There was A Time in Paris, during the latter part of the last century, when a gentleman could go to a dance hall, get swacked on overpriced nonvintage champagne and see a chorus of very sexy femmes kicking their legs about to show off their undergarments. Now, thanks to the noted English photographer James Wedge, we can take a peek at that era when "color" photographs were hand-tinted--like these.
All in all, dance-hall girls had a pretty easy time of it. They had the luxury of lolling around in their underwear until show time, and were able to enjoy the extravagant effects of absinthe without, seemingly, enduring harmful side effects. These demimondaines were the charming focus of a time dedicated to frivolity. They were the ones who kept a generation jumping with their all-night wiggle.
Some dance-hall girls even enjoyed royal patronage. Like other young women, they hoped for the day their prince would come. Some of them were lucky enough to help a Prince of Wales come. They knew how to make their rich friends forget a hard day of policy making and laissez-faire capitalism. Toulouse-Lautrec, for all his shortcomings, understood very well that dance-hall demoiselles grabbed all the gusto they could, and got away with it.
