Brayshaw, Emily. "Dressed to Quill: the Origin and Significance of The
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Brayshaw, Emily. "Dressed to quill: The origin and significance of the feathered showgirl in First World War Paris." Fashion, Society, and the First World War: International Perspectives. Ed. Maude Bass-Krueger, Hayley Edwards-Dujardin and Sophie Kurkdjian. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021. 91–107. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 27 Sep. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350119895.ch-006>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 27 September 2021, 05:16 UTC. Copyright © Selection, editorial matter, Introduction Maude Bass-Krueger, Hayley Edwards- Dujardin, and Sophie Kurkdjian and Individual chapters their Authors 2021. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 6 Dressed to quill Th e origin and signifi cance of the feathered showgirl in First World War Paris E m i l y B r a y s h a w Plumes and Paris Th e fashions for women’s large, elaborate hats trimmed with vast sprays of ostrich feathers began in the 1880s and coincided with the period of French history known as the Belle É poque, an era of affl uence, security and gaiety that lasted from 1871 until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. 1 Th e fi nest ostrich plumes were very expensive, but with at least fourteen varieties and countless grades available, women from all social backgrounds could purchase ostrich-feathered fashions.2 I n November 1903, for example, the Cawston Ostrich Farm in California off ered American consumers plumes from $1.50 each and 1.5-yard long feather boas for $35 each. While the Californian ostrich feather industry rose to capitalize on the high prices of raw South African plumes, feathered fashions emanated from Paris, not the United States. Indeed, by the 1890s, many wealthy American socialites traveled annually to Paris to order bespoke wardrobes from the new collections. 3 Parisian fashions were also the subject of countless international newspaper and magazine reports, which coincided with the phenomenon of famous actresses appearing on world stages wearing the latest French haute couture. 4 Consumers’ knowledge of Parisian fashions, therefore, meant that ostrich feathers remained modish as long as France decreed them so. 91 92 Fashion, Society, and the First World War France was a leading global consumer of raw ostrich feathers prior to 1914 and Paris, where the plumes were treated and readied for sale in extensive manufactories, craft ed the world’s fi nest trimmings. 5 Th e prolonged, ubiquitous popularity of plumed fashions during the Belle É poque meant that the Parisian feather industry was a signifi cant economic force in France. However, the outbreak of the First World War in July 1914 was accompanied by a mood of austerity in French fashion and women needed utilitarian clothes for war work, which contributed to the decline in fashion of garments and hats trimmed with large ostrich plumes. 6 Th us, the global price of ostrich feathers crashed in the early winter of 1914.7 Plumes, it seemed, were pass é . Laisse les Tomber! Laisse les Tomber! , an opulent revue in two acts with fi ft y scenes, opened on December 12, 1917, at the Casino de Paris and starred the French music hall star Gaby Deslys (born Marie-Elise-Gabrielle Caire, 1881–1920) wearing towering ostrich feather headdresses made by Maison Lewis, a leading court and society milliner with workshops in Paris and London. Th e revue also featured more than 800 costumes designed by Canabate (dates unknown) and the great costume designer and poster artist, Charles Gesmar (1900–28), and executed by one of the Belle É poque’s leading costumiers, Maison Pascaud of Paris. Deslys and her co-star, Harry Pilcer (1885–1961), danced to American ragtime. Th e press praised the show, writing, “Th e revue, ‘Laissez les Tomber,’ [ sic ] . is a magnifi cent show . Th e costumes are gorgeous, particularly for war time [ sic ]! Th e ladder scene has been introduced as the three colors (red, white, blue), and pleased immensely.” 8 Th e ladder scene, which the New York theater publication Variety called “the most important tableaux,”9 featured dozens of nude showgirls wearing large, feathered headdresses descending 30-foot ladders.10 Th e revue’s international and local audiences would have simultaneously associated the showgirls’ red, white and blue feathers with the tricolore of the French fl ag (due to the French history of tying nationalism with commercial and musical culture) and with the British Union Jack. 11 Any Americans present would have associated it with their own fl ag; Laisse les Tomber! included the musical number, “Stars and Stripes” (1917). Laisse les Tomber! also left an indelible impression on the avant-gardist, Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), who wrote: M. Pilcer . and Mademoiselle Gaby Deslys, a great ventriloquist’s doll with . [an] ostrich- feathered gown, danced through this tornado of drum and rhythm . Th e house was on its feet to applaud, roused from its torpor by this extraordinary turn, which is to the frenzy of Off enbach, as a tank is to an 1870s state carriage. 12 Th e Feathered Showgirl 93 Paris in 1917 Paris was in torpor in 1917. Workers, soldiers, cultural elites, and the fashion industry were despondent due to the war, poor working conditions, rationing, infl ation, and the freezing winter of 1916–17. 13 Th e English journalist Helen (Pearl) Adam (1882–1957) wrote in her diary of life in Paris that the “deterioration of civilian morale” and that of the troops made itself felt in the spring of 1917. 14 Th e French expressed their dissatisfactions however they could, including industrial action, mutiny, sophisticated indiff erence, and by mocking German soldiers and civilians. On May 18, 1917, for example, 10,000 midinettes (dressmakers) from forty fashion houses in Paris went on strike; 5,000 female workers in the gunpowder factory of Toulouse went on strike for a week from June 13, 1917. 15 Th e poilus (French infantry) were also fed up and began a mutiny on April 17, 1917, 16 which by June included more than 40,000 soldiers who rejected the High Command’s “mindless devotion to off ensive at any cost”. 17 Th is was in direct contrast with the image of tough, easy-going, jovial, scruff y poilus promoted by French propagandists in 1914.18 Th e avant-garde, cultural and intellectual elite of Paris too expressed its dissatisfaction with the war. Jean Cocteau’s Futurist, one-act ballet, Parade , for example, dealt with the terror of war through its “cultivated apathy”. 19 Parade premiered on May 18, 1917 and featured a score by French composer Erik Satie (1866–1925) and costumes and scenography designed by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). It was performed by the Ballets Russes and represented a Parisian Sunday fair with a travelling theater that employed three music hall turns: a Chinese conjuror, an American girl, and a pair of acrobats. Many music halls typically employed acts outside the theater to entice potential audiences to the show.20 Ye t Parade ’s costumes, music, and choreography were deliberately disjointed and distorted with the dancers becoming increasingly desperate and frantic, perhaps refl ecting the conditions in Paris in 1917 and the horrors of war. Parisian fashion designers and illustrators expressed their frustrations by mocking the Germans sartorially during the war years. Cartoons have always been a popular form of expression in France and during the war “an unexampled fl ood of cartoon and caricature poured from artists both celebrated and unknown.” 21 Lou Taylor writes that, “Th e most successful cartoonists lampoon the circles they live amongst or close to”.22 Georges Kugelmann Benda (d. 1921), Leonetto Cappiello (1875–1942), and Georges Barbier (1882–1932), for example, were well positioned to mock restrictions placed on the Parisian fashion industry during the First World War. Cappiello was a prominent fi n-de- si è cle music-hall poster and advertising artist and caricaturist who produced covers for satirical journals, while Benda and Barbier produced illustrations for the highly infl uential fashion magazine, La Gazette du Bon Ton. Barbier was also a prominent costume designer. Th ey, like many of their peers, however, also produced anti-German cartoons during the war for popular magazines, many of which mocked German approaches to fashion. 94 Fashion, Society, and the First World War Such anti-German cartoons typically featured stout, tasteless, poorly dressed women, such as Cappiello’s cover for La Ba ï onnette, on 20 January 1916 entitled Les Gretchen (Th e Gretchen). 23 A 1917 Benda sketch for the satircal magazine La Ba ï onnette entitled Leur Th eatre: La Grosse vedette (Th eir Th eater: Th e Big Star) shows a fat German performer wearing an outdated, ostrich feather-trimmed hat and a gown in a style from the early 1900s. Th e French term la grosse vedette implies a grotesque star past her prime. Such representations were antithetical to illustrations in the popular press by Cappiello, Benda, and Barbier of chic Parisian women and French music hall stars wearing elegant, ostrich-feathered fashions and costumes. Parisian music halls Music halls rose in France in the fi n de si è cle and incorporated sumptuous production values and interiors, lively music, and a brash aesthetic. Th ey originated in England during the 1840s and the format was imported to the caf é -concert scene in Paris where the term “music hall” came to mean the theater itself and the type of entertainment held there.24 Music hall programs of the Belle É poque predominantly featured tours de chant alternating with circus and ballet numbers and culminated in an “opulently staged revue à grand spectacle .” 25 Paris’s fi rst revue à grand spectacle was performed at the Folies Berg è re in 1887.