Jeffrey Berris
In the early teens women obtained a larger societal role, also resulting in a change in the fashion of upper class women. Once the 1920s began it was “a time of significant social and economic change.” The costume and makeup that we see in the Smiling Madame Beudet, shows us a lot about the current and past trends of the fashion of the upper class female. There are three primary female characters that we see in the film – Madam Beudet, her servant, and Monsieur Labas’s wife. Madame Labas appears to be a little bit older than Madame Beudet so naturally they employ different fashion trends.
These different trends can be seen in the scene when the Beudet’s and Labas’s are all sitting around waiting to leave and the Madam’s are going through a fashion magazine. Madame Labas looks at an outfit and appears to like it (judging from her facial expressions) and she looks to Madame Beudet for affirmation but Beudet does not like the outfit. Paris remained the fashion capitol of the world; “it propelled women’s fashion from modest and impractical to modern, sensible, and unconventional.” This can tell us that there was a growing gap between the teens fashion and the 20s fashion because of their differing views. “By mid decade, in fashion terms the ideal new woman was a tomboy, a garconne, young, slim, athletic, short-haired and short-skirted, almost androgynous in appearance.” This descriptions sounds like a description of Madame Beudet’s style and sounds like the opposite of Madame Labas.