Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593) milan-born Italian painter, famous for his
garish portraits showing heads made of fruit and vegetables.
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) major French novelist and short-story writer,
author of the Comédie humaine, a realist cycle of novels on human society
renowned for their social and individual descriptions. also a hack and
journalist, this keen observer of humans wrote anonymous physiologies,
some of which covered fashion and clothing. Barthes’s 1970 essay S/Z
was an avant-garde reading of one of Balzac’s more gothic short stories,
Sarrasine.
Jules Barbey d’Aurévilly (1808–1889) French novelist and journalist, a right-
wing and anti-democratic dandy, whose sadistic and transgressive writings
were in contrast to his Catholicism. Wrote an important essay on dandyism
and Beau Brummell (Complete Works vol II).
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) notorious French romantic poet and art
critic, who wrote on the dandy, on women and their clothing, and on
make-up.
Fernand Braudel (1902–1985) French historian of the Annales school, who
wrote on the mediterranean and on the emergence of capitalism using the
longue durée theory inspired by Lucien Febvre and marc Bloch, and also
wrote on material culture.
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) British historian, essayist and novelist, famous
in fashion studies for his curious novel Sartor Resartus. The Life and
Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh (1841).
Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel (1883–1971) World-famous French clothes and
fashion designer, renowned for her classic and traditional styles for women,
who worked with Cocteau, Diaghilev and Stravinsky, and was a friend of
Paul morand. Compromised by her relations with the nazi occupiers of
France during the Second World War, Chanel returned to fashion fame after
the war, and resumed her Parisian lifestyle.
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) avant-garde French poet, novelist, playwright,
film-maker, painter and illustrator, who drew for Chanel and wrote on
fashion: what he called this ‘stunning epidemic’. See the recent number of
Cahiers Jean Cocteau (no. 3, 2004), on Cocteau and fashion.
Glossary of Names