I have just finished a novel called Carol by Patricia Highsmith. It is an elegant love story set in the America of the late 1940s and early 1950s. As well as transporting the reader back to the era, it is also a novel about travel and escape and also is something of a thriller.
Being an admirer of Highsmith’s work, I was not at all disappointed but what I did notice above all was how much the two main characters Carol Aird and Therese Belivet smoked. It seemed that in every chapter either Carol or Therese lit up.
Although it is not explicit, I would strongly imagine that Carol in particular would have used a cigarette holder and maybe would have introduced the practice to her younger lover Therese. To some extent cigarette holders are a thing of the past as are the beautiful lighters that one used to see and admire.
If one walks down any street in any town then one will see people smoking but they usually have the cigarette hanging from their lips or dangling from their fingers. Smoking is no longer chic. We have learned much about the possible side effects of the habit and quite often one looks at a person smoking and feels a gentle sorrow for them.
I have never smoked in my life as the taste and the idea leaves me cold but I can remember walking into adult rooms when I was a child and finding it difficult to see my parents. It was like a London fog. On the small black and white television I was often told that a certain brand of cigarettes were as cool as a mountain stream. These were the golden days of smoking.
I do not like smoking and if anybody asks me for support to break the habit then it is willingly given. But here is a secret of mine. I long to see a beautiful woman dressed in elegant clothes smoking a cigarette from a memorable cigarette holder. In these days of gory images on cigarette packets and their retail being obscured by ridiculous screens, one finds very little beauty in the practice.
In the last couple of years, pseudo-cigarettes have appeared and these are to this writer rather alarming as the victims seem to be enveloped in clouds of heavy smoke. Although I am told that these pseudo-cigarettes are supposedly more beneficial to ones wellbeing for me, the jury is still out. I cannot imagine either Carol or Therese puffing away on one of these oddities in New York or elsewhere during their trips together.
Hungerford Arcade-A slection of Cigarette holders that were sold at the Arcade
But what of cigarette holders? I have looked and you can still purchase these items from specialist outlets. But do you know what might be more fun whether you smoke or not.
That is to collect cigarette holders from what I might call The Age of Elegance.
It appears that cigarettes have been around for longer than most of us think. There are records dating back to the ninth century noting that reeds were used as a sort of smoking tube. The Maya and the Aztecs are known to have smoked tobacco and other drugs usually during rituals and the like. Cigarettes and its older cousin the cigar were widely smoked in the America’s and it was not long before they made it across the pond to Spain.
Around 1830 the cigarette was introduced into France and this was where it gained its name. Britons started smoking cigarettes during the Crimean War (1853-1856), although evidence suggests that this habit was influenced by the Ottoman Turks as well as the Russians. By 1880 the whole process had been automated and the world was hooked.
But what of cigarette holders when did they make their first appearance? Well surprisingly, cigarette holders date back to the late eighteenth century. Its initial use was to ensure that excess tobacco was successfully used. As far as I can see, it was wrapped in paper (as with a roll up) and connected with the early holder to create a cigarette ( I am still trying to work out the mechanics of this procedure).
One always thinks of the cigarette holder as a fashion accessory but the truth is far from that. Cigarette holders have a practical use as it prevents tobacco flakes from entering the mouth of the smoker. The cigarette papers would not cut the users lips also (imagine getting a paper cut on your lip, they are painful enough when you cut your fingers). More importantly they could act as a filter to stop some the nasty stuff from entering ones system. (Filtered cigarettes only appeared in the 1960s).
Cigarette holders also prevented staining of the smokers fingers and helped to prevent the smoke from stinging their eyes. Some of the more sophisticated holders even had a secondary filtration system. What I did not know was that cigarette holders actually came in four different lengths
Opera Length (c 16-20 inches)
Theatre Length (c 10 to 14 inches)
Dinner Length (4 to 6 inches)
Cocktail Length (really anything shorter)
The cigarette holders used by women were usually up to four inches long and often used for cheroots as well as cigarettes. As expected, cigarette holders were made from a variety of materials such as jade or Bakelite but silver and amber were often used as well as ivory. I have also seen examples made from enamel, horn and quite often tortoiseshell.
Men’s cigarette holders were made from wood, meerschaum as well as the materials already mentioned. The heyday of the cigarette holder was from about 1910 to the end of the 1960s. Hollywood was quick to get in on the act and to use a cigarette holder was seen to be an act of sophistication. Countless movies showed the actors smoking.
Hollywood was selling a fantasy product, elegant clothes and elegant accessories were shown frequently. These included cigarette holders. The next time you watch a Hollywood movie on a wet Sunday afternoon, see if you can spot their use.
A British girl from Belgium who was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston was perhaps the most famous user in a movie set in New York as the 1960s dawned. Other notable users outside of Hollywood included Jackie O, Princess Margaret, and Ayn Rand.
Perhaps my favourite photo involving a cigarette holder was taken in 1947 and shows Cleo Trumbo (The wife of the novelist Dalton Trumbo) elegantly smoking whilst listening to the sinister ramblings of the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Her posture, the way that she was dressed and the way she was holding her cigarette holder all add together to show her contempt for the hearings.
Noel Coward is famously remembered with a cigarette holder as was Franklin D Roosevelt and my favourite composer Sergei Rachmaninoff was also a keen user.
Cruella De Vil in One Hundred and One Dalmatians used one in the 1961 Disney animation. The list is endless. Captain Hook used a unique double holder which allowed him to smoke two cigars at one time.
One frequently finds all kinds of cigarette holders in antique shops and the like. Quite often they come in elegant cases. To me they are rather like pipes they belong to the initial user. They are fun to collect but I always feel that they belong to someone else.
But do not let this put you off as they are beautiful creatures, are quite small and therefore do not take up much room if one started a collection.
For the reasons stated above I do not collect cigarette holders so price wise I would not know where to start. It is like everything else, always pay the price you are comfortable with. Some of the cigarette holders I have seen are miniature works of art. Some are minimalist in their design. Whilst others are highly decorated.
As stated I do not smoke and never have and it is likely that because of this I do not fully appreciate the cigarette holder. They are mysterious creatures. But from afar, I can write about these accessories and whilst I am not encouraging you take up smoking to start a small collection, it would be quite a nice idea and rather interesting.
I must close now as I have been invited to share breakfast with a young lady at a store on 5th Avenue and I am already running late.
Happy Hunting
Stuart Miller-Osborne
