Panel (Dress or Furnishing Fabric)

The notion of Gesamtkunstwerk, or unified design, favored and promoted by the Wiener Werkstätte, could be taken to an extreme, as when, for example, guests to a luxurious villa were provided robes to wear whose patterns matched the various furnishings of the room they were to gather in, thus letting them harmonize perfectly with the décor. Poiret was a follower of this princeiple as well. This striking fabric is known to have functioned as both clothing and furnishing fabric: it covered the walls of a showcase dining room staged by Martine in 1923 and 1925, and it was made into a splendid jacket for Poiret himself.