Atelier Martine
French, 1911–1930
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Atelier Martine was a design school founded by Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944), a celebrated Parisian couturier known for exotic fashions inspired by the Middle East and Asia. Named for his daughter, Atelier Martine embraced the notion of an unstudied, instinctive creativity. Poiret opened Atelier Martine in 1912 following a European tour where he was greatly impressed by the printed textiles of the Wiener Werkstätte of Vienna. There he saw an integrated approach to fashion and interior design through the use of hand-printed geometric textiles. Inspired by the Viennese commitment to the artistic process, he opened his own Paris school devoted to interior decoration. He selected untrained working-class girls to sketch exuberant, colorful designs of flowers, fruits and animals found at local parks, markets and zoos. Deliberately unsophisticated, the best designs were developed into drapery, upholstery, wallcoverings and carpets.