Why We All Love a Quirky Girl

Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven had a life as rich as her name was long. She became the belle of New York’s bohemian scene in the early 1900s, donning feather crowns and bras made of tomato cans, making incredible art and befriending cutting-edge Dadaists like Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Then, she kind of faded into history as the Zelda Fitzgerald of the Dada scene; the text books were content to let an untimely death and wild persona eclipse her revolutionary place in the art world. You see, Elsa was not only doing Dada before Dada began, but she was the real brains behind what is largely considered to be the 20th century’s greatest artwork: Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 urinal sculpture. So how did her legacy spiral out of control, and into near oblivion? 

The truth is, surrealist art was a man’s world. Its founder, André Breton was an unrepentant misogynist who believed women could not hold a central position in art. Dali too, could be patronising of his fellow female surrealists. When asked about our favourite bohemian queen of Paris, Leonor Fini, he said of her work, “Better than most, perhaps. But talent is in the balls”. So it should come as no surprise really, that it’s taken us this long to discover Maruja Mallo, one of the leading contributors to the Spanish Surrealist movement who was just as fascinating as her friend and fellow Spaniard, Salvador Dali. www.messynessychic.com/2018/10/05/we-found-dalis-long-lost-surrealist-soulmate

The antics of those with blue blood don’t shock us, in fact we covet their blatant flaunting of taboos and we (albeit secretly and with much envy) gag at what seems like their infinite potential and unlimited opportunities for fornication, frolicking and cavorting. Having said that, within the ranks of nobility there are those who are heads and shoulders above the rest when it comes to outlandish behaviour – and quirkiness of ancestry for that matter. The wildly unorthodox life experiences of Baroness Vita Sackville-West, prolific lesbian and bisexual lover, mother of two, diplomat’s wife, bestselling novelist of over 35 books, poet, newspaper columnist, letter writer, diarist and passionate garden designer, are the ultimate case in point.

Not-so-fun fact: Until January 31st of 2013, it was illegal for women in France to wear trousers. It made headlines at the time when a 200 year-old law requiring women to ask police for special permission to “dress as men” or else risk being taken into custody, was finally revoked. The law had been kept in place since 1799, despite repeated attempts to repeal it, in part because officials said the unenforced rule was not a priority, and part of French “legal archaeology.” In a nutshell, lawmakers simply forgot the law still existed on the books. While comically absurd, this is a poignant reminder of the many liberties we take for granted today in Western society. While modern freedoms offer women a variety of sartorial choices, we forget that something so simple as the right to wear trousers was one of the most debated subjects of the women’s rights movement. Let’s step into the trousers of the women who have paved the way for us…

In 1934, a young woman stepped off the train in Los Angeles’ Union Station. Even in a city swarming with beauties, eyes would’ve fastened on her. She was astonishingly lovely — tall and lithe, with dark glossy hair she wore pulled back in a style that offset her porcelain skin and blue eyes. Everyone who saw her that day thought she was white. She wasn’t. They’d think she was just another aspiring starlet. She wasn’t that either. Her name was Fredi Washington and she descended on Hollywood with a burning mission: to redefine white America’s image of African American women.

Every family has its black sheep. For the Bonaparte clan, it was Napoleon’s great grandniece, Princess Marie (1882-1962). She was not only a pioneer of psychoanalysis who actually saved Freud from the Nazis, but a staunch advocate for women’s sex research on some pretty taboo topics. You see, she was on a war path — a family trait, perhaps — to unlock the secrets of the vaginal orgasm.

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Every so often, an original is born; timeless, defying genre and completely of themself. Vali Myers, artist, dancer, environmentalist, bohemian and muse, was as original as they come, inspiring writers, artists and musicians from the streets of a post Second World War Paris to her bohemian coven in the wild canyons above Positano. Forming friendships with the avant-garde from Dali to Patti Smith, it seems that everyone who met Vali was captivated by the elfin-faced, flame-haired maverick known as the “witch of Positano”.

In 1912, Aida Overton Walker stood at the top of the stairs at the Victoria Theater about to make her entrance as the titular role in the play Salomé. By then, the Salomé craze was mostly over, but the role still had plenty of allure. At a time when women had few rights and little power – and when leading roles were mostly virginal damsels in distress – the Biblical temptress provided an exotic guise that gave actresses the license to be dangerous, sexy, commanding. Every actress worth her salt had given Salomé a whirl and Walker had done so herself three years previously, but never before at a predominantly white theater in New York…

Can you believe it?!