A "serendipitous find"
November 2nd, 2006 | Published in Google Books
When I read this fashion-loving lexicographer's blog post about stumbling upon a book on shopping in Paris circa 1907 (Sojourning, Shopping & Studying in Paris: A Handbook Particularly for Women) while waiting for a plane, I had to share.
Writes the blog's author:
Here's what Elizabeth Otis Williams has to say about shopping in Paris, before the Great War:
...In England or in America a hat made for a middle-aged woman is often quite too 'old ladyish,' or else it has no character, and its appropriateness consists solely in the fact that it is not noticeable! In Paris a middle-aged lady can get a hat that is suited to her years and yet handsome and stylish; and as for hats for young people, they are bewildering in their variety and beauty.
Isn't this marvelous! And yet it's something that I'd probably never have run across if not for GBS. (...According to WorldCat, twenty-six libraries have the 1907 editions, and two have the edition of 1911.)
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