Avery Trufelman

This is Melissa Leventon, an independent curator, fashion historian, and appraiser.

Before the war, in 1939, the French fashion industry employed more than 900,000 people.

It was the second largest industry in France.

And then by the end of the occupation, Paris fashion houses were just gasping for breath.

They had no customers and no materials at all.

Everything had gone to the war effort.

Shreds of leather and buttons were rare.

Even spools of thread were few and far between.

And this was really hard for France.

I mean, the country has a department of its government devoted to regulating high fashion.

It's called the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture.

And even in that post-occupation scarcity, the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture wanted to send a message to the world.

And the Chambre Syndicale came up with an idea.

They would gather all the famous French fashion designers together to do a joint fall collection.

They would use real fur, real leather, real silk, no compromises.

Well, except that everything would have to be in miniature.

That way they could scrape together just enough to make tiny outfits, tiny shoes, little purses and gloves and belts, and still use real materials.

So they revived an old, old French practice.

Fashion dolls.

Dolls were, in effect, the first catalogs.