Category Archive: Fashion
Bau, bau….
It’s nearly Mardi Gras already, so it’s high time that I gave a nod to the Venetian masquers of old, who eerily drift through Encyclopedia of the Exquisite. For over half the year, from early October through Lent, the nobles…
Anna from Every Angle
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite’s entry on Milk Baths introduces the Ziegfeld sensation Anna Held, who was famously sued by a milk farmer for the amount she owed for keeping her bath tub filled with milk. She’s one of my favorite…
Toes Mustn’t Show
In 1818 the formidable French etiquette writer Madame de Genlis (1746-1830) reminded proper ladies that when lounging on a divan, chaise longue or daybed, they’d better hide their feet under a couvre-pieds. “Decency demands it because, stretched out like that,…
Tip Top
Plenty of stylish types have worn top hats—an entry in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite—over the years. But did anyone ever wear a top hat with more panache than Marlene Dietrich did? She made her American movie debut in 1930 in…
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