Clip "Show" ...

One of the things about watching all these pre-code films I've been enjoying is of course the costume design - and the fashion. Not the same thing, as one has more pointed aim in storytelling than the other tends to consciously have for most people. But, of course, I am not most people. I see Tallulah Bankhead wearing an ensemble sewn to resemble white satin blouse peeking from under a simply showstopping black satin dress - just as her character is about to have her goodness and conscience fight to emerge from her darkest impulses, and I see a lot more than an arbitrary choice.

I also see all those beautiful low-backed, bias-cut hand stitched dresses, and notice their unsubtly sexual decor.

Dress clips were a vintage type of jewelry I’ve always found pretty, but never seem to have thought about very much, but watching these old movies, made with an eye to titillate, I've started to notice what a signpost an inch and a half of rhinestones - shaped roughly like an arrow - and pointing at a lady's posterior really is.

The thing is, the presentation is almost invariably hopelessly elegant, to the modern eye.  But in 1932, these fashions were outsandingly pointed - and quite literally so.  "LOOK AT MY CURVES" these little pieces of jewelry say quite clearly - and they do one the favor of directing a viewer unambiguously which curve to focus on.  Oh my goodness!

And it didn't die in the 1930s, not by a long shot.  In the 80s we still had "butt bows" on prom and wedding party dresses, there to "add interest" to the back of a dress (for weddings, this was ostensibly because the whole party would be walking down the aisle, and thus backs to all in attendance) - and we hated them then, and we revile them now.  But we certainly had them.  And peplums - often with a similarly pointed shape.

In the 1950s, we had Rosemary Clooney (not a minor sex symbol, in this particular number) encased in yards of black velvet, Edith Head's famous giant rhinestone brooch guiding the dorsal gaze.

If the cut of this showstopper weren't exaggerated enough, and if the sculpted backline and neckline were just too subtle for some, that set of sparklers iced the cake.  So to speak.


It's hardly a new thing - the bustle was an extreme example of posterior fashion afflictions.  But just because the dress clip is smaller by a factor of several dozen doesn't make it any subtler.  It was an ARROW for heaven's sake!  "What you are looking for is:  here."  Oh my.

The other way to wear dress clips?  In pairs, at a slightly higher altitude, and framing, or pointing toward another set of erotic features.

We all learn, by a certain point, that our generation didn't invent sex.  But most of us have a tough time thinking of any generations within our reach - much less any PEOPLE we might know of - actually engaging.  It's okay to consider the Victorians a scandalous bunch, with their buttoned up shirtfronts and abundance of prostitution - or the ancients - or name your mistress-keeping monarchs.  But grandma?  Saints forfend.

But check her jewelry box, the one you put away after she died.

And try not to remember what I just told you about neon signs pointing arrows toward her derriere ...