Très Parisien, 1923, No 9.1 - AUTOMNALE. - Charmante est cette simple robe... 1923

Editor: This is *Trés Parisien, 1923, No 9.1 - AUTOMNALE. - Charmante est cette simple robe...* by an anonymous artist, made with pen, watercolor and drawing. It is quite stylized. The color palette feels very of its time. How do you interpret this work? Curator: This piece is interesting precisely because it encapsulates the visual language used to construct and market the “modern woman” of the 1920s. The illustration, an advertisement really, participated in the burgeoning consumer culture that shaped identity through fashion. Look at the model’s slender figure and bobbed hair; the dress itself is emblazoned with abstracted faces which suggests primitivism but more so the fascination with ethnic groups prevalent during the Jazz Age. What narratives do you think fashion was creating for women here? Editor: I see that it presented an image of liberation, yet also defined it within certain aesthetic and class boundaries. This Czech-inspired style shown must have offered novelty within set Western ideas. It seems both progressive and constricting at the same time? Curator: Precisely. And think about who this magazine targeted. Fashion, then as now, performed a role of both aspiration and exclusion. The "simple robe" was likely only accessible to certain segments of society. It also echoes the mass produced idea, which allowed ordinary people the prospect of owning designer styles for much lower prices. Editor: It’s really interesting to consider how fashion and art were so intertwined in constructing ideas of modernity, and the socio-economic implications behind it. Curator: Exactly. And how art acted as an extension for propaganda or some societal ideal; everything circles back and influences how we proceed through our times.