New Literary Observer / Fashion Theory Russia, Moscow

Satirical / Sartorial: Political Fashion Cartoons in the New Yorker

Fashion cartoons in The New Yorker are a genre of fashion humour that have been published consistently for nearly a century, since the magazine’s first issue in 1925.  This paper examines a selection of single-panel cartoons published in the New Yorker magazine that are simultaneously fashion cartoons and political cartoons. The research identifies New Yorker fashion cartoons as a humour genre linked historically with traditions of graphic satire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Taken collectively, New Yorker fashion cartoons are reflective of shifts in social, cultural, economic and political climates, as observed via fashion and its rituals. This paper describes a methodology devised as part of my MA Thesis, for analysis of the New Yorker’s fashion cartoons, which was employed to identify and analyse themes and trends in the fashion cartoons. My prior research examined a series of themes that emerge from a cross-contextual examination of the cartoons. For this paper, the research methodology was employed to identify and contextualise fashion cartoons from each decade of the magazine’s publication that also engage visually and textually with political events, figures or opinions.

The research aims to substantiate the value of cross-disciplinary approaches to reading graphic satire, and to encourage further examination of the intersection of social and political satire, as rich sources of contemporary criticism.

This paper includes and builds upon research undertaken towards my MA in Fashion Curation at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London.