The Belle Époque

The Belle Époque (French pronunciation: [bɛlepɔk]; French for "Beautiful Era") was a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the time of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, the "Belle Époque" was named in retrospect, when it began to be considered a "golden age" for the upper classes, as peace prevailed among the major powers of Europe, new technologies improved upper-class lives that were unclouded by income tax, and the commercial arts adapted Renaissance and eighteenth-century styles to modern forms. In the newly rich United States, emerging from the Panic of 1873, the comparable epoch was dubbed the "Gilded" (not Golden) Age. In Great Britain, this epoch overlaps the end of what is called the Victorian Era there and the period named the Edwardian Era.

The separation between the fortunes and daily life of "haves" and "have nots" in Western Europe and the United States increased dramatically in the last quarter of the century. Cheap coal and cheap labour contributed to the cult of the orchid[2] and made possible the perfection of fruits grown under glass, as the apparatus of state dinners extended to the upper classes; champagne was perfected during the Belle Époque. Exotic feathers and furs were more prominently featured in fashion than ever before, as haute couture was invented in Paris, the centre of the Belle Époque, where fashion began to move in a yearly cycle; in Paris restaurants such as Maxim's achieved a new splendour and cachet as places for the rich to parade, and the Opéra Garnier devoted enormous spaces to staircases as similar show places. After mid-century railroads linked all the major cities of Europe to spa towns like Biarritz and Deauville; their carriages were rigorously divided into first-class and second-class, but the super-rich now began to commission private railroad cars, as exclusivity was a hallmark of opulent luxury. Bohemian lifestyles gained a different glamour, pursued in the cabarets of Montmartre.