All that jazz: Josephine Baker’s Image, Identity & Iconicity

When Baker was offered an opportunity to move to, Paris, for her dance talents, she did not hesitate to take the chance. Baker arrived in Paris the summer of 1925, during the height of France’s obsession with American jazz music and all things exotic. Immediately after her famous performance on October 2, 1925, Baker appeared in a jazz club wearing an ice-blue dress, cut on the bias. It had been selected for her from a Paris design house. This glamorous side of Baker quickly dispelled the notion of her as primitive. Her body type and cinnamon skin proved to be the perfect model for the masters of fashion. Baker quickly became a woman who others wanted to copy. Josephine Baker, who symbolized the beauty and vitality of African American culture during this time, took Paris by storm personifying many of the modern ideals associated with jazz music. Through private dealings with the masters of various modes whom she attracted, as well as with the pervasive public persona she created, Baker influenced architecture, urban and interior design, fashion, sculpture, graphic arts, painting and photography. This influence establishes her as one of the most famous symbols of the jazz age, the first African American superstar and a universal icon