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La folie du jour
Banana's dance
The famous Josephine Baker’s Banana’s dance consecrated her representation : a wild and sensual African woman.
It was the summer of 1926 at the Folies Bergère in Paris. Hordes of white Parisians flocked to the famed theater to see La Revue Nègre, a musical show that emerged from France due to the country’s fascination with jazz culture. And there, wearing little more than strings of pearls, wrist cuffs, and a skirt made of 16 rubber bananas, Josephine Baker descended from a palm tree onstage, and began to dance. This dance—the danse sauvage—is what established her as the biggest black female star in the world. She became an overnight sensation: Thousands of dolls in banana skirts were sold all over Europe; beauty editors advised women to rub walnut oil on their faces to darken their skin like Baker’s; postcards, featuring Baker with a glossy, slicked-down hairstyle in her famous banana skirt with jewelry strategically placed over naked breasts, were widely distributed.
©Gaumont Pathe Archives, Actuality Pathé’s collection
Source: Vogue
