Material Mode

Category: Etiquette

  • Charm School Beauty: The Du Barry Success Course

    Prevalent during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, charm schools offered day programs in deportment, vocal coaching, makeup and skincare tips, and etiquette training. Not to be confused with finishing schools—which were typically elite boarding schools for wealthy young women—charm schools were a more affordable avenue for learning the social graces and proliferated in heavily populated…

  • Pochibukuro Please!

         These tiny Japanese envelopes measuring a mere 3 1/2 x 1 1/2″ are called pochibukuro and were created to conceal money traditionally given as tips for services rendered.  In the Kyoto dialect the word pochi means ‘a little bit’ so the sums of money concealed in the envelope were not large; the gesture was…

  • Shooting for Ladies

    Shooting for Ladies

    Anyone who’s ever seen a James Bond movie knows that a lady in an evening gown is always sexier when wielding a gun—the same, it seems, was also true more than a century ago if we are to believe Walter Winans’ 1911 title Shooting for Ladies. Created with the intention of tutoring ladies in the…

  • Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français: 1778-1787

    Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français: 1778-1787

      First issued during the reign of Marie Antoinette, the fashion and costume plate series Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français has been called “the most beautiful collection in existence on the fashions of the eighteenth century.” Beginning around 1778, the Parisian print merchants Esnault & Rapilly began issuing this series of engravings at irregular…

  • Books of Etiquette and Beauty

               It is often necessary to students and scholars of history to familiarize themselves with anachronistic social customs and practices in order to gain a better understanding of a given period.  One of our favorite resources for this is the wealth of books on etiquette and beauty held here in SPARC.…