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4. Apparent Modernity, 1914–1929
- University of Texas Press
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Chapter 4 aPParent MOdernity, 1914–1929 Historical context orients our sense of the past even given the complications of overlapping but often contradictory layers of regional, national, and international events. Internationally, 1914 marked the arrival of twentieth-century material modernity but also the horror of industrial and pathological World War I. The 1920s heralded a spectacular decade of industrial productivity and exuberant speculative greed, culminating with a burst bubble called the Great Depression. Nationally, Colombian elites managed to fashion an era of bipartisan peace and economic growth fueled by coffee exports to the United States. The Colombian population increased by half from 1912 to 1929, a product of regional peace and some urban public health improvements. Culturally, elites looked to France and Spain as the exemplars of culture and beauty until the 1920s, when thereafter the economic and cultural pull of Hollywood and American enterprise shifted constructions of beauty and modernity toward the United States.1 The image of the modern woman underwent significant changes during these fifteen years. In 1914 Paris, the athletic Eastern exoticism of the Ballet Russe marked a radical change in female appearance. During the war years (1914–1918), hemlines moved up to the calf, rising to the knee by the mid1920s ; higher hems and exposed arms made shaving more prevalent. Females in factory jobs or in uniform signaled both socioeconomic opportunities and national duty. The war made the modern woman more masculine, as a demonstration of both patriotism and freedom. Body image was juvenile and flattened , more linear and shapeless, and hair was cut short. The flappers of the late 1920s—hipless, waistless, boneless—symbolized the new look for young, free, sensuous party girls.2 In Colombia, modern forms of communication like the photograph, phonograph, radio, telephone and telegraph, and motion pictures opened urban elite and middle-class consumers to the new fashions. By the 1920s, the impact of wwi, silent movies, and North American factory production oozed into Colombian cities, bringing with it the archetypical fashion standards of the decade.3 74 Of Beasts and Beauty The illustrated weekly magazine Cromos began publication in January 1916, serving as a vehicle to present the modern, the beautiful, and various facets of Colombian identity. With an Art Deco title at top, slick color cover, short uplifting articles, and numerous illustrations, Cromos presented itself as the photo album of the nation. Still popular and in circulation today, Cromos became the Colombian equivalent of Life or People magazine in the United States, an entertaining, illustrated national publication marketed in a large, diverse nation. Cover illustrations during its first year of publication looked back to midnineteenth -century fashions and forward to the new look inspired by French fashions and the World War. Retrospectively, viewers saw romanticized paintings from the Colombia of their grandparents and in subsequent editions studied images of a distant, modern present heralding a new future. Inside the cover, photographs of notable daughters of elite families from Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Cartagena, and Barranquilla and from smaller provincial towns like Pamplona, Titiribí, and Manizales presented the viewer with “bellezas nacionales” (national beauties), an elite but modern definition of Colombian beauty. Internationally, women in Red Cross or military uniform and mobilized to support the Allies gave Cromos a decidedly pro-French fashion nationalism. In the juxtaposition of beauty and the beast, war and ugly destruction opposed female beauty and French fashions.4 During the final year of the World War, the covers of Cromos transitioned from illustrations or watercolors to photographs, bringing a sharper realism to the presentation of Colombian beauty. The photo album inside the magazine featured young women from more provincial towns like Ocaña, Cúcuta, and Sincelejo, expanding notions of the nation and, presumably, the magazine ’s appeal and circulation. Hair was either worn up, mimicking the trends in Europe, or, more provocatively, left long and full to fall around the face onto the body.5 Cromos helped build the image of modern and Colombian beauty during the tail end of wwi, reaffirming elite station and loyalty to French cultural and national icons. It also stimulated spin-off publications like Tolima, Revista Ilustrada, which in one of its few editions used a photograph of the pretty smiling face and well-proportioned body of Señorita Merceditas Vela on its cover. Tolima editors, like those at Cromos, realized that female beauty sells copy and advertising. Moreover, Merceditas, like other provincial beauties , democratized modern beauty in Colombia. In large established cities the queens selected were elite...