Pochoir stencil print by Georges Lepape, 'Trois robes neuves' (three new dresses) for Gazette du Bon Ton, June 1913.

Three women shown in a theatre box, with a dancer visible on the stage and in the background, a man and a woman in another theatre box. On the far left is a woman wearing a short tunic of mauve patterned with a design of roses over a pink skirt, with her purple evening coat trimmed with black fur tossed behind her. She wears a pink turban with darker pink spots. In the middle is a woman in a purple high-waisted dress patterned with horizontal red and green stylized floral bands, with fringe edging the short sleeves and knee length hemline. The other women wear black and purple gowns although the detail cannot be seen. The dancer, who is just visible in the background, is also wearing an outfit in the Poiret style, with yellow harem pants and a green tunic.

Fashion notes

This colour lithograph from the Gazette du Bon Ton shows a scene at the theatre, with a dancer performing on stage and three women in a theatre box. The women all wear evening gowns and turbans by Paul Poiret (1879-1944), showing the high-waisted, tubular, highly simplified designs in bold colourways that he created. On the far left is a woman wearing a short tunic of mauve patterned with a design of roses over a pink skirt, with her purple evening coat trimmed with black fur tossed behind her. She wears a pink turban with darker pink spots. In the middle is a woman in a purple high-waisted dress patterned with horizontal red and green stylized floral bands, with fringe edging the short sleeves and knee length hemline. The dancer, who is just visible in the background, is also wearing an outfit in the Poiret style, with yellow harem pants and a green tunic. Poiret was one of the first designers to regularly propose trousers for women, albeit as theatrical, exotic designs for fancy dress parties and evening wear.

Poiret was one of the most influential and notorious designers of the late 1900s/early 1910s. His gowns followed the natural line of a slim, uncorseted body, which is clearly shown in Georges Lepape's illustration, although many women still had to resort to longline corsets to achieve the same effect. Compared to the elaborately detailed and constructed gowns that many fashion designers produced, Poiret's designs were audaciously simple and bold, and sometimes quite far-sighted. For example, his 'robe de minute', a gown made of two rectangles of fabric, was created in 1911, 10 years before near-identically constructed chemise dresses became widespread (see T.118-1975). Lepape's illustration shows the model's heads simply wrapped in turbans, in contrast to the elaborately arranged hairstyles that many fashionable women favoured. Decoration was kept to a minimum, either bold appliqués or simple linear bands of embroidery. Poiret often used fur as an edging or design accent.

Poiret's success was short-lived, as his influence did not last beyond the 1910s. Although he continued designing into the 1920s and created gowns for Liberty's in 1933, he failed to recapture the success and notoriety he had enjoyed in the 1910s.

- Daniel Milford-Cottam, March 2012

CIRC.270-1976