A Fashion for Extravagance: Art Deco Fabrics and Fashions (1985)

By: Sara Bowman; Michel Molinare

5.00 out of 5 based on 1 rating
(1 review)

In the Art Deco period art, design and fashion all enjoyed a surge of glorious inventiveness. Fashion, inspired from the centre of haute couture in Paris, took off in revolutionary new directions. Dress could be decorated with intricate, heavily beaded embroidery, or bold pictorial designs or dramatic geometric patterns. Nothing was too exotic to be tried.

The division between fashion and art was very narrow, and well known artists such as Raoul Dufy and Sonia Delaunay turned their skills to designing textiles for the couturiers. Colourful, eccentric figures such as Paul Poiret and Mariano Fortuny were generating ever newer and more daring ideas/Specialist embroidery houses like that of Felix Lallement were supplying magnificent hand-worked embroideries to be used in the most extravagant haute couture.

A Fashion for Extravagance gives a unique and inspiring insight into this glamorous and exciting world. Illustrated in full colour is Sara Bowman’s hitherto unpublished collection of original working designs and embroidery samples from the period, including many from the Maison Lallement and Poiret’s special design house, the Atelier Martine. Through these rare and beautiful examples the reader can have an insider’s glimpse of the artists and designers of the Art Deco period as they first experimented with the new ideas that would form the glamorous fashions of Pans in the 1910s and 1920s. Set alongside this collection are photographs of the fabrics and fashions designed by some of the most famous names of the period – Dufy, Poiret, Fortuny, Erte and Sonia Delaunay – and the accompanying text conjures up their distinctive, fascinating and ephemeral world. The book as a whole offers not merely a unique visual feast, but also many new insights into the burgeoning of Art Deco fashion design.

More Information

Description

Edition 1st. ed
Place New York
Publisher Dutton
Date 1985
# Of Pages 125
ISBN 978-0-525-24358-8

Aia Bertrand antique Art Deco Art Deco style artists Arts in Paris Atelier Martine bags barges Batsford beaded became Bianchini-Ferier Blaise Cendrars boutique brocade Bullier carpets chiffon cloth of gold collaborated collection colours costumes couture house craft crepe de Chine Cubist Decorative Arts Doucet Dufy’s elegant embroidered Erte Exhibition of Decorative fabrics and fashion fancy dress fashion accessories fashion illustration Felix Lallement flowers Folies Bergeres Gallot Gazette du Bon geometrical gloves gold and silver Greek hand painted haute couture inspired interior intricate Jean Dorville l9ll Lady Diana Cooper lnternational Exhibition London lsadora luxury machine embroidery Madame Maison Lallement Mariano Fortuny metal threads Monaco motifs oriental painter Paris in l925 Paul Poiret Photograph printed Raoul Dufy Raymond Duncan Robert Delaunay Russian sample satin shoes silk Sonia Delaunay sumptuous Suzanne Lallement textile design theatre design theatrical tunic twentieth century velvet Victoria and Albert wall hangings wear women woodblocks workshop

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1 review for A Fashion for Extravagance: Art Deco Fabrics and Fashions (1985)

  1. Katie Bilello

    A Fashion For Extravagance discusses the influence that the Parisian Art Deco period of the 1920s-1930s had on fashion. It offers an abundance of imagery, giving visual examples of paintings, typography and clothing.

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