Thursday, October 06, 2011

La Belle Époque

A short video from the Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) of 1900 in Paris fourteen years before the end of western civilization.  Gotta love the fashion show and the very appropriate musical background.

9 comments:

The Anti-Gnostic said...

I could weep.

John (Ad Orientem) said...

AG
I empathize. Forget i-pads. Someone needs to start working on a time machine so I can escape this dismal and graceless age.

Dale said...

Gee...not a single fatty to be seen!

John (Ad Orientem) said...

Hard for the ladies to eat too much when they are wearing a corset. :-)

Dale said...

Seems to work for the men as well!

John (Ad Orientem) said...

In general the late Victorians ate less than we do. Their diet was often dictated by socio-economic class as well as other factors like season. We have grown rather use to eating whatever we want whenever we want and we live a comparatively sedentary lifestyle as opposed to our forebears. Most modern Americans really take for granted conveniences that would have been unthinkable a hundred years ago.

In Fin de Siècle Europe food, for all but the extremely wealthy, was still somewhat controlled by season and weather. And the sort of lethargic lifestyle so many people live today would also have been available only to the very well off. Being portly was often regarded as a virtual status symbol as it identified you as a gentleman or lady of leisure and means. This mostly applied to men though, as ladies were expected to jealously guard their figures.

On a side note if you watch the film closely I did in fact see a few persons (again mostly men) who looked rather well fed.

Anonymous said...

This is wonderful! Hard to believe that just 100 years ago people were so refined and dressed so elegantly. How far we've fallen! I always tell my wife that I was born 50 years too late!

Anonymous said...

Wow! That was great and I agree with the other comments about how classy people dressed back then. Did anyone else see that a lot of the people walking by were looking at the camera like it was something from outer space? And the song is real catchy. I keep thinking of the frog with a top hat.

The Crescat said...

Hats and parasols, oh my! Quite lovely indeed.