Théâtre de la Mode

In addition to its fundraising and industry revival goals, the Théâtre de la Mode exhibit played a significant role in promoting French fashion internationally.

The exhibit's subsequent journey to the United States helped solidify the global influence of French fashion and contributed to the post-war cultural exchange between Europe and America.

The Nazi regime planned to turn Berlin and Vienna into the centres of European couture, with head offices there and an official administration, introducing subsidies for German clothing makers, and demanding that important people in the French fashion industry be sent to Germany to establish a dressmaking school there.

French designers resisted the Nazi regime's plans; Lucien Lelong, president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, proclaimed, 'It is in Paris or it is nowhere'.

All materials were in short supply at the end of World War II, and Ricci proposed using miniature mannequins, or fashion dolls, to address the need to conserve textiles, leather, fur, fibers, and so on.

Some 60 Paris couturiers amongst them Nina Ricci, Balenciaga, Germaine Lecomte, Mad Carpentier, Martial & Armand, Hermès, Philippe & Gaston, Madeleine Vramant, Jeanne Lanvin, Marie-Louise Bruyère and Pierre Balmain[6][7][8] joined and volunteered their scrap materials and labour to create miniature clothes in new styles for the exhibit.

Milliners created miniature hats, hairstylists gave the mannequins individual coiffures, and jewellers such as Van Cleef and Arpels and Cartier contributed small necklaces and accessories.

With the success of the exhibit in Paris, the Théâtre de la Mode went on a tour of Europe, with shows in London, Leeds, Barcelona, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Vienna.

[5][12] After touring Europe in 1945, the mannequins were outfitted with new clothes designed for the 1946 season and the exhibition traveled to the United States, where it was displayed in New York City and San Francisco in 1946.

LaMonte’s works are displayed on sets built by the Old Dominion University Theater Department alongside several of the original French figurines on loan from the Maryhill Museum.

[15] W magazine writes that, in 2020, fashion designer Maria Grazia Chiuri presented Dior's haute couture line in a miniature display inspired by Théâtre de la Mode.