My dearly beloved daughter has just moved from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. Now that she is in the same timezone and around two hours away by air, we decided to see her for a belated birthday weekend. In addition to eating in good restaurants, doing a little Christmas shopping, and talking quite a lot, there was the question of where to go and what to do.
Sheep by the Sea, by Rosa Bonheur
I asked to go to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, since I hadn’t been there in about 25 years. I first learned about it from Victoria magazine when it opened in the late-80s. The question that they posed back then remains pertinent today: “Can you name five women artists?” At the time, I struggled to answer this question. This is still the only museum in the WORLD reserved exclusively for female artists. Women are woefully underrepresented in traditional museums – unless they appear as nude models! According to Guerrilla Girls, The Metropolitan Museum of New York, for example, features female artists in only 3% of the art, but 86% of the nudes.
Prelude to a Concert, by Marguerite Gérard
The museum is housed in beautifully restored building, featuring sweeping marble staircases that connect the four floors of the collection. Here are some of the French works that I saw, starting with two by my favorite painter, Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun. And after reviewing them, you’ll be able identify five women artists. (Quiz optional.)
Portrait of a Woman, said to be Anne Catherine (Aimée) Augier Vestris, by Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun
Portrait of Princess Belozersky, by Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun
Madame de Saint-Huberty in the role of Dido, by Anne Vallayer-Coster
Presumed portrait of Madame Geoffrin, by Marianne Loir
My lovely daughter turns 30 on December 3. She shares her birthday with an early French couturière whose name has all but been forgotten. Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix was born in 1863, and her Parisian salon operated from approximately 1889 to 1929, so this year marks the centenary of her business. By the first decade of the 20th century, her name could be found in many of the better fashion publications, and she had an extensive and loyal clientele. Her success is affirmed by the fact that her store interior on Boulevard Hausmann was designed by a leading arbiter of taste Louis Süe, of Süe and Mare, whose commissions did not come cheap.
Her style appears to have been a variation of the latest “line” executed in wearable colors and fabrics. In an article for The New York Times in 1912 entitled “Do Women Like Eccentric Clothing?”, Margaine-Lacroix set out the relationship between haute couture showpieces and what ladies actually purchased and wore, thus demonstrating her sound, realistic understanding of her market. She described how Paris presents extravagant and daring creations, but that these are primarily about ideas and that their role is to invite change; no woman of taste would choose to wear them. Instead, these outlandish garments are stripped of their bewildering embellishments and modified to form the new fashion. These comments may go a long way to explaining why she was forgotten because fashion historians have often preferred to focus on the spectacular exception instead of the more mundane rule.
Despite her realistic design ethos, Margaine-Lacroix’s career was not without innovation – quite the opposite. Her most important contributions to fashion were her sheath dress, the Sylphide corset, and the sinuously curved Sylphide dress. Like their creator’s name, these garments have gone mostly unrecorded in fashion histories. However, while visual and material evidence of her legacy are scarce, descriptions of these garments provide proof that it was Margaine-Lacroix, and not 
Margaine-Lacroix’s commercial success and perfect mediation between design innovation and understanding of the commerce of fashion – in addition to her being a female pioneer in the field of haute couture – should have been sufficient to ensure her legacy. Instead, her absence from mainstream histories of fashion speaks volumes about the uneasy relationship between commercial success and credibility. Happy birthday to two originals, my daughter and Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix.
I have another creepy French thriller to recommend to you – 
The initial victim, a horse, gets lots of high profile attention due to his influential owner, but the subsequent victims are definitely not equine. Everything turns out to be related to a settling of scores for fifteen-year-old crimes. The investigators are given a terrible choice by the wily ex-cop inmate – break the law themselves or allow someone to die. In typical French fashion, the characters are less perfect and air-brushed than their American counterparts on crime shows. There are subtitles in several languages, including English. Saying “I hope you enjoy it” seems inappropriate, but you know what I mean!
Sometimes I wonder how closely Big Brother is watching. Is my Netflix queue, so full of crime shows, the true reason why it’s taking so long for my Green Card to be renewed this time? Has my viewing history made me a “person of interest”? (I’ve been blaming the Trump administration, but maybe he is actually innocent of this offense.) But, I really do like mysteries, police procedurals, and a good psychological thriller just can’t be topped. And if the mystery is in French? C’est magnifique.
Netflix came through again with 
I recognized a few of the actors from other shows or movies, but the only big name among them was Nathalie Baye, accused of causing the death of a labor agitator on a construction site. I realized afterward that it’s no surprise that I liked the series, as the director, Frédéric Mermoud, is also responsible for some of my other favorite French shows, such as 
I have long loved the covered passages of Paris, those boutique-lined, glass-roofed vestiges of another era of shopping. Years ago, I saw a photo exhibit about them at Les Antiquaires du Louvre (now such a sad, abandoned shell) and bought the accompanying book. I slipped it on my bookshelf, and there it sat for a decade. I’ve been reading all that back stock before allowing myself new books and finally turned to this one. I’m kind of sorry that I did.
I knew that the Palais Royale, opposite the Louvre, had been a precursor to the covered passages, and I also knew that it had been a “pleasure garden” at night, but I hadn’t known much about the women who worked there and in the passages around it. The book revealed that the “romance” of these shopping arcades often had a lot to do with taking advantage of poor women.
Less “fortunate” women worked in the covered passages nearby. They were known as hirondelles (swallows) or rossignols (nightingales). Then there were the grisettes (warblers) and lorettes, shop-girls, who augmented their meager salaries by becoming prostitutes after hours. Often, those who owned the shops made the arrangements with this other sort of client, for a cut of the fee. There was the account of the arrest record of a widow who had met clients in the public toilets of one of the passages for forty years. I felt ill reading that.
And if that isn’t sad enough, then there were the wives and daughters of factory workers who, after their own day in the factory, were expected to work “l’heure du travail supplémentaire,” or overtime, as prostitutes in one of the passages. Karl Marx wrote all about this when he lived in France from 1843-45.
I felt so sad for all of those women who had no options, and so grateful to live in a time when I have an education and a very different kind of job. I’ll certainly look at the covered passages through different eyes from now on.
I love a good mystery and I’m always looking for good resources to keep my French up to snuff, so I happily added 
It’s a classic Agatha Christie-type scenario, but I jumped out of my skin half-a-dozen times, so it certainly kept me guessing. My least favorite episode was the final one, however, as I found the wrap-up to be a bit weak. Still, I’ve recommended it my students, using the child singing the creepy opening song to lure them in, just as each victim was lured to his or her demise.
I’ve wanted to check out Martha’s Vineyard since we moved to Massachusetts five years ago, but it just didn’t happen. During the school year, I often have to work on Saturdays and in the summer, I’m in France. In addition, I had no idea of the best way to get there, where to stay, or what we would do once we were there. Finally, everything aligned over Columbus Day weekend. We had such a lovely time, that I wanted to share my discoveries with you in case you, too, have been planning a visit.
Comment y aller? (How to get there?)
Où rester? (Where to stay?)
Que faire? (What to do?)
Où manger? (Where to eat?)
