Shortly before the Great War the world—or at least the western part of it—went dance crazy. Suddenly young moderns threw out all the staid waltzes and polkas of their parents' generation, and started dancing the Bunny Hug and the Turkey Trot instead.
With the world's dance floors shaking to the beat of ragtime, it's not surprising that professional dancers would get into the act. The best known were a young married couple named Vernon and Irene Castle. They made their debut in Paris in 1911, and by 1912 had moved across the Atlantic, appearing in nightclubs and cafes and eventually on Broadway and in the movies.
They were young and famous and, above all, they were modern.
Irene, in particular, was a trendsetter. She cut her hair (it became known as the "Castle bob"!) and ditched her corsets years before either thing became generally fashionable. She adopted a new, more relaxed stance, and when she moved she strode instead of mincing. In short, she anticipated the young and active style of the Roaring Twenties by nearly a decade.
With the world's dance floors shaking to the beat of ragtime, it's not surprising that professional dancers would get into the act. The best known were a young married couple named Vernon and Irene Castle. They made their debut in Paris in 1911, and by 1912 had moved across the Atlantic, appearing in nightclubs and cafes and eventually on Broadway and in the movies.
They were young and famous and, above all, they were modern.
Irene, in particular, was a trendsetter. She cut her hair (it became known as the "Castle bob"!) and ditched her corsets years before either thing became generally fashionable. She adopted a new, more relaxed stance, and when she moved she strode instead of mincing. In short, she anticipated the young and active style of the Roaring Twenties by nearly a decade.
It's not surprising that she gained a lot of imitators. (One of them was a young Gloria Swanson who showed up at the gates of Essenay Studios in 1914 wearing a checked skirt made from an "Irene Castle Pattern".) By the 1920s it was possible to buy ready-to-wear "Irene Castle Models".
Irene's own clothes were mostly designed in collaboration between her and the English couturiére "Lucile".
This article, from the Ladies' Home Journal, shows her posing in her "Summer clothes for a trip southward". The magazine goes on to praise her reputation as a good dresser:
To modern eyes, many of these clothes in "pink Georgette crepe" and "Normandy Valenciennes lace" seem the very reverse of simple!
Irene's own clothes were mostly designed in collaboration between her and the English couturiére "Lucile".
This article, from the Ladies' Home Journal, shows her posing in her "Summer clothes for a trip southward". The magazine goes on to praise her reputation as a good dresser:
..."won by wearing clothes of extreme simplicity. She has sedulously avoided the bizarre and the conspicuously striking, and shown a decided preference for styles betraying in every line exquisite refinement and girlish charm."
To modern eyes, many of these clothes in "pink Georgette crepe" and "Normandy Valenciennes lace" seem the very reverse of simple!
Vernon and Irene's partnership came to an end with World War I. Vernon, a British citizen, left to join the Royal Air Force and died in 1918. Irene continued to dance with other partners, and acted in the silent movies. Alas, her career never quite hit the heights it did before the war. She and her husband, however, were commemorated in 1939 in a movie starring another famous dancing partnership - "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle", with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
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