“One of the most extravagant and efficient shoppers who ever came to Paris was Bea Kirnan, the head woman steer lassoer with an American rodeo. She ran particularly to pink silk underwear and went through the shops like a Texas tornado, leaving behind dazed and gasping saleswomen.”
- Helen Josephy and Mary Margaret McBride in Paris is a Woman’s Town (1929)

“Bea Kirnan Trick Riding Triangle Ranch Rodeo”
circa 1925
via

“When you go to try on clothes, wear your best underwear. This is to impress the fitter, who, being a temperamental Gallic, will take greater pains if she likes your lingerie. This sounds frivolous but isn’t.”

Helen Josephy and Mary Margaret McBride in Paris is a Woman’s Town, 1929

Silk & Cotton Underpants by Christophe
1920s
from the Met

tusksfamily:

“Our first venture in collaboration, attempted with casual gayety because we didn’t know then the pitfalls that lay in wait for us, was a book about Paris and the women who go to that lovely city.

Scarcely had it appeared in print than we were avalanched by complaints from men. It was perfectly absurd, they said, to call Paris a woman’s town in any such dogmatic fashion. Why had we left men out? Didn’t men go there, too? And didn’t they enjoy themselves? And didn’t the city welcome them?

We chorused yes to everything and tried to explain that we had only meant—well, what had we meant, and what was the use, anyway? You can’t argue with one man, much less an avalanche of them. Instead of trying, we thought quickly of a rebuttal scheme worth two of any argument—another book! For men this time. “London is a Man’s Town.”

But mindful of the harassed past, we protect ourselves by a subtitle, and acknowledge on the very cover that women go there, too.”

- Helen Josephy and Mary Margaret McBride in London is a Man’s Town (But Women Go There)

(book jacket via)

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I FOUNNND IT! Paris is a Woman’s Town was lost in a random pile of books in the library’s basement, but I found it! Hooray! And then I read it! Hooray! The best part, really, was the chapter about having fun in the daytime, which starts out with five pages of explanation about how to hire a gigolo. Seriously. I wrote a review on goodreads a while ago. Maybe you should be my friend on goodreads? I love seeing what people are reading, even though I am often not reading anything that anyone else is likely to ever read. I mean, I created the entry for this book on goodreads, but for most books I read someone in the world has already done that before me.

It took me a really long time to post this because I can’t figure out how to reblog myself. It will only let me reblog a post from tusksfamily onto my other blog, which doesn’t make sense. So finally I gave up and copy/pasted. Here’s the original post, which no one (almost no one, thanks Bob!) cared about in June, with an added illustration that I made for my book report club.

Les Fiancés Du Pont Macdonald from Cléo de 5 à 7
by Agnès Varda
1962 

starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina

from Les plages d’Agnès
(The Beaches of Agnes)
2008
by Agnes Varda

WE ARE GONNA GO TO RUE DAGUERRE YOU GUYS I AM SO EXCITED!