IWD at MAD (Mad for Women Artists)

A perfect way to start my International Women's Day.

By discovering talented female artists I'd never heard of.

And seeing ones I did not know in the spotlight.

All this in a major Paris retrospective: Musée des Arts Décoratifs and its "100 Years of Art Deco - 1925-2025."

Ok, maybe not as big a spotlight as they deserve. There were only one or two items per woman. But I got the sense the MAD was really trying to be more inclusive.

IT'S A START.

THE WOMEN I KNEW OF - but still don't know enough about.

• Eileen Gray. Her mermaid armchair and "brick" screen. Love her story from her E-1027 home in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin - which Le Corbusier actually criminally (IMHO) took over.

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  See the si- rène? (mermaid)

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• Charlotte Perriand and her "siège pivotant." She and Le Corbusier had a collaboration as well - which didn't seem to end as badly as Gray's did. Her swivel chair became an emblem of "modern" design.

  
  

  

  From 1927, and her apt near St-Sulpice

  
  

• Madeleine Vionnet, the clothing designer. She pioneered the "bias cut." A sort of Grecian style, it revolutionized how women dressed by freeing the body.

  
  

  

  
  

• Jeanne Lanvin. The first to offer a made-to-measure men's collection (1926).; the first to create a mixed eau de toilette in 1933. The first designer to launch a children's fashion line (1908)

• Maybe that's why her "cheik" (play on word with "chic?) cape looks like she could carry a baby in there?

• Also, she was president of the clothing wing of the 1925 Art Deo exhibition in Paris. Not bad...

And THE WOMEN ARTISTS I'D NEVER HEARD OF -

1. WHO KNEW - a woman was the House of Cartier's artistic director for 37 YEARS! (from 1933-1970). Jeanne Toussaint by name.

Jeanne Toussaint

2. Marguérite Pangon - LOVE this colorful cape, an example of how she invented French batik, borrowing techniques from Indonesia.

I love this - it goes with everything!

3. Suzanne Lalique-Haviland - With her famous father (he of the jewels and glass), she created the interior design of the first-class lounges of the SS Paris ocean liner and for the Côte d'Azur Pullman Express. She also designed costumes and sets for the Comédie Française.

Not in the exhibit - but exhibit-worthy!

I can't wait to start digging into these stories - more "Forgotten" (or under-appreciated) Women Of France to bring to dramatic life!