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Discover Mid-America — October 2004

Compacts

Until World War I, most compacts were really just containers for powder bags or “rouge.” Both appear in ads showing the bag and rouge as needed but unsanitary. When “nose” mirrors were added to the bags and cans for a quick dab, compacts began to assume a tiny amount of design.

By 1913, a Detroit druggist offered a handsome little accessory — gold finished with pad, powder, bag and reducing mirror with a 50-cent powder box purchase. In 1917, Vanity Fair had a refillable case heavily gold plated for one dollar. Druggist sold most all women cosmetic items and cases before World War II.

New York beauty salons in the 1920s put cosmetics and compacts on every woman’s status list. French fashion houses eager to promote their products saw the benefit of a classy compact as a gift item that needed refilling. Thousands of compacts and vanity cases suitably inscribed were sold on Valentine’s Days. The golden age of compacts was launched.

In the twenties, the trend went back and forth between pressed and loose powder, which affected compact design. In the late 1930s, craftsmen fleeing Europe and the major

French houses due to the German occupation advances shifted their emphasis to New York and introduced line after line to the American woman who now had the money to spend on themselves. The late 1930s and early 1940s saw the peak of the compact case. Design and quality were unparallel and most of the truly classic cases came from this period.

After the war pancake makeup, crème powder and foam rubber sponges pushed the compact case out of fashion.

The compact today is a ghost of its former self. No longer a necessity or a gift choice, the compact is now a curiosity or better yet a collectible. As always, the scarcity and condition determine the price.

Two examples include the Haywood-Goldtone Loose Powder case signed, $50, and Evans White
Medal Pendant case, $125.

> Helpful Hints for Collectors Archive — past columns