Paul Poiret was the self-proclaimed “King of Fashion” in early 20th-century Paris. His designs helped make fashion an art form, freeing women’s bodies from corsets with fantastical garments such as harem pantaloons and lampshade tunics. He introduced bold colours inspired by Fauvism and collaborated with artists such as Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Paul Iribe and Georges Lepape, making him popular with art-world types such as Peggy Guggenheim. Poiret was an avid collector to boot, acquiring art by contemporaries and friends including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris and Constantin Brâncuși.
An exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Paul Poiret: Fashion is a Feast, draws heavily on the museum’s collection of Poiret from the Belle Époque to the 1920s, when his popularity waned just as Coco Chanel’s star was rising. Organised by the museum’s chief curator of heritage, Marie-Sophie Carron de la Carrière, the show highlights his fashion designs alongside photographs, drawings, posters and illustrations.
Poiret got his start under the couturier Jacques Doucet and then at the House of Worth, before setting up on his own in 1903. Within a few years, he was taking inspiration from the exotic visions conjured by the Ballets Russes, a fusion of music, dance, set design, costumes and art. The show will trace Poiret’s trajectory as well as his affiliations with visual artists, notably Dufy, who designed the graphic print for Poiret’s La Perse coat (1911).
Exotic inspiration
When Poiret wasn’t collaborating with the School of Paris, he was travelling around Europe and North Africa, often sourcing fabrics from his destinations. He would later name the garments after places he had visited, such as Marrakech and Toledo. Closer to home, he hosted lavish themed parties, which will be represented in the show with some of the fanciful costumes he designed.
The show concludes with Poiret’s influence on later designers and claims he was the first to hire artists to work on his textiles, now a common practice in fashion. “Am I a fool when I dream of putting art into my dresses, a fool when I say dressmaking is an art?” Poiret wrote in his 1931 memoir, The King of Fashion. “For I have always loved painters, and felt on an equal footing with them. It seems to me that we practise the same craft, and that they are my fellow workers.”
• Paul Poiret: Fashion is a Feast, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 25 June-11 January 2026
