Fashion Film Clips
Summer Fashions (Vanity Fair, 1918)
Six very fine fashion drawings illustrate what was generally perceived to be the chic silhouette during the August of 1918."There may be some women who can get along without satin frocks, but it is exceedingly doubtful.."
Click here to read about military influeneces of feminine fashions.
| Paris Tango Gowns (Dress and Vanity Fair, 1913)
The urgent word from Belle Époque Paris on the matter of proper Tango gowns was published in this 1913 article and accompanied by seven illustrations."What shall you wear to the Tango Teas? Let me whisper to you a secret, only to be revealed when it is found out, my dear, there is no Tango in America, or, at least in New York. But it is quite different in Paris and it is for Paris and the Tango that the French dance frocks are made."Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.
| The Weird Clothes of Women (The Saturday Review, 1925)
A shrewd observer of the passing scene typed these words about the social revolution that he had been witnessing for the past six years:"Tight-laced corsets, high collars, innumerable layers of petticoats, and what not else, may have (problematically) made the female form a thing of attractive mystery, but they made the average female herself very inapt for the action, which she was beginning to claim the right to, of leaping on moving omnibuses. In those dark ages before the war womens fashions changed from year to year, but generally speaking at the dress-makers word of command...The first short skirt sounded the knell of his dictatorship, and since then womanhood has never looked back...I say again that [today's fashion] is a phenomenon which the social historian appears to be passing over. We do not realize that a tradition of centuries has within a decade been stood its head..." Click here to read about the fashion coup of 1922.
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| Poiret Wraps and Coats (Vogue Magazine, 1919)
By the time these images in American Vogue hit the streets, the fashion house of Paul Poiret (1879 - 1944) was very much on the decline. Pressed into national service during the 1914 - 1918 war, the designer was assigned the task of streamlining French uniform production, and in his absence his business began to steadily descend. Poiret was never able to regain his pre-1914 status in the world of Paris fashion and when the "Roaring Twenties" kicked into high gear, a new look was required for the new era and Coco Channel (1883 – 1971) was awarded the crown. He closed his fashion house ten years after these pictures were printed
| Victory and Paris Fashion (Vogue Magazine, 1919)
The Paris victory parade celebrating the end of the 1914 - 1918 war was a long awaited and much anticipated fashion event and Mme. Parisienne was not going to miss it for all the "crepe de Chin" in China. This Vogue writer contrasted the Paris that existed a short time earlier, the gray, deserted Paris with the Paris of the 1919 Victory Parade and notes how eager the natives were to recreate that mirthful, lighthearted Paris of 1913 that they all remembered so well. Their efforts payed-off and social Paris was back with a vengeance:
"While the people are enjoying these magnificent fetes, social life becomes more madly joyous than before. One no longer knows where to go or which invitation to accept. Dinners, balls, lunches at restaurants, all these gatherings demand a continual renewal of costumes of distinction, all of which contributes to keep the great makers on their mettle."There is a great sense of
joie de vivre throughout this article, but it very quickly becomes a laundry list of what-was-worn-where-and-by-whom.
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