fashion
21 Dec Zoom Tours in 2020 and 2021
Posted at 00:02h in courtesans, fashion, fashion history, French women, Louvre Museum, nasty women, Paris, Paris tour, royal mistresses, scandals and secrets, Shady Ladies, Women's History
At the end of this very real annus terribilis, I want to say a few words to you, our loyal readers and attendees. Above all, thanks! Thanks for keeping Shady Ladies Tours alive by reading our blog, attending our Zoom tours, watching our YouTube videos, contributing to our fundraisers—in short, for being a fabulously loyal community. When the pandemic hit the US, in March, it seemed likely to kill the company completely. Who would have thought that 9 months later, as the pandemic continued to rage, we would be putting on our 18th Zoom tour, with audiences regularly over 100, and have gathered over 28,000 views for our videos? It's been a hard year, but ours is a tiny, flourishing corner. And we have a lot more coming after the holidays! Want to find out more?
19 Feb Scandalous French Women of History
Posted at 22:45h in art history, courtesans, fashion, fashion history, French women, Paris, Paris tour, Shady Ladies, Women's History
Paris is the great city for the history of racy women. Certainly, other places have contributed—particularly Italy during the Renaissance. But from the time the Renaissance took off in France, scandalous French women have taken most of the world prizes for raciness.
23 Apr Watch: The Tragic Story of Audrey Munson
Posted at 01:48h in art history, beauty standards, fashion, fashion history, Metropolitan Museum, Shady Ladies, Women's History
Not many people know Audrey Munson by name—but if you’ve spent any time in New York City, you’ve seen her face. Munson’s likeness tops some of the city’s grandest buildings. Even when she is remembered, it’s often for the more scandalous and tragic events in...
17 Aug Highlight from our fashion and beauty tour
As you walk around any museum, you will see portraits that include far more fashion than person. Here is a great Renaissance gentleman with the vast mink collar, his elegant double brocaded with gold thread, his two gold chains, his beautifully manicured hands and probably...
08 Aug Anne de Pisseleu, the Duchesse d’Étampes
People often ask if our tours change over time, and the answer is absolutely yes, they change—both because the museum's displays change, and because we discover things about the artworks. Here for instance is a portrait of a royal mistress that just came onto display at the Met. It isn't certain who the artist is, but the subject is clearly Anne de Pisseleu, the Duchesse d'Étampes, who was one of the most important mistresses of François I, France's most important Renaissance king. Anne was a typical Shady Lady: she was famously beautiful, but also famously intelligent. In fact, she was called "the most beautiful of the learned, and the most learned of the beautiful." It was also typical of the French court that François married her off and gave her husband a title: the French always wanted their royal mistresses to be titled and married (perhaps to prevent their children from making claims on the throne). Want to know more about the Shady Ladies of art and history? Come on our Shady Ladies tours!
14 Dec Fashion History in Art
Posted at 22:42h in art history, beauty standards, courtesans, fashion, fashion history, Metropolitan Museum, Shady Ladies, Women's History
We have been giving fashion history tours at the Metropolitan Museum for several months now, and the more we work on them, the more we see that fashion history is probably the biggest theme in the entire museum. If you think about it, you might think thathttps://shadyladiestours.com/fashion-and-beauty-tour/beauty—human beauty—is the biggest theme in the art history. But if you look carefully at the beautiful people in the museum, you will see that (aside perhaps from the Greek male nudes), the person's features are only a secondary aspect of the images. It isn't their natural beauty that makes people beautiful in art. Instead, the artworks focus on many other aspects of the beautiful person: on hairdos and make-up and jewelry and clothing and accessories and shoes. In short, human beauty in art consists not of beautiful features, but of costume or fashion.