men ta l cat e g ory o f huma n t hought"

( xvii ). Ho we v e r, t h e d ua li t y o f man al wa ys as s ub j ec t a nd

woman always as object has no foundation in the ph ilosophy

of Sartre, where the concept of otherness was not originall y

a t t ached t o the divisio n of the s e x es . The possi b il it y o f

c ha n g e exist s t h erefore, b u t woma n allow s her s el f to live

in a world where man c ompels her to assume alwa y s t h e status

of the Other.

Be auvoi r s tr esses t he r ole of ex ist e ntial femin ism in

coun te ring t hi s pa ss i v i t y: "If woma n seems t o be t he i n e s -

sential wh i ch never becomes the essential, it is because she

herself fails to bring about this c h a ng e" (xviii ) . Ex isten-

ti a l femin is m is a n a t t e mpt to t urn th i s equation ar o und

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and to make woman the subject with regard to man. She must

acc e pt h e r status as an individ u al and work t owa rd l i be ration

for, "One is not born, bu t rather bec omes, a woman" (2 49).

In so doin g men and women , "mutuall y rec ognizing each o ther

as subject, each will y et remain for the other an o the r "

(688 ) . Th e broth e rhood o f me n ,an d wo men will b e achieve d

by and t h rou g h their natural different iat ion. Beauv oir

remains then radical in thought but no t i n action at t h is

time, and existential fe min ism continue s to be def i n ed as

a n o n t ol ogy an d a r evo lt of cons c iou s n e s s . In thi s regard,

she adds in 1963 in Force of Circumstance:

On the whole , I still agree wi t h what I s a id [in

Th e Second Sex ] . I never c h erished any il l usion

of chang ing woman ' s cond it ion ; it de pen ds on the

fu t ure of labor in the world; i t will c h a ng e

significantly o nly at the price of a re vol u t ion

i n production. That is wh y I avoided fa lling into

t he tr a p of " fem ini s m." Nor di d I offe r r e me di es

fo r each pa r tic ul a r pr ob l e m I de sc rib ed. Bu t

at least I hel pe d the women of my time a nd gen-

eration to bec om e aw a re of t h e mselves an d t he ir

s itu at i on . (1 9 2)

As we k now, t hi s "r evo lt of c on scious ne ss " an d " mutu a l

recognition" o f men and wom en seem an t i quated in li g h t of

the las t fifteen y ears of t h e women's s trugg le. For it was

only a ft er 1970 that Be a uvo ir' s exi st ent i a l fe min i sm de v e l ope d

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into the feminist movement we know to day, into a mo re radica l

prise de position on her part which would replace her c o ncept

of being "an intellectual whose weapons are her wo r ds" (Schwa r -

zer 69) . Previously, s h é had placed her emphasi s o n the

general socialist revol ut ion which, she had hope d , wo uld have

also brought about the e mancipation o f women. She was great-

ly deceived, but, as she admits to Sar t re in that in terview

of 1975, . that is what persua d e d me to adop t an open-

ly feminist attitude starting in abou t 1970. By thi s I

mean a recogniti o n of t h e specificit y of the wome n 's strug-

gle" ( 97) . Since 1970, t h e r e ha s b een no long t heo retic a l

enterprise from her on feminism but ra t her a great number

of articles, lectures, p refaces, interv iews, and declaration s

con c erning wo men.3 In addition, Bea uvo ir has demo n str a ted

a mo r e a ctive p a rti c ipat io n a nd use of h e r st a tu s to aid

the women's movement after that time. These last fifteen

years ha v e truly seen existential fe min ism become Feminism

wi th a c a p ital I·

III

We hav e cov e r e d a g r ea t di s t ance i n th e y e ars f rom the

f ounding of an ex i ste nt i alis t eth ic s to the ad vent a nd

growth of f eminism. From this discuss i on, one ca n i solate

c ertain ke y concepts wh ich stand out a n d which wi ll b e re-

taine d by thinke r s in othe r a r t fo rm s fo r tr a n s l at i o n in to

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those forms: in the first place, the n ecessity of woman as

abject becoming wo ma n as s ubject and the ensuing triumph

of her freedom over her facticity and her situation in the

world; secondly, the impo r tance of the individual revo lt of

consciousness and the rejection of authority in a male-

domina te d univers e ; third ly , th e founding of a collective

ethics and morality; next , the realization that the crucial

differences between men and women are of a cultura l and

social order; 4 and finally, the presence of an ope n ly fem-

ini s t and r a dica l att i t ud e a ft e r 19 70 . It is precisely

the integration of these concep t s into other art

forms that lends credence t o the thought of Beauvo ir a nd

aids in the overturning of the intellectual, moral, c u l-

tural, and social hi e rarchy. In as fundam ental a way as

a cha ng e in how we think, so too can t h ese ideas be exp r e ss e d

in another fundamental medium: the way we dress. One can

find no better example of this than i n t h e philos? p h y of

fashion of Rudi Ger nr e ich.

IV

Nothing is as powerful as an ide a wh o s e time

has corne.

- -Victor Hugo

In co njunc tion with the wom e n' s s t rugg l e , men are not

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only begin n ing to resign themselves to the new s t at us of

women but are acti v ely p articipating in furtheri n g al ong

this movement. An examp l e of this "di a logue" with Simone

de Beauvoir can be imme d iately seen i n a fashion st a te-

ment issued by Rudi Gernreich in 1970 :

Twenty years ago Simone de Beauv oir s h ocke d the

world with the statement that no one is born a

woman. "Woman," she pointe d out, is a cultural

myth and myth is cultural o p pression. If you

are a "Woman," it i s because you h a v e d e ci d ed

to become one. Now, a ge n er a tion later, we

h ave caught u p .5

Fo r Gernreich, fashion and the fashio n world , muc h like the

ma le- d omin a te d s ociety descri b ed b y Be a u vo ir in The Sec o nd

Se x, al s o f unc t i o n as cultur a l my t h s . He r e j ects a s we ll

the "feminine mystique" denounced b y Beauvoir and cites

Christian Dior as representing the p ast for fashio n in this

rega rd whi le Be a u v oir h era l d s t he f u t ur e fo r the feminin e

me ntality. Ju s t as s he has s h a tt er e d t h e my ths of b e ing

a woman, so too he undermines the myt h s of fashi o n which

have perpetuated the myths of being a woman.

Wha t is s u r pr i sing a bout re l ati ng Gernrei ch t o Bea u-

vo ir i s t h at mos t people who k n o w hi s work ass oci a te him

with the topless bathing suit and no t with the ide a behind

it, the ph i losophy of f ashion, or wi th the p rogress i n wom-

en ' s d re s s that it spawned. Yet it s eems to me t h a t Ger n -

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reich should be described as an "intellectual desig n er," able

to translate abstract ideas such as Beauvoir's existen t ial

feminism into something wearable; in this regard, his corn-

ments represent a fashio n statement bu t also a phil o s ophi-

cal statement. For him, a fashion designer must always

respond to changes in attitude, to new ide a s, and to the

'
cultural and intellectual climate in which he or she is

working. Although Gernreich and Beauvo ir only met once,

in Paris in 1959, it is clear that her ideas, values, and

mores a s we have seen them develop inf l uenced his concepts

of dress.

Throughout his career Gernreich became increasi n gly a-

ware of what his clothes were saying to t he world. He states

in 1971, "Probably b e cause of the i mpac t of my top le ss ba t h-

ing suit of 1 964 I b ecame more int e res t e d in clothes as

sociological statements. Anyone saying something in clothes

today is beyond clothes. And it's important to say some-

t hing that is no t confined to it s me d i um" (qtd. in Lu t her,

"Looking Back" 6). This n otion of Ger n r e ich a s a n " i n te l-

lectual designer" can also be seen in t hi s excerpt o f an

interview done by Ruth Ziony in 1976: "Did you enjo y t h e

fur o r you creat e d ove r th e tople ss ? Yo u know you rev a lu-

tioniz e d the s e xu a l mo res of this c ou nt r y ." His r eply :

"No, I didn't. It had already begun in London, as a reac-

tion against the Victorian era. What I did was a phil o soph-

ical conc e p t an d i t s eeme d very logical at t h e time" (2 9).

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Or as Françoise de Langlade de la Rent a, the edito r of French

Vogue, states: "No one has freed the body like Rudi Gern-

reich, and I doubt that anyone so overflows with ideas"

(qtd. in "Up, Up and Awa y" 80).

What is unique about Gernreich, a nd what interests us

with regard to Beauvoir, is the marriage in his fashion be-

tween the ethical and the aesthetic; as such, it is a fashion

that may properly be called existential or engaged. In this

regard Bettijane Levine, writing about t he retrospecti v e

held in Los Angeles shortly after Gernreich's death, makes

the point, "His topless was an artistic statement against

women as sex objects, much as Picasso painted Guernica as

a statement against war" (10). His clo thes, censured by

the Vatican, denounced by the Kremlin, banned in Cannes,

and displayed at Expo '70 in Japan, e ar ne d him the repu-

tation as "the designer who freed women from the constraints

of high fashion" (Luther, "Topless Crea t or Dies" 1). Gern-

reich's philosophy of fashion clearly beg ins then with a

revolt of consciousness, as Beauvoir has described it, and

centers squarely on her most important value: "The only

relevant issue now is freedom" (qtd. in Luther, "Topless

Creator Dies" 14). His general message to the world through

his clothes was also quoted after hi s deat h by Oreste Puc-

ciani: "Wherever, whenever, whatever, the bottom line is al-

ways human freedom" (Acceptance speech) .

Gernrei ch's own transition from revolt of consciousness

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to existential or engaged fashion is based upon the histori-

cal situation in which fashion as an institution previously

existed. He was barn in 1922 "at a time when haute couture

was at its peak, and the authoritarian state of chic was

governed by a handful of French couturiers ." (Luther,

"Topless Creator Dies" 14). At that time, the level of high

taste was dictated by Paris in much the same way as Beau-

voir' s male-dominated world prescribed the mores for social

conduct and the limits of woman's place in that world. Old

fashion was then dictatorial, authoritarian, and legislative.

It previously had nothing to do with a matter of free choice

or spontaneous appeal. In their place, it required many

things of a woman: she should be seasona l ; she should dis-

play her husband's a ffluence; and she s hould be suggestive,

provocative, but unavailable. In short, old fashion made

woman into a sexual symbol .

In moving from the topless to the no-bra in the mid-

sixties, Gernreich signaled the end of "American bosoms but-

tressed like bridges, the end of women . in un_dergarments

designed to mold them, like plastic, into caricatures of

the female form" (Levine 10). This notion of being mold-

e d rel a tes Gernreich's objection in fashion to Beauvoir's

concern with woman's also being mold e d b y male societ y in-

stead of forging her own way. With the topless and the no-

bra also came the knit swimsuit without the usual built-in

bra. The effect was just as lib e rating: "With this, mil-

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lions of women were free d to swim un f ettered, an o p t i on men

had always had" (Levine 10). One can certainl y v iew this

newest creation then as a direct respo n se to and a concrete

rejection of the subordi n ate position of woman as d escribed

by Beauvoir in The Second Sex. These innovations alone

should have made Gernreich an original hero of the women's

movement. Yet his rhetoric as well echoed that expressed

by Beauvoir: "Dresses are a sign of slavery. The y repre-

sent the servitude of women" (Zion y 30 ) .

The importance of Gernreich's fas h ion stateme n ts in

light of the intell e ctu a l a tmosphere o f the sixtie s cannot,

therefore , be overemphasized. It certainly was n ot missed

by members of the fashio n communit y. Peggy Moffitt, Gern-

reich' s mod e l for the top less swims u i t, has rece nt ly reflec-

ted on it s impor ta n ce : " Rudi di d the s uit as a so c i a l st a te-

ment. It was an exaggeration that had to d o wi th set-

ting women free. I modeled i t for a photogra ph

bec a use I be li e v e d in the fas hion st ateme nt" (qtd . in Levine

1). Sa rah Worma n, r e gional dire c tor o f the Fashion Group,

has also commented: "I agree the suit was a social statement--

the most prophetic ever made by an y designer in the world .

I t wa s his mo s t brilliant c oncept, an d f r om it grew a ll

s orts of thing s we no w ta ke for gr ant e d " ( q t d . in Levine 8) .

How familiar these wor d s sound when on e thinks of con tempor-

ary feminism's relationship to Beauv oir. Just as feminists

t o d a y owe the ir c u rr e n t adv anc e s to he r seminal tex t s , so

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too the contributions of the fashion industry to t his move-

men t could not have been env isaged witho u t Gernreich's ini-

tial audacity at this time.

However, Gernreich b ecame impatient with soc i e ty 's

slow response to his fas h ion message . In fact, he bec ame

qui te adamant against the wave . o f fashio n no st algia which

crept into the industry d u ring the sev e n ties. It was at

that time he proclaimed, "Fashion is d ead'' (Interview) .

For him status fashion wa s dead, but n o t design, no t as

l o ng a s he was cr e a t ing. Ge rnr e ich oppos e d any k i n d o f

return to the past; he was a modernis t through and th r ough.

As such, he decided to design a line of clothes t ha t would

respond to modern factors , in this case political as well

as so c i a l, a n d wou l d p ush t h e limi ts of acc e ptabl e d r ess .

He ad o p te d a mor e mi li t a n t look in his clothe s afte r 1 9 70:

"Clothing will not be ide n tified as e i t h er male or fe-

male. The utility p rinciple wi ll allow us to t a k e

ou r mi n ds off h ow we look and co n ce n trate on r ea ll y i mpor -

t an t matte rs " (qt d . in Luthe r , "Tople ss Cr e a to r Di es" 14).

In this regard, he sent his model s out wearing guns,

d og tags, an d combat attire . Gernreich saw this mi li t ary

look a s symb ol ic o f t he r adi ca l n at u r e o f so ciet y dur ing

t he la te s i x ti es and e arl y sev e nt i es : " I don' t b e l i e v e i n

physical v iolence and I d o n't believe in war. But th e re

cornes a time when we must t urn our back s o n the pas t and

wa l k in to the fu t u r e " ( Arc hi v es 19 70 ) . Th i s i s precise l y

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the same past already denounced b y Bea uvoir in The Second

Sex and, as we have seen, reflects the more militant stand

she was also taking at this time. For t he two of the m,

"the guns have gone off f or freedom" ( Archives 197 1 ). Free-

dom, though, must be won through str u gg l e and must be stresse d

through all available media: "This ma y seem a far cry from

fashion and yet it's not" (Archives 197 1 ). For Ger n reich,

the battle attire represents woman's t a king charge of her own

sexuality; as such, it corresponds to t oday's more ra d ical

fe mininity .

He also created at this time a li n e of unisex c lo thes to

augment and to stress the point: "I think in the future there

will be a great deal more interchange a n d much more i nvolve-

me nt in unisex clothing, p a rticu la r ly sinc e woman s eems to

be eme rging into final em ancipation and not just a p e r io d ic

one" ("Thoughts on Clothes" 12). For Gernreich, cloth ing

needed to become intercha n geable for the two sexes to be

truly equ a l . Th e unis ex conce pt an no u nced tha t t h e l ess

sex ua lly sp e cific we a re, the fr ee r we can b e . It was a r e -

jection of the social and artificial di f ferences between men

and women, in much the same vein as Beauvoir had pr otested

some t we nt y y e ars e arli er . An d , it is o nc e again t his no-

ti o n o f fr eed om whi c h wa s a t the h e art o f Ge rnr e ich ' s sum-

mation of his career shortly before his death: "The Pubi-

kini is my l ast fashion statement. There was the To p less,

then t he Th a ng a n d n ow t he Pubi k ini. With t h is I have f reed

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the woman' s body" ( qtd. i n Luther, "Loo king Back" 9 ) . How

far we have corne, t hen, from the notion of woman as Ot her

in Beauvoir to Gernreich's pubikini. And how far we s t ill

have to go.

As a f i nal conclusion, it would h ave been inte re s t ing,

given a larger context, t o have exam i ned Beauvoir's dress

in li g ht of Gernreich's id eas on fa sh i o n; there a re cer-

tainly plenty of photos and descriptions in her ico n og -

raphy and memoirs. Also, it would hav e been revealing to

have taken a closer look at Gernreich's collections and to

have s een ho w t h ey r ef l ec t the s e e xist enti al ide as ; pe r-

haps we would have a rrived at a vi e w of th e s e clo t h es t h a t

had not previously been o bvious to us . The impor t an t thing

though is that we never forget the contributions o f t h ese

tw o thinkers and c r e a tor s a n d n e v e r ce a se to ex plore th e

int e rr e lation s hi p b etwee n diff e r e nt art forms a nd d isc ip-

lines. The y are both no l onger with us in a physical, per-

ceptive sense but forever with us as t h ey now exis t in the

imag in a r y. Or e st e Puccia n i ha s t e rmed t his t ran s i t ion the

" ontolog ical l ea p o f de a t h " (Intervi e w) . It i s precis ely

in the imaginary that we can have a ''dialogue" with Simone

de Beauvoir and Rudi Ger nr eich, and academic symposia and

j ou rnal a rticl es a ll ow us t h e context f o r s uch a consid e r -

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ation. Their legacy then is critical for men and wome n

alike, since who else has changed so dra stically the intel-

lectual and social bases on which res t t he way we t h ink

and the way we dress?

Notes

This presentation was originall y delivered as p art

of the symposium, "Dialogue with Simone de Beauvoir, " held

at the Univ ersity of So ut h e rn Ca lifo rnia on 6 De cember 1986.

2 The re sults of Sartre's work on t his subject we re on-

ly recently published in volume. See Sartre, Cahiers.

3 In this regard see Fr anc is and Gontier, Les Ecrits,

and Zéph ir.

4 Beauvoir recognizes the biological differe n ces be-

tween the male human being and the female, but for her there

is also a distinction to be made between the femal e human

being and woman: "If her functioning as a female i s not e-

nough to define woman, . then we mus t face the question:

What is a woman?" (Second Sex xv)

5 Certain fashion sta t e ments such a s this one corne from

the Rudi Gernreich Arch i ves compil e d by Prof. Or e st e Pucc iani

in Los Angeles. For reference, each subsequently a ppro priate

quote will be followed in the text by "Archives" and th e

d a te. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Pucciani

for a llowin g me a cc e ss to these unpublished documents.

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The Second Sex. Trans. and ed . H. M. Parsh le y .

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Francis, Claude, and Fe r nande Gontier. Les Ecrit s d e

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