Penny: Paris and London were always at each other(and still are--witness the last French salvo demeaning English cuisine just before London was awarding the 2012 Olympic Games)over who had the best culture, so all the name-calling in colors is great fun to us reading them today.
And the French came up with some unlovely names(of course they sound tres elegante en francaise)for fad colors on their own. I haven't checked your database yet, but I'm sure caca Dauphin is there--it was a fad color devised and named when Marie Antoinette finally gave birth to a male heir. The color was meant as a compliment since the French throne was an exclusive boy's club by law so the birth of a male heir was a very big deal Caca Dauphin was apparently a greenish brown modeled after the color of a newborn's excreatment from the neither end(to put it politely). The French throne being a no women need apply as ruler and the Queen Consort was supposed to keep a low profile and kick out male heirs), only a mistresse en titre(you got to see Le Roi a lot more than royal wifey and have a big influence on court life and royal policy had any real power and more acceptable to the French to boot since mistress to the King was French, and not foreign-born as was royal wifey). It was was probably why Marie Antoinette was so unpopular as Queen Consort as time went on. It had been generations since a French Queen had been attractive, fashionable, outgoing, and apparently an influence on royal policy. And she wasn't producing male heirs one after the other. Not her fault, but the French just couldn't understand a King that was faithful to his wife as Louis XVI. And a king that wasn't that interested in sex was something nearly impossible at the time, especially to the French, who were very used to Kings bedhopping--it was almost expected. Cindy Abel _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
