Josephine, youngest of the four sisters who built the Callot Soeurs couturier fashion empire, is independent, free spirited and determined to live life on her own terms. She is intelligent, talented, progressive, ambitious, and sexually liberated. Despite the patriarchal culture of the times, she succeeds in having a successful career, a love affair for the ages and an enviable marriage.
Her ‘autobiography from beyond the grave,’ is a testament to unbridled passion and the heartbreaking reality of love and death in nineteenth century Paris. Josephine shares her emotional struggles, downfalls, and triumphs, as she experiments with freedom and searches for personal fulfillment. Her introduction to spiritism and reincarnation, raises the specter that visions of living in a Babylonian temple 4000 years ago may shed light on the relationships she has with important people in her life.
Josephine’s story gives us a window into Belle Epoch Parisian culture–an increasingly wealthy and influential bourgeoise, an aristocracy struggling to maintain a lifestyle of entitlement, the libertine Bohemian sub-culture of Montmartre, the BDSM Paris underground, and shifting societal mores around sex, love, and marriage. Her experiences offer a perspective missing in history and a narrative that is both individual and collective.
Josephine’s voice illuminates the personal and professional lives of the Callot family. Through her eyes we glimpse the guiding philosophy, creative force, business acumen and comradery that distinguished the House of Callot from the competition and insured its success. This woman-owned, woman-operated enterprise was exceptional for its time. Josephine’s own contribution was unique. Her untimely death at the age of thirty-one rounds out her short, impassioned life. Her demise is tragic, but contrary to popular rumor, not suicide.