Please expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French Wikipedia. (May 2009) After translating, {{Translated|fr|Incroyables et Merveilleuses}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. Translation instructions · Translate via Google

The Incroyables (Incredibles) and their female counterparts, the Merveilleuses (Marvelous), were a name for the fashionable subcultures living in France in the Directoire era. The exhibition of products of national industry, organized in 1798, testified to their infatuation with luxury.

The names are sometimes spelled and were pronounced "incoyables" and "meveilleuses" without the letter R, as, in reaction against the Revolution, which begins with an R, in which so many had suffered and lost relatives, the letter R had to be banished.

Contents 1 Details 2 Other uses 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Details

After the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror ended, there was a furor for entertainment and pleasure. Stylish women, the Merveilleuses, modeled their dress after that of ancient Greece and Rome, wearing semi-transparent tunics in gauze or linen and often displaying cleavage. They were also fond of wigs, often blonde, but also in such colors as black, blue, and green.

Their gentleman companions, the Incroyables, wore eccentric outfits: green jackets, wide trousers, huge neckties, thick glasses, and hats topped by "dog ears", their hair falling on the ears. Their musk-based fragrances gave them the nickname Muscadin. They wore bicorne hats and carried bludgeons, which they referred to as their "executive power."

The most famous Merveilleuses included Mademoiselle Lange, Madame Tallien, Madame Récamier, or citizens Hamelin and Beauharnais, two very popular Créoles.

The leading Incroyable, Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras, hosted luxurious feasts, attended by royalists, repented Jacobins, and ladies and courtesans alike. Since divorce was now legal under the Directoire, morals tended to be looser than in the past.

Many Incroyables were "nouveaux riches," gaining their wealth from selling arms and lending money (usury). When the Directoire period ended, society took a more sober and modest turn.

[edit] Other uses

• Incroyable was an 18th century nickname in France for a yo-yo, then a fashionable toy. ^[1]

[edit] References

1. ^ Lucky Meisenheimer. "Lucky’s History of the Yo-Yo". http://www.yo-yos.net/Yo-yo%20history.htm. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 

[edit] External links

• http://www.blastmilk.com/decollete/revolutionary-fashion/incroyables-et-merveilleus.php
• http://www.lamesure.fr/rubriques/modeselegants.html (French)