© 1999 by Design History Society
The Consumer and the Making of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, 1907–1925
University of St. Andrews
 |
Abstract |
|---|
This essay focuses on the series of debates surrounding the organization of the 1925 Paris exhibition. The distinctive feature of this exhibition was the presentation of objects in the context in which they were to be consumed; the purpose of this article is to analyse the significance of this mode of presentation.
The plans for the exhibition are traced from their earliest stages in order to demonstrate how the project was transformed as debate shifted from the organization of production to the presentation of consumption. It is argued that the final form of the exhibition produced a new type of space through a redefinition of the co-ordinated ensembles exhibited in Paris in the period before the First World War. The new displays sought to establish a particular set of relations between the consuming subject and the displayed objects, in which the objects were defined as ‘expressive’ of the identity of the consumer. This redefinition was facilitated by the redefinition of fashion in the post-war period. The essay concludes by arguing that the co-ordination of fashion and interior at the international exhibition served to articulate a form of bourgeois distinction.
Key Words: Art Deco • consumption • ensemble • First World War • France • International Exhibitions