Why isn't it the United States like Josephine Baker?

There is a certain idea that France has from America, and the French have of themselves, which was in the heart of a Stephane Rolland enchant and elegant show, whose inspiration was Josephine Baker.

And both about his heart and his art. In a collection dedicated to the Singer and the exceptional humanism of the American singer. Seen in a memorable collection presented within the Sale Pleyel Theater concert. First Lady Brigitte Macron leading the applause in the end.

In a week when the Trump administration has begun to destroy all programs for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the United States, this was a reminder that the most beloved American in Paris will always be a baker. An American black woman who adopted a dozen children in a multirracial family during her long life in France. Creating a school for them in their rural castle.

Baker arrived in France in 1925, one of the first American women to move there. Escaping from racism and segregation of its ST Native St Louis, where he saw the black families burned along the banks of the Mississippi. Appeared The Black Venus, she became a singer, cabaret and movie star, famous for erotic dance. Hemingway called her: “The most sensational woman has seen.”

During World War II, she bravely worked as a spy for French resistance and allies; And then he actively involved in the civil rights movement: the only speaker woman, dressed in her free French uniform, who spoke with Martin Luther King in March in Washington in 1963.

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Rolland, a subtle creator, mixed the Chutzpah of Baker and Pizzazz with one of his contemporaries, the sculptor Constantin Brancusi. The result was a very different collection, which combined silk dresses and anatomical columns that suggest exotic birds, with geometric jackets and tops used with wide shoulder dresses worthy of an imperial goddess.

A upper upper part in V -shaped with cock feathers burned with a matching hat was Paris's haute couture at its best. While a shiny gold breeding bib riffo about Brancusi's most famous work, the bird. The palette without print was muddy brown, silver, reddish and a lot of white.

Baker's legacy is also evident in the Maison des adolescents in France (MDE), where adolescents are accompanied to find good careers. Rolland has held Awakening workshops with these MDE children and took them to Esmod, the Independent Fashion School of Paris. Many other creatives, from the filmmakers Claude Lelouch and Marilyn Fitoussi to the française comedie and the Paris Opera, carried out similar initiatives. And he marched from the track to the first row to open the show.

Baker would surely have approved, like this audience, 700 of which had paid entry rates to support these noble efforts. And to think that the same day that CNN reports that Trump has started a freezing in all foreign aid.

Baker wouldn't have liked that, at all.