Art - Goût - Beauté, Feuillets de l' élégance féminine, Mars 1929, No. 103, 9e Année, p. 24 1929

Editor: This is "Art - Goût - Beauté", a watercolor drawing by R. Drivon, from 1929. It's interesting; the women and their dresses look like sketches in a magazine. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I'm drawn to the ways this drawing, likely intended for mass reproduction, blurs the line between art and commercial design. Consider the materials: watercolor on paper. It’s a fairly accessible and easily reproduced medium, suggesting a wide distribution through fashion magazines and similar outlets, aimed to both influence, and participate in, the material desires of women in the late 20's. What fabrics do you think are shown here, and how were they made? Editor: I'm not sure; they look silky, and the details seem printed on the material. Were these hand-printed, maybe through block printing? Curator: Possibly! It’s also interesting to consider the labor involved in each step: from creating the original watercolor to printing the magazine and even producing the garments themselves. Who would be buying this magazine? Who would be making the dresses? And how does this artwork participate in shaping those desires, and the labour they required? Editor: So, you are saying this piece is about the consumption and production around high fashion, showing both its artistic depiction and the broader network of its making. Curator: Precisely! And it invites us to question how value is assigned. Is it in the artistic rendering, or in the object being represented, or somewhere in between the aspiration and material reality? Editor: I see what you mean, thinking about it from a Materialist point of view, I appreciate how much the artwork communicates the commercial processes surrounding it, not just its appearance! Curator: Yes, understanding its materials and context allows us to rethink those categories!