In 1922 there was an article in the December PhotoPlay titled, “Youth and Moonlight and Paris - An impression of Mabel Normand’s new clothes” There were 8 photos of Mabel modeling her purchases from the fashion houses on France. The only copy of the article that I was able to get my hands on was off microfilm. If you have tried to make copies of photocopies of microfilm, you know most of the time all you can get are black boxes where an image might have been, which is what I ended up with. The impression of an image but what is amazing to me is that I have pretty good copies of most of the 1922 fashions in my files that I found in other places. The photographer was “Abbe”; Mabel was returning to work for Mack Sennett to make Molly O’ and Abbe was doing photographs for the Sennett Studios.
In one of the descriptions in the article was a reference to a “sleeveless crepe dance frock, embroidered in iridescent pearls and tiny rhinestones. The skirt is scalloped and the girdle is an embroidered one.” Sadly there were no photos of the dress in the PhotoPlay. I found that I had a picture of it!
