The clothes make the Parisienne
What made a woman a true Parisienne? Even more important than her beauty, behaviour or character were the clothes she wore. It was all about combining the latest fashion in eye-catching ways to create a visual ensemble that enriched the Parisian street scene.
The aristocratic and artistic Misia Natanson was particularly adept in this regard. Her striking, tasteful figure entranced many a passer-by and printmaker.
Anyone a Parisienne?
The appearance of cheaper clothes in the French capital’s department stores meant that the ideal of the Parisienne was also attainable by less well-off women. Now everyone could stroll fashionably along the boulevards.
A successful prostitute might even buy her clothes from the same designer as a princess, making it harder to judge a woman’s class and virtue from her appearance.
Pierre Bonnard, Poster for the 23rd exhibition of Salon des Cent at La Plume (Paris, August - September 1896), 1896
Pierre Bonnard, Parisian Women (Parisiennes), frontispiece of the journal La Revue blanche (December 1893), 1893
Henry Somm, Head of a Parisian Woman (Tête de Parisienne), 1894
Further reading
- Octave Uzanne, La femme à Paris, nos contemporaines: Notes successives sur les parisiennes de ce temps dans leurs divers milieux, états et conditions, Paris 1894
- Ruth Iskin, ‘The chic Parisienne: A National Brand of French fashion and Femininity’, in Modern Women and Parisian Consumer Culture in Impressionist Painting, Cambridge 2007, pp. 184-224
- Sabine Denuelle, La Parisienne dans l’art, Paris 2011