The Invention of Chic: Therese Bonney and Paris Moderne

This volume is based on Therese Bonney's little-known archive, much of it unpublished since the 1930s, which comprehensively documents the modern movement in Paris between the wars. American photojournalist Bonney was one of many bright young foreigners drawn to Paris in the 1920s. After completing her PhD at the Sorbonne (the youngest person ever to do so), she turned her huge energies and acute eye to the world of modern design. This was an exciting moment: Art Deco, still at its height, was increasingly being challenged by the more austere aesthetics of Modernism. Bonney photographed architecture, interiors, salon installations and international expositions. She was dazzlingly well-connected and her captions read like a roll-call of Deco and Moderne: Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand, Le Corbusier and others. She was enthralled not only by commercial and decorative arts but also by fashion and beauty. She shot department stores and beauty salons, posters and packaging, restaurants and nightclubs. Her photographs exemplify the period's emphasis on line, texture and sparing but highly graphic decoration.