Joyeux Anniversaire, Josephine Baker!

The extraordinary 1920s singer and dancer Josephine Baker was born this day over a century ago.  To celebrate her birthday in vintage style we're recounting a few fashionable anecdotes about this glorious diva.

She was born in poverty in St Louis, Missouri, and despite her alluring talent, American audiences in the Great Gatsby era were not ready for an African American to dominate the stage like she could.  The French, however, loved Josephine's je ne sais quoi and upon her debut in Paris, she was an instant and incredible star.

 By the mid-1920s Josephine and a few other entertainers, like her red-haired friend Bricktop, ruled the Paris stages.  This meant lavish living and exotic luxuries few people could afford.  Bricktop remembers:

 

"All the great designers - Paul Poiret, Edward Molyneux, Jean Patou - were fighting to dress her.  She had an apartment right around the corner from my nightclub, and one day I went there and the clothes were just piled high on the floor, and I said, 'Josephine, why don't you hang these clothes up?' 'Oh, no, Brickie,' she said, 'they are going to take them away tomorrow and bring another pile.'"

 

And indeed the couturiers did.  Even the great Paul Poiret, at this point struggling to keep clients, was willing to dress Josephine for free.  Her influence was so great that, according to her friend Caroline Reagan, Josephine panned Poiret's designs during a fashion show, and instead sketched out a pink fringed ombre`design she desired.  Poiret immediately incorporated the 'Josephine Baker dress' into his next collection.

  

And at an evening dinner, one reporter relayed that Josephine arrived in a "cherry-colored dress, small hat pulled low on her forehead, ermine-trimmed coat.  'Paris is marvelous', she gushes.  'And your dressmakers are divine.'"

Yet in her memoirs, decades after the fame and fashion had faded, Josephine assures us that after all, "love dresses you better than all the dressmakers".  

We agree Josephine, and we love you... Joyeux Anniversaire!

Reference: Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart by Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase

A Very French Sunday

We spent yesterday picking up a beautiful vintage French Provincial bedroom set that I've been dreaming about for years.  Not for myself, it's for my 3-year-old's room... but really, it's for me.  All that vintage frou-frou and goldleaf just beckons me.

 

There are lots of French Provincial bedrooms on the market, but I wanted a Parisian look that matched this gorgeous custom-painted dresser I found years ago:

 

That was easier said than done.  Most of the French Provincial styles have these flourish handles, but few have greenish tones to the paint, and even fewer are painted in a dark hue.  

 

 

I also wanted a set that included one of these - a nightstand with a metal lattice pair of doors to the front.  I'd found a pair of these nightstands a few months ago in my vintage travels, but they were already promised to another lucky Vixen.

 

 

So when I came across this set - in pale green & ivory, with a lattice front nightstand and a fabulously femme vanity to match, I knew my girl and I would love it.  The set was Thomasville's Camille design, and though the look is much earlier, the set is stamped with the year 1979 on the back.

 

 

I actually considered painting panels to match the dark green of my custom-painted find, but now that we're setting up the room, I think more dark hues would be too heavy.

 

 

The vanity's already getting a try-out.  It has a pop-up mirror and still smells of sweet vintage perfume... the prior owner said she had many fond memories of playing make-up at this vanity with her grandmother.  Indeed it was still in use, with combs and powder inside, when we looked at it.

 

 

But we're a little young for blush and such, so instead we played a game of Hi Ho Cherry-O on its gilt-edged surface.



 

 

Until next time, Vixens!