Justine De Young, "The Art of Parisian Chic: Modern Women and Modern Artists in Impressionist Paris" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Oct 6, 2025

Dr. Justine De Young, an art historian and professor, dives into the intertwining worlds of fashion and Impressionist art. She discusses how women navigated societal beauty ideals, highlighting five fashionable archetypes like the 'cocotte' and 'Parisienne.' The conversation explores the impact of mass production on fashion democratization, the specialized mourning fashion industry, and the influence of artistic representations, such as Monet’s iconic works. De Young also sheds light on the exclusionary nature of Parisienne ideals and the riveting story of a sensational courtesan murder that shook the city.

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INSIGHT

Don’t Assume Period Dress Equals Fashion

Art historians often assume dresses in 19th-century paintings are fashionable without evidence.
Justine de Young shows period sources (fashion plates, reviews) are needed to read fashion accurately.

INSIGHT

Fashionable Types Shaped Social Judgment

Five fluid, aspirational “types” (cocotte, jeune veuve, Amazon, demoiselle de magasin, Parisienne) structured how Parisians read women.
These types mixed dress, movement, and comportment to signal class, morality, and status.

INSIGHT

Industrialization Democratized Fashion

Mid-19th-century mass production, sewing machines, and department stores democratized fashion.
Women across classes could now access and follow Parisian trends and silhouettes.

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Using artworks by Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others, The Art of Parisian Chic: Modern Women and Modern Artists in Impressionist Paris (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Justine De Young explores how women and artists in Impressionist Paris (1855-1885) crafted their public images to exploit and resist stereotypes.
French societal expectations and beauty ideals shaped how women were seen and how they chose to present themselves in public – whether on the street, in a photograph, or in a portrait on the walls of the annual Paris Salon. On Paris's broad new boulevards and in its public parks and theaters, women dressed to impress anonymous strangers as well as their friends. They even circulated aspirational photographs of themselves. Looking at a rich array of visual sources – from portraits to modern-life paintings, and from photographs to fashion plates – Dr. De Young reveals how women were seen, how they aspired to be seen, and how they navigated public life in Second Empire and Belle Époque Paris.
This book considers how fashionable feminine “types” made famous in books, caricatures, and paintings created a visual lexicon and stylistic guide for women. Men and women alike relied on these types – cocotte (mistress), jeune veuve (young widow), amazone (independent equestrienne), demoiselle de magasin (shopgirl), and Parisienne (chic Parisian woman) – to judge the class, character, morality, and worth of strangers. With a rich set of illustrations from the Impressionist canon and beyond, The Art of Parisian Chic shows how modern women used fashion and these stereotypes to construct and reinvent their identities.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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