On The Beam - Mutoscope Card
1945 - Technically, these were arcade vending cards rather than postcards, although they were sometimes used as such. Artist unknown.
After her death in 1906, Irish-born Catherine Donovan was described by the New York Times as “the pioneer dressmaker of the 400,” for dressing New York’s social elite known as the “400.” She owned a building on Madison Avenue at 40th Street, where she sold imported gowns from leading Paris couturiers such as Charles Frederick Worth and Emile Pingat. At least once, her employees’ baggage was seized at U.S. customs on suspicion of smuggling. It was common practice for seized goods to be auctioned publicly, and in 1893 over five hundred people attended an auction of Worth, Pingat, and other gowns seized from Donovan. This evening dress looks to France for inspiration, combining references to the late seventeenth century in its silhouette based on the mantua (loose gown worn as a robe or overdress) and to the late eighteenth century for the striped silk design.
(via inspiringdresses)
Julie D’Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and bang a nun. If nothing in that sentence at least marginally interests you, I have no idea why you’re visiting this website. (via Badass of the Week: Julie D’Aubigny, La Maupin) (thank you, Rachel!)
(via rrrick)
