The man who broke the rules: fashion designer Paul Poiret

Paul Poiret was a fashion designer who wouldn’t play by the book. Nell Darby investigates the fashion genius that gave us harem pants, block colours and the cloche hat.

In fin de siècle Paris, one man made it his mission to modernise women’s fashion and make clothes bright, fun and exotic. Paul Poiret, who called himself the ‘King of Fashion’, was born in 1879 in Paris, and apprenticed to an umbrella maker. He used leftover scraps of umbrella material to make dolls’ dresses and managed to sell some of his sketches to a local dressmaker while still in his teens. After a while Poiret started to sell designs to large couture houses in Paris.  Initially he worked for for designer Jacques Doucet and later on more famously for the House of Worth, where some clients were shocked by his modern clothes with a Japanese twist.

Poiret set up his own fashion house in 1903, becoming famous for his kimono coat. He created his own furniture and perfume, becoming the precursor of today’s fashion empires by expanding into fashion related areas. He was a man who wanted to constantly challenge himself, moving from softly draped dresses with a Greek feel towards more angular lines as time went on.

He also had an excellent sense for the theatrical and would hold extravagant themed parties to show-off his designs. Arabian, Persian and Oriental influences permeated his designs – he loved glamour and the exotic. Poiret encouraged women to be more daring in the way they dressed. Before Poiret, women were restricted by corsets and tailoring, but he liberated them, creating high-waisted tunics and shorter skirts.

However, for every liberated shape he created – such as his draped harem trousers – he created one that would restrict women in a new way. The hobble skirt was perhaps the most extreme version of this, making it necessary for women to take tiny steps in a skirt tight at the ankle. Another more avant-gardecreation was the lampshade tunic. Worn together with a floor-sweeping fishtailed skirt, it must have caused fashionable ladies concern when it came to walking or sitting elegantly.

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Tags: cloche hat, harem pants, hobble skirt, Paul Poiret, pre-war fashion

Category: Designer, Fashion, Pre-1930s, Vintage news