Got bored today and was reading back issues of FWW. Issue 51 (March 1985) has a story on Ruhlman's work. It says:
"Sixty years ago, jacques-Emile Ruhlmann's furniture was the star attraction at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. A World's-Fair-size show, the 1925 Expo popularized the group of styles we now collectively call Art Deco after the exhibition."
It quotes Ruhlman as stating in 1920 that..... "A clientele of artists, intellectuals and connoisseurs of modest means is very congenial, but they are not in a position to pay for all the research, the experimentation, the testing that is needed to develop a new design .... Only the very rich can pay for what is new and they alone can make it fashionable .... Fashions don't start among the common people. Along with satisfying a desire for change, fashion's real purpose is to display wealth."
I thought that was an interesting observation. What do you folks think?
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