Les Modes Parisiennes, 1878, No. 1749 : Parfumerie Oriza de L. Legrand (...) 1878

Curator: Oh, the chic of it all! These are two supremely dressed ladies, no doubt freshly scented, pausing for a promenade near what I presume is a Parisian park. It is an etching, drawing, print, really a delightful mixed-media piece titled *Les Modes Parisiennes, 1878, No. 1749*, which if I am reading the script correctly, is for Parfumerie Oriza of L. Legrand. Editor: There’s something undeniably melancholic about it though. The soft, diffused light gives it a dreamy, almost ethereal quality, as though this scene exists more as a wistful memory. Those vertical stripes almost give me vertigo as they narrow towards the back of the dress. Curator: It's definitely serving up romantic vibes. The women, observed from behind, as though we've accidentally stumbled upon a very private, very stylish moment. Each is an allegorical figure of consumerism; but in their shared pose, with hands touching, this speaks of a time just prior to all the mechanizations of modernity. Editor: Yes, allegorical figures indeed. The way they're positioned near the water; a lake? Bodies of water often represent the subconscious, don't they? Perhaps their stylish exteriors barely conceal what lies beneath. And those hats, rather demure. What kind of message did headwear signify for 19th-century women? Curator: I suppose what they literally covered up, what they let peek through the veil, so to speak, signified social roles of domestic tranquility while hinting at veiled desire and ambition. One can imagine these very ladies debating corsets versus, what... looser garments! While the men talk politics, the women forge fashion! Editor: Their dresses carry such symbolic weight; elaborate signifiers that broadcast to the world who they were, or perhaps, who they aspired to be. Like complex uniforms that hid and expressed the selves within. Curator: Yes! Perhaps what really seduces me is the implicit narrative. They are characters, you see, in the grand soap opera of daily life. The composition allows us to fantasize, as though glimpsing our own lives within theirs. It asks what roles do we play and what are we marketing. Editor: Perhaps that is why these types of portraits maintain such enduring allure for us. Echoes from another time... showing the past in very revealing and concealing fashions. Curator: It all does make you think. Thank you!