Thursday, November 04, 2010

Monotony, lassitude and the brutal exposure of skin

Something I just ran across while looking through my files for something else:

Chorus Girls' Clothes

The Monotony of Nudity

From our own correspondent.

Paris, Wednesday

Too many undressed chorus girls, Paris has decided, are monotonous.

In a new revue to open this week in one of the largest and most popular Montmartre music-halls well known to British visitors to Paris and noted hitherto for its 'daring' productions, the female form which has offended by becoming too familiar will, it is announced, be veiled from top to toe in muslin drapery and filmy lace.

This reform, according to M. Antoine, a Paris theatrical critic, was inevitable. 'Nudity on the stage', he writes, 'was leading to lassitude and boredom among spectators from its very dreary monotony.' Long clinging costumes, he contends, are more artistic than the brutal exposure of skin. Paris is watching the experiment with deep interest.

Daily News and Westminster Gazette, Thursday, 20 September 1928, p. 9.

It seems though, sadly, that I don't have any articles detailing the result of this particular 'experiment'.

(The 'historical bycatch' series; explanation.)

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