Life — November 6, 1919 — page 23: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This illustration depicts two women in contrasting aesthetic styles. The figure on the left wears modern, Western dress with a headband featuring feathers, while the figure on the right is dressed in elaborate Native American-inspired clothing with ornate beadwork, feathered headdress, and decorative garments. The title "One Touch of Nature" appears to satirize early 20th-century fashion trends where Western women adopted "exotic" or "primitive" aesthetics as costume or affectation. The juxtaposition suggests mockery of how non-Native women appropriated Indigenous visual elements as fashionable accessories while actual Native peoples faced marginalization. The work likely critiques this shallow cultural borrowing and the racial attitudes underlying such trends.