Hi, it's been a while since I last published anything: as you may remember, in the past I wanted to create some posts about famous women of the past who influenced fashion, or who were in some way a symbol of it. I'd love to turn this into a proper series; so far I've written about the Countess of Castiglione and Madame Lucile, and today I'm picking up again with another figure who may not be familiar to everyone: Cléo de Mérode.
In the glittering Paris of the Belle Époque, Cléo de Mérode was one of those rare women capable of capturing the collective imagination of her time. A dancer at the Paris Opéra, muse to celebrated artists, a style icon before the term even existed. Her face appeared everywhere: postcards, illustrated magazines, collectible photographs, even dolls inspired by her likeness.
Born in Paris on 27 September 1875 as Cléopâtre-Diane de Mérode, daughter of the Austrian baroness Vincentia de Mérode, she began studying dance as a child and entered the Paris Opéra school at the very young age of seven. Her delicate beauty immediately caught the public's attention, but it was at sixteen that she adopted the hairstyle that made her unmistakable: hair covering the ears, low chignon, often adorned with metallic bands. Women all over Paris soon began to imitate her, and the newspapers quickly dubbed the style the "coiffure à la Cléo."
Curiously, that same hairstyle also fuelled one of the era's most bizarre obsessions: Cléo's ears, always hidden beneath her hair, became the subject of endless speculation in the press. Did she have them? Were they deformed? Historian Michael Garval describes a veritable "orgy of misinformation" surrounding this seemingly insignificant detail.
Still according to Garval, at the height of her fame Cléo de Mérode was probably the most photographed woman in the world. She herself recounted this in her memoirs: photographs taken in the studios of the best Parisian photographers - Benque, Auguet, Reutlinger, Manuel, among many others - were copied and reproduced on an endless number of postcards that circulated around the globe. "In shop windows, my photo appeared alongside those of Edward VII and Wilhelm II," she wrote. When she performed abroad, the racks at newsstands and railway bookshops were filled with postcards bearing her face. A phenomenon she herself described as an obsession. (Source: Michael Garval, "Cléo de Mérode's Postcard Stardom," Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, vol. 7, no. 1, Spring 2008)
Garval describes Cléo de Mérode as a true "missing link" between the celebrities of the fin-de-siècle and the first film stars: at a historical moment when cinema had already been invented but movie stars did not yet exist, it was she who inaugurated a new model of global fame based on beauty. It is no coincidence that some scholars consider her the first modern icon in the fullest sense of the term: a title that, looking at her photographs, is hard to dispute.
As often happens with female figures of the Belle Époque, her fame was also accompanied by scandals and gossip. In the 1890s, rumours began to circulate about an alleged relationship with King Leopold II of Belgium: she was in her twenties, he was in his sixties and the father of four children. The satirical press nicknamed her "Cléopold." Despite Cléo's consistent denials, the gossip persisted for over a decade, until in 1911 the New York Times declared that no evidence existed to support the rumour. Writer Xavier Paoli went even further, stating in his book that the two had never even met, and that the king himself had apologised to Cléo for the distress caused by the rumours. Leopold's real mistress was in fact Caroline Lacroix, who was only sixteen at the time, which makes it all the more paradoxical that the gossip had focused on Cléo.
A second scandal concerned the sculpture La Danseuse by sculptor Alexandre Falguière, exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1896: a life-size marble nude said to have been made from a cast of Cléo's body. She denied it, admitting only that the face was hers, but she did not hesitate to exploit the notoriety by using a copy of the statue in her performances. The sculpture is now held at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
© GrandPalaisRmn (musée d'Orsay) / Sylvie Chan-Liat
It is not the only object linked to her preserved in Parisian museums: the Musée Galliera in Paris holds an elegant evening bodice attributed to her, dated around 1898–1900, which perfectly encapsulates the aesthetic of late-nineteenth-century Parisian fashion.
Photo from a Reddit post by Queenofmyscreen.
In the final years of her life, Cléo gradually withdrew from public life, but continued to jealously guard the myth of her own image. In 1955 she published her memoirs, Le Ballet de ma Vie, which you can find in French on Amazon and other online retailers.
And that's all for today…
What about you? Did you already know about Cléo de Mérode? Have I sparked your curiosity about her life? Let me know in the comments!
Bibliography:
- A very interesting academic paper by Garval with many postcard images of Cléo: Cléo de Mérode's Postcard Stardom
Cléo de Mérode's Postcard Stardom - Book: Cléo de Mérode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture by Michael D. Garval
Cléo de Mérode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture by Michael D. Garval - Brief review of the book: Cléo de Mérode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture by Michael D. Garval
Cléo de Mérode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture by Michael D. Garval - Blog post from Zoe South
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Queenofmyownscreen post on Reddit
Blog post by Zoe South Post by Queenofmyownscreen on Reddit - Other photos of the sculpture from Musée d'Orsay
sculpture on the Grand Palais museum website