• 한국의상디자인학회지
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.11-25
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• 2008

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) is a painter renown for his romantic beautiful femme fatale images in the late 19th century in England. The purpose of this study is to examine the fashion in Waterhouse's femme fatale images. Waterhouse displays the devilism of femme fatale by the symbols of a wicked woman. He emphasized how wicked she is by means of water such as lake, river, and sea as well as symbols associated with demons such as forest, cave, naked woman, long hair, a monster-headed woman looking like an animal, water lily, and garden. On the other hand, he illustrates the woman's style as an image of a typical feminine beauty. Expressing naturally a fine-curved, immature girl's body with marvel-like white and clear skin in a kneeling down or crouching passive rose and depicting it as an innocent and fragile feminine image, he created a passive and lovely image of a young girl. With her eminent beauty and sex appeals, she lured men into danger. Words such as evil, women, and death had been used in describing her as femme fatale to emphasize her wickedness as well as to deliver the meaning across from the inside and to the outside. They also described her as a type of woman with body posture and fashion corresponding to the sexual ideology during the Victorian Age. His description of this fashion image was to show that femme fatale's fashion, which represents attraction and fatality, does not necessarily translate to an active fashion style that emphasizes sensuality. It also tends to minimize resistance and feelings of being threatened. Therefore, it allons us to acknowledge that even girlish body with innocent and frail-looking fashion can be a form of femme fatale, and that fashion styles is essential in forming the image of femininity.