The Vanishing Lady is a window display created by Charles Morton for a Sacramento department store in 1898. L. Frank Baum celebrated it in 1900 in a book of window decorations published the same year as his novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The illusion consists of a bust of a living woman, appearing above a pedestal, then seeming to disappear inside it, only reappearing wearing a new outfit. Similar to the "Sphinx" illusion created in London in 1865, the installation is based on an optical illusion using mirrors. The popular stage illusion of the same name, created in Paris in 1886 and later revived by Georges Méliès in L'Escamotage d'une dame at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, inspired the name and theme of the installation.
At the first level, the attraction described by Baum bears witness to changing consumer trends at the end of the 19th century, particularly in the United States, and to the status of women in society at the time.
Baum presents this device as a model of what a display window should be, and it is also a frequently cited example of spontaneous intermediality the adoption of pre-existing cultural series by an emerging medium to create new attractions. This text examines the use of stage illusions in storefronts, combined with references to the film industry, which was emerging at the time, using well-known illusions. This convergence indicates the technical exchange that existed at the time between the performing arts, cinema, and shop window design. It raises the question of whether the consumers of urban spectacle at the time were naive or fascinated by the processes used. Baum's interest in this attraction also reveals the connection between this commercial aspect of his work, before he gained recognition as a specialist in children's fairy tales, and his later works, particularly the Oz books. Several critics have noted the internal coherence between Baum's concept of window art and the themes he later developed in his practice of intermediality, notably in his cinematic experiments, and transmediality, which involves the coherent development of a single theme across several media.
Finally, the convergence of the theme of the disappearing woman across several media raised questions about the meaning of this theme, as well as interpretations of the relationship to women inherent in illusion and cinema performances. This is particularly evident in Baum's work, known for his proximity to feminist theses.
From theater to shop windows Baum's transition from theater to commerce to display science came when there was a growing interest in window displays in the U.S., and he adopted these techniques from the theater world.
Development of window art
Until the late 1880s, visual advertising was not widely accepted and was often associated with the circus. Before 1885, there were no window displays to speak of. Electric lighting was poor, glass quality was low, and products were piled up in shop windows or, weather permitting, in the street in front of the stores. In many cases, stores displayed nothing in their windows because they believed that showing their products there might have an undesirable effect or did not know how to arrange them.
By contrast, by the early 1890s, window displays, especially in department stores, were designed with architectural precision to be appropriately arranged, according to an 1892 trade publication. This transformation was part of a wider context: department stores, aiming to become places of festive consumption, were transforming their appearance and adopting new technologies that emphasized color and light, thanks in particular to the use of glass and electricity. As William Leach points out, mirrors of all kinds made their appearance, helping to create an illusion of abundance by infinitely multiplying the reflection of goods and customers. Additionally, exterior window displays were enhanced by the use of color and electric lighting, which benefited from new glass manufacturing techniques that enabled the production of less expensive, larger, stronger, and clearer panes. These innovations led to the development of the new profession of window dresser, which was supposed to combine "artistic feeling" with "inventive genius" and "mechanical skill", not to mention "business sense". In 1889, J. H. Wilson Marriott published what he claimed to be the first American manual ever compiled for window dressers. From 1893 onwards, Harry Harman published the first American periodical entirely dedicated to window dressers in Louisville. Emily Orr observed that the trade was then almost exclusively male. She noted a gendered dichotomy between male producers of window displays and female consumers of the products displayed there.According to Fiona Maxwell, on the other hand, such an approach is too schematic: not all target consumers are women, and there are women window-shoppers, albeit fewer in number than men, particularly in city-center department stores. This development of the art of display was part of a boom in product presentation techniques that lasted until the late 1890s, including the artistic poster, the painted billboard, and the electric sign. Arthur Fraser was hired by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the manager of Marshall Field's, in 1895 to lead window decoration. In the late 1890s, he designed themed shop windows that resembled miniature theaters facing the sidewalk. The staging was so elaborate that the unveiling of six red-themed window displays in 1897 sparked a "red epidemic".
According to Cesare Silla, the shop windows of this period were perceived as veritable stages, on which the drama of social life was portrayed, due to their representation of social life and a new urban identity. This led shopkeepers to draw inspiration from the mechanical means used by the theater. The analogy with theater is made by the frequent use of curtains, which are raised in the morning to allow a view of the display and lowered in the evening. The analogy with theater is made by the frequent use of curtains, which are raised in the morning to allow a view of the display and lowered in the evening. The theatrical practice also inspires the staging techniques of the showcase, which incorporates some of the developments of Victorian theater, which, thanks to a design emphasizing flexibility, aims to strike the audience with frequent changes of scenery, in particular through the use of mechanical means to create illusion, such as rail-mounted scenery or trapdoors.
Fiona Maxwell notes that while the development of window displays was primarily driven by commercial imperatives, they were nonetheless perceived by contemporaries as a new form of "practical art", combining the pursuit of profit with that of artistic value, and considers that "the first window displays can be counted among the cultural phenomena symptomatic of turn-of-the-century American mass culture, centered on the justification of amusement for its own sake". Maxwell adds that "theater, vaudeville, ballrooms, circuses, amusement parks and storefronts all contributed to a mass culture characterized by audience participation, mechanical amusements, exotic settings and a sense of wonder". She concludes that "far from highlighting a culture based on the acceptance and promotion of greed, the shop windows [of the period] reveal a consumer culture intertwined with a sense of artistry and a taste for amusement, functioning as much as a form of popular entertainment as a form of advertising".
Baum's journey Frank Baum was born in 1856 in a village in New York State. Unattracted by his father's industrial and financial activities, he developed a passion for the theater in his youth, writing plays, producing them and acting in their leading roles.Married in 1882, he published his first book in 1886, devoted to the breeding of Hamburg chickens.The publication of this book was part of a promotional strategy comparable to that used later for window art. Baum began by creating an association of Hamburg hen enthusiasts, which enabled him to compile lists of enthusiasts and sell the product of his own breeding. He then launched The Poultry World, a specialist periodical that established his competence and enabled him to promote his hens. His articles were later included in a monographic work that established him as an expert. In 1888, L. Frank Baum opened Baum's Bazaar, a low-priced goods store in Aberdeen, South Dakota, modeled after Woolworth's, which was founded in 1879 in Utica. By 1891, a Dakota economic recession led him to move to Chicago and take a job as a salesman. He often helped rural hardware dealers improve the presentation of the products they were selling.
Chicago was a pioneer in the consumerist transformation during the preparation of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. This transformation was characterized by the use of electric lighting and larger sheets of glass for shop windows. Glass began to be used in department stores like Marshall Field's.Large-scale window displays, known as "French windows", were introduced to the United States in 1846 by the New York department store A.T. Stewart, nicknamed the Marble Palace. Stewart's department store, known as the Marble Palace, where they were one of the main attractions, and which Philip Hone, the former mayor of New York, considered an "extravagance". At the time, shopkeepers felt that the advantage of displaying their products in windows was uncertain.
Baum was motivated to find a job that would allow him to settle down and stop traveling. As a salesman, he realized that many shopkeepers had not yet grasped the concept of effectively presenting their products through 'staging', proclaimed himself the "grand master" of the new art of window dressing. In November 1897, founded The Show Window, a sixty-page monthly magazine for window dressersThe magazine still exists at the beginning of the 21st century. It is published under the title VMSD in Cincinnati. that he considered an art journal. It was illustrated with numerous photographs, many taken by Baum. The following year, in 1898, he founded the first national association of window dressers, which quickly grew to two hundred members making him a nationally recognized authority on the subject, long before he became even more notorious for his books for children. Baum explains to his readers that the function of a shop window is not to illuminate the interior, but to sell the products.Baum's interest in the theatricalization of shop windows is often compared with that of architect Frederick Kiesler, another man of the theater, who, in a 1930 book, evokes the "dream of a kinetic shop window "44 driven by the consumer45,46,47. One of the first pieces of advice he gives his readers is to hire an actor, playing the role of a wealthy flâneur, who, by stopping in front of the window to observe it, will attract the imitation of other passers-by. The Show Window, described by Harry Gordon Selfridge as "indispensable" reading, reached a print run of tens of thousands of copies within a few months. As William Leach summarizes,"The Show Window was at the forefront of a new merchandising movement designed to stimulate year-round consumer desire. In this context, he was instrumental in changing the way products were presented. On page after page, he recommended new tactics to grab consumers' attention, particularly those that were Baum's strong personal preference, electrified 'spectacular' displays of spinning stars, "disappearing women", mechanical butterflies, spinning wheels, glowing globes of light - anything to make the customer 'look at the window'!"All in all, this editorial project expresses Baum's perception of in-store shopping as a form of entertainment, a cultural event.
Mechanical showcase