Kimberly Tilley rescues forgotten stories of early twentieth century America from obscurity. Her books, Grievous Deeds (2023); Has it Come to This? (2022), Cold Heart (2020), and The Poisoned Glass (2019) were Amazon category best-sellers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and India.
Kimberly owns OldSpirituals.com. She's very grateful for the wonderful community and two outstanding contributors to help fulfill the site's mission of rescuing fascinating stories from obscurity.
Kimberly is the cofounder of Pivot Talent Development LLC, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. PIVOT offers workshops, training, consulting, and coaching to help professionals improve performance, drive business impact, and transcend limitations.
Kimberly owns OldSpirituals.com. She's very grateful for the wonderful community and two outstanding contributors to help fulfill the site's mission of rescuing fascinating stories from obscurity.
Kimberly is the cofounder of Pivot Talent Development LLC, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. PIVOT offers workshops, training, consulting, and coaching to help professionals improve performance, drive business impact, and transcend limitations.
Latest posts by Kimberly (see all)
- Rhythm, Art, and Labradorite - 8 November 2026
- Personal and Goodwill Evolutions - 27 October 2026
- Supernatural in Blue - 25 October 2026
Musical accompaniment: Maybe Tonight by Nicole Atkins .
I recently posted a few autochromes of Vietnamese women in 1915 taken by Léon Busy. With uncharacteristic restraint, I decided to hold a few back to share another day. Today should be that day.
So I’m delighted to present to you, express from Vietnam 1915, three more magnificent autochromes by French photographer Léon Busy:
Beautiful!
the woman in the first picture is wearing such unusual shoes. do you know anything about them? are all the women wearing headbands? is the girl in the last picture smoking? so many questions. beautiful pictures!
Great questions but I don’t know the answer to any of them. Maybe someone else will!
The shoes are two different styles. The woman sitting in the first photo is wearing thong sandals. The woman standing in the second photo is wearing, I believe, a Chinese style slipper style shoe.
Here is a modern version of the slipper style shoe.
My sense is that the women in the photos are not “average” Vietnam citizens. Notice the attire of the people in the background of the second photo. They depict the dress of the common Vietnamese citizen.
That’s a good point. These were probably upper-class women! I have some velvet shoes that are similar to these but they have a higher back. They are very comfortable!
that would make sense!
Beautiful!