N°38 : Simplicity or Extravagance?

On the occasion of our much-anticipated Leçon de Mode dedicated to the exhibition Simplicities, exhibition curator Mathilde Semal invites Maude Bass-Krueger to explore a unique period in the history of sartorial simplicity: the First World War.

Summer 1914: Europe is engulfed in conflict. Amid shortages, women entering the workforce, and new everyday realities, more practical silhouettes emerged. Meanwhile, Parisian haute couture continued to champion creativity, elegance, and luxury. Economic and patriotic concerns shaped both the drive toward simplicity and the persistence of extravagance.

Through representative garments, press articles, and political cartoons, Maude Bass-Krueger examines the tensions sparked by these new feminine appearances. Adaptation, presumed emancipation, and criticism of frivolity: the Great War appears less as a sudden rupture than as a decisive transitional moment in the history of fashion and women.

• Maude Bass-Krueger is a Professor of Art History at Ghent University. She teaches fashion and textile history, material culture, and museum studies. She is also an exhibition curator. Her notable exhibitions include Mode & Femmes 14/18 at the Forney Library in Paris and French Fashion, Women, and the First World War at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. In 2021, she founded Revers, the Belgian fashion research network.
• Mathilde Semal is Curator of the Historical Costume Collections. She is the curator of the exhibition Simplicities. In conjunction with the exhibition, she also coordinated the publication Simple