The Not-So-Subtle Art of the Conversation Fan

On the heels of my post about the language of flowers—where blooms were assigned meanings that “did the talking” during the Victorian age, comes a post about another love language all its own: fanology or, the art of using the hand fan as a means of conversation.

Those beautifully decorated fans we see women clutching in 18th and 19th century portraits, the ones we see ladies fluttering in movies of the same era? They weren’t just fashion accessories or a way to stay cool.

They were used to co...