TISSUS ET ACCESSOIRES OUBLIÉS. DE LA PANOPLIE VESTIMENTAIRE DʼUN ÉCRIVAIN « SENTIMENTAL »
FORGOTTEN FABRICS AND ACCESSORIES. CLOTHING OUTFITS OF A “SENTIMENTAL” WRITER

Summary/Abstract: “A categorically unpretentious outfit: où il y a de gêne, il nʼy a pas de plaisir”–, there are no better words to describe the fashion-related beliefs of the author of Momente [Moments]than the “favourite saying” of the “graceful madame Guvidi”, in Om cu noroc! [Lucky Man!]. They promote straightforwardly and exclusively the comfort from which Caragiale would not move away – neither in the years when he was an inspector and when, during particularly cold weather, he was found wearing borrowed clothes, nor toward the end of his life when, during his time in Berlin, he chose of personality of worn out clothes. Testimonies to a satisfactorily varied range of clothing for someone who, apparently, paid so little concern to his clothes, as Caragiale claimed to be, are the memories of his contemporaries: Macedonski, Duiliu Zamfirescu, G. Millian, D. Gusti, Barbu Delavrancea, Cella Delavrancea, Cincinat Pavelescu, N.V. Poperescu, Ecaterina Caragiale-Logardi and so on and so forth. Of these, there are very few suggestive of a truly depreciative nature. The numerous recollections retrieve some of the most contradictory qualities for I.L. Caragiale: friend or lecturer, school inspector or manager of the National Theatre, etc., but, no matter how improbable, the character seems to present, with rare exception, adequate outfits. As must-have accessory of the age, the hat is also present in the snapshots with the writer, at times being the only redeeming mark of the description.

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