Before Chanel, Dior or Saint Laurent, there was Paul Poiret. Born in Paris in 1879, he was the most audacious couturier of the pre-war era. While his outré styles were worn by some of the most famous celebrities in Europe and America, they were in fact the most fleeting facet of his work. Mary E. Davis explores how Poiret’s genius was to place fashion at the centre of a network of style, culture and commerce. He founded groundbreaking perfume and interior design businesses, sponsored musical performances, amassed a modernist art collection and threw fantastical – and newsworthy – balls. Poiret’s businesses faded by the end of the 1920s, but as this book reveals, his unifying vision set the model for the luxury industry as we know it.

In Mary Davis’s beautifully written, impeccably researched book, Poiret’s visionary genius at last receives its due. Insightful and wide-ranging, Paul Poiret: Inventing Modern Luxury demonstrates fashion’s central power to shape both culture and commerce, and reveals how, along with his gorgeous fashions, Poiret created an entire, glittering empire of Parisian art, media, design and celebrity — whose influence remains with us to this day. The book is at once a delicious journey back to a glorious moment in early twentieth-century French history and a remarkably smart commentary on today’s luxury goods industry. * Rhonda Garelick, author of Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History *
Poiret was a brilliant fashion designer, a remarkable innovator and a visionary who liberated women from the corset. Moreover, as the inventor of the luxury brand, Poiret had a unique understanding of the essential place of communication, image, and the role of celebrities. He was the first to link fashion with art and culture. Mary Davis documents this exquisitely in her new book. It should be read by everyone in fashion, and by anyone interested in the origins and driving forces of today's luxury industry. * Sylvie Ebel, Vice Dean, Institut Français de la Mode, Paris *
This is the book that makes it clear why Poiret matters to clothing history. Beyond dress design, Mary Davis proves Poiret established the marketing, media, and museum strategies that would keep haute couture at the forefront of imaginations for almost two centuries, setting it up to be a cultural force in its own right. * Anne Higonnet, Professor of Art History, Barnard College, and author of Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution *

A well-illustrated study of this extraordinary man through several different aspects of his life . . .


His great achievement was to integrate fashion into the wider aspects of culture . . . in short, he turned himself into a brand.

* The Spectator *

Mary E. Davis is a member of the Capstone Faculty at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs. Her books include Classic Chic (2006), Erik Satie (Reaktion, 2007) and Ballets Russes Style (Reaktion, 2010).