Paul Iribe

 

Paul Iribe was born in Angoulême, France, in 1883. He began his illustration and design career as a newspaper typographer and magazine illustrator for a variety of Parisian journals and daily papers, including Le temps and Le rire. Iribe collaborated with a number of avant-garde artists to create the satirical journal Le témoin in 1906, and his illustrations in this journal caught the eye of fashion designer Paul Poiret. In a 1908 portfolio titled Les robes de Paul Poiret racontées par Paul Iribe, Poiret commissioned Iribe to illustrate his first major dress collection. The use of vivid fauvist colors, as well as the simplified lines and flattened planes of Japanese prints, made this limited edition publication (250 copies) unique. Iribe used a hand-coloring technique called pochoir to create the plates, which involves gradually building up layers of color using bronze or zinc stencils. This and subsequent publications predicted a revival of the fashion plate in a modernist style to reflect a newer, more streamlined fashionable silhouette. In 1911, couturier Jeanne Paquin commissioned Iribe, along with illustrators Georges Lepape and Georges Barbier, to create a portfolio of her designs titled L'Eventail et la fourrure chez Paquin.

Diversified Interests

Throughout the 1910s, Iribe expanded his involvement in fashion, designing for theater, interiors, and jewelry. He continued to illustrate fashion, opened a decorative art store on Paris's rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré, and designed textiles for the firm Bianchini Ferier and designer André Groult. His involvement with the theater led to several publications about the renowned dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, including the album Prélude à l'aprés-midi d'un faune, which captured Nijinsky's choreography for the Claude Debussy composition in photography by Adolph de Meyer.

Gazette du Bon Ton

Iribe is most well-known for his contributions to the Gazette du bon ton. The fashion journal, founded in 1912 by publisher Lucien Vogel, featured the creations of the top couture houses illustrated by the leading visual artists of the time, including Iribe, Georges Georges Barbier Lepape, A. E. Marty, and Charles Martin. The magazine, like Iribe's previous work, was a deluxe limited-edition journal. Each issue featured between eight and ten pochoir plates, helping to establish fashion graphics as a modern medium. While the Gazette du bon ton slowed publication during World War I, it resumed monthly editions from the end of the war until 1925, printing a total of 69 issues. Condé Nast purchased the Gazette in 1925 and merged it with Vogue.

Move to New York

Iribe moved to New York in 1919, and his art deco style was further popularized among American fashion buyers through his continued work in fashion illustration and interior design. His work appeared in seven issues of American Vogue, and he also opened Paul Iribe Designs New York-Paris on Fifth Avenue. Iribe was a pioneering French fashion figure in Hollywood. Cecil B. DeMille hired him to design the costumes for Gloria Swanson in the 1919 film Male and Female. This film marked the start of Iribe's six-year collaboration with the Hollywood studio, during which he served as artistic director for eight DeMille films.

A Distinguished Career

In 1930, Iribe returned to France and became involved in a number of design projects, including the publication of Choix, a book featuring his designs for furniture, decorative arts, and jewelry. He continued to design jewelry, and in 1932 he collaborated with Coco Chanel to create a line for her couture house. Iribe was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1933 for his work as an artist-illustrator. In 1935, at Chanel's villa in Roquebrune Cap Martin, France, he died of a heart attack.