This book presents the luminous illustrations of George Barbier. The shimmering visions of 1920s Paris, where fashion, theatre, and modernity meet in bold silhouette and elegant line. Barbier’s figures stride out of the page: graceful, urbane, charged with the light of an era that believed in elegance as both armour and poetry. The colours are spare, the pose assured; there is glamour in stillness, and an undercurrent of longing in the poised gesture. A book to hold like a distilled essence of the Roaring Twenties.

George Barbier (born Nantes, October 16, 1882 - died Paris, 1932) emerged as a leading French illustrator in the early 20th century, associated with the Art Déco movement. Educated at the École des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Paul Laurens, he held his first exhibition in 1911 and soon became sought after for costume design, book illustration and haute-couture fashion plates. 

Barbier’s work epitomises the spirit of the 1920s: elegant figures, bold line, understated yet luminous colour, an interplay of modernity and refinement. His commissions for fashion houses and magazines helped define the aesthetic of an era.