Paul PoiretThe modes, which released the women from the corset and took many oriental cultures, inspired many designers, including Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, Dries Van Notten, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake.
Look by all these contemporary creators of “fashion is a feast”, a exposure Dedicated to Poiret which opens the decoratives of the Arts Museum on Wednesday and ends until January 11, 2026.
The lively, dense and colorful spectacle exalts Poiret as a pioneer in concept stores, event marketing, product placement, high school – and a real life style approach for design, because he applied his hand to everything, interiors and wallpaper for children’s clothing and costumes for the scene.
It is also a reminder of the modernity of his silhouettes, illustrated by a photo of Peggy Guggenheim, in 1924, his lovely evening dress Paul Poiret worn with the ease of a t-shirt.
Marie-Sophie Carron de la Carrière, who organized the show, admitted that a Poiret exposure She occurred in 1986, at the start of her career as a curator of modern and contemporary art, sparked a new passion.
A strong color was a characteristic noted of the conceptions of Paul Poiret.
Xavier Granet / WWD
“It made me understand what fashionable-at the crossroads of several disciplines,” she said during a step-by-step procedure with WWD on Thursday. “Paul Poiret’s vision to create a global universe in which decorative arts in particular, but also perfumes, gastronomy and travel, were total art.
“He pushed this to the point where the living environment corresponded to sewing outfits,” she was amazed. “There is also this alliance with art, and it is really he who developed this.”
A brilliant bon living communicator and enthusiastic, Poiret turned into something of a celebrity at a time when designers loved little stature, often forced to use the entrance to the service in refined houses.
“He knew that by dressing the artists’ wives, it was also a way of disseminating his creations,” said Carron from the career.
A festive costume designed by Paul Poiret.
Xavier Granet / WWD
The show takes place chronologically and thematically, each subject delimited by lively walls thanks to the design of the PAF Workshop platform under the artistic direction of Anette Lenz, which was inspired by the use by Poiret of daring fawn colors throughout his career.
Interested in glass boxes housing clusters of beautifully preserved peart outfits are illustrations, photos, magazine covers, perfume bottles and works of art by Raoul Dufy, André Derain and Léon Bakst. In total, 550 objects are displayed.
The Russian ballets are highlighted as a key influence on Poiret, which was struck by the way in which dance, music, costumes and design were merged into a work of total art. The dresses carried by the American dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan are also exhibited.
Knowing that young visitors may not have the slightest clue to the history of the creator’s richness – he closed his debt fashion house in 1929 and lived in poverty thereafter – Carron of the career opened the exhibition with a display of large and often binding changing rooms that dominate the early 1900s.
Just in front of these heavier silhouettes, the more natural silhouettes with an empire line, or not in size, to be worn with a more natural bra, silhouettes of Jacques Doucet, or no size, like his wife, Denise Boulet.
Meanwhile, her opulely embellished Marrakech dress and her favorite turbans point to her thirst for traveling in distant lands, both for inspiration and to promote his name and goods. (Later in the exhibition, his chest Louis Vuitton invades a fashion showcase, his name written big on the brown monogram canvas.)
At the top of his career, Poiret operated from a mansion near rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, using his large garden for fashion shows and themed festivals.
Although he has a penchant for fantastic exoticism inherent in Hareel and Harem, for example, Poiret also experienced with simple, even severe silhouettes, and sometimes reused fabrics, formerly transforming a tablecloth found in a Polish market into a summer outfit and a cashmere shâle into a girl’s dress.
A Paul Poiret dress made with a tablecloth from a market in Poland.
Xavier Granet / WWD
The wallpaper models and the impressions he developed often represented humble vegetables, such as radishes and artichokes, and when he painted, the Poiret eye was attracted to trees outside his window or a fish basket on an outdoor market. “Basically, he is interested in everyday things,” said Carron of the career.
Born in Paris in 1879, Poiret began his career as apprentices in fashion houses, notably Worth and Doucet, which settled in 1903.
The artistic decoratives present falls during the centenary of the international exhibition of modern decorative and industrial arts in Paris, during which Poiret presented his life -style lifestyle on three barges moored on the protrusion, with a restaurant serving as a roast lamb, asparagus and fresh fruit. (The menu is included in the screen.)
According to the museum, the event left Peiret in financial ruin and accelerated the closure of his business.
“We must not forget that the career path of a fashion designer can be very fragile,” said Carron of the career.
Denise Boulet and Paul Poiret during a party costumed by him.
Xavier Granet / WWD