Poiret, Paul - Reference Center

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Columbia Encyclopedia entry: Poiret, Paul

Poiret, Paulpōl pwärĕ', 1879–1944, French couturier, b. Paris. He served an apprenticeship with Jacques Doucet in the 1890s, moved to the Maison Worth in 1900, and in 1903 opened his own small studio. Dominating Paris couture from 1909 to 1914, Poiret revolutionized fashion with his designs for the new woman, ending wasp waists and constricting corsets, reviving a simple, Empire-waisted silhouette, and introducing pantaloons. Around 1910 he introduced the appropriately named hobble skirt, with volume around the hips narrowing to an ankle-hugging bottom. He created ensembles of walking coats and dresses, and short hoop lampshade tunics over long sheaths. Inspired by interests in art nouveau, East Asia, and the Ballets Russes, he designed jewel-colored evening gowns and such exotic costumes as coulottes, harem pants and skirts, fringed capes, and turbans. He was the first designer to produce (1911) a line of fragrances and cosmetics, and also created items for the home. World War I brought an end to Poiret's flights of fancy, and though he was active in the 1920s his designs were no longer fashionable.

See studies by P. White (1973), Y. Deslandres (1987), A. MacKrell (1990), F. Baudot (1997), and H. Koda and A. Bolton (2007).

Wikipedia search results for: Paul Poiret

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer. His contributions to twentieth-century fashion have been likened to Picasso's contributions to twentieth-century art. Bowles, Hamish. "Fashioning the Century." Vogue : 236-250. A condensed version of this article appears online. Poiret was born on April 20, 1879 to a cloth merchant in the poor neighborhood of Les Halles, Paris. His parents, in an effort to rid him of his natural pride, apprenticed him to an umbrella maker. There, he collected scraps of silk left over from the cutting of umbrella patterns, and fashioned clothes for a doll that one of his sisters had given him. While a teenager,...more »

Columbia Encyclopedia search results: Paul poiret

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Erté
Erté, 1892–1990, French designer and illustrator, b. St. Petersburg as Romain de Tirtoff. He moved to France and worked for a time sketching for Paul Poiret and designing opera and theater cos...
Dufy, Raoul
Dufy, Raoul, 1877–1953, French painter, illustrator, and decorator, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. After meeting Matisse he abandoned his early impressionist style and turned c.1905 to t...

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