josephine baker gold dress Baker, Josephine. (1906–1975)] Banana Belt and Headdress, worn at the –  Schubertiade Music and Arts
SKU: 85707717693
josephine baker gold dress

josephine baker gold dress Baker, Josephine. (1906–1975)] Banana Belt and Headdress, worn at the – Schubertiade Music and Arts

Sale price$21.31 Regular price$23.68
Save 10%
Size: 4

Pay in installments of $5.92 with ShopPay, AfterPay and Klarna

Shipping Estimate
USA
  • USA
  • CAN

Ships within 48 hours · Estimated delivery Jul 4 - Jul 9

Promo Codes Available:

For Your Every Summer RSVP, with Code: SUMMER15

Description

josephine baker gold dress Baker, Josephine. (1906–1975)] Banana Belt and Headdress, worn at the – Schubertiade Music and ArtsTwo iconic items from the celebrated entertainer, including one of her famous banana belts, this example circa 1930 1950 with gold sequins on the side, apparently worn by her at the Casino de Paris. Former ORTF, SFP Collection. The belt is in heavily worn but stable condition. Ten banana forms are attached, presumably of a larger original number, to a yellow fabric strip. Remnants of sequin detailing remain though most have perished. The filled gold

Two iconic items from the celebrated entertainer, including one of her famous banana belts, this example circa 1930-1950 with gold sequins on the side, apparently worn by her at the Casino de Paris. Former ORTF, SFP Collection.

The belt is in heavily worn but stable condition. Ten banana forms are attached, presumably of a larger original number, to a yellow fabric strip. Remnants of sequin detailing remain though most have perished. The filled gold fabric forms are mostly in stable condition with some creases and small tears and loose threads around the seams.  10 x 14 x 1 inches. Provenance: Former ORTF, SFP Collection. Truly, one of the most iconic items in performance history. 

Sold together with an extraordinary fruit turban headdress with rhinestones and pearls, also from the collection of Josephine Baker.  Inscribed to label with inventory number and the ORTF insignia, "Achat Granier - Joséphine Baker, 30163 OJ83." The painted fruits with significant chipping and some losses, some elements partially loose but stable overall. 27 x 22 x 15 inches. Provenance: Former ORTF, SFP Collection.  One of the extraordinarily elaborate feather and fruit headpieces which were part of the performer's signature costumes. 

Baker was most noted as a singer, while in her early career she was a celebrated dancer. She was given the nicknames the "Black Venus" or the "Black Pearl", as well as the "Créole Goddess" in anglophone nations, while in France she has always been known in the old theatrical tradition as "La Baker." Around 1930, she "began a long and successful collaboration with the Casino de Paris. The Casino was not as famous as the Folies Bergère, but it was still a first-class music hall. Its seasonal productions were extremely lavish, and in no time, Baker re-established herself as the leading star of the Parisian stage." (Alan Schroeder, "Josephine Baker: Entertainer," p. 48)

The Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française (ORTF; lit. 'French Broadcasting and Television Office'), was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1975, with providing public radio and television in France. When ORTF was divided into 7 smaller organizations, the SFP (Société Française de Production) took control of some of the archives. 

"The image of a dancing Josephine Baker, clad in pasties and a skirt made from replica bananas, is something of a cultural icon. However, today, the skirt’s meaning is very different than when Baker first wore it in 1926. Baker donned the revealing–and according to certain early 1900s moralists, ‘degrading’–skirt when she was still making a name for herself on the international stage. Her performances in the skirt soon gained her fame and fortune that she then used to fight Nazis in France and structural racism in America. As a performer, Baker used her sexuality and hyper awareness of image to manipulate her audience’s sexist and racist fantasies, and deployed them to build a platform for herself to dismantle the very social systems and cultural beliefs that they stemmed from.

Baker’s La Danse Sauvage quickly made her the star of La Revue Nègre. She appeared almost naked, clad mostly in feathers, swinging her hips as her equally exposed partner Joe Alex beat a drum. With rhythmic thrusts and sensual sways, Baker’s movements embodied the sexual language anthropologists projected onto nonwhite bodies. Her audience loved it. “In the short pas de deux of the savages, which came as the finale of the Revue Nègre, there was a wild splendor and magnificent animality,” performance attendee and dance critic André Levinson said. “The plastic sense of a race of sculptors came to life and the frenzy of African Eros swept over the audience. It was no longer a grotesque dancing girl that stood before them, but the black Venus that haunted Baudelaire.”

Only a year later, the dancer donned her famous banana skirt for Folies-Bergére’s civility/primitivism-themed La Folie du Jour. Sixteen rubber bananas hung from a low-slung belt around the dancer’s waist. Along with matching pearl necklaces and jewels, the iconic costume brilliantly appeased and critiqued her audience’s most lurid fantasies. The skirt’s phallic appendages evoked France’s colonial involvement in both the rubber and banana trades. It seemed to present Baker as a colonial sex object, but in doing so highlighted the exploitative nature of the economic and political orders that made her one. Plus, the allegory-loaded skirt’s silhouette subverted ballet’s proper tutu.

Baker was not the only performer on the nightclub circuit to perform African-inspired dances or wear revealing clothing, but she possessed a unique understanding of the racial and power dynamics underlying Paris’ obsession with jazz. She was “a creature neither infrahuman nor superhuman but somehow both,” American poet E.E. Cummings wrote. “A mysterious unkillable Something, equally nonprimitive and uncivilized, or beyond time in the sense that emotion is beyond arithmetic.” Baker embodied an ever-changing character that audience members like Cummings hoped to simultaneously dominate, tame, and embody. " (Courtney DeLong, CR Fashion Book, "Remembering Josephine Baker's Cultural Impact, Banana Skirt, and Beyond")

Shipping Notes
  • Free Standard Shipping on $100+ Orders to the USA.
  • Except Preorder products are shipped in 48 hours.
  • Delivery to the USA:
  1. Standard Shipping : 3-10 business days
  • If time is of the essence, please consider selecting expedited delivery for faster service.
Exchange/Return Notes
  • We offer a 30-day return/exchange service after receiving.
  • Final sale items are not eligible for returns or exchanges.
  • To process your return/exchange, please contact us at [email protected]
  • Please click here for more details>>> Return & Exchange Policy
SKU: 85707717693

Discover Niche Categories That Outsell josephine baker gold dress

Top-Converting Item to Boost Your Average Order

4.4 ★★★★★
Based on 790 reviews
Sort
Highest Rating
Newest First
Oldest First
Product Reviews
M
Verified Purchase
Matthew C.
Port Orchard, US
★★★★★ 5
A whole lotta charger for the price
Color: Phantom Gray
Let’s get this out of the way first: the Anker Prime MagSafe Charger is one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive, 3-in-1 wireless chargers out there. You can find plenty of cheaper options, but as the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and there’s a lot here that justifies the price. The standout feature is Qi 2.2 25W charging. You’ll pay extra for faster charging, but this is one of the few chargers that gives you multiple charging modes (Boost, Ice, and Sleep) depending on your needs. The Ice mode, which keeps your phone cool while charging, is a big deal for long-term battery health, especially if you tend to keep your phone for a few years. The built-in Apple Watch charger supports fast charging, too. My older Belkin 3-in-1 was fine for the first wave of Apple Watches that supported fast charging (Series 7), but slow with my Ultra 2 and 3. I have verified this one charges at 5W, which makes a noticeable difference. It also handles AirPods charging without issue, no slowdowns or inconsistency so far. You can customize settings through the touchscreen, though it’s not very responsive. I recommend downloading the Anker app, pairing it via Bluetooth, and running a firmware update. The app makes adjustments much easier than using the on-device controls. Overall, I’m not sure I’d pay full retail for it, but if you catch it on sale, grab it. It’s a premium charger that feels built to last for years.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2025
S
Verified Purchase
SemoTech
Birmingham, US
★★★★★ 4
Want to love it but for the price it could have been much better
Color: Phantom Gray
This is one of the most expensive chargers I have bought in a long time, but given it comes from Anker, a very reputable and trusted brand with top quality, I bit the bullet and had high expectations. It is a unique design whereby it uses an LCD screen to display the charging wattage in real-time for 3 devices, and also connects via bluetooth to the Anker app for customization and charging data visualization. The design is elegant (would have been even nicer to have different color options for the metal arms) and as unique as the price, while it seems to work really well with the tested Apple Watch Ultra 3 and an iPhone 17 Pro Max plus a case of Apple AirPods. The best feature of the phone charger part is peltier cooling, the latest advancement in optimized wireless charging, which uses a built-in peltier cooling system with a fan and thus prevents the phone from overheating which in turn extends battery life. So given the phone charger is 25W and to assist in the cooling, there is a built-in fan behind the phone charging puck and while not very loud it is audible at night in a very quiet room like a bedroom. If placed on an office desk I am sure you would not hear it. The unit also has a night mode accessible via a touchscreen that stops the fan completely for full silence, but also reduces the charging power and cooling to compensate. The LCD display shows real-time charging power for each device and also has a "screen saver" that shows a clock if so desired with 3 themes. Of course there is Bluetooth as well so the Anker app can be used to remotely see the status of the charger and change some settings but you have to be in Bluetooth range. I knocked off one star for the high $180 price, which I think is excessive, as well as for the fact that the Apple watch charger is limited to 5W. Given the price and that it is a brand new product, Anker should have accounted for the new Apple Watch Ultra 3 models fast charging capabilities, and reviewed Apple's tests with high-power chargers. Anker support is as always outstanding, and overall this is a very high-end and elegant looking charger, but be aware of the nuances mentioned. I am going to keep it for use in my office but not in my bedroom.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2025
L
Verified Purchase
Linda D. Straw
Lexington, US
★★★★★ 5
Works great and will last
Color: Phantom Gray
A quality product that lives up to its advertising. Sturdily built, heavy enough to stay in place, good looking and very fast charging.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2026
M
Verified Purchase
Mikke
Phoenix, US
★★★★★ 5
For latest iPhone and Apple Watch together with AirPods Pro 3 must have
Color: Phantom Gray
Honestly this is a piece of hardware that is totally worth the money, one of the kind on the market, nothing like that even exist. Pro: TEC active cooling (really quiet and can go night mode with setup), smart connectivity it actually interacts with your phone for optimize charging and maintenance. Compact design travel friendly. And I don't have to mention that it can do phone, Apple Watch and AirPods. The advertise 25 W charging nominal, tested it showed 38 W with latest iPhone. Against: very pricey, advanced features supported mainly with the latest Apple hardware. Conclusion: if you have the latest iPhone and Apple Watch together with AirPods Pro 3 this is a product for you.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2026
B
Verified Purchase
bobbyinpa
Natrona Heights, US
★★★★★ 5
Best wireless charging stand for Apple products.
Color: Phantom Gray
Connects to phone via Bluetooth, multiple settings can be used with the Anker app that you can download for free. Charges a watch ultra in 20 minutes, charges the iPhone 17 pro max in 35 minutes and charges your pods in 40 minutes. Charger for phone tilts for view and has strong MagSafe. None of my equipment becomes overheated and no issues with charging. Comes with ac plug and long USB C cable.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2026

recommand products