The Belle Époque
Etymology
French for “beautiful era” (“belle,” beautiful, plus “époque,” epoch, from Greek “epokhē,” a fixed point in time). Crucially, the name was coined nostalgically only after World War I, looking back on a lost world — no one living through it called it that. It idealizes the years the war shattered.
noun · /bel ay-POCK/
The era of peace, prosperity, and cultural flourishing in Europe, especially France, from around 1871 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
What it names
A remembered golden age — and the way a period only becomes “golden” once it is safely lost.
Example
The café’s gilt mirrors and velvet booths are a deliberate nod to the Belle Époque.
Related idea
It relates to fin de siècle, which covers the same turn-of-the-century years but with an undertone of decadence and anxiety rather than golden nostalgia.