and are always amazed by at least one item in a show,
jewelry is often featured, with naturally earrings being a popular choice, but we have never seen a pair of these offered before, guillotine earrings,
the years 1793 and 1794 during the French Revolution were
known as the "Reign of Terror." during that time, there were over
16,000 official executions by beheading using the guillotine, and in a macabre way, fashion and style followed the events
of the day, and guillotine earrings became all the rage,
from Cult of Weird,
Barbaric or not, people loved the guillotine.
When the Reign of Terror began taking heads on an average of 46 per day,
including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the terrifying instrument of swift
death became part of everyday life. It was the subject of art, music, and
fashion,
“It was depicted, recounted, and bandied about
by popular songs with their series of refrains on ‘the widow,’ ‘the national
razor,’ ‘the patriotic haircut,’ ‘the sword of equality,’ and ‘the altar of the
nation,'” says Murat. “People no longer referred to ‘being guillotined’ but
spoke of ‘sticking your head through the cat-flap,’ ‘poking through the window,’
or ‘sneezing into the basket.'”
“Like tricolor skirts and nosegays, or jewelry
set with chunks from the Bastille,” Jane Merrill and Chris Filstrup write
in I Love Those Earrings,
“the guillotines testified to a person’s daring and being on the winning side.” and no I am not on commission
for the book, I just thought the earrings were just so way off of kilter.
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