Très Parisien, 1923, No 5: 12.- EN VISITE... 1923

This fashion plate, titled ‘Très Parisien, 1923, No 5,’ captures two women ready to visit, rendered with lithography. I think about the anonymous artist making this image, trying to make it look effortless, using a light touch. There is something so amazing about how someone could distill an outfit to its key elements. I imagine them thinking about geometry, about shape-making, about rhythm and pattern, and repetition. I am drawn to the dress on the left with its purple cellular pattern and its jaunty belt, that hints at movement and life. The other dress shimmers with a sort of rippling effect. It makes me wonder if there was a subtle conversation happening between the artist and the fashion designers about form and feeling. And it makes me think how fashion and painting have always been in dialogue. Both painting and fashion offering frameworks for perception, ways of experiencing the world through a shared visual language.