Raoul Dufy, La Fôret, ca. 1911 printed cotton
(Courtesy FDIM Museum, Los Angeles).
Then at the peak of his influence, Poiret was known simply as Le Magnifique, a reference to Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, who had led Ottoman Empire to its most expansive and powerful. Working with fabric directly on the body, Poiret pioneered a radical approach to dressmaking that relied on the skills of draping rather than tailoring and pattern making. Looking to antique and regional dress, in particular “oriental” styles, Poiret advocated clothing cut along straight lines and constructed of rectangles. More practically, Poiret’s trailblazing notions about fashion liberated women from the Edwardian corset.