Material Mode

Tag: Paul Poiret

  • Les Parfums de Rosine

    After a self-imposed hiatus due to a spectacular year-long renovation (and two moves of our entire collection!), Material Mode is pleased to share one of the special items brought into the collection during our time away. A few years back, we wrote about two perfumed publicity fans in our collection from Rosine, the perfume and…

  • Charles James’ Musings on Poiret

                The year prior to his death, the legendary fashion designer, Charles James donated a small selection of correspondence, business records, press clippings and four original sketches to FIT Library’s Special Collections.  Over the course of several months, many letters were exchanged between James and FIT librarian Marjorie Miller detailing…

  • Perfume+Publicity+Poiret

    We were recently gifted two very special objects: two paper publicity fans for the French perfume company, Rosine.  Established in 1911, by the avant-garde couturier Paul Poiret following a trip to Vienna where he visited the Weiner Werkstatte, Rosine was part of Poiret’s greater vision to establish himself as not only a fashion designer, but…

  • The Color of Couture

    During the 1950s, L’Officiel de la Couleur des Industries de la Mode and its associated publication, Cahiers Bleu, served as trend forecasting publications for the fashion industry. As their titles imply, color forecasting was the foremost mission of both publications, L’Officiel de la Couleur being established first and Cahiers Bleu following as, “By definition, we…

  • The Nina Hyde Collection: an interview with Vionnet, age 98

    Madeleine Vionnet and fashion journalist Nina Hyde with the miniature mannequin used by the designer to drape her toiles in the round, 1974. Culling through the collection a few weeks ago in preparation for a patron researching Madeleine Vionnet, I was delighted to find Nina Hyde’s original notes from a 1974 interview with the renowned…

  • Steichen & Poiret: the first fashion photographs?

    Many scholars cite the emergence of modern fashion photography to the April 1911 issue of Art et Decoration, which features the designs of couturier Paul Poiret as photographed by famed photographer Edward Steichen. Certainly, these images are not the earliest fashion photographs—our department contains examples from La Mode Pratique dating to 1892—but the presentation of garments…