A French-British-German initiative under the direction of Dominique Veillon and Lou Taylor during the official French Centennial Commemorations
Venue: Institut Français de la Mode in Paris
Time: December 12-13, 2014
Deadline: February 15th, 2014
Fashion played an integral role in re-shaping European society during World War I. In France, for example, the fashion industry adapted to the war by turning to new materials, simplifying silhouettes, courting foreign clients, and drumming up local and foreign business through nationalist rhetoric that was trumpeted by the press. Yet the French fashion industry was not immune to the war: male couturiers such as Worth, Poiret and Patou left their houses to join the front, or were obliged to undertake some kind of military service, leaving women designers such as Callot Soeurs, Chéruit, Lanvin and Paquin to reign; female couture workers went on strike during the darkest year of the war to demand better wages from an increasingly profitable industry that had nevertheless maintained Continue reading