Avery Trufelman

And that was when Linda learned what she had on her hands.

These dolls weren't supposed to be so macabre.

Actually, they were kind of heroes in a way because these dolls had saved French fashion.

After four devastating years of Nazi occupation, Paris was liberated on August 25th, 1944.

Some of them gathered up the ration tickets that had governed their lives and tore them into confetti.

And this turned out to be a very bad idea because the war was not over.

They'd still need those ration tickets.

In the aftermath of the occupation, more than 5 million French adults and children didn't have adequate shelter or food.

Parisians, dressed in ratty, worn clothes, walked and bicycled through their dark city.

The capital of light, of art, of culture, was a shell of itself.

During the course of World War II, Paris lost its position as the epicenter of contemporary fine art.

That moved to New York City.

The literary world also re-centered around New York.

But Paris was determined not to lose its soul, or at least not to lose everything to New York.

Somehow, even though they didn't have electricity, Paris had to remain a capital of beauty and ideas.

It had to retain its title as the capital of fashion.

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.