4/4: Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution Hardcover – April 23, 2024 by Anne Higonnet (Author)
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John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2024
⏱️ 6 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Equality-Fashion-Styled-Revolution/dp/0393867951
Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt. Together, Joséphine and Térézia shed the underwear cages and massive, rigid garments that women had been obliged to wear for centuries. They slipped into light, mobile dresses, cropped their hair short, wrapped themselves in shawls, and championed the handbag. Juliette made the new style stand for individual liberty.
The erotic audacity of these fashion revolutionaries conquered Europe, starting with Napoleon. Everywhere a fashion magazine could reach, women imitated the news coming from Paris. It was the fastest and most total change in clothing history. Two centuries ahead of its time, it was rolled back after only a decade by misogynist rumors of obscene extravagance.
New evidence allows the real fashion revolution to be told. This is a story for our time: of a revolution that demanded universal human rights, of self-creation, of women empowering each other, and of transcendent glamor
120+ full color illustrations throughout
1807 EMPRESS JOSEPHINE
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bethel, Professor Anne Higginay, her new book is Liberty Equality Fashion, the |
| 0:06.2 | women who styled the French Revolution. |
| 0:09.0 | And the dresses we're talking about in the styles are available online and in her |
| 0:16.0 | colleagues and her students make it available they were at the Morgan and then |
| 0:21.0 | there's a there's a joy in your book because the journal that you've rediscovered for us was always |
| 0:29.9 | there at the Morgan but we couldn't find it. What was the secret that allowed you to find like a |
| 0:35.2 | detective? |
| 0:36.2 | Well, the fashion plates, which were the rarest in the world because things get lost during a revolution, |
| 0:44.8 | had been catalogued in a courty way. |
| 0:49.6 | So they were caught between two different departments at the Morgan. |
| 0:57.0 | And even though generations of scholars had roved from library to library looking at one plate here, three plates there in order to |
| 1:08.8 | understand this period. |
| 1:11.0 | The complete set was there unknown and forgotten at the Morgan and I happen to see this |
| 1:18.6 | quirky entry and I decided well tell me subway right away. |
| 1:23.4 | So I went to the Morgan and to my delight |
| 1:27.5 | discovered this forgotten treasure. |
| 1:30.1 | And then after the delight came the shock of realizing that the true story of this |
| 1:36.7 | marvelous fashion revolution had not only never been told, it had been concealed from the world because it was so radical. |
| 1:47.0 | Yes, the drawings include, there's a couple of men in this because the men were having their revolution of three-piece |
| 1:54.9 | suits and colorful vests and a jacket that it has a French name but it's it's got |
| 2:01.7 | long tails and the front of the jacket is cut out so |
| 2:05.1 | you can see the waist you've all seen pictures of this in the Napoleonic |
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