“You know, a carving, especially if it’s polychrome, is not meant to move. These faces, these half-bodies, when you animate them, they’re more live than the living. They can be dangerous for those who don’t really understand them. With contained energy, no one can predict what will happen when it’s released.”  Jacques Yonnet, Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City

Photos: Lorenzo Marcucci

Styling & Text : Riccardo Slavik

Grooming Grazia Riverditi  @ glowartists for Dayanabeautyluxury.com

Models: Armin at Boom Gabry at Fashion

All Clothes ANGELOS FRENTZOS ( FW17, SS18  and archive)

All Accessories stylist’s own

Louis XIV wanted all of Europe to understand the inimitable luxury of Paris fashions so he began sending life-sized fashion dolls to every European Court. The dolls were dressed in the latest styles, and ladies from courts all over Europe would then have their tailors imitate the clothes, footwear, hats and accessories from the latest dolls. These ‘Fashion Dolls’ were a 3D equivalent of modern-day fashion illustration, the painstakingly correct dolls’ clothes were beautiful and  included every little construction detail. Dressmakers were  then able to remove the clothes and copy them as patterns, these were then adapted to the taste and style of the local ladies. If necessary they would unpick the stitched outfits, assess the cut of the pattern and then remake the fashion doll’s costume. The miniature fashion dolls were passed from court to court throughout Europe. They represented the latest word in fashion and trimmings.

Although effective paper patterns were developed in the Victorian era the use of costumed dolls as models was used even after the Second World War. In mid 1945 the Theatre De La Mode was organized by the Chambre Syndicale of Paris. The Chambre sent a number of small scale couture models abroad to show off Parisian excellence even in troubled war times.

“He is the intermediary between us, his audience, the living, and they, the dolls, the undead, who cannot live at all and yet who mimic the living in every detail since, though they cannot speak or weep, still they project those signals of signification we instantly recognize as language.”
― Angela Carter, Wayward Girls and Wicked Women