Tourist Resorts as Stages of Social Display: Beauty & Fashion
in 1930s Estoril
Cristina Carvalho
Abstract
In 2014 Estoril celebrates its first 100 years, recalling Fausto Figueiredo’s
dream-like resort. Its early description revealed an area whose outstanding
feminine traits only lacked the artificial sense of fashion, in order to drive men
wild. As its architectural features developed across a seaside valley and its leisure
programmes were enjoyed by a growing number of attendants, the resort’s image
was internationally firmed as one of finesse and civility.
Estoril’s elegant shops sold Paris’ latest fashion, and Lisbon’s finest advertised
clothing pieces meant to be worn while playing golf, as a means to complement the
natural scenery. While a women’s magazine published beauty tips and models to
be displayed at specific social stages to the middle and upper class lady, Estoril
Casino walked the mile in order to present this growing (commercial) niche market
refined afternoons whose programmes ranged from hair styling competitions,
conferences on cosmetics, and fashion shows with catwalks.
The 1930s also witnessed a chromatic revolution as far as skin tones were
concerned, and the Suntan Age cast away the by-gone days of the Thermal Era,
mainly with the help of young Hollywood stars like the British Heather Thatcher.
As Wolff stated, women’s tanned body became a trophy that attracted men to
coastal resorts, where beauty and bathing suits contests assisted in the making of a
social threshold, a somewhat gray area of gender contact Turner and Shield
referred to as a liminal place, where society’s rules were slightly bent… for a
while.
Key Words: Estoril, 1930s, tourism, beauty, fashion.
******
1. Introduction
This paper is based on the research its author conducted for her Ph.D thesis in
History (of Tourism) in the Estoril-Cascais coastal axis between 1929 and 1939.1
During the process many were the news collected on what clothes should women
wear, how they should behave on specific social stages, among other details
revolving around Beauty & Fashion. The range of influences found from the
Parisian items sold at the Estoril shopping Arcades and Lisbon’s Chiado stores, to
the visits of movie stars and skin cares, including the passage of hairdressers
reinforced the bond between cosmopolitan lifestyles and Tourism. As Rauch
defends, ‘ne circulent pas simplement des personnes, mais aussi leurs images
sociales’,2 much like Appadurai’s concept of Ideoscapes refers to the circulation of
2
The Shifting Shades of Elegance on Display in 1930s Estoril
ideas3 that is easily perceived when reading Estoril’s founder’s 1914 brochure:
Fausto Figueiredo referred that a cosmetic improvement should be applied to the
site’s natural blessings.
Divided into four topics, this study starts by comparing travellers’ descriptions
of Estoril’s visual attributes to feminine traits; then one approaches leisure
practices where the right look was of essence. Thirdly, one recalls some initiatives
organised at the Casino to entertain middle-class ladies; the last section leads to the
Tamariz beach, where attires and skin tone witnessed a shift only possible in social
sets like tourist resorts considering the psychological atmosphere of the Depression
years.
2. Estoril: A Cosmopolitan Lady of World-class Beauty
When in 1914 Fausto Figueiredo presented his dream-like resort, he stated this
woman of staggering beauty only lacked the artificial sense of fashion trends, in
order to drive men wild.4 Resorting to the travel literature of the 1930s, visitors
associated Estoril’s traces to those of a seductive, yet, innocent young lady: a
somewhat geographic reflection of the American movie stars Mary Pickford and
Jean Harlow of sweet lines and bright allure.5 The 1930 Satchel Guide situated
Estoril at the Portuguese Riviera, as part of a crescent-shaped shore within whose
curve the Cascais Bay lied,6 and by 1934 the French Réval named it Portugal’s
mermaid, a cunning teaser that mesmerised European sun-lovers.7
3. Leisure, Events and the Proper Allure
Estoril’s Arcades emulated, not only Bath’s Royal Crescent in their
configuration, but also Parisian shops for selling the latest fashion. Meanwhile,
stores in Lisbon advertised clothing pieces to be worn while playing Golf and
enjoying equestrian shows or racing events. The inauguration of one of Portugal’s
first courses and its enjoyment by the leisured classes justified why in 1931 the
Couture shop A Parisiense advertised the diversity of pieces available for every
occasion, naming Estoril.8 The highlight was reasonable for the timeline, since
golf was a game in which class and status was a major consideration in
every aspect of its organization, from the appointment of the right kind
of person as the club secretary, to the administration of the new
members ... [,] right down to the proper dress code.9
By 1935 the notion of elegance on display took over the participants of racing
events, as one recalls through the 1st Automobile Feminine Elegance Competition.
It emulated the example set by Nice, Monte Carlo and Paris,10 and a women’s
magazine described bits and pieces worn, saluting the lesson of taste conducted by
Mme. Cordier, for the winner of the race wore a dress whose shade of green
matched her Buick, as Paris recently imposed.11 Baldini approaches the divinity of
the New & the Now, and one dares to link the apotheosis of the Ephemeral to the
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Cristina Carvalho
renovating spirit of 1930s Portugal, considering Salazar’s New State implemented
by the 1933 Constitution, then considered a blank page in the country’s History.12
4. Estoril Casino: The Bliss of Futility
The Casino was the perfect stage for hair styling competitions and a catwalk for
fashion shows. Haute-Couture & Beauty were then necessary attributes to
cosmopolitan resorts for hinting at the level of cultural standards of the hosting
countries. Lipovetsky mentions that the unconscious foundation of fashion is not
only about admiring the Other, but mostly about showing Oneself off,13 according
to the hedonistic flair of each Age. In the 1920s Coco Chanel revolutionised
perspectives over the female body; although the 1930s’ austere lines and cuts
denoted the Depression years, cares over skin, hair, clothes and accessories made
women keener on their physical display. This perception was captured by Estoril’s
promoters, which is why programmes pampered this growing niche market, based
on selling commercial items like cosmetics and perfumes.
Since the 1910s fashion designers were Wizards of the Scissors and Alchemists
of Holy Waters whose secret formulas turned every woman into a contemporary
goddess. Lipovetsky refers to Poiret’s 1914 Fruit défendu and Chanel’s 1921 Nr.5
as bewitching scents, but he also recalls that middle-class women were queens of
Taste & Elegance.14 However, they were subjected to the might of father or
husband, so the sheer act of consumption was an amusement meant to selfcompensate the frustrations of existence,15 and Pearce reinforced their obsession to
remain young and desirable as being conveyed by the advertising industry.16
Baldini recalls one communicates through one’s image, as a daily mask that
unveils one’s inner shifting shades from the deepest shadows to the brightest
highlights of the Soul.17
Focusing on hair styles, across Estoril several were the salons available. In the
1930s the Casino hosted the National Hair Styles Contest18 and Parisian novelties
like the L’Oréal product called Coloral,19 but tips, treatments and apparatuses were
also presented by the chemist Martin Arany. Although Paris set trends and Arany
brought Vienna’s and Berlin’s tastes, Salazar’s nationalist philosophy known as
Política do Espírito did its best to rescue the Portuguese lower classes from these
influences. This dual understanding of the Age explains why in the summer of
1938 cartoons and a satirical question were published, wondering that if ladies now
wore headscarves, would the peasant women soon wear hats?20
5. Beach Costumes & The Shifting paradigm of Skin beauty
The 1930s set the tone for a new type of skin beauty: out with the pale and on
with the tan. As Pfeifer puts it, by the end of the Roaring Twenties ‘the suntan
became the golden emblem of beauty and freedom’21 and the aesthetic tendency
was promoted by Hollywood. If until then heliotherapy was a therapeutic practice
of the poor and sick, the tanned skin of the wealthy was now a visual hint of the
availability for leisure: as Löfgren recalls ‘[a]part from swimming, tanning was the
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The Shifting Shades of Elegance on Display in 1930s Estoril
new craze’.22 In 1935 the British star Heather Thatcher sought Estoril, but the
senseless tan voracity confined her to her room at the Palace Hotel ‘as a result of
too much Sun bathing’.23 By the mid-1930s the transition from the Thermal Era to
the Suntan Age was well underway aided by the diversity of outdoor sports and the
mind games both genders played at the beach, so Lübbren speaks of a shift ‘from
‘beach as a remedy’ to ‘beach as fun’’.24
This awareness by the resort’s managers led to the 1938 inauguration of a
pavilion similar to others in Biarritz and Deauville that included changing rooms, a
bar and a stationers-tobacconist, underlining the boundaries between the beach by
day and the Casino by night. It also allowed the resort to keep on pampering its
main niche market: the British.25 As Gray writes, ‘the cult of the Sun had concrete
results for the design of the seaside in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. A new
seaside architecture developed that included Sun terraces, communal beach bathing
stations, solariums, holiday camps and beach huts’.26 Turner’s and Shield’s
Liminality concept refers to a transition similar to a threshold or rite of passage,
and the less severe statuo quo accepted at the beach: it was a somewhat social gray
area, where lighter interaction and dress codes were allowed;27 and as Löfgren
mentions, ‘here was a new summer life, days at the beach, clowning and
swimming, afternoon cocktails by the pool, jazz on the gramophone, sailing
cruises, improvised terrace meals, and love affairs’.28
While the covers of the 1934 summer editions of Modas & Bordados displayed
discreet models to be worn on walks along the seaside, the following pages were
cheekier, revealing lighter outfits.29 Fashionwise, Lipovetsky defends the 1930s set
the nakedness of the bather’s back, paving the way for the two-piece bathing suit
(the bikini) in the 1940s.30 By 1937 Lisbon’s periodicals revealed the controversies
around maillots and cleavages,31 while cartoons mocked the cabos de mar, a police
force that patrolled the beaches measuring bathing suits;32 one newspaper even
joked at the territorial progression of the coastline from Lisbon down to Estoril and
the reduction of the models worn teasing that Hell would break loose should there
be more beaches beyond.33
The seemingly debauchery at the cosmopolitan resort was halted by the 31:247
law decree published on the 5th May 1941: it stated the rules for the proper sizes
and places where bathing suits were allowed, and its need had been enforced by the
flows of Europeans fleeing towards America since late 1939.34 Salazar’s
dictatorship designed a divide between travellers and nationals: while forbidding
conducts and inciting young women to wear the State-approved swimming suit that
respected the modesty of Christianity,35 the regime itself turned a blind-eye on the
resort’s clients’ forward behaviours, once it craved for investment through the
purchase of local services and products.
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Cristina Carvalho
6. Conclusion
Organised into four sections, this paper began by looking at Estoril as a
cosmopolitan lady of world-class beauty resorting to 1930s guides and personal
accounts of visitors, only to provide descriptions of the feminine connotations
bestowed: seductive, playful, casual, yet somewhat unattainable and whimsical. A
special note on elegance was inserted in 1935 with the organisation of a race for
lady drivers proud of their sense of Self behind the wheel, a feat only possible with
the rise of technological toys. According to Baldini, the divinity of the Ephemeral
and the sacraments of the Now emancipated the modern woman from the shackles
of the Past,36 which remind us Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, when declaring Time
and Space died on behalf of Speed. Although modernity propelled the spirit of the
young and wealthy, Agulhon recalls that the timeless barrier between classes did
not fade, since it was necessary for order’s sake.37
One then skipped to the Casino’s restaurant, whose stage witnessed the display
of Couture and beach models, innovative hairdos, and lectures on the latest beauty
tips, all aiming at the leisured middle-class woman. The last section of this study
focused on Estoril’s maritime features and the enjoyment of its golden sands and
warm sunlight. Ironically, while Tourism brought new civility rules, Portugal’s
dictatorship revealed a dual response according to its own agenda: though
repressing nationals into maintaining Christian moral standards, it also longed for
the vitamins poured into the country’s economy by the (rather disturbing, yet)
wealthy foreigners of alien lifestyles.
Consulting Butler’s theoretical model on destinations’ life cycles one believes
that in the 1930s Estoril reached the 3rd stage linked to Development, because of its
numerous tourists of diversified nationalities, and of its promoters’ stamina to keep
up with the latest social, commercial, building, and clothing trends.38 Indeed, all
the seeds of comfort and quality had been sown in the bleak economical context of
the 1930s.
Notes
1
Maria Cristina de Carvalho dos Anjos, ‘O Turismo no Eixo Costeiro EstorilCascais (1929-1939): Equipamentos, Eventos e Promoção do Destino (PhD diss.,
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, 2012).
2
Qt. in Maria Gabriela Mota Marques, ‘Cabelos à Joãozinho: a Garçonne em
Portugal nos Anos 20’ (PhD diss., Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de
Coimbra, 2002), 101-102.
3
Qt. in Orvar Löfgren, On Holiday: A History of Vacationing (Berkley: University
of California Press, 2002), 93.
4
Estoril – Estação Maritima, Climaterica, Thermal e Sportiva (Lisboa: Typografia
A Editora Limitada, 1914), n/p.
6
5
The Shifting Shades of Elegance on Display in 1930s Estoril
Valter Carlos Cardim, ‘”Fashion”, Design, Cultura e Identidade. A Costura Social
da Moda em Portugal no Século XX’ (PhD diss., Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e
Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1998), 228.
6
Crockett, William D. And Sarah G. Crockett, A Satchel Guide to Spain and
Portugal (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1930), 289.
7
Gabrielle Réval, L’Enchantement du Portugal (Paris: Fasquelle Éditeurs, 1934),
101.
8
ABC, 25 April 1931, 14.
9
Jeffrey Hill, Sports, Leisure & Culture in Twentieth-century Britain
(Hampshire/New York: Pallgrave Macmillan, 2002), 143.
10
Diário de Lisboa, 24 July 1935, 3.
11
Modas & Bordados, 14 August 1935, 9.
12
Massimo Baldini, A Invenção da Moda, As Teorias, os Estilos, a História, 2005,
trans. Sandra Escobar (Lisboa: Edições 70, 2006), 41.
13
Gilles Lipovetsky, O Império do Efémero: a Moda e o seu destino nas
sociedades modernas, 1987, trans. Regina Louro (Lisboa: Publicações D. Quixote,
1989), 52.
14
Gilles Lipovetsky e Ellyette Roux, O Luxo: Da Idade do Sagrado ao Tempo das
Marcas, 2003, trans. Luís Filipe Sarmento (Lisboa: Edições 70, 2012), 53.
15
Ibid., 82-86.
16
Robert Pearce, 1930s Britain (Oxford: Shire Publications, 2010), 16.
17
Baldini, A Invenção da Moda, 94-96.
18
Diário de Lisboa, 1 September 1937, 2.
19
O Século, 5 August 1939, 2.
20
Os Ridículos, 27 August 1938, 1.
21
Maxine Pfeifer, Tourism in History: From Imperial Rome to the Present (New
York: Stein and Day, 1986), 216.
22
Löfgren, On Holiday, 168.
23
Portuguese Times, 15 April 1935, 1.
24
Nina Lübbren, ‘North to South: Paradigm shifts in European Arts and Tourism’,
in Visual Culture and Tourism, eds. David Crouch and Nina Lübbren (Oxford/New
York: Berg, 2003), 134.
25
O Estoril, 15 September 1938, 2; O Século, 11 September 1938, 3.
26
Fred Gray, Designing the Seaside – Architecture, Society and Nature (London:
Reaktion Books, 2006), 33-34.
27
Qt. in George Hughes, ‘Tourism and the Semiological Realization of Space’ in
Destinations – Cultural Landscapes of Tourism, eds. Greg Ringer (London:
Routledge Advances in Tourism, 1998), 22.
28
Löfgren, On Holiday, 167.
29
11 July and 8 August 1934, as examples.
30
Lipovetsky, O Império do Efémero,103-104
31
Diário de Lisboa, 22 April 1937, 10.
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Cristina Carvalho
32
Os Ridículos, 21 April 1937, 1.
Os Ridículos, 14 August 1937, 1.
34
Cristina Pacheco, Memórias de Verão: A Costa do Sol e o Estoril nos Anos 30
(Cascais: Câmara Municipal de Cascais, 2007), 33.
35
Mocidade Portuguesa Feminina, August 1941, 10-11.
36
Baldini, A Invenção da Moda, 41
37
Qt. in Maria Alexandre Lousada, ‘Espaços de Sociabilidade em Lisboa: Finais
do Século XVIII a 1834’ (PhD. Diss., Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de
Lisboa, 1995), 396
38
Richard Butler, ‘The Tourism Area Life Cycle in the Twentieth-first Century’ in
A Companion in Tourism, eds. Allan A. Law, C. Michael Hall, Allan M. Malden
(Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 159.
33
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diss., Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, 2012.
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da Moda em Portugal no Século XX’. PhD diss., Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e
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The Shifting Shades of Elegance on Display in 1930s Estoril
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Quixote, 1989.
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nos Anos 20’. PhD diss., Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra, 2002.
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9
Cristina Carvalho
Newspapers and Magazines
ABC – 1931
Diário de Lisboa – 1935-1937
Estoril (O) – 1938
Mocidade Portuguesa Feminina – 1941
Modas & Bordados – 1934-1935
Portuguese Times – 1935
Ridículos (Os) – 1937-1938
Século (O) – 1931-1939.
Cristina Carvalho teaches at the ESHTE, in Portugal. Her research fields of
interest are History of Tourism, Cultural Tourism, and Local Heritage & Memory.