Théâtre de la Mode exhibit of doll-like mannequins wearing 1946 French couture clothing and accessories.
Théâtre de la Mode (Theatre of Fashion) was a 1945–1946 touring exhibit of fashion mannequins created at approximately 1/3 the size of human scale, and crafted by top Paris fashion designers. It was created to raise funds for war survivors and to help revive the French fashion industry in the aftermath of World War II. While raising funds, Théâtre de la Mode was also meant to showcase the work of Parisian couturiers. The original Théâtre de la Mode exhibit toured Europe and then the United States, and is now part of the permanent collections of the Maryhill Museum of Art in Washington state in the United States.[1]
The French fashion industry was an important economic and cultural force in Paris when World War II began. There were 70 registered couture houses in Paris, and many other smaller designers. The war had a severe impact on the industry. Couturiers and buyers fled occupied France or closed their businesses. Clothing businesses that struggled to remain open had to deal with extreme shortages of cloth, thread, and other sewing supplies. The occupying Germans intended to displace Paris with Berlin as a centre of European fashion design. The Nazi regime planned to turn Berlin and Vienna into the centres of European couture, with head offices there and an official administration, introducing subsidies for German clothing makers, and demanding that important people in the French fashion industry be sent to Germany to establish a dressmaking school there.[2] Couture's place in France's economy was key to this plan: an exported dress made by one of France's leading couturiers was said to be worth "ten tonnes of coal", and a litre of fine French perfume was worth "two tonnes of petrol".[3]
French fashion was also not only important economically, it was a vital part of France's national cultural identity. French designers resisted the Nazi regime's plans; Lucien Lelong, president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, proclaimed, 'It is in Paris or it is nowhere'.[4] A worker from Reboux, one of Paris's largest milliners, later said of the attitude of the fashion industry during the German occupation:
We wore large hats to raise our spirits. Felt gave out, so we made them out of chiffon. Chiffon was no more. All right, take straw. No more straw? Very well, braided paper.... Hats have been a sort of contest between French imagination and German regulation.... We wouldn't look shabby and worn out; after all, we were Parisiennes.[3]
After Paris was liberated, the idea for a miniature theatre of fashion came from Robert Ricci, son of couturier Nina Ricci. All materials were in short supply at the end of World War II, and Ricci proposed using miniature mannequins, or fashion dolls, to address the need to conserve textiles, leather, fur, fibers, and so on.[5] The mannequins were 27.5 inches (700mm) tall, fabricated of wire. Some 60 Paris couturiers amongst them Nina Ricci, Balenciaga, Germaine Lecomte, Mad Carpentier, Martial & Armand, Hermès, Philippe & Gaston, Madeleine Vramant, Jeanne Lanvin, Marie-Louise Bruyère and Pierre Balmain[6][7][8] joined and volunteered their scrap materials and labour to create miniature clothes in new styles for the exhibit. Milliners created miniature hats, hairstylists gave the mannequins individual coiffures, and jewellers such as Van Cleef and Arpels and Cartier contributed small necklaces and accessories. Some seamstresses even crafted miniature undergarments to go under the couture designs. Seamstresses carried their sewing machines around with them to complete work on the Théâtre de la Mode during Paris's post-War electricity shortages.[9][10] Historian Lorraine McConaghy points out the level of detail in the clothing:
The meticulous attention to details is so striking ... The buttons really button. The zippers really zip. The handbags have little stuff – little wallets, little compacts – inside them.[9]
Once work was completed on the Théâtre de la Mode, it became a touring exhibition of 237 doll-size figurines in 15 elaborate artist-created sets.[11] It opened at the Louvre in Paris on 28 March 1945, and was enormously popular, drawing 100,000 visitors and raising a million francs for war relief. With the success of the exhibit in Paris, the Théâtre de la Mode went on a tour of Europe, with shows in London, Leeds, Barcelona, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Vienna.[5][12] To promote the exhibit abroad, a French government official wrote to the Ambassador of France in Britain: "France has little, alas to export, but she has her appreciation of beautiful things and the skill of her couture houses".[5][12] After touring Europe in 1945, the mannequins were outfitted with new clothes designed for the 1946 season and the exhibition traveled to the United States, where it was displayed in New York City and San Francisco in 1946.[5][9][12] After the final show, the mannequins were left behind in San Francisco, while the jewellery was returned to Paris.[5][12]
Restoration and later tours
Tribute to René Clair: I Married a Witch, Jean Cocteau (1945), a restored set design for the Théâtre de la Mode.
The Maryhill Museum of Art in the United States acquired the mannequins in 1952 through a donation by art patron Alma de Bretteville Spreckels. The original sets accompanying the dolls, which had been crafted by such artists as Christian Bérard, Jean Saint-Martin, Georges Wakhevitch and Jean Cocteau, were lost before the Maryhill acquired the exhibit. In 1988, Paris's Musée de la Mode et du Textile undertook an extensive restoration of the mannequins and painstakingly recreated the sets.[12] The Théâtre de la Mode still exhibits at the Maryhill Museum of Art by rotating selections from the complete series of mannequins and sets. Parts of the Théâtre de la Mode also tour art and fashion museums throughout the United States and worldwide.[1]
Impact on fashion, art, and culture
The art and aesthetics of Théâtre de la Mode have had lasting influence on the worlds of fashion, contemporary art, and design. In the late 1980s, the designer BillyBoy* organized an exhibition tour Le Nouveau Théâtre de la Mode (New Theatre of Fashion) sponsored by Mattel with Barbie dolls dressed by contemporary fashion designers.
Town & Country magazine reports that seminal fashion designer Christian Dior likely contributed design work to Théâtre de la Mode, and that Dior's Couture Collection was influenced by the display.[13]
The Bold Doll reports that Robert Tonner, founder of the Tonner Doll Company, received design inspiration in Théâtre de la Mode when creating a wide-ranging collection of contemporary dolls; these include a limited series of dolls featuring delicate embroidery and beading for FAO Schwarz in 2001, and a doll wearing a short dance dress for the 2003 Paris Fashion Doll Festival.[14]
The Barry Art Museum’s 2021 exhibition Karen LaMonte: Théâtre de la Mode highlights sculptures created by American artist Karen LaMonte and inspired by the original wire doll display. Works include LaMonte’s Études, miniature sculptures that depict elegant evening dresses with the wearer absent. LaMonte’s works are displayed on sets built by the Old Dominion University Theater Department alongside several of the original French figurines on loan from the Maryhill Museum.[15]
W magazine writes that, in 2020, fashion designer Maria Grazia Chiuri presented Dior's haute couture line in a miniature display inspired by Théâtre de la Mode.[16]
Christian Ernest Dior was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE, which is now owned by parent company LVMH. His fashion houses are known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade."
Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer, a master couturier during the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house.
Charles Frederick Worth was an English fashion designer who founded the House of Worth, one of the foremost fashion houses of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is considered by many fashion historians to be the father of haute couture. Worth is also credited with revolutionising the business of fashion.
Madeleine Vionnet was a French fashion designer. Vionnet trained in London before returning to France to establish her first fashion house in Paris in 1912. Although it was forced to close in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, it re-opened after the war and Vionnet became one of the leading designers of 1920s-30s Paris. Vionnet was forced to close her house in 1939 and retired in 1940.
Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre was a Spanish fashion designer, and the founder of the Balenciaga clothing brand. He had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as "the master of us all" by Christian Dior and as "the only couturier in the truest sense of the word" by Coco Chanel, who continued, "The others are simply fashion designers". On the day of his death, in 1972, Women's Wear Daily ran the headline "The King is Dead".
Edward Henry Molyneux was a leading British fashion designer whose salon in Paris was in operation from 1919 until 1950. He was characterised as a modernist designer who played with the refinements of couture style, a modernist aesthetic, and the desire to be socially and culturally advanced.
Jeanne Paquin (1869–1936) was a leading French fashion designer, known for her resolutely modern and innovative designs. She was the first major female couturier and one of the pioneers of the modern fashion business.
Maryhill Museum of Art is a small museum with an eclectic collection, located near what is now the community of Maryhill in the U.S. state of Washington.
Paris Fashion Week is a series of designer presentations held semiannually in Paris, France, with spring/summer and autumn/winter events held each year. Dates are determined by the French Fashion Federation. Paris Fashion Week is held at venues throughout the city.
Dominique Sirop is a French fashion designer and grand couturier.
Nina Ricci is a fashion house founded by Maria "Nina" Ricci and her son Robert in Paris in 1932, and owned by the Spanish beauty and fashion group Puig since 1998.
The Fédération française de la couture, du prêt-à-porter des couturiers et des créateurs de mode is the governing body for the French fashion industry. The Federation was created in 1973, growing out of an older trade association, the Chambre syndicale de la haute couture parisienne which was created in 1868. By the 1st of July 2017, the Federation removed its reference to French nationality for a more succinct title.
Haute couture is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design that is constructed by hand from start-to-finish. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became the centre of a growing industry that focused on making outfits from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable of sewers—often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. Couture translates literally from French as "dressmaking", sewing, or needlework and is also used as a common abbreviation of haute couture and can often refer to the same thing in spirit. Haute translates literally to "high".
Mdvanii was originally conceived as a conceptual art and fashion doll for adults by artist BillyBoy*. Since 1990 it has been a collaboration with his life partner, artist Jean Pierre Lestrade. The 25 cm (9.8 in) tall doll was originally made in a matte Caron make-up toned hard resin. Mdvanii debuted on February 14, 1989 in London, England.
Madame Grès (1903–1993), also known as Alix Barton and Alix, was a leading French couturier and costume designer, founder of haute couture fashion house Grès as well as the associated Parfums Grès. Remembered as the "Sphinx of Fashion", Grès was notoriously secretive about her personal life and was seen as a workaholic with a furious attention to detail, preferring to let her work do the talking. Grès, best known for her floor-length draped Grecian goddess gowns, is noted as the "master of the wrapped and draped dress" and the "queen of drapery". Grès's minimalistic draping techniques and her attention to and respect for the female body have had a lasting effect on the haute couture and fashion industry, inspiring a number of recent designers.
Yiqing Yin is a Chinese-born, Paris-based Haute Couture designer and an official member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.
Jules-François Crahay (1917–1988) was a Belgian-born French fashion designer who worked for the houses of Nina Ricci (1952–1963) and Lanvin as head designer (1963–1983). He won the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award in 1962.
BillyBoy* is an American artist, socialite and fashion designer who was a muse of Andy Warhol. Born in Vienna, he was adopted by a Russian couple who moved to New York City when he was four.
Jacques Griffe (1909-1996) was a French couturier and fashion designer.
Jeanne Victorine Margaine-Lacroix was a French couturier of the early 20th-century. The House Margaine-Lacroix is mainly known today for having revolutionized the world of fashion by creating the so-called Sylphide or Tanagréenne dress, cut to be worn without a corset.
↑ Charles-Roux, Edmonde & Susan Train (1991). Théâtre de la mode. Rizzoli in cooperation with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. p.56. ISBN978-0-8478-1340-7.
↑ Théâtre de la Mode: fashion dolls: the survival of haute couture. Charles-Roux, Edmonde,, Lottman, Herbert R.,, Garfinkel, Stanley,, Gasc, Nadine,, Schafroth, Colleen,, Long-Schleif, Betty (Second reviseded.). Portland, Oregon. 2002. ISBN0935278567. OCLC50680983.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
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