06 June 2014

"Merveilleuses of 1908"


These fashionable ladies stepping out at Longchamp at the turn of the last century were described as the new Merveilleuses by April-Mo at Deviant Art.
The Incroyables ("incredibles") and their female counterparts, the Merveilleuses ("marvelous women", roughly equivalent to "fabulous divas"), were members of a fashionable aristocratic subculture in Paris during the French Directory (1795–1799). Whether as catharsis or in a need to reconnect with other survivors of the Reign of Terror, they greeted the new regime with an outbreak of luxury, decadence, and even silliness. They held hundreds of balls and started fashion trends in clothing and mannerisms that today seem exaggerated, affected, or even effete (decadent, self-indulgent).
Via Alabaster.

5 comments:

  1. That's it! I am going to start wearing a corset. A woman with an hour-glass shaped body is VERY sexy.

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  2. Had to show my wife. Very beautiful.
    She commented: I wish we could dress up really well and elegantly today just to go out for coffee or a walk in the park.

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  3. Lovely photograph. But there's a hundred years between the women described in the Wikipedia link and those in the photograph.

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    1. Exactly. She was comparing them to the historic fashionable ladies: "the new "merveilleuses " at Longchamp". I'll insert the word "new" to make that clear. tx.

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