Modes de guerre (War Fashions)

This hand-colored lithograph satirizes wartime domestic life through the figure of a fastidious gentleman examining his nightclothes. The elaborate costume—with its ornate lace collar, flowing red cape, and decorated garments—lampoons vanity and social pretension during World War I. A spare bed and chamber pot occupy the background, anchoring the scene in intimate, mundane reality. The French text questions how one maintains such finery amid wartime austerity, mocking both bourgeois affectation and the gap between civilian comfort and military sacrifice. The work exemplifies early-twentieth-century color lithography's role in political humor, descending from the Daumier and Gillray tradition of using exaggerated costume and domestic setting to expose social contradictions. The spindly legs and elongated features employ caricature conventions to render the subject ridiculous.