Musical Fashions for Women

 

My collection of antique photos of musicians
usually focuses on musical instruments and ensembles.
But I'm equally fascinated by the diversity of costumes and uniforms
that entertainers of the past wore when performing.

Back in the olden days,
concert dress for men generally meant
a military style uniform or a variation of a black suit
which has seen very few changes over time.
A gentleman violinist from 1899
wearing a formal white tie and tailcoat
would have no trouble matching the dress code
of a modern symphony orchestra in the 21st century.

Women, however, have always been more accustomed than men
to following fashion trends and back in earlier times,
women got to chose their concert apparel
from a much larger wardrobe.
Though they never wore regulation military attire
female musicians regularly appeared in a wide variety
of uniforms, costumes, and fancy dress.   

Today I present portraits of four female musical artists
dressed in exotic finery that made them
the center of attention at any concert.

 

My first model is a young violinist and trumpeter dressed in a traditional national costume that is actually not her own, She wears a Scottish tartan dress that is too long to be a a kilt; an enormous tam o'shanter bonnet topped with a tall feather; and a rather pathetic sporran, the "handbag" accessory worn by a Scotsman over his kilt. 

Her fashion may be Scottish but she is actually German. Her postcard was sent from Dresden on 3 April 1916 though I feel sure it was printed several years before that. Her picture has no caption but I recognized the tartan motif because for many years I've been collecting  postcards of her orchestra.

She was a member for the Janietz Elite Damen Blas Orchester which I featured on my blog in 2012. In this colorized postcard we can see 17 musicians in the Orchester or band, 10 women and 7 men, and all the women wear an identical outfit. The men, however, are in black tie formal suits. Standing center is the leader, Robert Janietz, who founded the group. They are an unusually large group with a plethora of brass instruments including saxophones, French horns, and crisscrossing the front of the band, four long straight trumpets with valves. 

I believe the postcard of the violinist is one of his daughters, but I'm not certain if she is in this picture. Maybe the woman standing left with the tenor horn? This postcard has a postmark of  15 October 1912. 

I think she is definitely in this next image of the Janietz Elite Damen Blas Orchester, seated left of Herr Janietz, a likely place for a talented daughter. There are 20 musicians here, 12 being women, again dressed in a kind of Scottish style tartan. There is no postmark for this card but Herr Janietz looks much older without his toupee, so I believe this was taken just before WW1, maybe 1914 or 1915. 

In other postcards the Janietz ensemble shows off more string instruments which demonstrated they could cover all kinds of music. But the flashy number of wind instruments suggests they preferred a big brass sound, as Janietz himself holds a trumpet. Why the women of the Janietz band chose a Scottish fashion is a mystery. Despite displaying a wide variety of instruments there is no set of bagpipes.  

As much as I love the quality of sepia tone images,
there are times when I wish I could see them in real color.
So for this post I took advantage of new software advances
in digital imagery and artificial intelligence
and colorized my postcard of the Janietz Scottish-German violinist. 
Maybe it's not as good as the illustrators of the Leipzig publisher could do 

but it's decent enough to give a sense of what her tartan really looked like.

* * *

My next model is another young violinist dressed in an exotic costume with wide sleeves, a flowery dress, a brimless cap with embroidery, and lots and lots of beaded necklaces. I interpret this as either a Gypsy style or possibly a Hungarian/Slovak/Romanian folk costume. She is only identified by a word stamped on one corner,  OZITA, which fits a number of different languages. I don't think it is a place name, so I believe it is the violinist's name. This is likely a promotional postcard for a strolling Gypsy violinist who was featured at some restaurant or beer garden.

The back has a message and date of 1 April 1910. The stamp is from Bayern or Bavaria. 

My colorizing of Ozita isn't quite right I think, as her dress is too dark
and probably had more green, red and yellow in the fabric.
But I like how her costume looks similar to
a folk musician's garb of the 1970s and 80s.

* * *

My next fashion model is a real puzzle as she looks into the camera lens with a hint of a smile. She seems to ask, "Do you know who I am?" Unfortunately there are very few clues. This young cornet player is dressed in white trousers and riding boots and sporting a tight velvet or satin jacket covered in beautiful oriental embroidery. The lower pattern is definitely part of a dragon. On her head is a kind of deflated turban which I suppose is connected to the Far East style of her outfit. She stands outside a natural area with trees overhanging water which adds to the mystery. 

Her postcard was never mailed and the back has only the printed correspondence/address divisions typical of a  North American card from 1907 to 1917. The oriental embroidery is unusual and may be a clue to dating her photo. Foreign patterns and designs like that often became popular after appearing in exhibits at a world's fair. It's possible that she was a member of a women's band performing at some Chinese or Japanese pavilion that was part of an international exposition. But her masculine cavalry trousers seems a bit daring for that and my guess is that she played in a circus troupe. Her gaze is probably directed toward her horse, tethered behind the photographer.

Her photo was the first one I tried colorizing
and because the process improved her image so much
I was inspired to use it on the other women's photos.

* * *

My final fashion model is trompeter, Kätie Iboldt, who was the director and bandmaster of the Damenorchesters – women's orchestra "Diana". In this postcard she wears a smart woolen hunting outfit while she rests atop the rail of a fake rustic fence in a photographer's studio. It's a fine portrait of woman who was obviously a star entertainer.

But in this second postcard, Kätie Iboldt, has the same rotary valve trumpet but wears a very different frock that looks very unsuitable for hunting. The effect is mimicking a folk costume like Ozita's, complete with blousy sleeves and flashy beaded necklaces. She wears a soft hat, maybe of velvet and vest/jacket is tied around her waist in a huge bow. It's odd that her hemline is so short and her boots so tall, almost like a lumberjack's. 

This card was sent on 24 September 1910 from Volklingen, Germany a town in the district of Saarbrücken, in Saarland, Germany, just south of Luxembourg. Today Volklingen is near the border of France but in 1910 it was near the region of Alsace–Lorraine, which was then part of the German Empire. 

Like Fräulein Janietz, Kätie Iboldt came from a musical family. She was the lead trumpet player in the Damen-Trompeter-Corps "Diana" directed by her father, Herr O. Ibolt. (The old German typeface uses a character for the letter I that looks like a modern J.)  In this postcard of the 10 piece Diana brass band, there are six women and four men, including Herr Ibolt. The women are all dressed similarly in a folk style costume with big bows and soft hats. Kätie sits to the left of her father and is the only one with beads. 

I finish with Kätie Iboldt's costume
transformed into vivid color. 
Her folk costume came out very nicely
and accentuates how her bow, beads, and hat
must have swayed as she played her trumpet. 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where all the hip people meet every weekend.