The Bright Young People

adozenmiles: Bright Young Cecil Beaton

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:34:48 -0500

Bright Young Cecil Beaton

anthonyblanche: “I used to know Brian Howard well - a dazzling...

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:27:04 -0500

“I used to know Brian Howard well - a dazzling young man to my innocent eyes… He was consumptive but the immediate cause of his death was a broken heart.”

- Evelyn Waugh on Brian Howard.

flyte-sebastian-flyte: Appreciation post for Stephen Tennant,...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:04:58 -0400

flyte-sebastian-flyte:

Appreciation post for Stephen Tennant, history’s most endearing hedonist.

“I’m going to be a Bird of Paradise this Spring.”

Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah Mitford (the...

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 18:30:54 -0400

Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah Mitford (the famous Mitford sisters) sketched by the artist William Acton sometime during the early 1930’s.

“He had little social tense. He was like some charming wild...

Sat, 26 May 2012 20:38:16 -0400

“He had little social tense. He was like some charming wild animal—one never felt he was really tame (or tameable).” —Stephen’s first impression of Siegfried in 1927

bassington: Stephen Tennant, photographed by Cecil Beaton, c....

Sun, 06 May 2012 18:41:25 -0400

bassington:

Stephen Tennant, photographed by Cecil Beaton, c. 1927.

Photo

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:08:25 -0400

Photo

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:23:11 -0400

deviatesinc: Cecil Beaton

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 08:22:14 -0400

deviatesinc:

Cecil Beaton

perioddrama: Bright Young Things (2003)

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 07:42:26 -0500

perioddrama:

Bright Young Things (2003)

Photo

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:04:10 -0500

perfectlypoisonous: The “Bright Young People” of London in...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:45:20 -0500

perfectlypoisonous:

The “Bright Young People” of London in 1930, digging up the street in attire from a Mozart-themed party. Note Cecil Beaton with the pneumatic drill.

(It also looks like what would happen if the peeps had a party.)

skabritches: Cecil Beaton again. Am green with shirt envy....

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 15:28:07 -0500

skabritches:

Cecil Beaton again. Am green with shirt envy. (Though the sleeve length would make my arms look terrible.)

the-seed-of-europe: Siegfried Sassoon, WWI veteran and poet...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:49:57 -0500

the-seed-of-europe:

Siegfried Sassoon, WWI veteran and poet with his lover - aristocratic socialite and Bright Young Thing Stephen Tennant.

“…Small-scale, essentially confined to a tiny quarter of the metropolis, the Bright Young People, like the Modern Girl and the Modern Girl’s Brother, wielded an influence on the popular conception of ‘youth’ out of all proportion to their numbers. Coming only a few years after a devastating war that obliterated hundreds of thousands of young men the antagonism between youth and seniority that characterized the 1920s was of far greater significance than previous intergenerational disturbance. For all the enthusiasm for ‘youth,’ the talk of ‘new blood’ and the need to sweep away prewar stuffiness, the twenties, practically every commentator of the period agrees, was a difficult time to be a young man. Part of this difficulty lay in the simple fact of his existence. Orwell, a decade later, noted the tremendous feeling of guilt experienced by the young man born in the years after 1900 who, consequently, had managed to avoid military service. ‘The very fact of his being alive was against him,’ Balfour declared, ‘for he was thus prevented from standing level with ‘the boys who had died.” Whatever feats he accomplished, he would always be compared, and nearly always unfavorably, with the war generation lost in the Flanders mud.

But there was more to these anxieties than a sense of generational inferiority. To a failure to emulate the achievements of those killed in the war could be added the insecurities of the new postwar landscape, where jobs were scarce and whole areas of employment seemed set aside for the jealous middle-aged. On the one hand the peculiarly charged atmosphere of the 1920s, with its promise of good times and limitless horizons, had raised expectations among the young; on the other the reality of its economic pressures had simultaneously let them down. Cyril Connolly noted the reluctance of his contemporaries to accept the routine compromises that had done for their fathers: ‘They could not settle down to boring jobs and unprofitable careers with prewar patience and their cleverness seemed a liability rather than an asset.’…”

-D.J. Taylor, Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age.

Not a book directly related to the wars, but highly recommended reading all the same.

lookandread: more stephen tennant

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:47:26 -0500

lookandread:

more stephen tennant

poptimewarp:

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:00:42 -0500

poptimewarp:

Photo

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:29:56 -0500

Cecil Beaton, 1922

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:55:13 -0400

Cecil Beaton, 1922

sebastianbrilliance: kaiserbund: I’m not even going to try to...

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:31:13 -0400

sebastianbrilliance:

kaiserbund:

I’m not even going to try to come up with an excuse for this.

BLESSED MARY MOTHER OF GOD.

Alfred Lunt; Lynn Fontanne; Cecil Beaton; Sir Noël Coward, by...

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 17:49:28 -0400

Alfred Lunt; Lynn Fontanne; Cecil Beaton; Sir Noël Coward, by Paul Tanqueray (1952)