#21. Paul Poiret and Orientalism

Hi!  

I had to do a PowerPoint presentation at work on any subject I liked, so I thought it would be a good idea to discuss the subject of the next class. This way, I had a presentation to give AND I turned the PowerPoint into a video for yall!  Magic!

Anyway, the video is below.    And, after that is more stuff to read and maybe some links in case you think it's as cool as I do.   But, in the mean time, let me lead up to the stuff that comes BEFORE my presentation because it's important too.  

Let's go.


SO, we are at the turn of the century, 1900, and society is changing.

There are cars and bicycles and industrialism and women have fought to achieve the legal status of actual PEOPLE instead of property (like a cow or pig.)   Well, since women are now people, they can do people things like own property and get an education and KEEP the money they earn from their jobs instead of being forced to hand it over to whichever male happens to "own" them.   So, awesome!   However, they are also still wearing this:

which is pretty restrictive, right?

Anyway, folks had ideas about this.   As you know, the doctor-type people were saying that corsets were a bad idea, but you already know how well that went over.   Also, artistic types like Gustave Klimt said, "I'll design something pretty for ya!" and did!

And he even painted pretty pictures of people wearing his pretty dresses.

So that's groovy and all but you really can't ride a bike in a billowing caftan.  Weird artists are fun but.... nah.

Which that brings us to our video.  Here is the link to the video in case the video in the box below is too small.  Sometimes it's hard to see the photographs.  Sorry.  :-(

And that's the presentation which got me a new job and a pay raise!  Yay!

But, as you can see, this is sort of simplified for the people who don't necessarily care about fashion.  You, my lovelies, know lots more about fashion so you know that things are never quite that simple.   Therefore, I have a few additional points to make.

1.   I know what I just said but Poiret didn't actually set out to change the world with his designs.  He wanted to have a successful business, yes, but mostly he came up with his ideas because he loved his wife.

Poiret got married to Denise late in life and no one really thought much of her.   She was tall and lean and dark and boyish and exactly not what the going fashion was.

 Poiret adored her.  Pretty much he designed every dress for her and so all of his fashions look amazing on her lean frame.

Even the pretty weird ones.

 It is because of Denise that the "garcon" trend was started.  "Garcon" is the French word for young man, and an athletic tall slender small-busted woman, (like Denise), was soon considered to be very modern, very NOT Victorian, and became the basic template for what a fashionable woman should look like.

Still is now,  too...

Poiret eventually went out of business because he wouldn't update to the new Modern style of fashion.  He continued to design exotic Asian-inspired fashions just for her long after fashion trends had left him far behind.

Which is understandable because this amazing dress (which I LOVE)....

.... Looks absolutely fantastic on Denise.

2.   The transistion from corset to no-corset is super dramatic.

As you can see here.

And it happened VERY rapidly.

If you remember some of the things we have talked about, you might recall that fashion tends to change when culture changes.  The Greeks didn't change their fashion for a hundred years but it wasn't because they weren't capable of it.  They invented atomic theory!   Fashion didn't change because their society didn't change.   Sure, there may have been innovations in dyes or embroider or other forms of ornamentation, but the basic shape, the way they thought a person should look, really didn't change at all.

Now, let's look at the shapes which happened in the years spanning 1906-1920:

1906

1907

1908

1909

1910

1911 (magazine photo shoot)

1912

1913

1914

1920
(Yes, I know I skipped some years there.)

Photo 1908 there is a hobble skirt.   Poiret claimed credit for the very short-lived and extreme fashion.  There is a lot of fuss about how awful it was because women couldn't walk and it's how one restricts horses and stuff.   But, let's take a look at the fashions Poiret was facinated with:

It's hard to run/walk in a tight kimono, too.  Poiret loved this look and I believe it is the true inspiration for the narrow lotus bottom skirt.

Which is fine because it's groovy looking and exactly NOT a giant bustle/petticoate situation.  The question isn't "Why did Poiret bind women??"  A better question is "Why did women wear this stuff?  What about this style drew them?   Why did this change everything?"

Let's take a moment and think about the French Revolution.  Remember that?  Remember what women wore?

"Hi!  Remember me?"

Yeah, the no-corset, high waist look was very Empire.   It was also a time of more equality between everyone, women included.  Men's clothing changed back then, too, to reflect a common ground between all sorts of people and not differences determined by social class.

Modernism, which really got started around the turn of the century, is about these ideas, too.    And women, having things to do, really liked the new look of things.  It was practical and reflected their growing freedom to do fun things like sports!

Once women got started on this new style and idea of clothing, there was no stopping it.   Designers like Madeline Vionnet and Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaperelli had their own couture houses and started new trends in women's wear.

It did take a while, though.   Extreme and expensive fashion is for the rich folks.

But eventually it trickles down for the working woman to wear, too:

Of course, World War I also helped that along.  But, more on that next time.