Vanity Case, 1925–30, United States, plastic, silk, rhinestones, wood, metal, mirror, wool, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Sylvan Golder, 2008.114

Verbal Description

Hello, my name is Eric Le Roy and I am the Associate Director for Docent Learning at the museum. I will be reading the verbal description for the Vanity Case in Unlocking an Art Deco Bedroom by Joseph Urban.

The museum’s Vanity Case from 1925-30 is from the United States and is plastic, silk, rhinestones, wood, metal, mirror, and wool. It was a gift from Dr. and Mrs. Sylvan Golder. The accession number is 2008.114.

Crafted in plastic, the museum’s Vanity Case is 3 ½ x 3 ¼ x ¾ inches with a 17-inch cord used as a carrying strap. Hexagon in shape, it has a light jade green lid and bottom, and the sides are black. The top is decorated with rhinestones, the closure is a dark green knob. The cord is twisted and attaches to the two sides adjacent to the closure. A long black tassel hangs off the bottom. When the case is open, there is a circular mirror, a compartment for face powder, and a powder puff.   

Label Copy

Hello, my name is Eric Le Roy and I am the Associate Director for Docent Learning at the museum. I will be reading the label for the Vanity Case in Unlocking an Art Deco Bedroom by Joseph Urban.

The museum’s Vanity Case from 1925-30 is from the United States and is plastic, silk, rhinestones, wood, metal, mirror, and wool. It was a gift from Dr. and Mrs. Sylvan Golder. The accession number is 2008.114.

This plastic case, designed to be carried as a purse, contains a mirror, a compartment for face powder, and a small powder puff. Once stigmatized as a form of feminine deceit, cosmetics had ballooned into a lucrative industry by the 1920s. Surrounded by popular images of beauty in films and magazines, and highly attuned to their visibility in public, many young women of the era turned to makeup as both an act of self-fashioning and a way to meet heightened expectations of beauty. Advertisements barraged women with products for clear, youthful skin, alluring eyes, and slim figures. No longer a challenge to female respectability, cosmetics now shaped feminine norms and tied women’s self-expression closely to consumption.

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