Painter Christian Bérard and Renée, suit by Dior, Le Marais, Paris, August 1947by Richard Avedon Fabulous, free and fashionable, France bloomed in the 1930s. The avant-garde arts flourished, Paris was at the centre of it all and her output was bountiful. The creative giants of the day, Picasso, Cocteau, Coco Chanel, May Ray, Beauvoir and […]
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Galalith (“Milk Stone”) 1920s sample book, milk protein, formaldehyde, and pigments in Galalith (The Getty Research Institute) Got milk? Pour yourself a glass and gulp down some little-known history about the household staple. In the early decades of the 20th century, milk was commonly used to make many plastic ornaments, including jewellery, gemstones, buttons, decorative buckles, fountain
Portrait of Margarita Gonzaga, Duchess of Lorraine, Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1606 (and actress Julia Garner’s 17th century doppleganger) To us comfy dressers of today the idea of an itchy, restrictive gadget – fashionable or not – impeding our head movement isn’t the most appealing of accessories. But the ruff, a cumbersome featherlike collar worn around
Benedetta Barzini Remember the supermodel-celebrities of the nineties, the ones who wouldn’t get out of bed for under $10 000 a day? Casting a glance a little further back into fashion history, there’s a host of equally noteworthy style muses with diverse achievements in politics, education, literature and entertainment (… mind you, their celebrity romances were
Can’t bear the winter cold anymore? Consider for a moment, this photograph of a woman climbing a glacier in a billowing Victorian skirt. As it turns out, there were more than a few females who braved the ice in petticoats and traversed the world’s harshest environments at a time when wearing trousers was still a serious
These are a few of my favourite things about a 1970s French musical called “Donkey Skin”: A giant cat throne, a surreal banquet with candy-coloured flora, a snow globe grave, talking roses and parrots, Catherine Deneuve as a Disney-esque princess, the deeply saturated colour palette, fashion tech ahead of its time, oh and pretty much
© Francois Pages For a few Spring months in 1954, a melancholy Picasso found himself enraptured by 19-year-old Sylvette David. Of all the muses who bookmarked his life — and there were many — she’s fallen to the wayside of history as one of the most enigmatic and misunderstood. For years, critics wrote the body
Even Hitler couldn’t rob Paris of its style. In 1945, the end of the war was in sight, the French capital had already been liberated of the Nazi occupation and it was time for Paris to relaunch its fashion industry. There was just one problem– the industry couldn’t afford enough fabric to actually create new fashion.
