The Beauty of Restraint: Paris and the Empresses of Design

When Elsie de Wolfe declared, “The cardinal virtue of all beauty is restraint,” she could have been speaking for the tastemakers emerging in Paris around the time of the Art Deco. Among them, there was Sophie Taeuber-Arp and her multifaceted arsenal of talent, Madeleine Vionnet and the couture of the bias-cut, and Suzanne Belperron, who single-handedly made jewelry art.

Meanwhile, Jeanne Lanvin and her firm, Lanvin Decoration (with Armand-Albert Rateau), and Jean Dunand in collaboration with the French milliner Madame Agnès (Rittener), produced works for the 1925 exposition. This panel will explore how these accomplished designers influenced one another and spoke the language of modernism that took hold of the world.