Josephine

Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald, naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, Resistance agent and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. While she was portrayed primarily as a representative of black people, she defined herself as a European woman who overcame racial and gender barriers. The range of her performance and of her performative was wider than either detractors or defenders readily acknowledge.

Tanja Boukal highlights the subtly subversive agency that Baker was able to access through her self-commodification in showing her iconic banana skirt done in a lace pattern - known as “Parisian Tulle” - and presented on a colorless torso.