Paul Poiret's Two Editions de Luxe

About the Item

Paul Poiret's career began in the Belle Epoque, when fashion was defined by imprisoning corsets, restrictive tailoring, and ethereal colors. Opening his own fashion house in 1904, he banned the corset, emphasized draping, and introduced strident colors. No less an impresario than a designer, Poiret hit the road with a bevy of models to promote his collections worldwide. He also designed theatrical costumes and stage sets, created the first designer perfumes, launched an interior design studio, threw unbelievably extravagant parties, and opened a contemporary art gallery and nightclub in the Avenue d’Antin compound where he worked and lived. In other words, he was the first designer to create a lifestyle brand. His initial stab at marketing and branding was the 1908 publication of one of these books, 'Les Robes de Paul Poiret,' in a limited edition of two-hundred-and-fifty. Illustrated by Paul Iribe, it had ten hand-colored pochoir (stenciled) plates and no text. Copies were sold in bookstores, but his target audience was, he wrote in his autobiography, “the elite of Europe,” who were sent complimentary copies. His body-clinging clothes shown on sloe-eyed beauties, whose preoccupations appear to be anything but God, family, and country, prompted the French novelist Octave Mirbeau to accuse Poiret of sending “obscenities” to his wife, and Queen Alexandra to return her copy with a letter stating “the Queen of England does not receive advertising catalogs.” A succès de scandale, the book has been sought after by bibliophiles, collectors, and fashionistas ever since. The cover has a decorative oval enframing the title, and a smaller subtitle, 'Racontées par Paul Iribe' ('As Told by…') suited to a storybook. And indeed, each illustration seems to tell a story. The women and their clothes were rendered in color, but their luxurious domestic settings are black-and-white. Two years before, Iribe had captured the attention of sophisticated Parisians with his illustrations and articles for 'Le Témoin,' a satirical political weekly that he had founded. No less egotistical, fiery-tempered, or entrepreneurial than Poiret himself, Iribe went on to become famous too. He muscled in on his former patron’s territory by designing dresses, theatrical costumes and stage sets, interiors (occasionally collaborating with Poiret), and one-off furniture. In 1919 he set off for Hollywood on signing a lucrative contract to design costumes and sets for the films of Cecil B. DeMille. The late 1920s found him back in Paris where he relaunched Le Témoin, bankrolled by Coco Channel, his latest romantic conquest, for whom he designed a line of precious jewelry (in 1935 he died in her arms after a strenuous tennis match). Of particular interest to us was his interest in the decorative arts. In the plates he depicts Louis XVI furniture, and an ebony table of his own design, and a George Romney portrait, and a print by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. In 1911, three years after 'Les Robes,' Poiret released a second book with twelve pochoir plates in an edition of one thousand, 'Les Choses de Paul Poiret Vues par Georges Lepape' ('The Things of Paul Poiret Seen by…'). Unlike the competitive Iribe, Lepape was an easygoing man who hung out with Georges Braque and Marie Laurencin at the Moulin de la Galette, the bohemian dance hall immortalized by Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. Poiret allowed his name to appear on the cover in the same size as his own, along with a tasseled belt that Poiret sent his wife as a gift. Inside is an orgy of color that appears in the backgrounds as well as the clothes, which are worn with orientalist turbans. The book’s success brought Lepape many commissions, including illustrations for the Gazette du Bon-Ton, perhaps the most beautiful fashion magazine of all time, which, in turn, brought him to the attention of Condé Nast in New York, who would buy the Gazette, and put Lepape on contract for Vogue. One again, of particular interest to us are the luxurious settings. In 1911, the year 'Les Choses' appeared, Poiret launched Parfums Rosine, a perfume line, and the Atelier Martine, an interior design studio, which were named for his daughters. Martine also produced furniture, fabrics, cushions, and wallpapers, that were sold in stand-alone boutiques in Paris and London, and high-end department stores in Berlin and New York. One plate in our book shows a supine seductress in a cushioned opium den that looks very much like a Martine interior. Even in the 1920s, a decade known in France as Les Années Folles (The Crazy Years), Poiret’s unbridled spending and over expansion was beyond the beyond. It won him the sobriquet Poiret le Magnifique. It also put him in a precarious financial position. Not surprisingly, following the 1929 stock market crash, his empire was among the first to crumble. When it did, he retreated to a country house that he couldn't afford to complete, took up painting, cooked sumptuous meals for friends, and wrote a spellbinding autobiography. Force of circumstance, however, left him no less magnificent. Standards diminished in the years that have followed, and many other designers have attempted to emulate his creative reach, yet none have equaled, or even approached, Poiret’s accomplishments.

Creator:

Paul Poiret (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 12 in (30.48 cm)Width: 13 in (33.02 cm)Depth: 0.5 in (1.27 cm)

Sold As:

Set of 2

Style:

Art Deco (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Paper

Place of Origin:

France