The Great War is dragging on. As the festive season approaches, Brighton is doing her best to show her support for Britain’s French Allies. On 16 December 1915, the Brighton and Hove and South Sussex Graphic certainly gave France pride of place.
In the newspaper, a journalist simply called Aigrette pens a splendid article about Madame Adolphe and her French ladies’ tailors in Preston Street. At this emporium “the reducing pencil has been hard at work and lovely bargains are on sale”. Aigrette is mightily impressed by one outfit: “a triumph of fashionable elegance.”
Alas, to our, fortunately, greater sensitivity to these matters in the 21st century, the cloth is shockingly described as “tête de nègre velour cloth of beautiful supple quality.” It is unlikely that in 2023 any fabric would be compared to a black person’s hair, however supple it may be.
French Brighton 