During an era of political upheaval, a portrait session at Foto Estudio Luisita, run by sisters Luisa and Chela Escarria, was a rite of passage for actors, dancers, pioneering trans performers and the occasional adorned dog.
Olga Breeskin. Photo by Antonio Caballero, ca. 1978. Courtesy of Ficheraz
Their talent wooed audiences. Their sexual freedom gave women permission to break from their puritanical chains, and their glaring opulence enchanted the haves and the have nots. They sang, acted, joked and danced on stages donning luxe headdresses and stilettoed heels.
The Latin American showgirls of the mid-twentieth century were rockstars, but unlike their contemporaries in Old Hollywood, the careers of these bygone starlets haven’t been memorialized on terrazzo sidewalks. But, nearly a century later, Ficheraz, a Mexico City-based collective, has taken on the task of preserving their legacy with a digital, archival tribute to these beauties of the night.