Dr Juliette Peers
Juliette is well known as an art and cultural historian, and widely published by public galleries and academic journals internationally.
Dior in Plastic
The elite French couture fashions of the 1950s generated many responses at a popular and vernacular culture level, below their intended audience. Familiar examples are the MGM film "Funny Face" and Paul Gallico's novel "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris". Less well known are the 1950s plastic dolls with adult figures, (predating Barbie by many years). They explicitly echoed haute couture in their wardrobes, accesorising, hairstyling and painted "cosmetics". They were mostly unauthorised tributes, although two examples of collaboration between doll companies and the higher levels of the international fashion industry can be traced. Schiaparelli designed both outfits and dolls for North American companies and the French perfumerie Coty licensed its name to the 'Coty Girl' doll, explicitly named in her packaging as being styled in Parisian taste. These dolls were also informed by the French fashion industry's occasional use of dolls dressed by couture houses to promote their product. The most famous doll event is the "Theatre de la Mode" 1945, which toured Europe and America to pronounce the postwar survival of couture. The international congress of the synthetic textile industry in 1954 featured a large display of dolls from major houses, covering both current fashions and a retrospective of acclaimed, successful models.
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