Paul Poiret‘s fashions, which famously freed women from the corset and took many cues from Eastern cultures, have inspired many designers, including Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, Dries Van Noten, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake.
Looks by all those contemporary creators figure in “Fashion Is a Feast,” an exhibition dedicated to Poiret that opens at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs on Wednesday and runs through Jan. 11, 2026.
The lively, dense and colorful show exalts Poiret as a pioneer in concept stores, event marketing, product placement, upcycling — and a true lifestyle approach to design, since he applied his hand to everything from interiors and wallpaper to children’s clothing and costumes for the stage.
It’s also a reminder of the modernity of his silhouettes, exemplified by a Man Ray photo of Peggy Guggenheim, circa 1924, her ravishing Paul Poiret evening gown worn with the ease of a T-shirt.
Marie-Sophie Carron de la Carrière, who curated the show, confessed that a Poiret exhibition she happened upon in 1986, early in her career as a curator of modern and contemporary art, ignited a new passion.
Strong color was a noted feature of Paul Poiret designs.
Xavier Granet/WWD
“It made me understand what fashion was — at the crossroads of several disciplines,” she said during a walkthrough with WWD on Thursday. “Paul Poiret’s vision of creating a global universe in which the decorative arts in particular, but also perfumes, gastronomy, and travel, was a total art.
“He pushed this to the point where the living environment corresponded to the couture outfits,” she marveled. “There’s also this alliance with art, and it was really him who developed that.”
A brilliant communicator and enthusiastic bon vivant, Poiret transformed himself into something of a celebrity at a time when couturiers enjoyed little stature, often compelled to use the service entrance at fine homes.
“He knew by dressing the wives of artists, it was also a way of disseminating his creations,” Carron de la Carrière remarked.
A party costume designed by Paul Poiret.
Xavier Granet/WWD
The show unfurls chronologically and thematically, each subject demarcated with vivid walls thanks to the set design by Paf Atelier under the artistic direction of Anette Lenz, who was inspired by Poiret’s use of bold Fauvist colors throughout his career.
Interspersed with the glass cases housing clusters of magnificently preserved Poiret outfits are illustrations, photos, magazine covers, perfume bottles and artworks by the likes of Raoul Dufy, André Derain and Léon Bakst. In total, 550 objects are on display.
The Ballets Russe is highlighted as a key influence on Poiret, who was struck by how the dancing, music, costumes and set design melded into a total art piece. Dresses worn by American dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan are also on display.
Cognizant that young visitors might not have the faintest clue about the designer’s riches-to-rags story — he shuttered his debt-ridden couture house in 1929 and lived in poverty thereafter — Carron de la Carrière opened the exhibition with a display of the grand, often constricting dresses that dominated fashion in the early 1900s.
Just opposite these bulging, cinch-waisted Charles Frederick Worth and Jacques Doucet confections are Poiret’s looser, more natural silhouettes with an Empire line, or no waist at all, to be worn with at most a light bra, or braless, as his wife, Denise Boulet, did.
Meanwhile, his opulently embellished Marrakech dress and his fetish turbans point to his lust for travel to far-off lands, both for inspiration and to promote his name and wares. (Later in the exhibition, his Louis Vuitton trunk invades one fashion vitrine, his name writ large over the brown monogram canvas.)
At the peak of his career, Poiret operated out of a mansion near the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, using its large garden for fashion shows and themed parties.
While he had a penchant for the fantastic exoticism inherent in sarouel and harem pants, for example, Poiret also experimented with plain, even severe, silhouettes, and occasionally repurposed fabrics, once transforming a tablecloth found in a Polish market into a summer outfit and a cashmere shawl into a girl’s dress.
A Paul Poiret dress made with a tablecloth sourced at a market in Poland.
Xavier Granet/WWD
Wallpaper patterns and prints he developed often depicted humble vegetables, like radishes and artichokes, and when he painted, Poiret’s eye was drawn to the trees outside his window or a basket of fish at an open-air market. “Deep down, he’s interested in everyday things,” Carron de la Carrière said.
Born in Paris in 1879, Poiret started his career as an apprentice at fashion houses including Worth and Doucet, setting up his own in 1903.
The Arts Décoratifs showcase falls during the centenary of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, during which Poiret showcased his lifestyle universe in lavish fashion on three barges moored on the Seine, complete with a restaurant serving roast lamb, asparagus and fresh fruit. (The menu is included in the display.)
According to the museum, the event left Poiret in financial ruin and sped the closure of his business.
“We shouldn’t forget that a fashion designer’s career path can be very fragile,” Carron de la Carrière said ruefully.
Denise Boulet and Paul Poiret at a party costumed by him.
Xavier Granet/WWD