Ever Present Past: Louise Brooks

Brooks

Hello readers! For my next few blog posts I’m going to be focusing on fashion icons from the 20th Century. This week is about a Hollywood scarlet from the 1920s.

Louise Brooks, born Mary Louise Brooks, was born and raised in Cherryvale, Kansas. It is there that she first fell in love with the books and music her mother had in the house. After a very disturbing and rough childhood, she left for New York in 1922 at the age of 16, and joined a modern dance troupe. It was not to last though, as Brooks was fired in 1924 for what her teacher said was a “snob attitude”. Nonetheless, she landed on her feet and after appearing on Broadway, she attracted the attention of a Paramount Pictures producer and Charlie Chaplin (who she would later have a summer affair with).

She first made a name for herself by acting in silent comedies. Yet due to the independent nature of Louise she later gave the middle finger to Hollywood and moved to Berlin to star in a movie called Pandora’s Box. She played a girl destined for doom, full of sexual energy and passion, in one of the first on-screen portrayals of a lesbian woman.

Brooks was a revolutionary woman. She urged young girls to cut their long Edwardian curls for a short bob and she wore tight corsets, creating a vampy style which she made her own.

She eventually returned to Hollywood and turned down many big rolls claiming, “I hate Hollywood!” Contract troubles with the movie studios became a real problem for Brooks which caused her to become blacklisted. So she moved back to New York and after several failed attempts to open a dance studio, she became a salesgirl at Saks Fifth Avenue and spent a few years as a high-end courtesan to a few wealthy gents. She lived out the rest of her life in retirement and only granted a few interviews in the 70s. Before her death at the age of 78 in 1985, she was a gal known for using swear words like prayer hymns, and going to speakeasy clubs with a female lover on her arm, which gave people quite a shock. All of the controversy of her past makes her seem like a bad ass in the present and a girl I would’ve loved to have known.

Louis Brooks Fashion Statements: Bob haircuts, pearls, wine lipstick colors, black and white tops, and a good feisty attitude.

 



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