SECTION FOUR
13
Clare Rose
This text focuses on the shift in fashionable colors that occurred prior to the First World War, when intense and contrasting hues replaced harmonious pastels. The change in color sensibility was noted by contemporaries; the artist Henri Matisse attributed it to the productions of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes from 1909, which “overflowed with colour … from then on colour had universal freedom” (in Wollen 1987: 22). Paul Poiret, who established his couture house in 1903, notoriously claimed personal responsibility for introducing the “rough wolves” that chased away the “sheep” of pale colors (Poiret 2009 [1931]: 93).
An examination of the collection record books and surviving garments from the houses of Lucile Ltd., London, and Jeanne Paquin, Paris, preserved in the archives of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, reveals that intense color schemes were apparent from 1900 and throughout the fashion trade. Information about fashionable color was disseminated through a variety of media, including the stage, and through specialist fashion journals such as Les Modes and the Gazette du bon ton, both of which featured color images. English-language publications, even those aimed at fashion consumers such as Vogue (New York) were largely monochrome, but had a highly developed language for discussing color schemes. The terms used for color are of interest, as they created a network of cultural and nationalistic references for specific hues. They also located color in both time and place, as youthful or old, modern or traditional, and exotic or local. The London Pall Mall Gazette used color terminology to create a specifically British sensibility that was in tune with Paris fashion, but did not follow it slavishly. American local newspapers positioned local trends with reference to fashion authorities in New York, and to international events such as Balkan wars. This text argues that the lack of color images in periodicals may have been not a constraint but an asset, allowing both advertisers and consumers to select colors that suited them. It also considers how the idea of a color can convey meaning independently of its physical appearance.
Investigating the history of color in fashion raises some deep paradoxes. Color was evidently important as a part of the fashion system before the First World War. As color historians such as Garfield (2000), Blaszczyk (2012), and Kay-Williams (2013) have established, there was a strong drive in the mid nineteenth-century to produce brighter and more varied colors for textiles. The intensity produced by the aniline dyes of the 1860s gave added impetus to scientific theories of color harmonies, notably those of Michel-Eugène Chevreul, which gained wide currency through fashion magazines (Nicklas 2014). In the 1870s, the Aesthetic Movement in art was defined partly through its rejection of aniline colors in favor of the subtle, “greenery-yallery” shades mocked in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience (1881). The cultural associations of specific color schemes were well known enough to be a reliable target for satirists such as the cartoonist George du Maurier (Walkley 1985: fig.173). Color preferences were seen as an index of civilization, with bright or clashing color schemes associated with “primitive” societies, or with the uneducated (Gage 1999: 250). Color theorists such as Milton Bradley and A.H. Munsell stressed the importance of color education in schools, producing materials that would guide the tastes of the new generation (Blaszczyk 2012: 45–60). Color choices were also commercially important, with color forecasting services in operation by the 1880s, if not before (Blaszczyk 2012: 40).
There is, however, a gap in our understanding of how—and to what extent—seasonal changes in fashionable colors were implemented. Of the tens of thousands of fashion images produced each year, the majority were monochrome, as were the widely distributed photographs of trendsetters, from actresses to aristocrats (Majer 2012). Even top fashion houses, like Worth, relied on monochrome images to record and publicize their work (Mendes and de la Haye 2014). Where color images were produced, these were largely for circulation to private clients rather than for reproduction. This was the case with the seasonal volumes of colored sketches from the couture houses of Paquin and Lucile now in the archives of the V&A Museum, which will be discussed below (Paquin, E.1 to E.2804–1957 and AAD 1/ 1 to 1/79–1982; Lucile, T.89A–1986, published in Mendes and de la Haye, 2009).
This gap in information was filled by fashion journalism, both in specialist publications and in newspaper columns. As Margaret Beetham (1996) has shown, women’s magazines were key sites for the creation of modern forms of femininity, to the extent that they were seen as a threat by autocratic regimes like Tsarist Russia (Ruane 2009: 98–113). They related innovations to wider cultural trends in the arts and politics, creating a web of meaning which was particularly important when discussing color in a monochrome format (Lehmann 1999). Fashion columns in daily newspapers tailored their advice to specific local audiences, suggesting how the reader could position herself in relation to national and international trends. Publications in London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco recommended different color schemes to their readers, and these schemes were in turn linked to different nations, creating a complex interplay of geographical references. Thus any change in fashionable colors was not absolute, as Poiret claimed, but modified by regional and cultural influences, as will be discussed below.
In his 1931 autobiography, the designer Paul Poiret claimed that when he founded his fashion house in 1903:
lilacs, sky blue hortensias, straw, anything that was cloying, washed out, and dull to the eye, was held in the highest regard. I threw into the sheepcote a few rough wolves … reds, greens, violets, royal blues, that made all the rest of the colors sing loud. (Poiret 2009 [1931]: 93)
It is true that delicate colors were used at this time, as Les Modes reported in 1906: “there is a new shade in the color palette, water-green … a strong rival to pale blue and mauve, the two champions this year—with the exception of white, which triumphs as usual” [author’s translation] (de Lancy 1906: 20). Nevertheless this washed-out palette was a trend, rather than a prevailing aesthetic, as can be seen from a 1904 prediction that the coming season would feature:
Bright, even violent colors … And what colors: all shades of purple, from prune through amethyst to violet and mauve; browns from bronze, to khaki, to cock-of-the-rock, to chestnut and mandarin; greens, as always, from the most striking to the softest shade of verdigris; blues, from royal blue to a bluish white; reds from madder to cherry. Indeed, nothing is excluded, all colors are in fashion, not forgetting black and white [author’s translation]. (de Lancy 1904: 14–16)
This wider range of fashionable colors can be found in colored sketches and surviving garments by leading Paris couturiers such as Jeanne Paquin. Paquin, organizer of the Fashion Section of the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, was known for a particular shade called “Paquin Red” (Arrizoli-Clémentel 1989: 11). This was the color of one of the ensembles Paquin exhibited in Paris in 1900, memorialized in the lavishly illustrated catalogue published by the Collectivité de la Couture (Rose 2014: 60). The same hue appears in a surviving Paquin dress from 1905 in the Costume Institute collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1979.346.27). An even more striking color scheme, black with bold scrolls of magenta, was used in a 1900 Paquin ensemble in the same collection (C.I.48.70.1). Lucile of Paris and London, known for ethereal creations of semitransparent layers, also produced gowns in striking shades of scarlet, orange, violet, and emerald. These can be seen in a seasonal album for 1905 in the collections of the V&A with attached fabric swatches which confirm the intensity of the colors used (Mendes and de la Haye 2009). After 1908, these strong colors became more dominant in all designers’ ranges, as can be seen in the sequence of Paquin seasonal albums in the V&A archives (Rose 2014: 23). These albums of hand-colored drawings were, however, restricted in circulation and were seen only by private clients or the staff of the fashion house.
Couture garments, whether by Paquin, Lucile, or Poiret, could be viewed in full color at elite gatherings in Paris, London, or New York, at public events such as race meetings and theater premieres, and in the vitrines of international exhibitions (Saillard 2013; Rose 2014). Up-to-date fashion was also an important element of theater productions, as Kaplan and Stowell (1994) and Majer (2012) have shown. But for those living outside major cities, or for consumers wanting advance notice of fashion trends, fashion publications performed an essential role. Les Modes was especially important for updates on color themes as it had two or three tinted photographic plates in each issue, unlike Vogue, which had color only on its front cover. Les Modes, although published in French, was also distributed in London, Berlin, and New York, and on transatlantic liners bringing American couture clients to Europe (Mackrell 2004: 114). The Les Modes plates show the “violent” colors described in the 1904 text; for example, a 1908 day dress by Margaine-Lacroix in “Egyptian green,” accessorized with a matching hat (Plate 13.1).
Even brighter colors can be seen in the images in Paul Poiret’s promotional albums, Les robes de Paul Poiret racontées par Paul Iribe (1908) and Les choses de Paul Poiret (1911). These contained plates in the pochoir technique, hand-stencilled using gouache paints, which produced colors that were much more intense than the color lithography or tinted photographs used in other fashion publications (Davis 2007) (Plate 13.2).
These albums were produced in limited editions, but Poiret’s garments were also frequently reproduced in the Gazette du bon ton (published 1912–1925), which developed the visual style and the pochoir technique used by Poiret (Davis 2008: 48–92).
Monochrome publications, such as daily newspapers, used a variety of methods to convey seasonal changes in color. One way was to refer to named designers, whom readers might have heard about through other sources. Around 1910, Poiret was frequently cited as an innovator in fashionable colors, particularly in American newspapers:
Vivid tones used as accessory colors are the height of style in gowns. These daring splashes of color were the inspiration several seasons ago of Paul Poiret, a Parisian dressmaker, but it is only recently that his brother artists have acknowledged his success by following in his wake. (Talbot 1910)
A Washington DC drapery store, Kann Sons & Co., linked the new season’s colors both to Poiret and to Middle Eastern culture:
Out of a thousand purchases we might not again find the color range so replete with the shades that are in highest favour. Here we have the vivid colorings made fashionable by that famous French costumer Paul Poiret … the strange yet harmonious tones of oriental embroideries and mosaics … the new Byzantine greens. (Kann 1910)
Not all fashion reports linked intense color schemes to Poiret; often they were presented as the result of designs from Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The arrival of this company in Paris in 1909 had reinforced existing links between the stage and fashion, with journals such as Le Courrier musical and Comoedia illustré featuring portraits of Russian dancers both onstage and off (Davis 2008: 16–21). Ballets Russes productions presented themes that were both exotic and erotic: the 1909 Paris season had dancers dressed as central Asian warriors (Prince Igor) and Egyptian courtiers (Cleopatra) and the 1910 season staged a Russian fairy tale (Firebird) and an orgy in a harem (Schéhérazade) (Pritchard 2010: 220–221). Schéhérazade, in particular, with an intensely colored backdrop and body-revealing costumes designed by Léon Bakst, was seen by contemporaries as heralding a new design sensibility. Robert Irwin, writing about the American fashion system in 1911, noted the effect:
The so-called Russian styles, which swept over the United States and Europe within a year … [of] the appearance of the Russian Imperial Ballet at a Paris theatre. This beautiful combination of women and clothes took Paris by storm. The barbaric simplicity of form turned to envy the pride of the corseted modiste. The daring color combinations challenged, to chagrin, the subdued and effete tints of the richest of Paquin-made gowns. (Irwin 1911: 6)
While this commentator characterized the “effete” Paquin in opposition to Russian innovation, the couturier was one of the first to recognize the importance of the Russian styles. In 1912, Paquin collaborated with Bakst to produce a handful of garments which were illustrated in fashion magazines such as Vogue (Davis 2010: 174), the Gazette du bon ton (Mourey 1913), and the Journal des dames et des modes (Plate 13.3).
Bakst’s designs for this project were also reviewed as art in the London Times (“M. Léon Bakst’s Exhibition, Costumes and Scenery,” 1913) and the Illustrated London News (“Expressing the Spring Time of the Earth,” 1913). Bakst’s fashion designs were discussed in the American press even before they were exhibited in New York in November 1913:
Another popular tone is the new Bakst green, named for the Russian scenic artist whose success with the Russian ballet has been phenomenal. Bakst used lots of greens in the costumes for his ballet, and likewise in the gowns which he designed for Mme Paquin, and it is a fitting tribute to name the popular green shade in his honor. (“Colors that will be popular,” 1913)
Intense emerald green had indeed been prominent in Bakst’s stage designs for Prince Igor and Schéhérazade, but the most frequently used colors in his Paquin sketches were mustard yellow and cobalt blue. This misattribution of a specific shade to the designer shows how, in the absence of color reproductions, the idea of a color might be used as a promotional device or as a means of creating cultural context for fashion.
The critical approval of Bakst’s foray into fashion would have been especially galling for Poiret as in January 1912 his own designs had been satirized on the Paris stage in a comedy of modern life, Rue de la Paix (Troy 2002b: 133). The costumes for this play were originated by Paul Iribe and made up by Paquin, allowing the couturier to show her mastery of the most extreme fashion trends, while maintaining a critical distance from them (Troy 2002b: 137–140). Poiret responded in 1913 by designing the costumes for Le Minaret, which was like Schéhérazade in its harem setting and its erotic theme, but presented as a light comedy (Troy 2002a). Critics applauded the costumes and sets in harmonizing colors of white, silver, and pink as “of a most delicate taste; Persian costumes accommodated to the Parisian imagination” (Launay 1913; cited in Troy 2002a: 124). The publicity attracted by these costumes encouraged Poiret to take a collection of “Minaret” inspired clothes on a tour of the United States in September of 1913. This tour consolidated Poiret’s reputation in North America, with Vogue acclaiming him as “The Prophet of Simplicity” (Troy 2002b: 211–215). Yet there remained an association between the new Orientalist styles and the Russian ballet. In February of 1914 an Oregon newspaper described a fancy dress costume worn in New York as “a copy of the ‘Bakst Minaret’ costume seen in the play, ‘The Minaret’ at the Theatre Renaissance, Paris” (“Newest ‘Bakst Minaret’,” 1914).
Newspaper associations of design innovation with Russia rested not only on the productions of the Ballets Russes but also on news reports from the region, as Irwin noted:
For instance, when we were all excited over that Bosnia—Herzegovina affair! Remember it? Remember how Austria wanted better access to the sea, and simply went south and grabbed it, regardless of the protests of Servia [sic] and Bulgaria? Well, those Bosnians and Herzegovinians wore some very striking costumes. They were Slavic, like those of the Russian ballet; startling in color, but amazingly winsome in gracefulness and ease. (Irwin 1911: 7)
The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary in 1908 was seen as a threat by Bulgaria, which responded by declaring independence from the Ottoman Empire, with Prince Ferdinand declaring himself Tsar. These events were closely reported in the press from the time of the declaration of independence in October 1908 to diplomatic recognition of the new state in May 1909 (“In the Public Eye,” 1908; “Taft Recognises Ferdinand,” 1909). This was reflected in a vogue for “Russian” ensembles with loose blouse tops trimmed with fur or with military braid (“The Glass of Fashion,” 1909). In 1912–1913 this region was in the news again with the First and Second Balkan Wars between Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Turkey, and then between Bulgaria and its erstwhile allies (“Bulgaria,” 2015). By February 1913 an American newspaper commented: “The Slavic invasion is in hand. A one piece black satin suit has its satin sash and Bulgarian collar, a la Paquin … gowns of all kinds have their Bulgarian trimmings” (“Davis-Schonwasser Display Delights,” 1913). In London, fashionable consumers were advised that “we find Bulgarian embroidery very prominent. It shows itself in an original manner in the square upon the Russian blouse” (Gisele 1913b). The mingling of design references from countries currently at war with each other in the same outfit suggests the way in which fashion engages with contemporary events through a process of selection and appropriation, rather than simple reflection (Lehmann 1999).
The “Bulgarian” color schemes discussed in the press seem to have been typified by bold contrasts rather than by specific hues. Geographical names were also applied to individual colors or color combinations, as part of a fashion discourse which presented new styles as originating from some places, and as selected for wear in others. This was particularly noticeable in the regional press, where the readership was located within a tightly defined area. In February 1913, a San Francisco newspaper ran a whole page on the coming season’s fashions, as displayed in a local fashion show and in the stock of local retailers. The introduction highlighted two major trends: the “Bulgarian blouse suit,” inspired by news reports from the Balkans, and the color “Nell rose,” named after the daughter of U.S. president-elect Woodrow Wilson (“Riot of Color Rules,” 1913). Individual articles about the stock of local stores mentioned colors including “Indian red,” “Copenhagen blue,” and “mustard yellow.” One retailer was quoted as saying: “It is largely a case of keeping all shades of the rainbow on hand, for sooner or later someone will want it, either in constituent colors or the ensemble” (“Davis-Schonwasser Display Delights,” 1913). Another commented: “This is a period of strong color contrasts, brilliant, unusual shades and bizarre, even daring effects. The spring and summer of 1913 will be long remembered for the revival of strong shades” (“Roos Brothers Have Brilliant Contrasts,” 1913). One article summed up the process of localizing fashion in its title: “Livingston Brothers Are Making A Hit; Russian blouse has come west for spring styles and hat materials are in bright color effects” (1913). Altogether, the agreement of fourteen different stores on trends in colors implies not the hegemony of Paris fashion, rather a local consensus between competing retailers. The emphasis on bright colors in this newspaper may reflect the beginnings of a Californian aesthetic attuned to the sunny climate and outdoor lifestyle, further developed in the 1930s (Scott 2009).
In the London press, discussions of color schemes were framed in terms of both national aesthetics and moral codes. Suffrage organizations’ adoption, from 1908 onwards, of specific colors—purple, white, and green for the Women’s Social and Political Union; red, white, and green for the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies—may have informed this moralization of color (Kaplan and Stowell 1994: 169–174; Parkins 2002). This connection, however, was not made explicit in the Pall Mall Gazette, a daily newspaper for the upper-middle classes living in London or in the provinces. This featured several different sorts of fashion information: articles on current fashion trends from Paris, analyses of the costumes worn on the London stage, reports on outfits worn at society events in Britain, and columns advising readers about goods available in London shops. There were also occasional pieces on the philosophy of fashion, with or without illustrations.
When bright colors dominated Paris fashions in 1910, the Pall Mall Gazette recommended them with a word of warning:
Colors for the autumn and winter are to be gorgeous, especially in evening and house gowns generally, as the passion for all Eastern things is growing stronger as time goes on. The difficulty will lie in learning how to mix them, and probably we shall see some shocking failures. But, on the other hand, we shall see some wonderful successes. One or two harmonies already shown to me were gowns in orange, violet and black. (“Paris Fashion,” 1910)
If color was used incautiously, the wearer was likely to transgress not only aesthetic, but moral boundaries, as the most extreme fashions were associated with women of easy virtue:
[at] a “first night” or a “répétition générale” [dress rehearsal] the dresses are quite wonderful, as not only does one see the society woman, but also the demimondaine, and there is a perfect orgy of luxury … the society woman might be known at once by her restraint in this respect, whereas the actress and the demimondaine allowed themselves greater licence, and followed the latest fashion. (“Fashions in Paris,” 1911)
Instead of blindly following fashion, readers of the Pall Mall Gazette were encouraged to cultivate a personal taste in harmony with their surroundings. In April 1911, a columnist addressed the difficulty of describing fashionable colors:
Some of the new ones are puzzling in their nomenclature; some of their names tell one nothing, some are literally false. Like the growers of sweet peas (and these include myself), we are apt to be annoyed by the “official” styles and titles of certain colors nowadays, and it has amused me for some time to rechristen for myself, according to necessity or from mere inclination, many shades and tints which seemed to me all the better for it. (Nepean 1911)
The article goes on to create a color palette drawn from the English country house, with the brown of antique furniture, the cream color of old ivory, and the reds and pinks of garden flowers. Bright shades of blue are associated with delphinium flowers, with kingfisher and peacock feathers, and even with antique medicine bottles. The writer insists on the correct naming of colors; a shade of red described in Paris as “chaloupe” (a small boat) in London becomes “Coronation” (after the velvet robes worn by peers) and in the countryside is called after the flower “gloxinia” (Nepean 1911). This article is interesting as it addresses the problems of describing color in a monochrome publication, but dwells on color’s emotional, rather than aesthetic effects.
The difference between the imagined reader of the Pall Mall Gazette and that of the San Francisco Call emerges clearly in the fashion columns for spring 1913. The London preview of the season identified the same fashion trends noted in San Francisco: Russian blouse shapes, Bulgarian embroideries, and striking color combinations, including bright green and black. The reader was warned, however, that some of the more extreme Paris styles were intended for export to South America, and would not be acceptable in Europe (Gisele 1913a). Even when dealing with a leading Paris couture house, the British reader was encouraged not to accept the garments as they stand, but to adapt them to her own taste:
The art of the dressmaker is to combine the new materials and the embroideries with the taste that she possesses to make the costume acceptable. The creations in Paris are often too vivid, but they serve as a basis for another attempt that the saleswoman, if she is clever, arranges with her client. (Gisele 1913b)
Sometimes it was the client’s taste that was at fault, requiring guidance from fashion professionals. A humorous short story published in February 1913 was told in the voice of an unmarried young woman going shopping with her elder sister. The narrator establishes at the outset that she sees color as the crucial factor in planning her spring wardrobe: “think what a responsibility you would incur by forcing a sister to decide in a hurry whether she would be pink, green, purple or bright yellow for the next four months” (A.S. 1913). She is so confused by conflicting recommendations that she threatens to order a dress like “a Post-Impressionist pirate, the color scheme being red and yellow and green.” At the fashion house, the sisters are shown sample dresses in shades of orange; in purple and saffron trimmed with bright pink; and in white and silver. The older sister chooses the purple and saffron dress, but without the pink trimming, while the narrator is persuaded by the designer to order a dress in white and silver. This story warns the reader that the wise consumer is one who negotiates with fashion professionals, being guided by them, but not adopting their ideas indiscriminately. This is very different from the consumption process envisaged by the San Francisco newspaper, where the process of taste-making rests with the fashion professionals, who offer consumers a variety of fashionable styles and colors. This is partly a function of the greater flexibility offered by the made-to-order garments described in the Pall Mall Gazette as opposed to the ready-to-wear of the San Francisco Call. But the exuberant descriptions of rainbow colors and clashing shades in California strike a very different note from the language of restraint and decorum used to address British readers, suggesting the nationalist rhetoric identified by Marlis Schweitzer in American fashion writing from 1908 (Schweitzer 2009).
Underlying the discussions of color schemes for specific locations was an understanding of the relationship between dress and its setting. This had been a point of principle in Art Nouveau, with clothing designed to reflect the aesthetic of interiors by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Henri van de Velde, or Josef Hoffman (Rose 2014: 108–112). Bakst and Poiret, while aligned to Art Nouveau by their use of Orientalist references, were often associated in the press with Futurism, characterized by its startling color schemes and striking abstract patterns: “Bakst—a modern artist who is as daring in form as in color” (“Futurist fashions,” 1913).
Bessie Ascough, in the Pall Mall Gazette, pointed out the difficulty of harmonizing intensely colored garments with traditional interiors:
The present “war of color” has to do with pastel tints versus futurist splashes. In Paris we have the soft color schemes of Watteau and Lancret, and also the most pronounced futurist splashes of the ultra-modern school … several leading dressmakers in Paris are making a determined stand against violent color splashes, especially where evening gowns are concerned … They argue—again rightly—that futurist gowns demand futurist surroundings: that for ordinary evening wear—at theatre or opera—they are unsuitable. (Ascough 1914)
This article creates a chronology of color, contrasting pastel tones based on eighteenth-century paintings with bright “futurist splashes.” Another way of locating the new color schemes in time was to identify them with the younger generation:
I saw one lady receiving this week in a tomato-colored dress of cachemire de soie, veiled with a peacock blue silk Indian cachemire stamped in figures of blue and green and trimmed with a touch of tarnished gold soutache [braid] at the neck and waist. Over this she wore a lovely Indian scarf … Her mother, essentially a lady of the ancient regime, told me softly that she did not quite approve of her daughter’s toilette. (“Present Paris fashions,” 1911)
This account identified modern trends, but also recognized that some readers would have a color sensibility formed in the past.
Fashion writers’ discussion of color before 1914 was deeply contradictory, stressing the importance of specific hues in their absence (Jeffries 1914) (Figure 13.1).
Figure 13.1 Beth Jeffries, “Splendor of the Orient, Riotous with its Color, Marks Milady’s Fall Wardrobe,” The Washington Times, (Washington [DC]), August 18, 1914. Courtesy of the Serial and Government Publications Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Yet this absence gave fashion writers an opportunity to present their own interpretation of fashionable trends. Fashion designs presented in monochrome could be described using fashionable color terms, and these terms could then be applied to the stock of local retailers with no fear of contradiction. The color sold in New York as “Bakst green” might have nothing to do with the eponymous designer, but few consumers would be in a position to know this. Descriptive text could also be used to establish a chronology and geography of color, with “Futurist” shades contesting those based on eighteenth-century art, and “Bulgarian” colors vying for popularity with “Copenhagen” blue. Fashion texts also stressed the ethics of color, warning readers against inappropriately bright shades that might draw unwanted attention. The definition of appropriateness was bound by both time and place; the mustard yellow hats that were advertised in San Francisco for Spring 1913 would have been ahead of their time in Fall 1912, and by Fall 1913 were likely to be passé, while orange, violet, and black ensembles worn at Paris theaters would be out of place in an English drawing room. It was this specificity that made color such an important indicator of fashionable change, and of consumers’ relation to it. On the eve of the First World War, American Vogue commented:
In nothing has the conservative taste of the English been so utterly changed as in the use of color. Time was when flamboyant effects were considered vulgar, but now the more bizarre the combination, the more credit it reflects upon its originator. Purple, which was once considered the emblem of age and sorrow, is now confidently combined with every imaginable shade of red and yellow. As for orange, it no longer remains a glaring and daring splash of recklessness, but combined with sapphire blue and black, has become a very popular color scheme … Neutral is taboo … nothing neutral can be endured. (“Keying up the Color Scale,’ 1914)
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