Friday, January 13, 2012

The Standard in Gay Paree, April 1901

The Standard Quarterly v04n23 In Gay Paree (1901-04) (Darwination)


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Get the full hi-res scan here.

Cover artist unknown. I love the design and the red inks. Who wouldn't want to take a peek at what's inside?

I have a few issues to share and discuss next post of a turn-of-the-century proto-girlie magazine, the weekly issued The Standard, but I thought I'd transition from the last scan of a French photo album first to an American album, also of French girls, a quarterly edition of The Standard. This edition takes a look at fashions and the girls of Paris, as the whole world looked to France as a beacon of fashion and modernity. Unlike the weekly edition, the quarterly edition is bound on a coverstock featuring colored ink and is composed almost entirely of pictures and captions. Some of the girls within have a unique beauty of peculiar character, I doubt you'd find them in the fashion magazines of today. Today, it's hard to recognize the racy aspects of a magazine like this, but there is much leg and bare shoulders on display in an era that seemingly frowned on such display.

The edition opens with a neat art nouveau illustration of a series of postcards, "The Five Senses," and an ode to the girls of Bohemian Paris. A photograph of Mlle. Mendes accompanies, showing the reader a little leg.


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"A group of group of shoulders, lines, and s-curves"

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Mme. Sinclair, opera singer, a bit of dirt thrown in the corner regarding a Captain Le Fevre, apparently disinherited in some type of scandal. I like curves as much as the next guy, but the curves of the corsets in here can be downright strange.


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Another crazy corset, a miss Meaty Fleuron, implied to be a burlesque artist. I see some web mentions of her as an actress. That's one crazy hat for sure.


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The centerfold. Letuce, the artists' model poses eating grapes, playing flute, sleeping by the edge of a brook.


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Burlesque and vaudeville stars. The Darling Sisters, Jermonde, Mme. Devieux, Cleo De Merode, Yven Chatalet - "one of the daring exponents of the extreme school of burlesque." I'm not sure what the teachings of that school are, but I think I'm supposed to be curious...


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Nice blue inks from the inside back cover.

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Ciriac, Burlesque Star, eats a plate of oysters

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There are many more images within. How different were the fashions of 110 years ago.

Next time, I'll take a look at the weekly edition of The Standard and see what those American girls are up to at the dawn of the century.

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