Showing posts with label Vintage Beauties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vintage Beauties. Show all posts

A French box bed

via

A box-bed (also known as a closed bed, close bed, or enclosed bed) is a bed enclosed in furniture that looks like a cupboard, half-opened or not. The form originates in western European late medieval furniture.

The box-bed is closed on all sides by panels of wood. One enters it by removing curtains, opening a door hinge or sliding doors on one or two slides. The bed is placed on short legs to prevent moisture due to a dirt floor.

In front of the box-bed was often a large oaken chest, with the same length as the bed. This was always the 'seat of honour,' and served also as a step for climbing into the bed. It was also used to store clothing, underwear and bedding the rest of the time.

Closed bed in Finistère (France) :

In Brittany, the closed-bed (French: lit-clos) is a traditional furnishing. In homes with usually only one room, the box-bed allowed some privacy and helped keep people warm during winter. Similar enclosed bed furniture was once also found in western Britain; Devon, Cornwall, Wales particularly in Gower.

Some closed-beds were built one above the other in a double-decker, two-story arrangement. In this case, young people were sleeping upstairs.

It was the main furniture of rural houses in Brittany until the 20th century. Often carved and decorated, it was the pride of its owners.

Closed-beds were 1.60 to 1.70 m length, long enough for people of that region who were rather small. And because they slept in an almost sitting position, they leaned on three or four pillows. It was the tradition of the Middle Ages not to sleep lying down, because that is the position of the dead and of effigies.

Later out of fashion and because they were expensive to make, box-beds were gradually abandoned in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Dressing in drag 1885-1930

Patrons, many dressed as men in tuxedos, sit, talk, laugh and kiss, at Le Monocle, a famous nightclub for women in Paris.

A stereoscopic card titled "Looking for a Man."

French painter and graphic artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec dressed in a plumed hat and an ostrich boa over a frock coat.







Two male undergraduates dressed as women are followed by young boys on the Harvard University campus.

Irish students at the University of Dublin during Trinity College Rag Week.

Marguerite Radclyffe Hall, a prizewinning writer whose novel "The Well of Loneliness" was originally 
banned in Britain for its sympathetic approach to female homosexuality, with Lady Una Trowbridge.

Men dressed as women at the Eldorado nightclub in Berlin.

Actor Douglas Byng dressed for the opera.

Celebrated cross-dresser Bert Errol in full drag and makeup.

Vintage Beauty by Alfred Noyer


This vintage real photo postcard is part of a series named “Les Plus Belles Femmes de France” (The Most Beautiful Women of France). This series is about gem stones, and the model for this image represents “Topaze” (Topaz).