Eventails 1924

George Barbier made this pochoir print, called ‘Eventails’, as an illustration for a luxury fashion publication during the 1920s. It depicts an evening at the theatre, but more than that, it tells us a story about the social conditions that shaped the ‘roaring twenties’. Look at the bobbed hair, the minimal silhouettes, the lavish jewellery, and the way these details conspire to project an image of leisure and affluence. The very title draws attention to the ubiquity of feathered fans in the sartorial language of the time. Barbier was a key figure in the Art Deco movement in France, and his work often appeared in magazines like Vogue and Gazette du Bon Ton. He was helping to define the visual codes and cultural references of this new modern era and the institutions of art and fashion were becoming increasingly interlinked. To understand the full picture, we could delve into publications and archives from the period, tracing the connections between art, fashion, and the new visual culture of the inter-war years.