Fashion Paris tour - Art Scenes

Fashion

PARIS

Thanks to Marie Antoinette Paris became the center of fashion in the XVIII century and after the French Revolution many of the ateliers that worked for the monarchy became fashion houses like Louis Vuitton & Hermes; then in the XX century some rich kids (Christian Dior, Elsa Squiaparelli) open their own ateliers, reestablishing Paris as the center of haute-couture — and now you can have a sneak peak into that world without working in the industry.

Time period: 1900s

Movie or book: Yves Saint Laurent (2014)/Elle magazine

Soundtrack: Lemongrass/Daft Punk’s music

Fashion: be yourself in French brands

Budget:

Sernur Isik Bolaños: Paris Illustrated Map; Digital, 2023

This tour would take you around Paris, the capital of fashion where different fashion houses were founded and some of them: Yves Saint Laurent, Dior and Louis Vuitton have opened up fashion museums in recent years. The city is characterized by its designer shops, department stores and haute couture salons. The shopping experience got revolutionized in Paris when in 1853 Le Bon Marche, the first department store, changed its business practices and introduced fixed price and window displays. By 1869 had to moved to a bigger location offering more prefabricated products under one roof; but they had competition, the legendary Printemps (a department store inaugurated in 1865 with the promise of offering everyone “something new, fresh and beautiful” in a cast-iron, art-noveau building with elevators and discounted items). Decades latter a new competitor appeared in 1912 with a more fabulous building conceived as a “luxury bazaar” with rows of fancy products: perfumes, lingerie, and furniture illuminated by a huge art noveau skylight-dome, Galeries Lafayette. But if you wanted clothes you needed to go to the couturiers who did garments by hand and on demand. Charles Frederick Worth, the father of couture, introduced in 1858: live models, clothes with labels, and the concept of a seasonal fashion collection — soon others will fallow. Paul Poiret open his couture house in 1903 and his designs liberated the female body from the corset, shifting away from tailoring towards draping; something that Chanel will fix around 20 years latter when she opened her salon in 1921 with a more masculine aesthetic. Against the minimal tailored style of Coco you had the surrealist extravagant designs of Elsa Schiaparelli who inaugurated her couture house in 1927. Both enemies had to shut down due to WWII and after the war they found a new kid on the block with a feminine “new look” (the hourglass silhouette), monseur Christian Dior — who only enjoyed his fame for 10 years. After his dead one of his young disciples, Yves Saint Laurent, took the lead for 3 years; then in 1962 he opened his own business with his lover. He created the first women tuxedo plus the first ready-to-wear line, departing from the one-on-one couture business model to a mass production one. In 1973 the first “fashion week” was held when 5 French designers: Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro, Christian Dior (then designed by Marc Bohan), Pierre Cardin and Hubert de Givenchy battle against 5 New York City based designers: Anne Klein, Halston, Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass and Stephen Burrows in the palace of Versailles. We can say that the French designers lost the battle against the Manhattan Chic but not its allure, and Paris still is one of the capitals of the fashion world. The tour suggest visiting the iconic department store Galleries Lafayette in the morning; 3 fashion museums in the afternoon; dinner and window shopping in the evening plus the LV Dream exhibition at night.