Post WWII France (and Paris in particular) was a difficult place to be young and stylish...

Everything was in short supply and nothing was quite right. This is the period just after the liberation, but before Christian Dior's (If you've got it flaunt it) 'New Look' of 1947 and the 'Marshall Plan' of the same year.
In just the same way that they did in England and elsewhere all over Europe, smart young kids had been going up to GIs and 'trading' with them for Levis, Coke, American cut casual clothes, amphetamines and certain items of Military issue uniform that caught the young stylists eyes. This had been going on ever since the liberation. Sometimes this trading was sexual, sometimes not...

In August of 1945 the American Army decided to sell off 4 Million items of Military equipment from Jeeps to Khakis probably because it was cheaper than carting it all back home with them, and the first Army surplus store opened in Paris in 1946. Now everybody could cheaply snap up these exotic imports and they all did.
Olive green & khaki were suddenly everywhere. Socks, undershirts, khaki shirts, sweaters & pullovers sold by the ton. Albert Camus loved the Khaki shirts and was often seen out and about in them...
Then there were Chino shirts, Field jackets, Herringbone fatigue jackets, Green armored-division zipper jackets, US Air Force flight jackets in rich brown leather, the whole shebang.
Duffel coats (although not American) were also huge at this time, as were 'Canadiennes' - really cool, yet warm, button front, mid-thigh length jackets originally made from goat-skin but soon available in corduroy, moleskin, gabardine, even "fur-lined suede adorned with collars of Golden Fleece" by '48.
All of this stuff fed into the cafes, bars and clubs of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, especially the 'Tabou' club in '47.

Pre-Tabou in Saint-Germain people went to Les Duex Magots, the Cafe de Flore & the Bar Vert. '47 onwards everybody was down Tabou and its other cellar-club imitators (Lorientais & the Mephisto, then later the Saint-Germain-des-Pres club, the Vieux-Colombier & the Rose Rouge). Tabou opened in April of '47 and by May it was in the papers & the term 'Existentialists' was being used to describe the mix of fashionable people down the clubs by the press. The club waxed & waned and by August '47 it had peaked with the originators moving on and leaving the scene to the new-comers who had read all about it in the papers. Even the old Army surplus look was left behind soon after everybody else started wearing it.

And so at this point the well known 'Existentialist Look' (forunner to the 'Beat' & 'Beatnik' looks) was born in the cellars of Saint-Germain. Everything that Fred & Audrey had such fun with in 'Funny Face' kicks in now. April in Paris of '47 was checked shirts & Army gear mixed in with U.S. 'Bobby-Soxer' style - Sneakers, crew cuts, Bing & Mr. Sinatra along with a lot of American Jazz. August of '47 that whole look was now a cliche and the smart kids had moved on to Black jeans, ski-pants, black shirts, black or Navy blue heavy guage sweaters with zips at the neck and the black polo-neck sweater - the most 'Existentialist' wardrobe item of all! The only thing the same was the Jazz.

This look in turn would become a cliche and would be dropped but it was cool for a while back in the day and remains an iconic style of dress today summing up that whole world of sunglasses indoors at midnight in smokey cellar Jazz clubs. Hip.

Why is this interesting? Well maybe it isn't. It's very Modernist though... Modern Jazz, GIs, American import clothes, a club scene, the originators of the styles forever moving on as soon as others had caught up with them, restless post-war youth, etc. All the cliches are there to be seen. Later on in '62 the descendants of these Paris stylists would be spearheading the 'Minet' style. Another manifestation of the same phenomenon.

(As with the 'Les Minets' thread the outline here is from Farid Chenoune's 'History of Men's Fashion' fleshed out by conversations with M. Jean Reuben, Paris - To whom many thanks.)

Last edited by Terry Lean (2006-11-16 03:46:48)