Friday, February 27, 2009

Genêt

Or, to her friends - and they were legion - Janet Flanner. Along with the Murphys, Cole Porter, Gertrude and Alice, et al, she was expat Paris between the wars, and brought the news back in her wonderful writing for The New Yorker. She had a kind of slightly austere lesbian chic; she was debonair.

I'm trying to imagine the occasion that would call for pajamas, top hat, and a pair of masks; it must have been quite a night.

3 comments:

  1. The inscription on the back of that portrait reads- "In top hat of Sir Bache Cunard, father of Nancy Cunard, a fancy dress ball, Paris, 1925."

    Being a debonair lesbian, myself, I know these things...

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  2. Being merely an urbane homsexual, all I know is that she is a Cunard of shipping fame. The Cunard Line was the builder of the Mauretania, Lusitania, Queen Mary, QM2, Queen Elizabeth, QE2 & Queen Victoria amongst dozens of others.

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  3. Yes, the ships made for a very good life for the Cunards - my own favorite of whom was always Emerald, who was apparently a Piece of Work.

    And, dear Ms. Pancakes B.: things like your knowing that are what make this whole blogging nonsense such great, great fun, truly - really practically, in its own way, a fancy dress ball in 1925, in fact.

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