The leading Parisian Dressmakers and Furriers are participating in an absolutely original manner at the New York World Fair. To be true, participation is very unexpected. First should be noted the masterpieces before which Visitors will file, which had to be resuscitated from their ashes, since the first shipments loaded on the "Paris"' burned at the same time as the liner. And, whilst on this subject, too much will never be said of the promptitude, with what rapidity and courage the new contingent was reconstituted! As for the general appearance, it seems entirely new and develops according to a particularly happy theme.

The leading Dressmakers and Furriers of Paris have endeavoured to present not just commercial productions but rather a comprehensive picture evoking in symbolic surroundings the essential values to which French Fashion owes its incontestable mastery and world-wide prestige. The idea is very right, for fashions, evoluating with extreme rapidity, taking into account ail the imponderable, cannot be fixed in Time. Thus, real gowns and coats could but have interpreted a fugitive moment and, when all is said and done, lifeless. At the end of a few weeks, they would have been out-of-date.

Parisian fashion unfolds its arabesque in a vast hall with two stages.

Grand Couture is presented in an architectural medium where, following pure French tradition, both classicism and liberty are allied : tresselated portal surmounted by a balustrade, entirely stretched with red silk velvet. In the centre, a symbol of eternal inspiration, rises an immense statue, a casting of a Phidias at the Louvre, draped in the french colours.

In each of the twenty arcades, Mme Max Vibert has executed a bas relief representing a silhouette and its ideal dress, both of them interpreting the favourite inspiration as well as the particular style of each dressmaker. The latter then had every scope for painting, decorating or clothing this bas relief as to his own whim.

As for fur, this develops its theme in the guise of a large sculptured fresco, the figures in which parade after the style of a stately retinue embued with poetic fire. The Visitor is struck by this remarkable achievement, both original and technically successful and in which the most varied of furs take a part, from ermine and astrakhan, right through to monkey and indian lamb, passing via sealskin, seal or beaver.

The Grand Couturiers and Furriers of Paris have painted a magistral fresco for New York.

(source: L'OFFICIEL DE LA MODE n°214 de 1939 / Page 30)