A new exhibition at the MAD,&nbsp;Paul Poiret: Fashion is a Feast, celebrates&nbsp;the boundary-pushing Parisian couturier and his many influences.

When Paul Poiret established his fashion house in 1903, he launched a revolution that would reshape how women dressed. This visionary couturier didn&rsquo;t just create clothes&mdash;he liberated women from the restrictive corset, fundamentally changing the female silhouette ahead of the Roaring&nbsp;Twenties. 
Poiret&rsquo;s mentor, the famous couturier Jacques Doucet, gave him crucial advice, per Poiret&rsquo;s memoirs: to succeed, he must form his taste by taking an interest in art; he must also choose a bride very carefully, as his future wife would need to be the best ambassador of his clothes. He quickly befriended and collaborated with artists of whom he was a collector, including Raoul Dufy, Paul Iribe, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen, and Georges Lepape, and in the young Denise Boulet Poiret found his perfect muse and wife. Boulet was a woman whose &ldquo;innate elegance allowed her to be the first to abandon the corset, instilling in other women the desire to imitate her,&rdquo; explains Marie-Sophie Carron de la Carri&egrave;re, curator of the exhibition Paul Poiret: Fashion is a Feast at the Mus&eacute;e des Arts D&eacute;coratifs in Paris (now through January 2026).
Poiret&rsquo;s approach to color was not as transgressive as his corset-free designs, but it was equally as daring. His pre-war palette featured &ldquo;cream, white, and black, with flashes of color so vivid that one cannot help but think of an influence from the Fauves [a group of bold, expressive painters led by Henri Matisse and Andr&eacute; Derain], who had caused a sensation at the Salon d&rsquo;Automne in 1905. At the time, it was said that the Fauves used color as if it came straight out of the tube. Poiret used it like this, with the same intensity,&rdquo; notes Carron de la Carri&egrave;re. The concept of artists influencing fashion designers may seem commonplace today, but back then, it was innovative. Paul Poiret: Fashion is a Feast highlights the work of the artists who inspired Poiret&rsquo;s revolutionary vision.
In 2005, the Poiret family decided to sell a number of pieces at auction, with buyers including the avid collector Azzedine Ala&iuml;a, and curators from institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Mus&eacute;e des Arts D&eacute;coratifs. This auction featured pieces from Denise&rsquo;s wardrobe&mdash;she &ldquo;left the house with her entire wardrobe&rdquo; following her 1928 divorce from Poiret. These pieces not only sparked renewed interest in the designer, but acted as a springboard for 2005&rsquo;s The King of Fashion at the Met and the current MAD exhibition.
Through famous clients like Sarah Bernhardt, Peggy Guggenheim, and Colette, Poiret became famous for dressing an entire era, and his influence continues to be felt 100 years later. &ldquo;We have selected from the MAD collection pieces by Schiaparelli, Dior, and Christian Lacroix, but also pieces by young designers who were inspired by Poiret,&rdquo; Carron de la Carri&egrave;re says, pointing out that &ldquo;Martin Margiela [is also featured] because Poiret bought many fabric samples during his travels that he then used in his creations as a collage, a process similar to upcycling, a practice that Margiela was the first to introduce in contemporary fashion.&rdquo;

Inside 'Paul Poiret: Fashion Is a Feast,' Paris’s Must-See Exhibition

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