Born in Paris in 1902, Bérard studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly as a child. In 1920, he entered the Academie Ranson, where his style was influenced by Édouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis.
Bérard showed his
first exhibition in 1925, at the Gallery Pierre. From the start of
his career he had an interest in theatrical scenery and costume
designs, and played an important role in the development of
theatrical design in the 1930s and 1940s. In the early 1930s Bérard
worked with Jean-Michel Frank, painting screens, wood-work and
drawing projects for carpets. He also worked as a fashion illustrator
for Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Nina Ricci. Bérard's most
renowned achievement was probably his lustrous, magical designs for
Jean Cocteau's film La Belle et la Bête (1946).
Bérard died
suddenly from a heart attack on 11 February 1949, on the stage of the
Théâtre Marigny. Francis Poulenc's Stabat Mater (1950) was composed
in his memory, and Jean Cocteau dedicated his film Orphée (1950) to
him.
Théâtre de la Mode (Theatre of Fashion) was a 1945–1946 touring exhibit of fashion mannequins, approximately 1/3 the size of human scale, crafted by top Paris fashion designers. It was created to raise funds for war survivors and to help revive the French fashion industry in the aftermath of World War II. The original Théâtre de la Mode exhibit toured Europe and then the United States, and is now part of the permanent collections of the Maryhill Museum of Art in Washington State in the United States.
The French fashion
industry was an important economic and cultural force in Paris when
World War II began. There were 70 registered couture houses in Paris,
and many other smaller designers. The war had a severe impact on the
industry. Couturiers and buyers fled occupied France or closed their
businesses. Clothing businesses that struggled to remain open had to
deal with extreme shortages of cloth, thread, and other sewing
supplies. The occupying Germans intended to displace Paris with
Berlin as a centre of European fashion design. The Nazi regime
planned to turn Berlin and Vienna into the centres of European
couture, with head offices there and an official administration,
introducing subsidies for German clothing makers, and demanding that
important people in the French fashion industry be sent to Germany to
establish a dressmaking school there. Couture's place in France's
economy was key to this plan: an exported dress made by one of
France's leading couturiers was said to be worth "ten tonnes of
coal", and a litre of fine French perfume was worth "two
tonnes of petrol".
French fashion was
also not only important economically, it was a vital part of France's
national cultural identity. French designers resisted the Nazi
regime's plans; Lucien Lelong, president of the Chambre Syndicale de
la Couture Parisienne, proclaimed, 'It is in Paris or it is nowhere'.
A worker from Reboux, one of Paris's largest milliners, later said of
the attitude of the fashion industry during the German occupation:
We wore large hats
to raise our spirits. Felt gave out, so we made them out of chiffon.
Chiffon was no more. All right, take straw. No more straw? Very well,
braided paper.... Hats have been a sort of contest between French
imagination and German regulation.... We wouldn't look shabby and
worn out; after all, we were Parisiennes.
After Paris was
liberated, the idea for a miniature theatre of fashion came from
Robert Ricci, son of couturier Nina Ricci. All materials were in
short supply at the end of World War II, and Ricci proposed using
miniature mannequins, or fashion dolls, to address the need to
conserve textiles, leather, fur, and so on. The mannequins were 27.5
inches (700 mm) tall, fabricated of wire. Some 60 Paris couturiers
amongst them Nina Ricci, Balenciaga, Germaine Lecomte,Mad Carpentier,
Martial & Armand, Hermès, Philippe & Gaston, Madeleine
Vramant, Jeanne Lanvin, Bruyère, Pierre Balmain.
joined and
volunteered their scrap materials and labour to create miniature
clothes in new styles for the exhibit. Milliners created miniature
hats, hairstylists gave the mannequins individual coiffures, and
jewellers such as Van Cleef and Arpels and Cartier contributed small
necklaces and accessories. Some seamstresses even crafted miniature
undergarments to go under the couture designs. Seamstresses carried
their sewing machines around with them to complete work on the
Théâtre de la Mode during Paris's post-War electricity
shortages.[9][10] Historian Lorraine McConaghy points out the level
of detail in the clothing:
The meticulous
attention to details is so striking ... The buttons really button.
The zippers really zip. The handbags have little stuff – little
wallets, little compacts – inside them.
Once work was
completed on the Théâtre de la Mode, it became a touring exhibition
of nearly 200 doll-size figurines in 15 elaborate artist-created
sets. It opened at the Louvre in Paris on 28 March 1945, and was
enormously popular, drawing 100,000 visitors and raising a million
francs for war relief. With the success of the exhibit in Paris, the
Théâtre de la Mode went on a tour of Europe, with shows in London,
Leeds, Barcelona, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Vienna. To promote the
exhibit abroad, a French government official wrote to the Ambassador
of France in Britain: "France has little, alas to export, but
she has her appreciation of beautiful things and the skill of her
couture houses". After touring Europe in 1945, the mannequins
were outfitted with new clothes designed for the 1946 season and the
exhibition traveled to the United States, where it was displayed in
New York City and San Francisco in 1946. After the final
show, the mannequins were left behind in San Francisco, while the
jewellery was returned to Paris.
Restoration
The Maryhill Museum
of Art in the United States acquired the mannequins in 1952 through a
donation by art patron Alma de Bretteville Spreckels. The original
sets accompanying the dolls, which had been crafted by such artists
as Christian Bérard, Jean Saint-Martin, Georges Wakhevitch and Jean
Cocteau, were lost before the Maryhill acquired the exhibit. In 1988,
Paris’s Musée de la Mode et du Textile undertook an extensive
restoration of the mannequins and painstakingly recreated the sets.
The Théâtre de la Mode still exhibits at the Maryhill Museum of Art
by rotating selections from the complete series of mannequins and
sets. Parts of the Théâtre de la Mode also tour art and fashion
museums throughout the United States and worldwide.
In the late 1980s,
the designer BillyBoy* organised a similar exhibition tour Le Nouveau
Théâtre de la Mode (New Theatre of Fashion) sponsored by Mattel
with Barbie dolls dressed by contemporary fashion designers.
