How a Taste for Chinoiserie Got Josephine Baker to Paris

Earlier this year I posted a couple of times on Josephine Baker, the great St. Louis-born dancer who went to Paris in 1925 and became a sensation. I noted that she did use, and seemed to enjoy, some Indo-Chinoiserie motifs and songs as well having previously sung a couple of Broadway Oriental Chinois-style numbers in the hit show Shuffle Along (singing Oriental Blues).

However, it seems though that it just might have been a taste for Chinoiserie that got Josephine to Paris in the first place. According to Judith Mackrell’s new book Flappers: Women of a Dangerous Generation (which, incidentally, has Josephine on the cover) Josephine was first enticed to Paris from America by Caroline Dudley, a well connected American in Paris who thought she would be just perfect for Paris’s 1920s cabarets. Josephine dithered – it was a big step, a major leap into the unknown and away from America. She was working at the Plantation Club in New York, making OK money, building a career. What the hell was France!! One night Caroline Dudley turned up at the Plantation to try and persuade Josephine one last time to take the job in Paris. That night Dudley happened to be wearing a “Chinese style coat, richly embroidered with gold thread.” Baker loved it and asked Dudley if she would give it to her. Dudley seized her chance, handed over the Chinoiserie coat and Josephine agreed to go to Paris!

You can get just Josephine’s story as a kindle edition too – here