A Brief Biography of Paul Poiret

Part 1:

Paul Poiret was born on April 20th, 1879 in Paris, France. His contributions to twentieth-century fashion has earned him the title in many people’s eyes as the “King of Fashion”, because he established the principle of modern dress and created the blueprint of the modern fashion industry. Poiret’s designs and ideas led the direction of modern design history. He was born into a working class family and his natural charisma eventually gained him entry into some of the most exclusive ateliers of the Belle Époque. Jacques Doucet, one of the capital’s most prominent couturiers, hired him after seeing promising sketches he had sold to other dressmakers. Furthermore, he was hired by the House of Worth and was put to work to create less glamorous and more practical, simple items because his out of the ordinary designs were not welcomed in open arms by opulent clientele. Despite this experience he was still confident in his ideas and ventured out on his own with money barrowed from his parents and opened a storefront. Moreover, he wanted to promote of the concept of a "total lifestyle” was seen as the first couturier to merge fashion with interior design. His independent work broke the normal conventions of dressmaking, and overturned their underlying presumptions. He liberated the woman’s body from the petticoat and the corset to allow clothing to follow woman’s natural form. Poiret also radically revolutionized dressmaking to switch from the emphasis surrounding the skills of tailoring towards those based on the skills of draping and began to use bright colors. Furthermore, Poiret was apart of the art deco movement, which was surrounded by a period of immense social upheaval, particularly for women, and emergence of technol...

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... ideas can be seen on the runway today over a century after his designs radically entered the fashion scene. Poiret experimented with new elements of style and design by using vibrant colors, draping fabrics, loose designs, and the use oriental-inspired designs. I believe that his designs were important because of his motivation to experiment with out of the ordinary radical design motives. His designs were illustrate many characteristics of the early art deco movement through the use of rich colors, lavish ornamentation, and emerging cultural changes. Though he left the prominence scene of fashion after WW1 I believe that most designers that came after his played off and were inspired by his creative and imaginative approach to design. Poiret paved the way towards modern fashion and gave woman the possibility to comfortably embrace a self-confident way of thinking.