Art - Goût - Beauté, Feuillets de l' élégance féminine, Mai 1929, No. 105, 9e Année, p. 16 en 17 1929

Curator: What strikes me immediately about this image is its rather muted palette. A sense of elegance rendered through, as it appears, ink and watercolor washes. Almost somber. Editor: Indeed. What we're looking at is a page from the fashion magazine "Art - Goût - Beauté," specifically the May 1929 issue. This piece, attributed to R. Drivon, features designs showcasing the feminine elegance of the era. It's mixed media, so the materiality speaks to a print run aiming at an audience seeking an exclusive, rarefied lifestyle through ready to wear fashion. Curator: The figures are presented as archetypes, almost like modern-day goddesses embodying specific ideals. It taps into the enduring human desire for transformation, self-expression, and the aspirational quality of beauty that has been symbolized over centuries through garments. Look at how little light the illustrator employed. Editor: And each archetype would come at a price, I imagine. I am especially drawn to the presentation of the dresses. The emphasis on line, and how they suggest movement despite the two-dimensionality, reveal the complex labor invested into producing clothing for high consumption. Curator: The layering in these pieces signifies more than surface adornment. It conveys status, an entrance into a privileged world—it’s a very stylized image that speaks about class and a particular construction of beauty through luxury goods, an ideal woman, that's very embedded in its epoch. Editor: And those layers, the flounces, those complicated designs that demand very specific and time-consuming skills. How many women had the skill to produce these versus to simply wear these? It implies such disparities of wealth and labor conditions during its moment, reflecting the relationship between producer and consumer. The magazine functioned almost as an agent of propaganda and of social division. Curator: Fashion always carries encoded symbols, whether it’s societal standing or a specific attitude. Editor: Yes, and this drawing makes apparent just how physical and how socially entrenched those symbols actually are. I am grateful for the magazine surviving and the material realities it exposes. Curator: Well, I see a potent image resonating with our own evolving interpretations of femininity and beauty. Thank you for illuminating the less visible forces at play here.