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Linda Wisner
Palmer/Pletsch Publishing
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THEATRE DE LA MODE
The Secret Survival of French Fashion…Immortalized in Miniature
In the fall of 1944, after the liberation of Paris but before the guns of war had been stilled, in a France weakened by four years of German occupation, shortages and rationing, the project of Theatre de la Mode was an idea born as an attempt to help France recapture its place of fashion eminence in the world.
Due to shortages, the French fashion industry was in a shamble. The only remnants were the hats the women of the resistance, afflicted by austerity, wore as a display of insolence to the German occupiers. They were made of scraps of anything available and were quite fanciful and extravagant, bordering on irreverent. The impatient Germans threatened to close down every milliner’s shop and move the haute couture industry toBerlin.
This idea of Robert Ricci, Ninna Ricci’s son, as a fund raiser of which the proceeds went to war victims. The use of traveling miniature dolls to present the elegance and prestige ofParisfashion and to reveal its latest fashions to foreign royal courts was a custom, dating, some say, to the middle ages.
An unprecedented cooperation of couturiers, milliners, jewelers, shoemakers, glove makers and hairdressers took on a formidable challenge of presenting the haute couture collections of Spring 1945 on 237 miniature dolls and in thirteen theatrical sets designed by such artists as Christian Berard, film-maker Jean Cocteau, ballet impresario Boris Kochno, stage designers Wakhevitch and Malcles, and painters Dignimont and Douking.
The miniature manikins were designed by Eliane Bonabel, a budding 20-year-old artist who used wire, a material available at the time of rationing. These little people contrived in wire with plaster heads were almost hallucinatory, wearing the latest creations of top couturiers. They had real hair, hats in real felt, coats of real fur, minuscule gloves and shoes of real leather and real jewels. Theatre de la Mode, Theater of Fashion, opened in the Pavillon Marsan at the Musee de la Decoratif Arts on March 27, 1945.
Subsequently, it traveled toLondon,Sweden,Austria, andDenmark. In the spring of 1946, it was updated and sent on a tour to theUnited States. It opened inNew Yorkand thenSan Franciscoat theDeYoungMuseum. After the exhibition closed, the dolls were stored at the City ofParis Department Store. Alma Spreckles was a major contributor to a little known museum nearGoldendale,WA,MaryhillMuseum. She suggested the dolls be sent there and they arrived in 1952.
After 4 decades, the dolls were presumed lost or destroyed until Stanley Garfinkle, a history professor atKentState, found them at Maryhill. In 1985, he told Susan Train, Bureau Chief of Conde Nast Publications inPariswho remembered Theatre de la Mode when she first arrived inParis. Her reaction was that the figurines must return toParis, be restored, and be exhibited at the new fashion museum then in construction which coincidentally was the Pavillon Marsan where it opened in 1945.
New sets were to be built as the original ones had been destroyed. Some of the original artists guided the reconstruction. In 1990, the restored exhibit opened in the Pavillon Marsan inParis. It then traveled to theMetropolitanMuseuminNew York,Tokyo, and thePortlandArt MuseuminPortland,Oregon. Then it traveled the world for seven more years and returned to Maryhill Museum of Art which rotates showings of the sets.
In 2001, Tonner Doll Company arranged with Maryhill to recreate some of the costumes on his jointed porcelain fashion doll, Tyler Wentworth. They are limited edition dolls and Tonner replicated the clothes exactly.
In 1946, Pati Palmer was born in Ohioand in 1952 moved to HoodRiver, about 40 miles from MaryhillMuseum. Her mom took her to visit the museum many times and she remembered seeing a doll or two, but did not know why they were there. Pati grew up and became a sewing expert, author, publisher of sewing books, and a designer for Vogue and then McCall’s Pattern Company. In 1993, she published Couture, the Art of Fine Sewing. Its author had attended the re-opening of Theatre de la Mode and Pati asked her to write about it as a prologue for the new book. Also, her Couture Sewing Workshops have taken annual trips to Maryhill to view Theatre de la Mode and see close-ups of the clothes and manikins behind the scenes, thanks to collections manager, Betty Long. When it was mentioned that the book that was produced for the 1990 openings inParis andNew York has long been out of print, conversations began as to the possibility of Palmer/Pletsch being the publisher of the third edition. It was decided that color photos of the current sets should be added as they were not in the original book. Also, additional photos of the manikins and close-up details of the clothing would be added specifically for sewers and designers to be able to have a better look at the suddenly unshackled creativity ofParis designers at the end of World War II.
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