Modern design’s first public impact was made by the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Indus- Erie’s Modernes, held in Paris. Britain’s mainly Arts-and-Crafts exhibit drew little interest. People had tired of the hand-crafted look and Medieval imitation. The hit of the show was France’s exhibit in the brash new Style Modern — soon called Art Deco, from the title of the Exposition.

Antique Collector MagazineDesigners had seen the folly of ignoring modern Art Deco materials and machinery, for these offered the chance to express the carefree and racy Art Deco fashionable mood. Society people were blotting out horrid memories of the war with a giddy round of parties, dances and cocktails, with the syncopated rhythms of jazz and of frantic new dances such as the Charleston. Art Deco — modern, glamorous and fun — provided a suitable backdrop for this life.

Art Deco, like Art Nouveau, centred on a bold, progressive style and aimed to give a visual surprise. But instead of the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau, Art Deco favoured flat surfaces and angular, geometric shapes. It was closely related to the fragmented, multifaceted view of Cubism and Futurism Art Deco then dominating art. There is also an echo of Aztec style in Art Deco’s stepped and sunray motifs — as seen in jewellery, clocks and door frames.

A fascination with speed, movement and mechanics shows in Art Deco’s treatment of the human form, for example in the angular profile of a face with streaming hair raked back with machine-like precision. The wild splashes of colour in Art Deco — vermilion, emerald-green, cornflower-blue and a vivid orange called tango — can be traced to the exotic costumes designed by Leon Bakst for Diaghilev’s ballets staged in prewar Paris.

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