Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Louise Brooks

Ah, the beautiful, gutsy Miss Louise Brooks. Dancer, model, showgirl, actress, writer. I must admit that I went through a brief period of obsession over her. How could you not? Even if you don't know her by name, once you see her face, you will recognize her. The trademark angled Dutch bob that became an iconic image of the era. The black black eyes. She's magnetic.



I promise not to go on and on about her life. She was a Ziegfeld girl, a celebrated starlet, a gifted actress. She rebelled against the Hollywood studios and went to Europe to make movies. If you like silent movies, take a couple of hours to see Pandora's Box. She completely steals the movie as the erotically-charged Lulu. When she returned to the states and turned down major roles because she was too in love to work, the studios punished her by only giving her supporting roles in bad movies. She'd only appeared in twenty-four films before she left the movie business. Her strong will and her rebellion proved too much for the movies of the time.



She married, divorced, had affairs, travelled the world, and lived long enough to write about, not only her unusual life, but Hollywood and the movies. To fall back on an over-used phrase, she was a woman born well before her time. And she's still present in our popular culture today. Like I said, you may not know her name, but you will recognize her face.



I made the pendant above as a tribute, and it features a photo taken for a pin up magazine in the 1920's, early in her career. Louise is doing a fan dance, of course. I used crystal laquer to set the picture in a gold bezel, and added a delicate gold filigree pendant that would peek out when the pendant moved. The picture is fantastic, and the pendant is for sale in my etsy shop. The pendant below is an image from a Hollywood headshot. Such a face. This one is staying in MAB's jewelry treasure box.







For more on Miss Louise Brooks:

http://www.pandorasbox.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Brooks

Daisy Buchanan and the Jazz Age dream

I first read The Great Gatsby when I was ten. My mom had all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books, and I thought that Gatsby was the greatest book ever. Now, however many years later, I have to say that I was pretty accurate for a ten-year-old. I have this yearly ritual which involves reading Gatsby every summer. I once took a summer seminar on Fitzgerald. I wrote three papers on Gatsby in college. Yet, when I read it, the book still holds magic for me.

Daisy Buchanan falls into a category in the academic literary world that is known as "an impossible she." You can chase and chase, base your entire life around her, live and fight and die for her, but she can never be possessed. The way Fitzgerald describes her is so hazy and vague. He never gives her a full physical description, so the reader never know what she really looks like. It's an integral part of her magic. She's like a gold dust mirage, a diamond ghost.

The line that always pops into my head when I think of Daisy Buchanan is this one: "Her voice was like money." Yes. That's really all you need to know right there. She is wealth, richness, not even human. Even though she ends up being the true villain in the book, Fitzgerald draws her in a way so that, like Gatsby, you can't help but utterly love her. She is what she is, a terrible driver, a woman who is reckless and careless with the emotions and lives of others, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She's a complicated contradiction, like so many of us women inherently are.

Fitzgerald based Daisy on a girl he lost after a youthful romance, but, when I read the book, I always think of his wife Zelda--artist, writer, and, like Fitzgerald himself, doomed. One of the original flappers, with the pearls dissolving in champagne, the drop-waisted dress, and the bob, she burned to death in a mental institution. Too tragic to think about for too long.

The necklace at the top of the post is titled Zelda. With its pearliness, its sparkle and its twenties sensibilities, I know Zelda in her Jazz Age heyday would have loved it. Daisy might have, but only if someone else bought it for her.

Link to Wikipedia's entry on The Great Gatsby:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Buchanan