2,500 Dolmans fantaisie, brodés toutes nuances, à 17F.
1,000 Robes fantaisie, modèles nouveaux, à 39F.
Tous les Costumes et Confections sur mesure au même prix.
Les Magasins sont ouverts les Dimanches et jours de Fêtes.
A LA MAGICIENNE 129, RUE MONTMARTRE.
An ingenious method of obtaining notoriety, and one which has paid pretty well recently over some theatrical matters in this country, is to fall foul of the official censor. The announcement that “la Censure a interdit ‘Palotte’ dans les gares” has caused “Palotte,” a rather dirty novel, to be an immense success. Why it should be forbidden in the railway stations, and allowed everywhere else, we are not sufficiently behind the scenes to say.
We have now glanced hastily at the leading aspects of French advertising, and after remarking that Galignani and the Gazette des Etrangers are the great mediums for English and American advertisements in Paris, that a certain American manager who has a theatre in London advertises it and his angular histrionic wonder regularly in the former, and that the principal advertising contractors of Paris have made vast fortunes, we get fairly back to our original remark, that the whole system of advertising in Paris is characteristic of the Parisians—a strange mixture of neatness, effect, frivolity, and childishness. Who shall deny that these four words suit the character of the great mass of the people? The fact that the authorities reserve to themselves the white affiche is characteristic to a degree of French Governments, and the savage attack which the French journals made upon the letters of apartments, because their poor little notices “Chambre à louer” were exempted from the ten-centimes tax, was a fair specimen of the frivolous and vexatious spirit which animates the children of la Grande Nation. For their neatness they are proverbial; and any one walking through the streets of Paris cannot fail to notice the admirable order in which the various stations are kept. No rain-soaked bills peeling off, no mud-plashed announcements of pieces which have been withdrawn for weeks—all is neat and fresh, and corrected to date. The gay colours of the posters, the many-tinted sides of the kiosques, the illuminated “spectacle” columns, the gilt-lettered balconies, the quaint gas devices, and the thousand-and-one pretty and ingenious ideas which are pressed into the service of the modern goddess Publicity, are all items in one lovely and harmonious whole, the most beautiful and the best-arranged city of modern times, Paris. We can teach France many things, probably she can teach us one certainly—which is, that art, even genius, may be successfully applied to such a very small pursuit as that of advertising.
The consideration of réclames, which are now regarded as so essentially French, has reminded us, not alone that they were fashionable, though under a humbler name, in this country many, many years ago, as we have already shown, but that they are again coming into fashion. But the “puff-pars” of old England—which may fairly be represented by those which emanated from the establishment of Rowland, the Kalydor man, in his palmy days of advertising—were always clumsy when compared with those réclames we have been studying, it being impossible, apparently, to make a British advertiser understand that an advertisement is more valuable in proportion as it looks less like what it really is. The cloven foot always shows forth under the wrapper of fine words; and when we say this, we do not refer to the paragraphs written in odonto or ointment establishments by young men at a pound a week, who are bound to put so many hard words in a line, and keep their productions within the compass of so many lines, whether syntax is agreeable or not; but to the friendly and more able notices which now and again find their way into some daily and weekly papers. The réclame, in its best form, is a highly-cultivated flower—an exotic, in fact—and is at present a little over the heads of the advertising public, who like to see plenty for money.
One paragraph which approaches much nearer the true réclame than most attempts, we stumbled across the other day. It is an attempt to convey to a wondering world how Perry Davis’s Pain Killer came to be used both internally and externally. By it we find that much internal discomfiture had been destroyed by the specific, when one day, in conducting some scientific exploration, its patentee became sadly burned. In his agony he threw the contents of the nearest bottle—which happened to contain Pain Killer—over the injured parts, and as much to his surprise as satisfaction, he became in a short time perfectly cured. Of a rather more ambitious kind is an attempt made by Messrs Piesse and Lubin in the same direction. It is quite unique, and deserves a place here. At all events we came upon it in a fashionable morning paper, and read some little way before noticing that we were deep in an advertisement:—
On Tuesday evening Countess Wallflower resumed her usual assemblies after the recess, at her residence in the Laboratory of Flowers. Among the members of the diplomatic corps present were the Ambassadors from the principal Gardens of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, Muskrosa Bey, from the Hanging Garden of Persia, Mdlles. Muskrosabud, Otto Rose, Ambassador from the Balkan and Adrionople Flower Farms, the Countess Hoya Bella, Madame Mignionette, Magnolia Fulgans, the Florida Ambassador, the Countess Flagrant Orchids, the Italian Minister, the Countess Bergamotte, Mdlle. Neroli the Mexican Minister and the Marchioness de Vanille, the Brazilian Minister and the Odorous Opoponax. The general circle comprised, among others, the Princesses Jessamine, Violet, Tuberose, the Viscount Stephanotis, and the Marchioness of May Blossom. Previous to the assembly the Countess and the Right Hon. Sir Scented Stock received at dinner the Duke of Frangipanni and a select party. The company separated by midnight, and rose in the morning more fragrant than ever.