Overview

Using artworks by Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others, The Art of Parisian Chic explores how women and artists in Impressionist Paris (1855-1885) crafted their public images to exploit and resist stereotypes. French societal expectations and beauty ideals shaped how women were seen and how they chose to present themselves in public – whether on the street, in a photograph, or in a portrait on the walls of the annual Paris Salon. On Paris’s broad new boulevards and in its public parks and theaters, women dressed to impress anonymous strangers as well as their friends. They even circulated aspirational photographs of themselves. Looking at a rich array of visual sources – from portraits to modern-life paintings, and from photographs to fashion plates – Justine De Young reveals how women were seen, how they aspired to be seen, and how they navigated public life in Second Empire and Belle Époque Paris. This book considers how fashionable feminine “types” made famous in books, caricatures, and paintings created a visual lexicon and stylistic guide for women. Men and women alike relied on these types – cocotte (mistress), jeune veuve (young widow), amazone (independent equestrienne), demoiselle de magasin (shopgirl), and Parisienne (chic Parisian woman) – to judge the class, character, morality, and worth of strangers. With a rich set of illustrations from the Impressionist canon and beyond, The Art of Parisian Chic shows how modern women used fashion and these stereotypes to construct and reinvent their identities.

Full Product Details

Author:   Justine De Young (Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Dimensions:   Width: 18.90cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 24.60cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781350454750

ISBN 10:   1350454753
Pages:   360
Publication Date:   07 August 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   To order  

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: La Cocotte – The Mistress/Kept Woman Defining the Cocotte Cocottes vs. Filles Monet’s Camille as a Cocotte Camille & Chic Camille & the Crinoline Classes of Cocottes Difference from Cocodettes Attraction of the Cocotte Image to Women Marchal’s Pénélope & Phryné at the Salon of 1868 Cocottes in Postwar Paris Renoir’s Loge at the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874 Marchal’s The Prey at the 1875 Salon Manet’s Nana (1877) and Other Cocottes at the Salon Jeanne Duval, Resisting Expectations Portraits of Grandes Cocottes and Cocodettes Valtesse de La Bigne at the 1879 Salon Comtesse Alice de Lancey, the American Divorcée The Mysterious Marquise Anforti Conclusion Chapter 2: La Jeune Veuve – The Young Widow Origins of the Young Widow Type Mid-Nineteenth-Century Mourning Fashion and Etiquette The Mourning Industry Constructing the Ideal Widow Young and Beautiful Fashionable with a Hint of Sex Appeal Sentimental… or Vain Consolable Marriageable, but Demanding Idle at Home, but Ubiquitous in the City Mourning as Costume The Countess de Castiglione The Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) & the Reality of French Widowhood Impressionist Women in Mourning Monet’s The Bench (1873) Conclusion Chapter 3: L’Amazone – The Independent Equestrienne Defining the Amazone Aristocratic Tradition: Empress Eugènie as an Amazone The Riding Habit Cocottes as amazones: Cora Pearl Democratization of Riding in the Second Empire and Third Republic Equestrian Photography & the Allure of the Amazone Image Amazones at the Paris Salon Carolus-Duran’s Au bord de la mer (At the Seaside) at the 1873 Salon The Amazone, the Parisienne, and Contemporary Body Ideals Renoir’s Bridle Path in the Bois de Boulogne at the 1873 Salon des refusés Exploiting the Amazone & Celebrity: Giovanni Boldini and Alice Regnault The Amazone and Lesbians The Modern Amazone and Manet (Conclusion) Chapter 4: La Demoiselle de magasin – The Savvy Shopgirl Origins & Types of Shopgirls How the Department Store Shopgirl was Different Characteristics of Shopgirls Polite, Winning, & Pleasant Beautiful, Elegant, & Chic Observant Flâneuses Demoiselles de magasin Outside their Shops: Manet and Renoir’s Cafe Scenes Manet’s In the Conservatory (1879) & Jeanne Guillemet Seurat’s Grande Jatte and Contemporary Debates about the Shopgirl (Conclusion) Chapter 5: La Parisienne – The Symbol of Paris Conclusion Notes Selected Bibliography Index

Reviews

Organized in a shimmering constellation of five iconic Parisian female types, The Art of Parisian Chic decodes the details of dress, behavior, and styling that defined late 19th-century Parisian femininity, making legible a wealth of visual information for a 21st-century audience. De Young deftly traces the invention of chic, an ineffable concept that endures today. * Susan Hiner, Vassar College, USA * A penetrating analysis of contemporary costume, criticism, and women, both real and imagined, and a foundational contribution, The Art of Parisian Chic breathes new life into the study of 19th-century French art and culture. * Nicole R. Myers, Dallas Museum of Art, USA * Justine De Young equips her readers with new tools to discern fashionable feminine types in the Paris of the Impressionist era, presenting new considerations of canonical paintings, but also broader visual contexts in which to understand them. * Denise Amy Baxter, University of North Texas, USA *

Author Information

Justine De Young is Associate Professor and Chairperson, History of Art, at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York (US). She previously taught art and fashion history at Harvard, Wellesley, Lesley, and Northwestern universities in the US. She is editor of Fashion in European Art (Bloomsbury, 2019) and the founding editor of the Fashion History Timeline website.

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