Clown Trends

The Fratellini brothers were the big trendsetting clown trio operating in european clown history. First there were four brothers, Louis and Paul and Albert and Francois, playing in two duo's. But then Louis died in 1909 and Paul joined in with Albert and Francois. Albert exaggerated his august and Paul invented a middle form, between the white face elegance and the grotesque august. It was this grotesque august Albert invented that came to be that big of a succes that nowadays when people think about 'clown' it's often more or less the image of Albert Fratellini they have in mind. 

As we can see in the video, Albert Fratellini wears a lot of face paint that manipulates his faces' normal emotional expressions, and a big red clown nose. He wears extreme big shoes (more than 60 centimeres long!) forcing him to walk like a duck. (watch him stumble into that car!) An oversized costume, a wig with hair (so cool when it's turning around!) on both sides and no hair in between. Exactly what a child would draw when drawing a clown.

Nowadays the trend among clowns is rather reduced, many don't play with big face paint anymore, bringing it down to 'only putting on a nose' (safes a lot of time as well!), or not even that, and then there's people saying this means that our contemporary clown is much more 'authentic'. But, why? Clowns simply react to the context they're in, and they do what works. Personally I really enjoy watching Albert Fratellini putting on his make up and I can imagine that exactly in the time it takes to put it on, there's a kind of transition you go through that can help to put you in the exagerated state you have to be in to entertain a big audience.

Trends come and go, also in the clown fashion world. After Albert Fratellini came up with his style of costume and make up and it worked well, everybody started to copy it. And now there's some who like to keep their faces clean. For example this Catalan clown Leandre

And that works well with the audiences, so others are following the recipe. It's just copying what works, there's no essentialistic justification why what's out is out. That's only to make the new trend sell better after all. “It's the first, it's more real, this is very authentic, ….” - as opposed to what was before. I think that's what looking into clown history can be very helpful with: to realize that the actual trend is also just a trend after all.