ing the 1830s, which is why the picture of Anka from 1835 shows her wearing a dress with piles of petticoats, a corset, hanging curly locks and exposed shoulders. That was the same look as Serbia’s first female painter, Katari- na Ivanović, in her famous 1836 self-portrait, which she painted while studying in Vienna. Testifying to how ele- gantly the Serbia of the 19 th century dressed is a house that was even visited by one queen unannounced – the House of Jevrem Grujić, Serbia’s first private museum. German travel writer Otto Dubislav von Pirch wit- nessed how the legacy of both the Ottoman Empire and urban Europe lived under one roof in the Belgrade of 1829 during his visit to the home of a Belgrade mer- chant: “in one room there are furniture and clothes “Eu- ropean style, all modern and elegant”; in another room of the same house, everything is ‘fashion a la turk’, “with no furniture, only cushions and rugs”, while a Serbian costume hangs. The hostess is often dressed in mixed clothing in the house.” Belgraders began accepting European fashion, pri- marily Parisian, as far back as the 1840s. It was then that craftsmen began arriving in Belgrade from Vojvodi- na, Vienna and Pest, and they worked according to de- signs from Viennese and French magazines. It was also then that French merchants began arriving, with their luxury goods. If Kralja Petra Street could talk, it could recount the history of Belgrade. Given that it was the economic, ad- ministrative and cultural centre of the town, it also housed the first tailor shop making European suits, in the first
Belgrade hotel, “Kod Jelena”, which opened in 1843 and was built at the behest of a Serbian prince and a real dan- dy: Mihailo Obrenović. The beginnings of world fashion date back to 1857, when Englishman Charles Frederick founded the first haute couture house in Paris. That 1857 also marked the first time Belgrade was illuminated at night, with 360 lanterns on New Year’s Eve. And Belgrade set off on the road to the 20 th century in 1892, by tram. It was only the third city in Europe to introduce trams – before Berlin, London and Paris, and after only Frankfurt and Zurich. Belgrade’s first department store, Robni Magazin, opened in 1907 at 16 Kralja Petra Street, proving to be a real marvel for Belgraders by bringing the spirit of modernisation to the oriental bazaar. Belgraders had previously only been able to shop at small craft stores, but they suddenly had everything in one place, on sev- eral connected floors. This building is today one of the most beautiful monuments to Secessionist architec- ture in Belgrade and a protected cultural monument. It is interesting to note that Hugo Buli, the brother of Robni Magazin’s owner Bencion Buli, brought the first soccer ball to Serbia from Vienna in 1896, and the first association football match in the country was played in May of that same year, in the Lower Town (beside Nebojša Tower). Read about how the Serbian urban elite of the first half of the 20 th century lived, entertained them- selves and followed fashion in our upcoming Sep- tember issue!
94 | Beograd » Belgrade
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