Other Famous Ladies
Colette:
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873 – 1954), or simply Colette, was a famous
French writer. The author of “Gigi”, “The Vagabond”, “Cheri” and other novels
is well-known for her novels and short stories on the French life of La Belle
Epoque. But she was also the owner of a 1,58 m long plait (“long enough to
lower a bucket down a well…“) until she cut it off at the age of 29. There is a
famous photo of her at fifteen with her two blond
braids swirling around her like “whips”. This photograph here shows her at
about twenty (1893). when she moved to Paris as the wife of Henri
Gauthier-Villars - a morose provincial schoolgirl with a long golden braid
flapping at her heels. Seven years later her first “Claudine” novel was
published.
Colette at home. She wasn’t the only one in her family who owned long hair: her
half-sister Juliette had such a remarkable head of floor-length hair masses
that she wrote a short story on her ("my sister with the
long hair“).
The young woman found a new and interesting circle of friends in the
bohemian society of writers and artists. Colette had a deep desire for life.
Colette as a young woman dressed in Renaissance costume. She liked to
let her hair flowing down a brocade dress. For a woman often means a change of
her hairstyle a change in her life. When Colette decided to cut her magnificent
hair in the autumn of 1902, she pioneered the fashion for short hair that was
to cause a revolution. And she lived the revolution after the divorce of her
husband as a dancer at the variety in the circle of her scandalous friends:
among of them the well-known Nathalie Barney, the Polaire, even Mata-Hari. And
Evalina Palmer, a childhood friend of Nathalie Barney.
Eva Palmer (1874-1952) was among Colette’s closest friends
in her youth. She was
a ravishing pre-Raphaelite beauty with red hair to her ankles. Colette knew her since she was fifteen and they often staged
playwrights with dance and music in which Colette played a shepherd who
falls in love with the nymph Evalina. Later, with her Greek husband Angelos
Sikelianos, Eva devoted her life to the revival of ancient Greek arts,
including weaving, dance, music, and drama.
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