Poiret's grand-children auction last of family heirlooms

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — The grandchildren of ground-breaking French fashion designer Paul Poiret on Thursday auction off dozens of items from the 1910s and 1920s that they once used to play with in the family attic.

In what experts say will be the last sale of Poiret effects by his descendants, more than 60 dresses, coats and jackets designed by the avant-garde couturier for his young wife Denise go up for sale Thursday along with shoes, hats and assorted belongings.

Poiret's revolutionary designs are credited with emancipating women from the corset and turning fashion on its head at the start of the century, though in the 1930s he was overshadowed by the likes of "Coco" Chanel and died in relative oblivion in 1944.

But at an auction in Paris in 2005, some of the...