A new version of the “tag yourself” meme that features the ladies of the House of Worth perfectly expresses our quarantine moods.
Put together by novelist Natania Barron, who credits fellow novelist Lauren Scribe for the inspiration, the meme involves six fashion plate ladies from the annals of French couturier House of Worth. The Gucci of its day, House of Worth is the grandfather of high fashion, out of reach for everyone but the aristocracy and hyper-wealthy. A fashion plate, meanwhile, was the precursor to widespread and easily reproduced photography for catalogs and magazines—drawings of fictional supermodels like the Gibson Girl designed to showcase the clothing.
Natania has given these pictoral women dryly incorrigible personalities, all starting to crack under the stress of Covid-19. From Imogen drinking wine in a teacup and slightly relieved not to have to go out anymore, levelling up to Fey drinking spirits in a goblet wearing a party dress she hasn’t changed out of in months, all the way to Maud hiding knives in her corset, there’s truly a Worth Lady for everyone.
So who’s your House of Worth Lady? Are you walking about in your underwear, practically married to your cat-who-is-actually-a-possum like Fannie? Maybe you’re singing to birds out the window, tight on absinthe while full of existential dread like Clarissa? Or maybe you predicted this whole thing, riding it out with your hip flask and emergency supplies like Euphronia?
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