Bonbons and Velvet Slippers: The Radical Friendship of the Bourbon Princess and La Bella Otero

One Buenos Aires medico-legal expert claimed to have observed many prison visits between the two friends: “Nothing more grotesque nor repugnant can be conceived than Ulpiano Alvarez (La Bella Otero) .... receiving with the most exquisite effeminacy the box of bonbons covered with silk papers and neatly secured with a coquettish bow of wide pink ribbon, from the hand of ‘her faithful friend,’ who hoped in this fashion to ‘sweeten the hours of sadness ... of the ‘friend in disgrace’ who had embroidered crimson velvet slippers with gold filigree.” Although the author frames this prison visit scene as a pathetic farce, emphasizing the ugliness as well as insanity of what we might today interpret as trans femininity, tenderness and care still permeate the text. One friend hopes to “sweeten” the other’s imprisonment with candy and beauty, carefully decorating the box of treats for the pleasure of the deprived recipient. “The Beautiful” Otero pushes back against the repression of the prison environment, self-soothing in her cell by holding the crimson velvet and gold threads close against the drab surroundings, creating beauty, imagining her friend’s feet newly adorned, dancing in freedom.