Personal Style
Cunard’s style informed by her devotion to the artifacts of African culture was startlingly unconventional. The large-scale jewelry she favored, crafted of wood, bone and ivory, the natural materials used by native crafts people, was provocative and controversial. The bangles she wore on both arms snaking from wrist to elbow were considered outré adornments, which provoked media attention, visually compelling subject matter for photographers of the day. She was often photographed wearing her collection, those of African inspiration and neckpieces of wooden cubes, which paid homage to the concepts of Cubism. At first considered the bohemian affectation of an eccentric heiress, the fashion world came to legitimize this style as avant-garde, dubbing it the "barbaric look." Prestigious jewelry houses such as Boucheron created their own African-inspired cuff of gold beads, and eschewing costly gemstones incorporated into the finished creation green malachite and a striking purple mineral, purpurite. They exhibited this high-end piece at the Exposition Coloniale in 1931.
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Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or style:
“I believe that the highest virtue is to be happy, living in the greatest truth, not submitting to the falsehood of these personal times.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body—both go together, they can’t be separated.”
—Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930)