HOLIDAYS AND HIGH SOCIETY: The Golden Age of Travel

French Riviera resorts such as Cannes, The Blue Train which whisked passengers from Paris to the Côte d'Azur overnight, smart Swiss ski resorts like St Moritz, the Venice Lido, Egypt, signified a glamorous and cosmopolitan world populated by a social elite. The railway revolution of the 19th century had triggered a tourism revolution as day-trippers flooded rapidly to developing British seaside resorts such as Blackpool, Scarborough and Margate. The upper classes set their sights on something more exclusive and refined, more picturesque and usually much further away. They expected hotels offering every conceivable home comfort where the entertainment was cherry picked from the best of Paris cabaret and London's West End and where the sporting facilities were unrivalled. The illustrated weekly magazine The Bystander published glamorous Art Deco style advertisements 'Bathing in transparent, warm, blue sea, slicing your drive round an olive plantation, eating ripe figs off the branches, playing lawn tennis in the shade of eucalyptus trees, drinking Bronxes made with tangerine juice instead of the synthetic product of bottled oranges.' The luxurious spas of Mittel-Europe and the golf courses of France became the playground of the idle wealthy. Until foreign travel became more accessible, the picturesque towns and smart hotels catered only to an elite mix of royalty, celebrities and high society. This is where the great and the glamorous could relax, mingle, see and be seen - where rules could be broken and routines forgotten. Drawing from the Mary Evans Picture Library's archives and contributions from Galleria L'Image, Lucinda Gosling takes us on a tour of the exclusive holiday destinations from Monte Carlo and Maidenhead to Biarritz and San Moritz, Baden-Baden to Deauville and the Northern French Coast 'a jewel of a little place' where racing, gambling, polo, tennis, cocktails, yachting and bathing delights are incapsulated in one picture on page 66. Another shows a couple taking a civilised cup of tea under a striped awning of their beach capanna in a Venice Lido in 1935 and there are tourists featured in Gladys Peto's trademark colourful frocks among ancient ruins showing fashions in the winter sun of Heliopolis. Like a very high-end travel brochure, the book is also a mix of gossip and glamour, faces and places and evocative vintage travel posters, brochures, fashion spreads and more. Escapism at its best. All stock shelf worn.160pp in large softback, colour.
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