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The other day, over at my daily blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle I posted a typically gaudy and OTT snippet from the (rare for a Dame Julie Andrews film) massive commercial flop Star! - the biography of the legendary Gertrude Lawrence - featuring the song The Physician.
On investigation I discovered that this number was originally from an otherwise forgotten West End musical in which Miss Lawrence starred, titled Nymph Errant - a bizarre comedy-of-errors about a girl returning to her finishing school, who went astray along the way and ended up in a Turkish harem. Unsurprisingly, The Physician is possibly the only thing associated with that production that was ever revived.
The musical was in turn based on a best selling novel of the same name by one James Laver - a fascinating character in his own right. An erudite and scholarly curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), he had the good fortune to be appointed the first head of the institution's embryonic Theatre Collection - and developed a lifelong passion for costume and the study of fashion and its history. Somewhere along the way, he also became a central character in the "society party set" in 1920s and 30s London [whether that was because he ever wore, or allowed friends to wear, any costumes from the collection remains undocumented].
Scholarly or no, I just adore his simple analysis of "taste" and fashion trends and how attitudes towards them change with time - otherwise known as "Laver's Law":
| Indecent | 10 years before its time |
|---|---|
| Shameless | 5 years before its time |
| Outré (Daring) | 1 year before its time |
| Smart | 'Current Fashion' |
| Dowdy | 1 year after its time |
| Hideous | 10 years after its time |
| Ridiculous | 20 years after its time |
| Amusing | 30 years after its time |
| Quaint | 50 years after its time |
| Charming | 70 years after its time |
| Romantic | 100 years after its time |
| Beautiful | 150 years after its time |
Faboo!
And so true.
