Olivetti and the missing third: Fashion, working women and images of the mechanical-flâneuse in the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

This paper addresses images of the mechanical-flâneuse as the efficient modern woman at work in the 1920s and 1930s. To do so the characteristics of flânerie, traveling theory, and concepts of self-presentation are explored in relationship to the concurrent and transcultural influence on occupation and fashionable appearance of interest in Taylorism in the USA, USSR and Italy.