'Clothes make an awful difference in a girl': MIIe. Modiste, Irene and Funny Face as Cinderella fashion musicals
Date
2015
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Publisher
Intellect Journals
Abstract
The world of fashion has been a frequent setting for the many Broadway musicals
inspired by Charles Perrault’s Cinderella (1697). Using two Broadway
musicals and one Hollywood musical as cross-historical case studies, this article
examines how the American musical has variously adapted and interpreted themes
of ‘clothes make the woman’ by posing Cinderella as a shop girl or model in fields of
consumer fashion. The 1905 Victor Herbert/Henry Blossom operetta Mlle. Modiste,
and the 1919 Cinderella musical Irene (by James Montgomery, Harry Tierney
and Joseph McCarthy) both assert the democratizing power of fashion. In Mlle.
Modiste, the resourceful title character uses both her singing talent and her access
to stylish clothing to rise in the world as an opera diva, as well as a viscount’s wife.
Irene emphasizes themes of masquerade and meritocracy, as the eponymous Irish
American shop girl models dresses for couturier ‘Madame Lucy’, fools high society
as a pedigreed lady and marries her Prince Charming. By contrast, the 1957
Paramount movie musical Funny Face problematizes its heroine’s fashion-world
makeover. While Funny Face’s narrative depicts the transformation of Jo Stockton
(Audrey Hepburn), a bookish ‘Greenwich Village Cinderella’, into a glamorous Paris
mannequin, Funny Face’s musical numbers, use strategies of camp and parody to
undercut the concept of ‘The Quality Woman’.
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Article
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Keywords
Cinderella, fashion, femininity, self-invention, American dream, Mlle. Modiste, Irene, Funny Face
Citation
Studies in Musical Theatre Volume 9 Number 1 doi:10.1386/smt.9.1.13_1