5

This study is a research of product on fashion, culture of clothing and consumption patterns of élite women in the northwest Mexican border region at the end of XIXth century and the beginning of XXth century. This research has been done through different sources, like period portraits, commercial catalogues, population census, memoirs and written press. During this period, the patterns of consumption of fashion started to change in Western Europe, and those changes were received by Mexico and Latin America. However, during this period, The United States also introduced new fashion trends and consumption patterns that reported on the fundamental ideas of American identity: youth, modernity and freedom. Through this, elite women of the border region became a hallmark for elite groups and they adopted contradictory foreign ideas of femininity while keeping the traditional idea of feminity of XIXth century Latin America. The basis of class distinction, like material culture and race, also became fundamental elements of gender constitution.