This notice will linger on these headdresses which were the pomp of the women of our Gascony regions, from Marmande to Agen, from Clairac to Villeneuve. A postcard, edited by Martin, honours a Clairacaise and her “coiffure du pays”. She is strangely sitting on a tree branch, her umbrella at her feet; her three-quarter back position highlights the fine lace that stands out on her brown hair. It was a handkerchief, the size and quality of the lace of which revealed the social position of the cute girl, turned around the bun, while letting a large piece float in the wind, like a “Follow me young man”. Competitions were even organized, attracting dozens of candidates competing in ingenuity, where strict juries made up of a few local councillors wearing canotiers and impassive benefactors with feathered hats decided who knew how to tie their handkerchief in the most beautiful way, while keeping the necessary modesty.
Over the old postcards, poems and sayings highlight the coquetry of our ancestors:
« La Gasconne est fort bien sous son foulard de faille
Elle est vraiment superbe avec sa fière taille. »
« L’Ageneso, damb soun beroi mouchouer de cat… »
« Beroi foulard gascoun, oun n’ès, tu, dounc passat… »
As they got older, our Clairacaises made their bleached hair disappear under an austere square of black cloth, leaving only their hieratic face visible. The postcard of a sorter of chasselas will remind some of these women who, sitting in front of their house in the evening, cleaned the bunches of grapes; they were still seen in the 1940s in and around rue des Couteliers.
Guillaume Alaux (1856-1912) belongs to a very long dynasty of architects and painters, still active today. He was the son of Gustave Alaux (1816-1882) architect, grandson of Jean-Paul Alaux (1786-1864), painter and former director of the École des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, great-grandson of the painter Pierre-Joseph Alaux (born 1756). A tradition maintained in the following generations: deceased on April 14, 2020 at the age of 94, Jean-Pierre Alaux was an official naval painter since 1975.
Translation of the Gascon poems above.
Nice Gascony scarf. Where the hell are you?
Oh, you who so long represented coquetry?
People became proud, poor thing, and denigrated it.
And when they talk about you, they don't care, the weirdoes!
Cause they were glorious with those headdresses all decorated
Pretty strips of ribbons, threads or borders,
Which we'd be ashamed, sure, to wear today..
Its bias head tissue for any hairstyle.
And yet our grandmothers did it for a long time.
The chivalry of those days never despised them.
Worn simply, they were still loved;
Today it's different: “progress” is going on.
Armanac from Gascony
In his head handkerchief
Her shiny hair up
And her happy face,
How beautiful the Agenaise is!
When for a little she celebrates,
She's going to Gravier for a walk,
To all her friends she's the envy;
We'd like to kiss her
On the mouth.
M. G.