Le Vrai et le Faux Chic, Musée des Erreurs, Page 16

Sixteenth page of illustrated section, "Musée des Erreurs" (Museum of Errors), of book with color lithography illustrations, titled "Le Vrai & le Faux Chic" (The True and False Chic), written and illustrated by SEM [Georges Goursat], and published in Paris in 1914. The page contains illustrations of two full-body female figures, one wearing a tan coat and matching Hobble skirt, gray fur scarf and muff, large, purple hat with black and gray feathers, white gloves, and gray high heels, and the second wearing a light blue dress with a white, ruffled shirt, green hat with black feathers and matching clutch bag, a black-and-brown fur scarf with animal head around her neck, and black heels and cane. Two additional female heads make up the illustration: one, roughly sketched, predents a side-angled female face covered with a large hat with scrolling feathers on the forehead; the other presents a three-quarter view of a female with a large, tilted, black hat that covers one of her eyes and a brown fur scarf around her neck.

The set of illustrations titled "Musée des Erreurs" (Museum of Errors) provides a number of examples of the "false chic" that SEM criticizes, through caricature in both the written commentary and the illustrations, in his book, which consists of a title page, 2 leaves with advertisements, 40 pages text and illustrations (17 pages compose the illustrated section "Musée des Erreurs"), and 2 leaves with advertisements, not bound and kept in a blue slip case with the original white paper covers, embossed and gilded. SEM argues that disorder that reigns the fashion industry of the time. Fashion, he argues, is no longer reserved for specialists, and appeals for the collaboration of painters, artists and writers alike. It is an "eminently French" phenomenon, which lives especially in Paris, although it has become a sort of vice by the time he writes: fashion has become disorganized and ever-changing due to the influence of a group of people who lack discipline and control. This has led to a number of extravagances that reflect on the irrational choices in the costumes and headdresses of women and the complicated and excessive outfits worn by Parisian women.