The Daily Valdemar No. 14: March 26

Valdemar Andersen in the daily Politiken, July 5, 1908. Scan by Simon Bang.

Today's moment of calm is a piece of delightful scandal.

At May 10, 1908 at the Prix du Prince de Galles at the Longchamp racecourse in Paris three models suddenly crossed the field in gowns never seen before created by Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix. They were not wearing corsets and the gowns had a slit to the knee so that in movement the gowns seemed to be glued to the body. 

This description of the directoire gown was featured everywhere at the time and two months later at the racecourse by Eremitagen, north of Copenhagen a woman took the same stride crossing the field in a directoire gown with slit to the knee that seemed to be glued to her body.

Valdemar Andersen drew his daily scenes from Copenhagen for Politiken as a means for the reader to feel being present at the goings-on of the day while reading in comfort at home and he presents the moment she crossed the masses gathered for the races. She is definitely showing off to the full, but she is freedom too. The plumes of her hat take up one half of the picture plane above the horizon. The hat is pushed behind her head; it is less about her curves than her being a gust of fresh air flowing through the field.

There is plenty of room around her. In spite of the masses of racegoers, she has a plethora of white paper at her disposal with little strokes here and there for grass. Everybody gathers together at a distance, pretending to be too busy to look in her direction despite the fact that her hat is as present as the platforms above the horizontal line. They had all been dressing in their utmost finery to be seen at the races that day and now no one notices their aspirations. The least they can do is to pretend she did not happen.