Tea at Trianon: The Peculiar Flapper Fad of Rouged and Decorated Knees

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, June 5, 2025

The Peculiar Flapper Fad of Rouged and Decorated Knees

So bizarre and unattractive. From Messy Nessy Chic:

“Painted knees have hit the town,
Red and yellow, green and brown;
Goofy styles that give a pain,
Glimpsed ‘em down at Third and Main;
I like color on autumn trees,
But they look darn funny on a woman’s knees;”
Still, this didn’t stop the artwork from becoming even more eye-catching: The Makeup Museum writes that beginning in the mid 1920s (and maybe even earlier in Paris), women used watercolors and oil paints for elaborate designs, an example of “creativity, provocation and rebellion.” Along with bobbed hair and thin eyebrows, they were all the rage at a 1925 beauty convention in Chicago; Mrs. Ruth Maurer — who presided at the opening session and ran a popular beauty brand and training schools — was quoted in papers around the country saying, “Painted knees are the latest thing. Hand-painted pictures on the knees are intriguing. Some designs are simple, some elaborate. Some girls prefer a flower or a group of blossoms. Others like a portrait or a little landscape.” (Read more.)