La Mode à la Girafe

There was a time, not so very long ago, when the average person had never seen lions, zebras, alligators, or elephants in person. Prior to the development of photography, there were only sketches of these exotic creatures available.

Such was Paris at the end of the 18th century. A zoo had been established at the Jardin des Plantes, partly as a result of having to dispense of the royal menagerie after the French Revolution. Many of its animals were donated. Some, including a pair of elephants, were spoils of military victories. The public loved them. However, nothing enthralled them more than the arrival, in 1827, of la girafe.

The story of how she made her way to Paris is the stuff of legends. She walked the final 500+ miles, wearing a two piece yellow rain jacket and followed by three milk cows which supplied her daily nutritional needs. Ten’s of thousands of France’s citizenry flocked to the roads to watch her progress. La girafe was a national sensation. If the internet had existed, she would have blown it up.

Within months, there were giraffes everywhere. They were painted onto decorative items. . .

. . .and printed onto textiles.

Women piled their hair into “horns”. . .

. . .and wore fashion’s favorite color of the year – “giraffe under belly”.

Even the giraffe’s saggy knees were romanticized, as sleeves gained “poofs” at the elbow in imitation of their strange appearance.

Not surprisingly, dolls were also adorned in à la girafe fashion. Many had their hair pinned up to mimic the stylish ladies of the time. Even The Great Man’s Doll, commissioned as inspiration for Deruchette, the heroine in his novel Toilers of the Sea, sported lovely à la girafe braids (in keeping with the setting for the story, which was just following the Napoleonic Wars).

La girafe resided peacefully in the Paris zoo until her death, seventeen years later. But her impact on the world’s imagination will live on forever.