Theatre De La Mode

After the war ended in 1945, in an effort to reassert French Couture, designers, artists and the Chambre Syndicate of Paris came up with the idea to design and dress small scale couture dolls to send abroad to let the world know Paris was still number one in Fashion.  Miniature scale was decided as large quantities of materials to sew were not available; the dummies themselves were made from recycled iron with white unpainted plastered heads.

The son of Nina Ricci (Robert) was the head of commission of public relations at the Chambre and it was his idea to organise an event to raise money, the collection of dolls, all dressed by major couture fashion houses. 53 out of a total of 70 fashion houses took part. Some of these include, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Fath, Hermes, Ricci, Balenciaga, Worth and Carven, they were given the task of creating up to five outfits each.  There were a total of 237 dolls at the opening of the exhibition in March 1945. The exhibition travelled from city to city throughout Europe, then onto San Francisco.

Each doll was immaculately dressed and the details of their clothing was exquisite with linings, trimmings, accessories such as small purses, gloves, undergarments, hats, belts, powder compacts, shoes and wigs perfectly styled. Jewellery design was even by major jewellery houses such as Cartier and Van Cleef and Arpels.

The dolls were set up on amazing backdrops, designed by well-known artists, in some recognizable Parisian scenes.  On completion of the tour, the mannequins were laid to rest in the City of Paris department store (now Neiman Marcus) and then were forgotten about, until, it was discovered in the basement in 1952.  Sadly, many of the original sets and dolls were destroyed, before they were rescued by someone who had connections with the Maryhill Museum in America. This is where they resided until 1988 when Arthur Garfunkel became aware of their existence. There was an agreement reached whereby the Met Museum in France now house the collection and the Maryhill exhibits 3 out of the 9 sets every year and the rest of the time it travels the world.

The heads of miniature fashion mannequins, below, await
their bodies, above, as they are being prepared for display.
Each is dressed in Paris couture of 1946.

Photos from website www.archives.starbulletin.com These photos where taken when the Theatre De La Mode went to Hawaii.

Sadly I think we could be waiting a long time before they end up in Australia.

Our lecturer loves the story of Theatre De La Mode and thought it would be a wonderful idea if we created our own dolls. We were inspired by our Cultural Signpost research. Ours was “How Film and Fashion go hand in hand”. As a lover of the Mad Men Series, I decided an outfit for Joan Holloway. (Grey wool garment) The other garment pictured was designed by Veronica Parish.

Bye for Now.
Hope you enjoyed.