Bonne Année

In France, it has traditionally been more common to send New Year's cards than Christmas ones (although some of the New Year's ones use Christmas imagery, so two birds with one stone!). Our romantic fantasy postcards were often put to this purpose, with many messages and/or printed greetings wishing bonne année, happy new year.

Bonne Année à tout le monde!

personal collection

personal collection

I love how the person writing this had difficulty figuring out what year it was. 

personal collection

personal collection

personal collection

personal collection

Crazy Colour

Exceptionally bright colours are one of the main characteristics of these cards (with occasional exceptions), but some of them go above and beyond, to the point of nearly blinding you with a variety of garish hues (I say that fondly, of course!). The most extreme are usually toned in bright pink or purple, with extensive tinting, The effect is even more pronounced when the photographs are taken outdoors, with the colours turning the scene into a surreal dreamscape. They're almost overwhelmingly kitschy-- and just terrific. 

Joyeux Noel

Postcards for the season! Merry Christmas! 

Moi et Toi

Very few things in the collecting of these postcards make me happier than the discovery that not only was a card sent from one lover to another, but he or she has gone and labelled the people on the card with their names! Awww....

I have a number of the ones Willy sent to Aline-- every single one he labelled with their names!

(in the upper right corner-- "10 000000 big kisses"!)

Bonne Fête!

A slight stretch here-- Bonne Fête, in Quebec French, means Happy Birthday; however, in France, it's a phrase used to celebrate the feast day of a person's patron saint. Though this would have been even truer when these were made, I figured since I was Canadian, sharing them for a birthday would be all right. My birthday, that is! :)

Colour and Gold

Last month, I shared a lovely sub-genre of postcard where a tinted image was bordered with thick black, embellished with gold decoration. 

Though less common, these were sometimes done with a dye-toned image, again with a wide border and gold decoration: 

The Dress

The women in these postcards are always wearing terrific outfits-- many could almost be repurposed as fashion ads. However, the pair of postcards in this post is the very first time I've ever seen the same outfit in two different ones! It's hard to tell if the woman is the same, but it appears she certainly could be (it looks like the man might be too, don't you think)?

 Interestingly, the postcards are published by two different companies. I've no idea yet about the way the publishers, the photographers, and the models interacted-- whether there were any contracts involved, or if some or all parties were freelance. The repetition of the dress (and possibly model(s) ) with two different publishers seems to hint against a contract...

Also, these are both pretty lovely, don't you think?  

Stamped

If you've been looking at the backs of these cards, you may have noticed something curious. Despite their postcard format, very very few appear to have been mailed. Most are written across the whole back, no room for an address. However, most of the messages imply they were sent from one place to another, rather than given in person. It seems most of the time they were put into envelopes like greeting cards, and, indeed, on some you can see a faint imprint where the postmark was stamped down on the envelope. 

Why these were usually put in envelopes, I'm not entirely sure. It may have been in part because the messages are often quite personal, and no one wants their love letters read. Another factor, however, is perhaps the fact that in 1920s France, stamps had to be put on the front of postcards (exactly when this requirement started and ended I'm not sure, but it was the case for at least most of the span of these cards). I suspect often people simply just didn't want to mess up the pictures. 

Two of the rare instances with the stamp on front:

Another card sent for St. Catherine's Day. 

La Fête de la Sainte-Catherine

St. Catherine is, among other things, the saint of unmarried women.  On St. Catherine's Day (25th November, ie, today) it was traditional in France for unmarried women to pray to her for a husband, and, especially if they were over 25, to send each other cards on the day. These postcards were popular for this purpose, featuring, as they do, single women looking fabulous (you will notice many of the cards featuring single women were sent for St. Catherine's Day), or women looking fabulous with the attention of an adoring man. Quite a few have already been featured in this blog (and I apologize for the couple repeats today; I thought they were worth repeating!), but here's a couple more for the day. Bonne fête!