On Rendezvousing with Paul in New York

                                          Photo cred: Google Images

This is the gent I'm currently obsessed with. He's taken over my thoughts, my words, and my actions for a signification part of this year and I have a feeling he will always, in some nagging way, be a part of my "historical repertoire" so to speak.

I'm currently drafting a manuscript for the Costume Society of America's journal Dress and Paul Poiret has been my focus. Here is a small snippet from the article to give some background on the great couturier:

"Paul Poiret, the self-decreed “King of Fashion” seemed to conquer the couture world in the late 1890s with his avant garde designs and forward thinking artistic visions and innovations. While the majority of the fashion world was following the dictates of the Victorian era, Poiret, like a few of his forward thinking contemporaries, defied societal norms by rejecting the female form and instead embracing a “liberation of the body”. [1] By the 1920s this personified itself in the dismissal of the corset and the promoting of a boxy, clean silhouette. Poiret’s wife Denise was his muse; in 1913, he told Vogue that “My wife is the inspiration for all my creations, she is the expression of my ideals.” With her thin, almost child-like figure, a new “ideal” body type was subsequently born.[2] Poiret threw out the idea of the corset as defining undergarment, instead encouraging, and even claiming credit for, creating the brassier.[3] The free-flowing silhouette of the flapper became Poiret’s staple several decades prior to the roaring 20s."

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[1] Mackrell, Alice. Paul Poiret. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1990. pg. 11

[2] Koda, Harold, Andrew Bolton. Poiret: publ. in conjunction with the Exhibition "Poiret: King of Fashion" held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from May 9 to August 5, 2007. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art [u.a.], 2007. pg. 27

[3] Need footnote

I'm still working on it (obviously), but I had a wonderful chance just a few weeks ago to venture off to New York and do some research at the Met on Poiret's career. 

I initially was drawn to Paul Poiret in January, while working on an exhibit for the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum. I was invited by Dr. Bill Huss of the Depot's board to his family's 1840s era farm house to see if I could find any useful artifacts for the exhibit I was working on. His family kept just about everything: clothing, accessories, furniture, etc. and it was all still in the house, and for the most part, where it had been left. On the back of a door I found a lovely navy and white floral print dress bearing a Poiret tag (the floral pattern being VERY typical of Dufy!). 

Long story short, I spent the next few months contacting as many people as I could to help me authenticate the dress and to give me a clue about when it had been worn. The most intriguing thing about the whole situation was the tag itself. It reads: "Made of a Paul Poiret Personal Print Paris". While in New York I was put in contact with dealer and collector Mark Walsh, who confirmed to me that the tag was authentic and that this was representative of the work Poiret did in the early 1930's as he struggled to stay afloat financially. From my own research I found that during the mid-1920's Poiret began to sell yards of his Parisian silk to Macys and Gimbels in New York, who in turn sold them to American women who could fashion them in to whatever they chose. It was common to include a tag bearing the silk designer's name for women to sew in to their hand-made creations.

The dress has an added layer of significance as it speaks as testament to Dr. Huss's family history as well as to the significance of the railroads in the Dennison and Uhrichsville , Ohio areas. As railroads became the prime means of transportation for both people and goods, urban fashions and styles were suddenly accessible to rural families via mail order catalogs. Dr. Huss's family were frequenters of catalogs such as National Cloak & Suit Co., so in hindsight it isn't too surprising to find a mail order silk mixed in with the women's belongings.

I had the bulk of my research done before going to New York, but the information I found in the Met's Poiret exhibit research folders (so. many. articles.) and my lovely chat with Mr. Walsh confirmed my assumptions. 

Moral of the story: there's nothing more exciting than finding primary sources that support your theory!!

I'm a nerd, I know.