Each to Her Own Taste

Four women promenade left to right, each paired with a dog that mirrors her social type. The leftmost—stout, severe, wide-brimmed hat, heavy fur-trimmed coat—walks a tiny, equally grumpy Pomeranian. The second, slender and fashionably dressed in a drop-waist frock, escorts a lean Great Dane. The third, matronly and broad in a textured coat, leads a squat bulldog. The fourth, younger and hurried, tows both a bag and a small child alongside another compact dog. Gibson's joke is legible: the breed reflects the owner's vanity, class, and temperament. By 1926 the Gibson Girl's idealism had curdled into affectionate mockery of bourgeois female types—a drawing room sociology delivered in crisp crosshatch.