Sales Fever vs. Haute Couture

In Paris, the month of January is all about "les soldes" the sales. The first week, the words "première démarque" (first reduction) blaze out in bright colors on the store windows. Second and third weeks follow with "seconde et troisième démarques" overlapping the previous week's sign. Inside the shops, bright colored dots indicate 30%, 40%, 50% off. Today, the start of the final week, it's all about "les dernières démarques" and the discounts climb to 70% and more. Needless to say, every time we step out, we find ourselves strolling through shop after shop, pawing through the merchandise, looking for that special bargain. With some success, too, I'm glad to say!

Meanwhile, for pure, classic Parisian couture, on Friday, we were lucky enough to step back in time and catch an extraordinary exhibition about Madeleine Vionnet at the Decorative Arts Museum, closing this week. We knew nothing about Madame Vionnet, but we quickly learned that from 1912 until 1939 she was the doyenne of "la mode". The first woman couturier to achieve fame, she moved her entire operation into an impressive mansion on the Avenue Montaigne just off the Champs Élysées, in 1922, employing some 200 people. As the little brochure says, the mansion became a temple of fashion, and here she lured and conquered an international clientele. When she showed her latest collections, instead of live models, the exquisite gowns were displayed on articulated mannequins, all of them about a size 4 in today's measurements! (This was a shrewd move because, in fact, women's bodies were definitely chubbier in those days, so live models would not have shown the garments off quite to the same level!) The exhibition comprised the donation Mde Vionnet made to the Union Française des Arts du Costume sometime in the 1950s. The gowns are exquisite, displayed, as she would have wished, on articulated mannequins, in subdued lighting to preserve the colors and fabrics: crèpe de chine, silk, velvet, organza, gold lamé, silver lamé. The structure and decoration of each item was fantastic, she cut and sewed a great deal on the bias, so the drape of the garment was perfect, as you can see. Madeleine Vionnet closed her business just as WWII broke out, although she lived well into her eighties.

The hushed world of haute couture at that time is hard to imagine in today's frantic paced whirl of instant consumer gratification! But I expect we will be out tomorrow, checking for those final bargains in "les soldes"

À très bientôt!