Re: The Empress Alexandra Fights Back #3

Griff, thank you for your intersting posts on developments in fashion in the Empress' days and your very appropriate illustrations!
The resemblance between "lady shopping - 1813"  and "lady entering her motor - 1913" pictures is really striking, isn't it?

But nonetheless I ... will include a glimpse at the Empress and how she adapted the new modes whilst at the same time avoiding the new short skirts.

Yes, she did, didn't she? Perhaps she thought them too youthful or not stylish enough. Or perhaps she just felt uncomfortable in such skirts because she thought she had 'terrible feet'.


Next month, the expanded Hermitage Amsterdam Museum will reopen its doors, and I look forward to seeing some gowns from the 1800-1915 era exhibited. Among the exhibits of the "At the Russian Court" opening exhibition will be a Charles Worth gown worn by the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in the 1880s, but I hope they'll also show one or more gowns worn by Alexandra Feodorovna in later years and and I'll try and see whether I can recognise any of the developments you described here. (If they won't have any of Alexandra's dresses, I'll have to "settle" for less fashionable 1903 ball costumes. )

[De Toilette]

Griff, thank you for your intersting posts on developments in fashion in the Empress' days and your very appropriate illustrations!
The resemblance between "lady shopping - 1813"  and "lady entering her motor - 1913" pictures is really striking, isn't it?

But nonetheless I ... will include a glimpse at the Empress and how she adapted the new modes whilst at the same time avoiding the new short skirts.

Yes, she did, didn't she? Perhaps she thought them too youthful or not stylish enough. Or perhaps she just felt uncomfortable in such skirts because she thought she had 'terrible feet'.


Next month, the expanded Hermitage Amsterdam Museum will reopen its doors, and I look forward to seeing some gowns from the 1800-1915 era exhibited. Among the exhibits of the "At the Russian Court" opening exhibition will be a Charles Worth gown worn by the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in the 1880s, but I hope they'll also show one or more gowns worn by Alexandra Feodorovna in later years and and I'll try and see whether I can recognise any of the developments you described here. (If they won't have any of Alexandra's dresses, I'll have to "settle" for less fashionable 1903 ball costumes. )

Helen what a wonderful exhibit.  Do you think they will have a catalog? 

I have just about finished my final part for De Toilette and I have tried to pull in additional information about fashion trends and the Russian stage and screen so that we can get a better sense of all the influences in these last years of the reign.  There are so many unexpected ties with the future in these last few seasons during the Great War.  It is a fascinating study. 

It is interesting that the Empress did accept the new fuller skirts, but simply refused to wear them at ballerina length.  It is also interesting that she did keep her bodices and hats up to date and she discarded high collars as did every fashionable woman in 1915. 

Altogether I think we shall see the Empress emerge as a modern [on her terms] woman in 1915-1916 and I can't help feeling that she approved of the practicality and freedom that the fashions of 1915-1916 while avoiding extemes she possibly perceived as "undignified."  Just to say I have also touched on the girls attire briefly.       

Again Helen thank you so much for the information about exhibit and please keep us posted on your reactions to the show.   

Helen, I look forward to your feedback from the show too!

I believe that Robert Hall and Lucien are attending that show in Amsterdam as well.

I am so jealous.  But my trip to Russia will be next year (hopefully) and I have to save every kopeck to be able to make that one.

Griffh does a wonderful job on all of the posts.  So much information, so well thought out and so very well posted.

Thanks,

Alixz

[PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916.]

I believe that Robert Hall and Lucien are attending that show in Amsterdam as well.

I am so jealous.  But my trip to Russia will be next year (hopefully) and I have to save every kopeck to be able to make that one.

Griffh does a wonderful job on all of the posts.  So much information, so well thought out and so very well posted.

Thanks,

Alixz

Hey just to keep everyone current, Alizx has joined Helen and Janet as one of my mentors.  She knows all the fine details and has been such a wonderful and inspiring resource.  Also I know that we are all grateful for her wonderful organization of this thread.  That has been such a gift. 

Alizx that is so great that you are going to Russia next year and yes I am sooooo jealous of Robert and Lucien and Helen too.  That exhibit  sounds incredible.    I can't wait to post the last installment of PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916.  I realized that, until I did this research, I just assumed that the Empress wore her nursing gown all the time and did not realized the amount of dressing that she had to maintain.  It has really helped to broaden my understanding of how active and busy her life was during the Great War, in spite of her reoccurring health challenges. 

Well I have a great deal to prove in my next post.  Well it is 1am on the Jersey Shore so I am off to bed.
 

I hope also to go the show in the Hermitage in Amsterdam. I've never been there. So, I'm curious. I hope to go in June or July.
Griffh, this thread is still amazing as ever.

Oh Teddy I am adding you to my "jealousy" list, but all kidding aside it sounds like it is going to be a wonderful exhibit.  I hope you will share your impressions of the exhibit along with Helen.  I can't wait to hear about it.  Just to say that I will be able to post tomorrow and I think that the information will be of interest.  It has taken a bit more time because of tracing saratorial trends and the related careers of some demi-monde who went on to have illustrious careers on Broadway and Hollywood. 

Until tomorrow....then....

[PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916: PART TWO]

PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916:  PART TWO

In a former post I made the following remark....

Well I have a great deal to prove in my next post. 
 

And indeed I do. 


•   1913: THE END OF AN HUNDRED YEAR CYLCE 


It will be remembered that the Season of 1913 marked the end of a hundred year sartorial cycle the had begun in the Napoleonic Era with the introduction of neo-classic Greek tunic and ended in the Late Edwardian Era with the return of Directoire gowns. As the Season of 1913 came to an end, as we shall see, it bid farewell to the centenarian cycle.   

 

Evening Gown by Madame Paquin [the French Fashion Designer that made Ella’s Covent Robes in 1912], Gazette du Bon Ton, Fashion illustration.  1913


Let us take a quick look at the Empress in that sartorially pivotal Season of 1913 in order to discover Her Majesty’s sense of fashion.  It appears that the Empress kept abreast of change by wearing the new Pill Box hats and Turbans that had replaced the enormous double brimmed hats of 1912.  At the same time, her Tercentenary presentation gowns followed the established Greek tunic silhouette that had become a classic in 1911.  A perfect example the neo-classic style is seen in the afternoon gown below with it’s embroidered white silk tulle and apron panel of re-embroidered crocheted guipure lace and guipure lace insertions edged with white beads and its simple the bodice, accented with Valenciennes lace shoulder straps.   



Maision Martial et Armand Afternoon Gown with turned-down brimmed hat adorned with
white aigrette feathers, spring 1911



Empress in re-embroidered guipure apron paneled Presentation Gown and velvet Turban with
aigrette feathers; accompanied by her husband and son, Tercentenary Celebrations, Moscow 1913



Her Majesty in shoulder strapped and apron paneled re-embroidered guipure lace Presentation Gown
and narrow brimmed tulle Pill Box hat adorned with aigrette tuft; accompanied by her husband, Tercentenary Celebrations, Moscow 1913


By 1914 one could already sense a change was in the air as gowns varied greatly in their design indicating that the future of fashion could take one of many directions.  There was the new lowered waistline had been introduced in 1912 and continued to make its appearance; the fuller ankle-length upper tunic that predicted the new skirts of 1915-1916; and 1914 kimono draped bodices with their wired lace collars generally referred to as “Empress Collars” that was  became the signature for gowns in 1915-1916.  However the most significant aspect of 1914 fashions were their markedly autumnal hues; colors that unconsciously symbolized a world fast approaching an artic winter of social revolt during which it would vanish forever.   



Elegant Afternoon Gowns, Fall 1914


At one of the last Court Receptions held in summer of 1914 just before the outbreak of the Great War for the French President, Poincaré, we see the Her Majesty receiving the President in a stately lace reception gown with matching kimono sleeved redingote edged in guipure lace insertion.  The thing that makes the gown chic and up to date is the wired guipure lace “Empress Collar.” 



Her Majesty in a elegant guipure lace gown and kimono sleeved redingote with wired “Empress Collar” and tri-corner hat, receiving President Poincaré.  Late summer 1914   

One can see, though I don't intend to be unkind, that by 1914 the Grand Duchess Vladimir who is standing with her parisol on the far left of the photograph has lost her figure altogether.  It was this photograph that had inspired my spiteful remark about the Grand Duchess when I had become irrated at the lady's cruel campaign against the Empress, by referring to her looking like an over-stuffed brocade arm chair, which as we recall I apologized for and recanted by naming the intelligent woman's many virtures.   

Other trends in 1914, a sartorial season of indecision and uncertainty, looked back to the “Hobble Skirts” of 1910 when the new “Balloon Skirt” made its debut at the Races in Paris in the spring of 1914. 



Society Matron in “Balloon Skirt,” Races, Paris, 1914



Mr. and Mrs. Winston Churchill.  Mme Churchill is wearing the new “Balloon Skirt,” British Air Show, 1914


The “Balloon Skirt,” [shorter versions of which would reappear at the close of WWII and again in the 1960’s], once again constricted a ladies’ freedom of action to the point that they had to employ leg “suspenders.”



Hobble-suspenders. 

It is so uncomfortable just looking at this bondage device and it is a rather ackward, but the next post is following immediately.   

[PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916: PART TWO continued]

PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916:  PART TWO continued


•   FASHION AND THEATRE


Before continuing to examine the Empress’s taste and in order to expand our study of these precious few seasons left to Imperial Russia, I thought it might be helpful to review some of the ways that fashion reached society that were unique to this period we are studying.  In Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell’s work, Theatre & Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes, the book documents how theatre had become a merchandizing vehicle for fashion houses.  Kaplan/Stowell informs us that the couture fashions of the British born French couturier, Worth:

...continued to be worn in West End plays through the nineties.  The decade also saw, the first real challenge to Worth’s monopoly of on- and off-stage fashion.  In Paris the attack was led by Madame Paquin [the fashion house Ella depended on for the creation of religious habits in 1912], who sought to replace the “dignity” for which Worth was most often noted with a more openly theatrical glamor.  She was seconded in this by Mesdames Gerber and Vertran, whose House of Callot Sœurs offered clients more heavily decorated alternatives to Worth’s drawing-room gowns.  In London, where Worth’s influence had been felt at one remove, the stage became the principle marketplace in which his authority was tested by rivals who had neither the prestige or resources of their Parisian counterparts.  Mesdames Savage and Purdue, Mary Elizabeth Humble, Madame Eroom, and Mrs. James Wallace, later known as Lucile and, later still as Lady Duff Gordon, all made their first appearance in Trades and Commercial Directories between 1891 and 1895, identifying themselves as “Dressmakers” rather than “Costume Makers” or “Theatrical Costumiers.”...With the exception of Lucile each of these figures curtailed stage work after receiving the Drawing Room commissions that enabled her to call herself “Court Dressmaker.”  In the interim, playhouses became second showrooms, with London’s leading ladies serving as living mannequins.  Indeed... the fashion model herself a relatively recent invention...

Not only Alexander’s St. James and Wyndham’s Criterion, but the Garrick under John Hare, and the Haymarket under Lewis Waller and Herbert Beerbohm Tree attracted to their stalls and boxes playgoers whose mere presence would be noted in the society papers and clubland press the following day...For such coteries, intent (in the language of commodity theorists) upon consuming images of their own wealth and power, the costumes and accessories of society drama held a special significance...  [Ref: Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell, Theater & Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes, (1995), p. 11]



St. James Theatre, London’s West End, Opening Night, 1835


The authors continue to explain that ladies’ fashion magazines started including “Theater Columns” that offered:

...elaborately detailed accounts of women’s stage dress, supplementing their texts with lavishly executed fashion plates.  In focusing upon the London stage as a platform for marketable commodities such writers not only identified dressmakers unnamed in theater programs (often several fashion designers were employed to provide gowns for a single society play), but supplied trade information and street addresses.  [Ref: Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell, Theater & Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes, (1995), p. 8]

Often couturiers could introduced the upcoming season of fashions on stage, such as the newly listed fashion firm of Savage and Purdue who were commissioned by the St. James management to design the leading ladies costumes for the debut of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan.   

Kaplan/Stowell explain:

...the timing was perfect, as well as, propitious.  Not only would the work fall during a relatively “dead” dressmaking month of February, it allowed Mesdames Savage and Purdue to place upon the St. James’s stage some twelve weeks before the opening of the Season what amounted to a mid-summer wardrobe, not merely imitating but generating styles (and sales) for the coming year.  [Ref: Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell, Theater & Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes, (1995), p. 15]

 
An amazing example of innovative fashions that had appeared on stage and were reported on in Fashions magazines was the evening gown Lily Cahill appeared in the 1914 production of “Under Cover” on Broadway at the Cort Theater.  A photograph of Lily in the gown appeared in the elegant Home Book of Fashions, Winter 1914, and was described as being constructed of flesh-tinted white charmeuse and fashioned into a “Greek” double tunic with a mother-of-pearl girdle and banding. 

 

Miss Cahill in “Under Cover,” wearing a flesh-tinted white charmeuse Greek tunic, with mother-of-pearl girdle and banding.


The thing that is so remarkably innovative about this 1914 evening gown is that by simply removing the chiffon coat-sleeves and under tunic, one ends up with a 1920’s evening gown.



Eggshell Satin Evening frock gown with V-décolletage and hipband with rhinestone buckle, B. Altman & Co., 1929


Like their counterparts in the London’s West End, the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg and the Maly Theatre in Moscow employed the same kind of fashion show/society plays that served to provide the same commodity trade in fashions for the Russia’s beau monde.   

However all of that began to change with the establishment of the Moscow Art Theater in the summer of 1897 by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovitch-Danchenko. 

Gavin Lambert, Alla Nazimova’s biographer, explains the impact these creative geniuses had on the Russian Theater and eventually on all modern schools of acting in the twentieth century.  And their insistence on authentic period costuming, put something of a damper on the fashion parade society plays still popular at the Maly and Alexandrinsky.

Gavin Lambert explains:

The first director in Russia to insist on authentic period style, commissioning sets and costumes for each production instead of relying on warehouse stock [or fashion houses], he believed in “organic” visual atmosphere.  Stanislavsky also believed in a unified performance style to create what he called “the feeling of truth.”  No mannerisms, no playing to the gallery, no pose or gesture without an “inner justification.”  [Ref: Gavin Lambert, Nazimova, ( 1997), p. 68]



Graduating Class of 1898, Philharmonic School, Moscow.  Nemirovich-Danchenkov in center with Alla Nazimova sitting to at table to the right.   

[PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916: PART TWO continued]

PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916:  PART TWO continued


The seventeen year-old Alla Nazimova graduated from Nemirovich-Danchenkov’s Philharmonic School in 1898 and was given a walk-on part in the Moscow Art Theater’s production of Chekhov’s play, The Seagull when it opened in December 1898.


The Segull, Moscow Art Theater, December 1898.  Chekhov’s wife, Olga Knipper in visiting gown with hat.  Alla Nazimova, walk on part, at far right of photograph.   


I did remember that Ella and Sergei had attended their first Chekhov play, Uncle Vanya in 1899, the year following Alla Nazimova’s graduation from Nemirovich-Danchenkov’s Philharmonic School.  Recalling the night, Nemirovich-Danchenkov tells us that not only the Moscow’s Governor-General and his wife, the Grand Duchess Yelisaveta Fyodorovna attended the theatre that night, but that their guest was none other than:

…Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the reactionary lay head of the Holy Synod.  Thus State and Church seemed at last to have become aware of the existence of the Moscow Art Theater.  Next day, November 27th (1899), Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenkov went to pay a visit to the Grand Duke.  “They told me,” wrote Nemirovich-Danchenkov to Chekhov, “that for the last two days in the palace, they had talked of nothing but Uncle Vanya. One of the Grand Duke’s aide-de-camp said to me, “What is this Uncle Vanya?  The Grand Duke and Duchess talk of nothing else.’”  As for Pobedonostsev, the Grand Duke told Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenkov that the President of the Holy Synod had not been to a theater for many years and had gone to see Uncle Vanya reluctantly, but that he had been so carried away that he could not help wondering whether the actors who gave so much to the stage had anything left over for their families.  “Every man,” observed drily, “draws his own conclusions.   [Ref:  David Magarshack, Stanislavsky, A Life, p. 194]           

What I had forgotten was also the fact that during the time Alla Nazimova was studying with Nemirovich-Danchenkov the Empress’ sister Ella had herself:

...initiated as patron, or, more correctly, ‘August Patroness,’ of the Moscow Philharmonic Society and school.  [Ref: Christopher Warwick, Ella, Princess, Saint & Martyr, (2006), p. 197]

Nemirovich-Danchenkov recalled that Ella:

...loved the theatre, attaching herself to my school performances, and in an abashed sort of way even tried to be present in the ordinary classes.  [Ref: Christopher Warwick, Ella, Princess, Saint & Martyr, (2006), p. 197]



Pastel Portrait of Grand Duchess Ella by G. Kaulbach, Pavlovsk Palace, St. Petersburg.   


What an exotic link with the young and aspiring Alla Nazimova and the artistic Grand Duchess Ella who must have seen the young Alla in or about the Philharmonic school.  Certainly Ella had privately perfected in her personal style of decoration and dress a dramatic Art Nouveau aesthetic that even permeated the ornamental motifs she had employed in the construction and adornment of her fallen husband’s burial crypt.     



Alla Nazimova in “serpent tailed” evening gown Alla designed, as the plays Society- Murderess, Mrs. Chepstow in Bella Donna, Broadway NYC, December 1912

Among her many achievements Nazimova became famous as the star in a series of highly stylized Art Deco Films, Billions (1920); Camille (1921); Paris 1921 (1921); and Salome (1922), all of which seem to be a nod to Alla’s memories of Imperial Russia. 

The following stills are from Camille, Billions, and Salome.     













In the clearly Aubrey Beardsley inspired design of these Art Deco films, I still cannot help but also feel that because of Nazimova's earlier connections with the Moscow Art Theater, that stylistically these films owe a certain debt of gratitude to Russia's Art Nouveau style that Ella’s artistic taste helped to establish in the opening years of the Twentieth century. 

[PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916: PART TWO continued]

PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916:  PART TWO continued


Just to add a quick historic footnote about these films, I wanted to credit the costume design and set to the creative genius of Rudolph Valentino’s wife, Natacha Rambova, who is real life was Winifred Shaughnessy Hudnut.  Winifred’s mother’s second husband, Edgar de Wolfe was the brother of the famous Elsie de Wolfe [later Lady de Mendel].  During Winifred’s mother’s marriage to de Wolfe, Elsie who at the time lived in the Villa Trianon at Versailles with her the lover of the famous theatrical agent, Elizabeth Marburg [who had managed the careers of Irene and Vernon Castle], provided Winifred access to the creative world of pre-war Paris and the young teenager came under the spell of Léon Bakst’s designs for Diaghilev and the fashions of Paul Poiret.  She had also met the magnetic Imperial Russian Ballet star, Theodore Kosloff during a London Season and later toured with his dance company and created set and costumes designs for the ballet troupe after Kosloff had migrated to NYC in the late Teens. 

Again we can see the Russian influence of the Ballet Russes in Rambova’s set and costume designs for Camille,.  Rambova’s husband, Rudolph Valentino starred opposite Nazimova in the film.
   


Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino, Camille, (1921).

Nazimova would continue her career on stage and in movies until the opening years of World War Two. 



Alla Nazimova, Edward Steichen photographic portrait, circa 1940     


•   SILENT SCEEN STARS AS FASHION ICONS DURING THE GREAT WAR


As early as 1915 cinema stars also began to influence fashions though they never really could claim the influence stage actresses maintained in the world of fashion and their photographs began to be displayed in shop windows along side the aristocratic beauties of the beau-monde and as well as fashion journals. 

One silent screen star who had an powerful impact on the demi-monde of Russia was Hollywood’s first Vamp, Theda Bara who achieved international acclaim when A Fool There Was [filmed in 1914] was released in 1915.   



Theda Bara evening gown and evening visor. A Fool There Was 1915


And yes Theda is wearing an “evening visor.”  Make-up, which had vanished in the early years of the nineteenth century had gradually made a come back during the Great War and Theda’s heavy black kohl eye shadow set a trend in eye make up that was widely copied among the vixens of the time and again the Teens use of make-up presaged the heavy use of facial make up during the “Roaring Twenties.”  In speaking of this trend in face masks that had been initiated in the Teens among movie stars and the demi-monde,  British costume historian, C. Willett Cunnington, explains that the 1920’s:

...were marked by a growing attention to facial ‘make-up’, as though the face was the chief element of interest.  The resulting ‘mask face’, with plucked eyebrows and unnatural coloured mouth, producing a staring expressionless face almost Egyptian in character, caused the rest of the body to seem insignificant.

It became the habit for girls to imitate, to the best of their ability, whatever film star they most nearly resembled, and as make-up was easier to copy than the costume itself, there was nothing to prevent even the humblest from acquiring a theatrical beauty.  [Ref: C. Willett Cunnington, English Women’s Clothing In The Present Century, (1950),  p.182]   

We can see Theda Bara’s influence on the ravishing and daring Russian Silent Screen Star, Natalya Kowanko who is wearing a corset-less evening gown.   



Mme. Natalya Kowanko in a chiffon and lace insertion evening gown with lace headband.  Petrograd 1916


Another great Russian cinema beauty, who was clearly influenced by Theda Bara eye make-up, was the most famous silent screen star of the late Imperial reign, the talented and tragic Vera Kholodnaya.   

Russian film historian, Jay Leda, tells us of Vera’s rise to fame in 1915:

The early spring of 1915 witnessed the appearance and development of the greatest pre-revolutionary film actress, Vera Kholodnaya, the wife of a poorly paid officer, who applied for work at the studio [A. A. Khanzhonkov & Co.] as an extra.  She had one black evening gown, whose appearance she changed by a judicious placed flower at her shoulder or waist.  The black gown and her dyed black hair set off a face whose paleness was accentuated by dead white make-up, making her heavy bottle-green eyes conspicuous even in a crowd of extras.  At the height of her fame, she said, ‘My eyes are my bread.’...Khanzhonkov’s brilliant director, Yevgeni Bauer...gave her a leading rôle in Turgenev’s Song of Triumphant Love, which established her among the Russian stars.  [Ref: Jay Leda, Kino, (1983 edition), p.78]     



Vera Kholodnaya in chinchilla clutch floral-lace face veil and velvet hat.  Petrograd 1916


We can see reflected in Mme. Kholodnaya’s remark, ‘My eyes are my bread,’ the new  the new aesthetic of the 1920’s that C. Willet Cunnington had point to as a distinguishing factor of the 1920 as having been ‘marked by a growing attention to facial ‘make-up’, as though the face was the chief element of interest.’  Again Mme. Kholodnaya’s black lace face veil reminded me immediately of Edward Steichen’s famous portrait of Gloria Swanson taken in 1924.



Gloria Swanson, photo portrait by Edward Steichen 1924


The Cecil B. DeMille mid-century classic, Sunset Boulevard in which Gloria Swanson plays an aging 1920’s actress captures the bygone dynamic of such early silent screen stars as Vera Kholodnaya whose tragically short life help set the stage for all that made the Twenties Roar. 

Vera Kholodnaya drew enormous crowds to Cinema Palaces such as Petrograd’s 900 seat Gigantic.  Ticket prices soared from the standard 30 kopek admission fee to 70 kopeks whenever one of Vera’s films was being shown.  In a sad footnote, the enchanting Mme. Kholodnaya film career was cut short by her death in 1918.  She had remained in Moscow, refusing to leave with Khanzhonkov and his Cinema company when they relocated in Odessa in November 1917.  Finally things had become so chaotic in Moscow that Vera finally migrated south to join the film company who had just completed filming Lord Darnley.  Tragically, Vera succumbed during influenza pandemic that had Odessa in its grip and died shortly after her arrival.   

Let us take a quick look at the Empress in that sartorially pivotal Season of 1913 in order to discover Her Majesty’s sense of fashion.  It appears that the Empress kept abreast of change by wearing the new Pill Box hats and Turbans that had replaced the enormous double brimmed hats of 1912.  At the same time, her Tercentenary presentation gowns followed the established Greek tunic silhouette that had become a classic in 1911. 

Pill Box hats... Is this the type of hat you mean?  

[• SILENT SCEEN STARS AS FASHION ICONS DURING THE GREAT WAR.]

Helen thanks so much for that wonderful snap of the IF.  Olga, Tatiana and Maria look so chic in the new pill box hats...


Just a quick note to say I am off to dinner and shall be back soon to complete this section:  •   SILENT SCEEN STARS AS FASHION ICONS DURING THE GREAT WAR.  It is funny but I seem to spend ages scanning photos only to come up with such a meager sampling.  Soory about that and we will return to the Empress I promise but I did want to explore the new trends so that we would be aware of them in these last years of the Romanov rule.  

 

[PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916: PART TWO continued]

PETROGRAD « C’EST LA MODE » 1915-1916:  PART TWO continued



Vera Kholodnaya, Moscow, 1916, M. Sakharov and P. Orlov photo.  [Ref: Alexandre Vassiliev, Beauty In Exile, p. 46]   


The famous Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov established his world wide reputation with the release of his second movie, A Slave of Love, (1976) which was based on the life of Vera Kholodnaya.  It is amazing because this film [that is brilliantly and beautifully costumed with all the accuracy and integrity to details that represents that priceless Nemirovich-Danchenkov heritage], is my one of my most favorite films and I had no idea that it was based on the life of Vera Kholodnaya.  I only found all of this out moments ago when I decided to mention the film in passing.  I am still rather shaken by the discovery, that is, shaken in a good way.     
 


Vera Kholodnaya, shortly before her death, 1918 [Ref: Alexandre Vassiliev, Beauty In Exile, p. 66]   


Before leaving the topic I thought it might be fun to see a still from Vera Corelli’s 1915 hit, Singed Wings  only because Vera Corelli would achieve great notoriety in December 1916 when it was rumoured that the ex-ballerina turned movie star, had been present at the Yusupov Palace the night Rasputin was murdered.  The rumour did wonders for Vera’s career and popularity; alas it appears like so many things connected to Rasputin, to have been nothing more than a rumour. 



Vera Caralli and Vitold Polonsky, still from Singed Wings. (1915) directed by Yevgeni Bauer.  photo: Photoplay Magazine 


Amazingly enough, even in 1915 War-torn Warsaw, another one of Rudolph Valentino’s lovers, Pola Negri was starting her film career as a member of the Sphinx Film Studio, a Polish cinema company that continued to make movies throughout the War. 



Pola Negi, Hollywood publicity shot, 1923


It is almost incomprehensible to me that the Sphinx Film Studios were filming their 1915 watershed film, Der Sklave der Sinne, (Slave of Sin) starring Pola Negri, which contained a color segment with hand-painted frames, which Pola financed herself in Warsaw at the time. 

This first film produced in Poland was later released under the name of The Polish Dancer in 1921.  It seems almost incomprehensible that the watershed Der Sklave der Sinne, (Slave of Sin) was being filmed in Warsaw in 1915 when one recalls General Vasilii Iosifovitch Gourko’s description the city at that time the film was being shot:

Under Warsaw, the Siberian riflemen, after nearly a month’s weary journey in close goods trucks, immediately went into battle with a foe encouraged by many victories, and, not withstanding, inflicting on him a serious defeat in the first stages of his violent charge.  The Germans after this hurriedly retreated to their frontier.  The enemy had been so sure of victory, and the early capture of Warsaw, that the Ceremonial Marshal to the Court of Saxony was with the troops, riding in a court motor-car in which the King of Saxony or the heir to the throne was to have made a procession from the Warsaw Palace to the Cathedral.  This sovereign or his prince was to have been crowned with the crown of the Polish Saxon kings who long ago sat on the throne.  Unhappily for them, however, our Cossacks captured both the motor-car and the Marshal.  [Ref: Vasilii Iosifovich Gourko, Memories & Impressions of War and Revolution in Russia: 1914-1917, (2005 edition), pp. 78-79]
 
In an amazing bit of good fortune December last, December 29, 2008 to be exact, one of Pola Negri’s wartime films was discovered at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia by Marek and Malgorzata Hendrykowski from Poznan University.  Though the film was unnamed it was described as a Polish production about a detective story set in Warsaw in 1917. The print has Italian subtitles and is said to be in good condition.  I can’t help but feel that the untitled film sounds very like Sphinx Studios 1917 production of Tajemnica Alei Ujazdowskioch, (Mystery of Uyazdovsky Lane), which was one of a 3-part “Mysteries of Warsaw” directed by Alexander Hertz and starring Poli Negra. 


Poli Negra, Untitled film, Sphinx Film Studios, Warsaw 1917

Ok thats it for today as I am starving and really need to go to dinner.  Tomorrow we will pick up with a quick review of the sartorial taste of the Russian Court Society and then on to the Empress and her daughter in 1915 and 1916.....toodle pip