Inspiration: Ziegfeld Follies

A post for the last day of September that really just signifies me looking forward to October. Things are about to get real spooky on my blog. I just love Halloween and I can't help but make the entire month about it. For now I want to share some amazing costumes with you to kick off the best season of the year. I recall finding a book on the Ziegfeld Follies during my freshman year of college and falling absolutely in love. The Ziegfeld Follies was a revue show in New York in the 1920s. It was something like a Broadway show but also a vaudeville variety show. Most importantly, the "Ziegfeld Girls," who I imagine were like the 20s equivalent of go-go dancers, were dressed in the most exquisite costumes EVER. Here are some photographs of the costume collection entitled "The Illuminants."

"The Illuminants" is a costume collection based on different sources of light. The girls are dressed as the moon, a lightbulb, a lantern--and the one on the left just above is the Northern Lights which I find to be fantastic. Something about this collection in particular embodies the wonder of the 20s for me. It reflects a time when technology was changing but old superstitions still remained. The same could be said for today, I suppose, but I just like to think about how sparkly the world would have looked at this time when universal electricity was new and exciting. I've always felt like I responded very strongly to different light sources and as a photographer light is very important to me, so I just love this.

I'm not positive who designed these costumes, but I  would assume it was Erté, who designed a lot of the show's pieces. Erté was a sort of "King of Art Deco" and was a contributor to Harper's Bazaar as a fashion illustrator, as well as to show business with design. Erté just makes me dream.