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Image: Autochrome of “Colibri” by Paul Poiret, Spring/Summer 1922.
and the Far East. Backed by the French government, these propaganda initiatives were nominally intended to foster diplomatic relations with allies after the recent war and to promote trade specifically with France’s colonies, yet they can also be seen as tacit “civilising missions” that deployed the soft power of luxury commodities, including fashion, to underline the superiority of French culture: those who “had” fashion and taste would take it to those who did not, to show them how to become civilised. In October 1921, the Salon was packed into a single trunk. It crossed the Atlantic on a “crusade,” as the catalogue called it, to America, where it was exhibited in Wanamaker’s New York and Philadelphia stores and afterwards in Chicago. The following year, two decommissioned battleships transported the Salon on a “cruise” to French colonies along the coast of Africa and then to Australia, China, Japan, Vietnam, and India, making numerous stops along the way. Fêted wherever the convoy docked, visitors who came on board were able to “be Parisianised” by ordering luggage from Louis Vuitton, vases by René Lalique, jewellery by Van Cleef & Arpels, and fashionable clothes from one of the many makers listed in the catalogues. Well-known couturiers, including Poiret, Chanel, Redfern, Worth, and Lanvin, were among the hundreds of exhibitors who took part in at least one of the three years the Salon was shown. Alongside these celebrated names, a plethora of fashion houses, garment manufacturers, and ateliers exhibited a wide range of elegant garments and desirable accessories, from ultra-chic feathered hats to gaudy silk house pyjamas for men and women. The rendering of the colours and textures of materials in the images is sensational: brocaded lamé, floral embroidery, creamy lace, beading, fringing, dip-dyed curled ostrich feathers, glacé leather, sleek and supple furs, as well as the models’ hair, flesh tones and makeup, all radiate from the plates in sensuous pinks, coral, mauve, turquoise, rich reds, multiple shades of blue, silver, and gold. Rightly, the Lumière brothers’ Autochromes have been called some of the most beautiful photographic images ever taken, their shimmering, pointillist effects resembling those of Impressionist paintings. The Salon predated the renowned 1925 Paris Art Deco exhibition in which fashion played a key role. Twenty years later, the Théâtre de la Mode also intended to re-establish the supremacy of French couture after another war. But unlike these costly enterprises, it was a virtual exhibition, reducing thousands of articles to two-dimensional images and so could travel easily and economically. By harnessing groundbreaking photographic technology, the Salon changed how fashion could be exhibited, disseminated, and marketed and could even be seen as a forerunner of today’s online streaming. Happily, exactly a century since the Salon was last mounted in Paris, a recent exhibition, Les Couleurs de la Mode at the Palais Galliera from June 2023 to June 2024, harnessed today’s digital technology to bring this spectacular snapshot of French fashion in the early 1920s once more into the light. ••• Cally Blackman