Avery Trufelman

It kind of feels like when you look at a freshly born baby and you're like, oh my God, the little fingernails, like everything is there, all in proportion, but so careful and tiny.

Tiny little buttons there.

Oh my god, those tiny buttons on the sleeves.

Let me tell you, these fashions from 1945 and 46 are not what you're imagining.

Like, when I think 1940s fashion, I think broad shoulders, pencil skirts, muted colors, practical, low-heeled wartime attire.

No, these are richly colored, full-skirted affairs with sumptuous overcoats and gowns intricately beaded with thousands of tiny sequins and hair resplendent with exotic bird feathers.

There are tiny, radiant sundresses that hint at the 1950s to come and dramatic pleated trousers that I would wear now.

And the shoes.

Do not get me started on the shoes.

These are like white leather platform Oxfords, I guess, with a tiny buckle.

The Théâtre de la Mode premiered in March of 1945 in the West Wing of the Louvre.

It was a massive success.

As the Théâtre de la Mode opened in March of 1945, Allied armies were pushing deeper into Germany, liberating French war prisoners.

In April of 1945, France discovered the existential horror of the concentration camps.

Bleakness was enveloping Europe.

And the Théâtre de la Mode was a tiny shred of pleasure.

The show was extended for weeks and weeks and weeks.

This miniature beacon of glamour attracted 100,000 visitors who paid what little money they had to witness this luxurious vision of what Paris still was in their imaginations and maybe could be again.

The Louvre's exhibit of the Théâtre de la Mode ended around the same time that the war did, in May of 1945.

And so the Théâtre de la Mode went on to the next phase of its mission.