Bag

The 1925 Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris defined innovative designs and modern motifs, a style in which art and industry merged. These bold new styles could be applied to goods on a mass scale and were typified by a decisive geometry and an element of romantic figuration. Art Deco had a great influence on jewellery design and companies such as Tiffany, Boucheron and Cartier made many small expensive accessories that were related to the handbag, such as tiny vanity and cigarette cases. This example is designed by Hilde Wagner-Ascher who, in the early 1920s, studied under the painter Josef Hoffman in Vienna.

Bag · Austria · ca. 1925. Embroidered in silk. By Wagner-Ascher, Hilde. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.