The Fabric of a nation: social order, fashion, and accessories in two novels by Alberto Blest Gana

Abstract

This essay focuses on fashion and accessories (jewelry, furniture, etc.) in two novels by Alberto Blest Gana (1830-1920): Martín Rivas (1862) and El ideal de un calavera (1863). Fashionable garments or ornaments act as objects of desire as well as items that create, illustrate, and maintain nineteenth-century social order. They connect the novels’ characters with the outside world and serve as markers of social acceptance or rejection. Thus, the array and display of accessories that Blest Gana chooses for his characters can be said to articulate and narrate the struggles, agreements, negotiations and historical events during a time when the nation was defining itself as such.