Vintage Powder Room

Duska Face Powder Box c. 1925

The face powder box shown above is called Duska. You can tell that the box was created during the 1920s because the fountain design was borrowed from Rene Lalique’s crystal fountain, which had been a feature at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris during 1925. It was the exposition that introduced the moderne style, later dubbed art deco, to the world.

Lalique Fountain

Lalique’s fountain had a structure reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower, but the water flowed out in way that gave it soft undulating curves, much like those of the Paris Metro signs. 

The expo had originally been expected to open in 1914 – but WWI intervened. It wasn’t until 1921 that the financing and location were settled, and the expo finally opened in 1925. 

The moderne style grew out of several styles, including art nouveau. While art nouveau reveled in sensuous curves and muted tones, the moderne style was vibrant in color, and its shapes were geometric.

The design of the Duska face powder box borrows elements from both Art Noveau and Art Deco.

Josephine Baker

If I could time travel, I’d like to spend a while as an expatriate in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s.  Following WWI, the “War to End All Wars”, Paris was inhabited by artists, writers, and some of the physical and emotional causalities of the horrors of trench warfare. 

Many of the people who came of age during the years following WWI rejected 19^th century values, and its art, and earned the moniker the “Lost Generation“. Some of the Americans who gravitated to the expat’s life in Paris would become international literary superstars: Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos. Others of them were artists and performers, like Josephine Baker.

I visualize myself at a sidewalk café (where else?) watching the passing parade of literati.  Maybe I’d be involved in a steamy assignation a la Anais Nin and Henry Miller.

Anais Nin

It would have been an exciting place to be, with a cast of characters one can only dream about.  Fortunately, there are ways in which to vicariously experience life in Paris during the 1920s/30s – you can read Hemmingway’s novels, Anais Nin’s diaries or erotica, Henry Miller’s novel “Quiet Days in Clichy” (which I loved) or rent the 1988 film “The Moderns” or the 1990 film “Henry and June” , which was based upon a portion of Nin’s diaries.

Until time travel becomes an option, we’ll have to use our imaginations – so mix yourself a gimlet (gin, please!), slip into vintage clothes, and curl up with one of the aforementioned books,  watch one of the movies, or listen to le jazz hot.

And ladies – don’t forget to powder your nose.

Doesn’t the woman on the Sta-Rite hair pin card resemble the sophisticated movie stars of the 1930s?

Some of the most stunning cosmetics packaging was designed and manufactured during the 1930s.  In 1933, the worst year of the Great Depression, one in four people were out of work. Many others would be thrown off of their farms and out of their homes. With so much day to day uncertainty and hardship people took pleasure in small things.

Bullocks Wilshire, Los Angeles

Imagine that you’re a shop girl at the Bullock’s department store in Los Angeles during the 1930s. The clientele would have been upscale, and after a full day of waiting on them your feet would be aching and your spirits might be low — yet with only a few pennies in your handbag, you could go to your local dime store and pick up something beautiful. With a card of the Sta-Rite hair pins you could go home and experiment with a new hair style – perhaps something with a few wicked little pin curls on your forehead.

Joan Crawford

The Sta-Rite card is an excellent example of some of the best cosmetics/beauty advertising produced during the 1930s. The colors are deep and lush, and the woman is supremely stylish, all angles and shadows, with just a hint of a smile playing across her lips. In fact, the woman on the card is evocative of the portrait of Joan Crawford by George Hurrell. I wonder if Joan used Sta-Rite pins to get “…the tiny ringlets and curls that fashion demands”.

Norma Shearer in a sultry pose

During the late 1920s Hurrell was introduced to silent film star Ramon Navarro by aviatrix Pancho Barnes. Navarro was impressed by the photos taken of him and recommended Hurrell to the actress Norma Shearer. Norma was married to MGM producer Irving Thalberg and was trying to convince him to cast her in the starring role in the film “The Divorcee“. Norma’s career had been built on playing the girl next door, and she was seeking sexier, more complex roles. Irving Thalberg was knocked out by Hurrell’s photos of Norma. The photos were so alluring – she smoldered – that she won the part she wanted.  She also won an Academy Award ^TM! 

Norma would go on to appear in many successful pre-code films for MGM such as: Let Us Be Gay (1930), Strangers May Kiss (1931), A Free Soul (1931), Private Lives (1931) and Riptide (1934); and Norma and Joan would be bitter rivals in the 1939 film The Women.

Joan Crawford wearing the Letty Lynton dress

Joan Crawford’s career would have an astonishing upward trajectory for decades. Hurrell’s photograph of Joan for the 1932 film Letty Lynton made the dress she wore so popular that it was reported that between authorized copies and knock-offs over one million of the dresses sold world wide!

Despite the furor over the glorious organdy dress (designed by Adrian), the film would be pulled from distribution due to a lawsuit over copyright infringement. Unfortunately, Letty Lynton remains unavailable to this day [although a fuzzy copy in multiple parts appears on YouTube.]**

I’ll bet that the Sta-Rite woman would have wholeheartedly approved of the careers of Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer – both of whom were glamorous, sexy, and sophisticated.

**NOTE: Updated info as of August 10, 2010.  The Letty Lynton video that was available on YouTube when this was first posted has been pulled by the studio. There are undoubtedly still bootlegged copies in private collections.

Floranet c. 1920

Advertising reflects its time, and the themes and designs are often derived from popular culture. Who hasn’t heard a pop song in a car commercial on TV? Things weren’t much different 80 years ago. The concept for the Floranet shown above was most likely a result of the New York revival of the musical Florodora in 1920. The play had its original debut on the London stage in 1899, and was one of the first successful musicals at the dawn of the 20^th century.

Floradora Girls

When Florodora moved from the London stage to Broadway in 1900 it was a runaway hit. The women who played in the chorus were dubbed the Florodora Girls, and they were so popular that no fewer than 70 women rotated into, and out of, the first run production in New York. Many of the women were courted by wealthy young men whom they later married.

Not all of the Florodora girls would go on to have successful relationships with the men that they met. The most famous of them was Evelyn Nesbit.

Evelyn Nesbit

Evelyn Nesbit was born on Christmas day in 1874 in Tarentum, a small village near Pittsburgh. Her family wasn’t well off — so when her father, a struggling attorney, died at age 42 they were left nearly destitute. Evelyn was a beautiful girl, and it wasn’t surprising when she came to the attention of artists in her hometown. She was soon earning enough as a model to support her family.  The Nesbits moved from Philadelphia to New York City in 1893 where Evelyn continued her career. Among the artists who hired her was famed illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. It is said that Evelyn was the inspiration for his famous Gibson Girls.

Gibson Girl

While playing in the chorus of Florodora, Evelyn caught the eye of millionaire architect, notorious womanizer, and grower of an extraordinary mustache, Stanford White. White was 47, and Evelyn only 16; however, it wasn’t long before the married White was pursuing the teenaged chorus girl. Evelyn’s mother was undoubtedly swayed by White’s fortune because she turned a blind eye to Stanford’s reputation and his married status, and encouraged her daughter’s relationship with “Stanny”.

Stanford White

 White had designed an opulent apartment in New York City, complete with many strategically placed mirrors and the most intriguing amenity of all, a red velvet swing suspended from the ceiling.  White loved nothing better than to push his nude young paramours in the swing! 

While Evelyn’s mother was conveniently out of the city, White made his move. He plied the young beauty with champagne, took suggestive photographs of her in a yellow silk kimono, and then he took her virginity. Of course the evening ended with Evelyn perched upon the red velvet swing. White would pursue other young women, and Evelyn would begin dating the actor John Barrymore [yes, Drew is related].

Harry K. Thaw

The stunning chorine finally became involved with Harry K. Thaw. Thaw came from money – his father was a coal and railroad baron.  She married Thaw, who was no less kinky in his sexual habits than White had been. Thaw had a history of violence and drug use. He had a rapacious appetite for cocaine and morphine, both of which he injected, and he was in the habit of carrying a pistol and a whip. 

Evelyn was obviously attracted to older “bad boys”; however, Harry wasn’t just bad, he was mad as a hatter. Perhaps fueled by cocaine induced paranoia, Thaw’s jealous obsession over Evelyn’s previous relationship with White finally drove him to confront the architect in the rooftop restaurant at Madison Square Garden. In full view of the patrons,  the whip cracking, pistol packing Thaw produced a gun and fired three times into White’s face, killing him. Some of the diners thought that the shooting was part of the play they were attending, and others thought that it might be part of an elaborate practical joke (practical jokes were de rigeur in society at the time). Holding the weapon above his head, Thaw calmly walked to the elevator to meet Evelyn.

Harry was shortly arrested for the slaying and put on trial. The jury deadlocked at his first trial. By offering her money and the promise of a divorce, Harry’s mother convinced Evelyn to testify during his second trial that she’d been raped by White. In the courtroom, all eyes were on Evelyn as she told tales of the red velvet swing. Evelyn was a compelling witness on Harry’s behalf – he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Following the trial Evelyn got the divorce, but none of the money she’d been promised. Harry’s ungrateful mother reneged on their deal and cut her off without a cent.

Even though Thaw was allowed almost total freedom at Matteawan, he escaped after a few years and fled to Canada. He was eventually extradited back to the United States, and in a second sanity trial he was determined to be sane.  Throughout the remainder of his life Thaw would have brushes with the law, and questions regarding his sanity would continue to arise. Thaw died of a heart attack in 1947.

There have been many references to Evelyn Nesbit in popular culture over the years. Joan Collins played her in the 1955 film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. Evelyn also became a character in E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime.

The infamous “Girl in the Red Velvet Swing” died on January 17, 1967 in a Santa Monica, CA nursing home.