RITAM GRADA / RHYTHM OF THE CITY
ed in 1910. There you could purchase French perfumes, high quality fabrics and toiletries. The entrepreneurial Ruža employed between 10-12 workers, and it is inter- esting to note that she also regularly published articles in the publications “Weekly Illustrations” and “Illustrated Times”, in which she informed our ladies “about the lat- est trends in Parisian fashion, of which she is a great am- bassador”. Darinka Pivarević opened her salon in 1911. Another famous name was Angelina Rusojevna, who was a successful fashion tailor. The salon of Rebeka Jakovljević-Amodaj, the first fashion designer in the history of Serbian fashion, opened in 1919 and became a symbol of Belgrade fashion chic. Rebeka opened the salon at 4 Uzun Mirkova Street, on the site of today’s Aero Club, just three years after Coco Chanel opened her own salon in Paris. She was so popu- lar that she was even mentioned in famous Serbian writ- er Branislav Nušić’s 1936 play “Dr”. While models were selected from magazines at other salons, Rebeka brought finished models back from her trips to Paris, which she presented to clients at small fashion shows with living mannequins. After selecting the preferred design, her la- dy clients would also choose the expensive fabric from which it would be sewn, and Rebeka would help them choose a model according to their height, age, complex- ion and hair colour. Although fashion tailors back then weren’t the kind of public figures they are today, Rebe- ka was nonetheless targeted by journalists, who would follow her every move and turn her into a genuine icon of urban fashion – a trendsetter and influencer of the era. Rebeka loved to hit the town and socialise and was a regular at the Jockey Club, one of Belgrade’s most ex- clusive spots, where she is known to have played poker with and beaten King Alexander. Up to 50 gowns a week were sewn at her salons, for customers from Serbia, but also the region.
Belgrade was known in the mid-1920s as “little Paris”, because it followed the trends of the world’s capital of fashion. New models seen in the most pres- tigious fashion magazines of the time, Vogue and Fem- ini, could be found on display in the shop windows of Belgrade. This was the period of Belgrade’s flourishing, when Knez Mihailova Street went from a narrow ori- ental alleyway, filled with fenced gardens, to become the city’s commercial centre, with luxury boutiques and cars. Belgrade became an important spot on the cultural map of Europe, hosting the world’s then big- gest stars. During her 1929 visit to Belgrade, Josephine Baker – the highest-paid star of Parisian vaudeville shows, dubbed the “most sensational woman anyone ever saw” by Hemingway and “Nefertiti of today” by Picasso – bought silk and silk stockings at Knez Mi- hailova Street’s famous Mitić Department Store. She was welcomed with a standing ovation upon arrival in Belgrade, while she also enchanted famous Serbi- an surrealist painter Milena Pavlović Barili, who creat- ed illustrations for the cover pages of famous fashion magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and who painted her immediately. It was said that “umbrellas open in Belgrade when it rains in Paris”, which testifies to Paris’s influence as the world’s leading centre of fashion. Belgrade’s fasci- nation with Paris during the interwar period was so great that the names of some of Belgrade’s top fash- ion boutiques and shops were transcribed into French, while the receipts for high-class clientele were writ- ten in French. The Orient Express also played a key role in the development of Belgrade fashion. At the start of each season, owners of Belgrade shops and boutiques, as well as tailors, would board the Orient Express in Bel- grade and travel to Paris in order to buy the latest and best products, but also fashion designs as models that they could then copy or modify, under license, at their own salons. Belgrade’s increasingly well-stocked book- shops offered a wide selection of European fashion mag- azines that also shaped the fashion of the city, such as Vogue and Femina. Belgrade would be dressed accord- ing to the latest Parisian fashion just 15 days after the publishing of a new edition.
Robna kuća „Mitić“ je 1938. imala oko 25.000 mušterija, što je za to vreme i za ne tako veliki Beograd impozantna brojka The Mitić Department Store served around 25,000 customers in 1938, which still remains an impressive figure for the time and a then Belgrade that wasn’t so large
Živka Dankučević opened her salon in 1921. It offered a large selection of top-class silks and fabrics import- ed from France. Katarina Mlade- nović opened her salon that same year. "She patented the painting of all kinds of fabrics with molten met- als, decorated designs with synthet- ic gems and had already staged an exhibition at the Women’s Club in 1923. She presented a collection with details inspired by the pat- terns of Pirot rugs, which she in- tended to offer in Paris,” says Bo- jana Popović, M.Sc., curator of the Museum of Applied Arts, who professionally researched the history of Belgrade fashion chic from 1918 to 1941. Katari- na Mladenović departed for Paris in 1924, where she worked for the most prestigious fashion houses.
80 | Beograd » Belgrade
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